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This Jewish Inspiration Podcast is dedicated to learning, understanding and enhancing our relationship with Hashem by working on improving our G-d given soul traits and aspiring to reflect His holy name each and every day. The goal is for each listener to hear something inspirational with each episode that will enhance their life.
00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
00:08 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the jewish inspiration podcast. We are in the orchis adikim ways of the righteous and the treasure for life edition, in part two of the Gate of Remembrance day number 105. So the author here says that there are 30 things, that if we can remember these 30 things every day, it'll be extremely beneficial to giving us the proper focus. We're on page 615, but we're just going to do a quick summary of the first 12 remembrances. The first is remember that Hashem created you from nothing.
00:51
Yesh mi'ayin, our sages tell us Something from nothing. Hashem made you a creation that's able to do great things. Remember that. Remember that Hashem gave you a very healthy life that you can live and even though we have at times we have things, that we have illnesses, god gave us the ability to heal. The third thing to remember remember the kindness of Hashem, that he gave you wisdom. He gave you intellect. Remember, number four, that Hashem, that he gave you wisdom, he gave you intellect. Remember, number four, that Hashem gave us the Torah and his mitzvahs.
01:30
Hashem gave us the ability to be and act holy.
01:35
Remembrance number five remember the mercy of the Almighty, that Hashem gave you a pure Torah, that a king of flesh and blood won't overlook small mistakes, but the king of kings overlooks and accepts our repentance.
01:58
Remembrance number six that you should remember that if you have any organ that goes against its purpose of creation, hashem doesn't cut it off. Hashem doesn't cut the hand off. If you stole, hashem gives you the opportunity to always come back. Remembrance number seven Recognize the goodness that Hashem gives to you and that will add your love, increase your love back in return to the Almighty Remember. Number eight is that remember that the king's servants act with alacrity because they're excited to serve the king. You're working in the king's palace. You have the privilege to serve. The king's servants act with alacrity because they're excited to serve the king. You're working in the king's palace. You have the privilege to serve the king. You do so with alacrity. Same thing with us.
02:53
Remembrance number nine remembrance that the power of love. If someone is married and they have the privilege of experiencing a loving relationship, what a great gift. That is the 10th remembrance. Remember all of your actions, all of the experiences that you experienced throughout your lifetime. What an incredible journey your life is. As one of the great sages, rabbi Noach Weinberg, of the last 50 years, he used to say the most interesting person you will ever meet is yourself. Get to know yourself. It's an unbelievable thing. The most interesting person you'll ever meet is yourself. You'll ever meet is yourself. Ha'achad Asar.
03:45
The 11th thing to remember daily is that we're so motivated to acquire and attain wealth. Are we willing to do the same for the service of Hashem? And then number 12 is to remember that Hashem sees everything. Hashem knows everything, our deepest thoughts, everything. Hashem remembers, hashem knows, hashem sees. So we're very close to Hashem and it's a great, great reminder every single day to remember that Hashem loves that closeness with us. Okay, okay, number 13.
04:33
Hashlosh HaEsrei Sheyizkor. What is the 13th thing to remember? Asher Chochmoso. Yosef Mimasov One must remember that his wisdom is more than his deeds. Sheeina Osek Af kefi chachmoso, that he is not acting in accordance with his wisdom and that he has money and is not doing good with it commensurate to his wealth. Meaning, if a person has an enormous amount of money, are they giving their charity, are they giving their tithe the way they should or not? Yesh l'mamon Ve'einu oseh tova? Imamonu kefi asho? A person needs to ask that question. Ve'yachshav miyish. Who is the person? A person should think this Asher im yavo elav odam v'yom ralo heylecho me'a zu Imagine if I tell you I'm going to give you 100 gold coins on condition that you give my family member 10.
05:47
Who wouldn't do that? It's a good deal. I get 100 and all I have to give away is 10? Well, guess what? That's what Hashem does for us. Hashem would have given you what you need bread and water. He'd give you what you need. No, he gave you so much more. You know why? Because he says you're going to distribute it for me. You're want to give you what you need. No, he gave you so much more. You know why? Because he says you're going to distribute it for me. You're going to give it for me. V'al yomar ilu igati la'osha yisi'ose kach ve'kach O ilu yadati limud yoseh mimashani yodea hayisi'ose mashani chayav min ha'avodah Ki kol.
06:28
All of this is nonsense. He says Someone who says you know, when I really make money, then I'm going to give charity, when I close that deal, then I'm going to give money, then I'm going to give charity, then I'm going to support this cause, then I'm going to give to here, then I'm going to give to there. I'm going to support this cause, then I'm going to give to here, then I'm going to give to there and, by the way, when I become really scholarly and I become a real Torah scholar, then I'm going to start teaching people. You know what the author says here? No, he says that's the Yetzhahara. The Yetzhahara pushes us to push things off. That's what he's very good at. Push it off to another time. That means that if we really had the right perspective, the right understanding, what would be the result? The result would be that whatever I know to be the right thing, I do it immediately, even though I don't have as much resources as I want.
07:30
I want to share with you the young friend of mine I just met up with when I was in New York last week. I was blown away. A young guy in his 30s and we met and he says to me do you know how much charity I gave already this year? I said I don't know. $10,000. I know he's charitable, he's generous. So he said he already this. He's charitable, he's generous, he's a young guy, he's in his 30s. He gave $130,000 already to charity. He says my goal is to give $250,000. He's so excited. I was blown away. He's not being arrogant and he's not showing off.
08:22
We're talking a private conversation we were having. He was excited by the opportunity that God has given him to be able to give. He was looking for the opportunity to make more so that he can give more. He didn't tell me how much money he made. I don't care how much money he made, it's not my business anyway. But how much he gave Already it's not my business anyway. But how much he gave already not that he pledged given that's someone. If I was a charitable foundation, I would look for someone like that to give out the money. Why he's not looking to hold onto it? He's not looking to like what can I scoop off the top? No, no, he's looking for an opportunity to give. I think that's an unbelievable example of what it really means to be a giver.
09:14
Yeah, I said this story before and here's a very good source for it. But my friend was we had a big Shabbos dinner. It was when they had the big, big, big $620 million lottery and it was going to be selected on a Saturday night. Right, that's when they picked the winning numbers and the question we went around the table. Everyone introduced themselves. So the question was what would you do if you won that money? What would you do with the money?
09:46
And everybody, one after the other, everybody said the same thing oh, I'd give half the charity. Oh, I would give so much money to my synagogue, and I'd give money to torch, and I'd give money to this and I'd give it. Everyone was talking and I'll give to the homeless and I'll give. Everybody was like so charitable in their heart of all the things they wanted to do. And then one individual, one of my friends, was there at the dinner and he said any one of you who already doesn't do that is a liar. That's exactly what the verse says. What I say, just say here you're a liar.
10:19
Why?
10:20
Because you think you're suddenly going to have the ability to do that. Then You're not, we're not. We say, oh, when I close that deal, then I'm going to give. And then you know what the Yetzirah says to you. Then it's not a smart thing for you to give charity now. I know you made all this bunch of money now, but you know, if you don't put away money and you're not going to have money for your children, for their 590 and your 401k, and you should invest in other things in the stock market, it's a great time to invest now. You'll have more money to give then. So we buy into this of like right now it's not a good time, right, and then later, later, it'll be a better time. He says, Right, and then later, later will be a better time. He says this is the ploy of the Yetzhara. He always pushes us to do things later. Do it, it's a great thing. I'm not telling you not to give charity. I'm telling you to give charity, but don't do it now, do it later, push it off, push it off, push it off. El akol odom yaseh miyad kefi chachmasa ve'osho lefi ma shahu ata. Every person should give, based on their wisdom, on their abilities by what they can do now. Ve'im, yelo, yoseh, yaseh, yoseh. And if later you have more to give, give more. I'll give you another perfect example of this.
11:46
I had a guy who called me up one morning. He was so excited. He calls me and says Rabbi, I need to meet you right now. It's important and important. We need to meet right now. So we meet for coffee at Starbucks right here in Maryland and he tells me. He says, rabbi, I need a blessing. He says I need a blessing that I should be able to give you a massive donation if this deal comes through $50,000. I'm going to give you $50,000 if this deal goes through, but I need you to pray for me that this deal goes through and that everything should go well and I'm going to give you this $50,000. Okay, sure enough, I never heard from him again. Okay, so I met him, like I did hear from a few years later. I'm like oh well, you know, it's great to see you, like we talked last time.
12:33
What happened with the deal? He says, rabbi, I did much better. He says, not only the deal went through, but I invested that money so that one day I'll be able to. Yeah, I still haven't seen it. Okay, nothing, because that's the way the Yetzirah works. I have nothing against that person. I don't hold a grudge and I love that person like a dear friend, as if he never made that pledge. Why? Because that's the Yetzirah, that's the way he acts, that's the way he toys with us.
12:59
He says later, later is a better time to do it. What you could do now is what you need to do Add. You want to add. You can add later. You make more, give more later. But that's the trick. The trick of the etzahara is let me see how you get out of it now. It's push it off, the push it off mentality. So that's way. That's remembrance number 13. Har Bar Sareh, the 14th thing to remember, she yizkor odam ha-mazbir ponim le-chavero. Eich libo notei lov le-ehovoso.
13:37
He says the nature of someone who smiles, who gives countenance to their fellow. You learn to love them. You learn to love them. You see somebody say hello. Hey, how are you? It's great to see you. He stole my parking spot. He always does that to me. Be nice, be courteous, because the more you do that, you're manifesting the love that is going to be an outgrowth from it, as the verse states in Proverbs you guessed it correctly. King Solomon says. He says just as the water reflects the face, it sees like a mirror. Before they had mirrors, they had the water, they'd see the reflection of their face in the water. He says, so is the heart of man to man. When your face shows a smile, a countenance, it reciprocates love and mankind becomes closer to one another.
14:44
When you have that, by the way, I have a friend of mine that every time he walks into an elevator you ever walk into an elevator it's a full elevator and everyone's quiet and it's like all awkward and he's like he always likes to break that silence and that awkwardness. He says what a great day to say hello to everyone here. And we're like suddenly he starts laughing and everyone starts smiling and everyone's like you know, it's like just break the ice, break that. And suddenly it's such a friendly ride up to the 54th floor of the building. Right, you're in the finance district, right, you know trading district, right, that's this. You make everyone smile. Suddenly it's a whole different environment. Everyone walks out of the elevator laughing and smiling. It's like it's like just break the ice. It's such a special thing. That's what our sages teach us. That is in in the mishnah. Mishnah says to always accept every person with a smile, every person you meet with a smile.
15:39
My great-grandfather of blessed memory, who was burnt alive in the Kovner ghetto. They took him because he was handicapped. So the Nazi murderers took him and said this is not respectable for someone who's ill. You have a handicap, we're going to bring you to the hospital. And then they burnt the hospital. But he was a very, very holy man, a very, very, very holy man. You have a handicap, we're going to bring you to the hospital, and then they burnt the hospital. But he was a very, very holy man, a very, very, very holy man, and he worked on greeting every person with a smile. He worked on this one trait for two years to attain perfection in this one trait.
16:21
Imagine working on one trait You're talking about oh rabbi, I can't keep all of Shabbos in one week, right? No, no, no, no. One trait, one little trait, for two years. You know what that means To greet every person with a smile and without it's a person who had tremendous affliction and pain. Right, he had a leg that didn't function. He was never able to walk on his own since he was a teenager and he was thrown off a moving train. He was never able to walk. So here's a guy and his wife passed away when his youngest child was a few months old. My grandmother at the time was six years old, right, imagine he had all the reasons in the world to not be a smiling individual, to not greet people with accountants. What did he do? He worked on specifically that.
17:19
Now imagine anybody who's ever done a project in the house you're building your sukkah, you're fixing the paint, you're doing something and your neighbor's friend comes right, your neighbor's child, comes to the house and starts asking you a thousand questions what are you doing? He's like kid, get over, get out of here. Right, stop bothering me, I'm busy now. No, no such thing. Always with a smile, always with the patience, always with the love, right? Imagine to always greet every person like that. It's an unbelievable way to live life, unbelievable.
17:54
And this is the 14th remembrance. Remember to always greet every person with a smile, even more so if you have a king that greets you with a smile. You'd be like, wow, he really loves me. He really loves me If. Imagine that the president calls you up. The president, the prime minister, the king calls you up and says hey, gary, I want to meet with you. And you come and he's like hey, it's so great to see you. How are you? You said, you know, imagine you come back, you tell everybody he's an amazing person, an amazing person, what a great guy, because you had a personal, special greeting from him. Every person will feel that way when you greet them like that Not only if you're a king, even more so.
18:59
The Almighty Hashem will let us know that he loves us and that he assists us and that he assists us. Ve'iftichonu le'ahov, osanu b'chol dover dor komoshe ne'amar. God promises that he will love us in every single generation. God loves us. Ve'af gam zos be'yosam be'eretz, oyvehem lo me'astem lo ga'altem l'chalosam lo hofer brisi yitam. Where God tells us in Leviticus 26, verse 44,.
19:32
God says and even when you'll be in the land of thee, of your captors, of your enemies, I'm not going to turn my back to you and I'm not going to be disgusted by you and I'm not going to break my treaty that I made with you. God is always smiling at us. This is our command that we are obligated, because Hashem loves us at all times, at every moment. We have to reciprocate that love, meaning. Hashem is smiling. We know that when we smile to others, they smile back. Hashem is smiling to us. We need to smile back at the Almighty at every moment and every single day.
20:25
This is the concept of a dog day. Today's a terrible day. I'm just going back to sleep. That's also a day that Hashem loves us. That's a day that Hashem says ah, my world can't survive without you. I need you in this world for it to be perfect today. So I'm going to give you another day. And even though it seems like what do you mean? Everybody gets another day, right, okay, so I'm not dead. So I, even though it seems like what do you mean? Everybody gets another day, right, okay, so I'm not dead. So I'm like okay, so no, hashem thinks so highly of you. He says, ah, look at my sweet, beautiful children. They're going to accomplish so much today.
21:05
Hachameish Esrei the 15th, sheyizkor SheOdam Mazmin Tsuroch Chavkodem Shetzorach Lahem 15th. He says here that a person prepares his needs before he needs them, before he requires them, even though he does not even know if he's going to live to enjoy them. Right, everybody's got a live to enjoy them. Right, everybody's got a pantry. What's the pantry? The pantry is tomorrow's food and for some it's the next six months' food and those who are preppers it's the next six years' food.
21:46
What are we preparing for? Do we even know if we're going to live tomorrow or next week or next month? God willing, we'll live very, very long, happy, healthy lives, in good health, in good health to 120. Do we know that we're going to have that blessing? We don't know, but yet we're ready to prepare for it. And someone who travels to a far distance, make sure that he has food for the way, and we make sure that before we travel, we order our kosher food on our airlines so that we can have our food on the plane. Otherwise you have to bring your own food. He says you know what's going to happen One day, hashem is going to take us from this world and bring us to the next world, and what's going to be? The question Did you come prepared? Did you come with food? Did you bring something with you? And that's the good actions, the good deeds that we do in this world, and it's something for us to remember every single day that we're not going to live forever.
23:09
And if we're not going to live forever, then what? How are we preparing? How are we preparing our good deeds, our acts of kindness, our acts of giving, whether it be charity, giving of ourselves, giving patiently to other people of our time, giving our advice, our wisdom, sharing our time, giving our advice, our wisdom, sharing our knowledge is all acquiring for our eternal 401k, our eternal stock. That's what we're aspiring for and finally, for today Hashish Esrei. Hashish Esrei. The 16th thing to remember Yizkor Odom. A person needs to remember Ashero'o b'yamu bachurim v'giborim yoseh mimenu. Shahoyu bahano gdolo lo orichu. Yamim Ve'ein ha'moves mis'akev. Lovo b'chol shoh ve'ein ha'. Listen to this amazing thing. He says we all know people who are strong, who are healthy, who are successful, who are good looking. We all know those people and suddenly they died Dead. What happened? A heart attack? We always try to find something. What do you mean? What happened? God wanted his soul back. That's what happened. That's really what happened. We can put whatever story we want. Ultimately, when someone leaves this world, what is it? Hashem says I want that soul, that precious soul, back. It's mine. I want it back. It's mine, as our sages teach us. It's a part, so to speak, of God. God doesn't have pieces. So to speak of God, god doesn't have pieces. So you can't chop God into pieces and give every person a piece of it, but the concept that we have godliness within us, wow, amazing. But what does God put that soul, that lofty, god-given soul, is given to us pure. What we need to remember the 16th remembrance is to remember to always keep it pure, always keep it clean, that soul, because we never know, if that moment where God says I want it back, we don't know when that moment's going to be. You know, our sages say that it's like someone who has collateral by his friend. So you? The Torah tells us that, if you have collateral by someone, so imagine like this you borrow $10 from someone, he says, okay, no problem. If you have collateral by someone, so imagine like this you borrow $10 from someone, he says, okay, no problem, you can borrow the $10, but you got to give me collateral. He says okay, I'll give you my pillow. The Torah says that at nighttime, you got to give him back his pillow. What do you mean? It's collateral. No, no, no. You got to give it back to him for nighttime. That's. That's the way it works. A lease, you have a lease, you rent a, you lease a car. The leasing company can say listen, we don't like the agreement we gave you, we want the car back. They can take it back at any time they want.
26:46
Essentially, we don't know when that time's going to be. Our soul, our life, is alone from God and we don't know when God's going to say hey, I want it back. Time is up. I decided the contract ends. Now we have no idea. So what are we going to do? I need five minutes to clean my soul.
27:12
That luxury unfortunately does not exist, which is why the Mishnah tells us in Ethics of Our Fathers that a person should always repent one day before they die. Ah, thank you. Now I know when that needs to be. What do our sages tell us? What does that mean? That means that, because we never know when that day is going to be, we should always be prepared that tomorrow is the day that I'm going to die and therefore I need to repent today. That means today I need to make sure that I tied up all the loose knots. Today is the day I made sure that I don't owe that person anything, that I worked things out with that person I was fighting with and that I worked that out, all of those things, because I don't know if tomorrow is the last day it might be. How am I going to have a pure soul if I have all of those open accounts? And this, my dear friends, is remembrance number 16. Remember that you have a precious soul and because you have a precious soul, you need to ensure that at all times it's at its greatest state of holiness and purity so that if God decides to take it back, it's clean, it's crisp, it's beautiful.
28:29
This concludes day number 106,. My dear friends, thank you so much for joining us. God willing, right after Pesach, we will resume this class, the Musser Masterclass, on Mondays, musser Mondays, and we'll be able to continue with this magnificent teaching of the Orchid Siddiquim. So until then, my dear friends, thank you and have a good night. All right, any questions?
29:00
Yes, sir, healthy people have ups and downs. Anybody here in the medical world, anybody here in the medical world. You take someone's, you look at the. You ever look at how your EKG works. You know, you see it goes up and down, and up and down, and up and down. Why does it have to go up and down. Why can't it just be like straight, like just steady, right, just steady, like consistent, right, one second? Because that's dead people. Dead people have no ups and downs. Living people have ups and downs. We just have ups and downs. That's the way life works.
29:35
So, yeah, so you're going to have a day. You better believe, you better have a day that's like that, and you just I don't want to get out of bed. That's your choice, your choice of whether or not you say you know what, hit the snooze button, I'm going back to sleep, or say you know what, I'm going to make it a great day. I don't care, my Itzharah is going to throw a curveball at me and I'm going to hit it out of the park. Nobody says now it's baseball season, right, season just started. You're excited, astros, go, astros, we'll get your garbage can ready, right? For those of you who know, great, that's the cheating thing. What do they call that? The garbage gate, what do they call it? They said that they were giving the signs. They were stealing the signs of the catcher to the pitcher. So they were whatever. It's all a story from back when they won the World Series. But either way, people hold it against the Astros till today. But it's okay, baseball season.
30:28
What happens? Do they say, look, he's throwing me a curveball, I'm out. What do you mean? No, learn to hit it. That's exactly the idea that when life throws you a curveball, you don't say I'm out. You say no, I'm going to hit it, I'm going to hit a home run. I don't just say, oh, it's throwing a curveball. Why can't you throw me an easy pitch so I can hit it? Throw a whole fit because you got a curveball. Guess what, my dear friends, life is full of curveballs and fastballs and things you're not ready for. That's the way it is, and we don't run away from it. We embrace it. We embrace it, we lean in and we swing the bat and we hit a home run. And even if it's a tough day, mark, you had a call, you had a follow up.
31:18 - Marc S. (Caller)
So I'm like, you know, in the middle of my day and I'm exhausted, I'm like, wow, I have so much stuff that I need to do. But and I, I'm exhausted. I'm like, wow, I have so much stuff that I need to do. But then I'm thinking like I wonder if the rabbi takes naps in the middle of the day when he's tired, Does he just like keep muscling through this stuff? You know, because you know, you're one of my role models, you know.
31:37 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
So so one thing. So let me ask you a question If I told you that I took a nap, would it make you feel? Better it would make me feel a lot better. But that would be me. Why would I? What does me have to do with?
31:49
you Because I feel like I'm underperforming it happens to be that if I could, I would. I definitely would. I love taking a nap, I love sleeping. Oh, thank you, hashem. Like my wife goes crazy, because the second I hit that pillow I'm out. And Hello, I'm out, and that's 24 hours a day, any place any time, like when we fly anywhere together.
32:11
My wife gets so annoyed because, like I'll wake up at landing, like did we take off yet? Like it's like I'm out and you just give me a second to zone out, I'm sleeping, no problem. Thank you, hashem. Please don't ever take that away. But the truth is is that every person has their challenges and every person has to know what they're capable of. And just because someone else is capable of not taking that, maybe you're not. Every person has to know themselves. Look, my grandfather used to take a nap every afternoon. In Israel they do that every day Between 2 and 4, that's the time you don't call people. You know that it's a crazy thing In Israel, the stores they used to. Today it's different, it's much different, but it used to be between 2 and 4, you don't. All the stores are closed. You don't call anybody. You don't knock on people's doors. Between two and four that was the whole country go to sleep, right, and then four o'clock till midnight, it was like it's they're back back at it. But either way, yeah, exactly, exactly, exactly, all right, my dear friends.
33:18 - Intro (Announcement)
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