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דרשו השם בהמצאו,
we read it today in the הפטרה.
This is a time uniquely הקדוש ברוך הוא is close to us.
And if all year round הקדוש ברוך הוא is always listening,
attentive,
all year round we have the opportunity to come close to הקדוש ברוך הוא,
but there's a opportune time,
a זמן מסוגל,
where apart from the מצוות of the day of saying סליחות and doing תשובה,
it's an opportunity of benefiting from a time of closeness.
משל למה הדבר דומה,
להבדיל,
but if you have a father who you love very,
very much,
but he's very occupied,
he's working with צרכי ציבור,
and he's busy the whole year round,
and he'll always be available for you if you need him,
if you make a call,
then he'll be there for you,
he'll take the call,
but you know that he's very busy.
But then there's a certain time where he says,
"I'm putting everything else aside,
and we're going to spend time just the two of us,
just the two of us together," and he puts his phone on airplane mode,
and he sits down together with you,
and he says,
"This is our special time,
just to know that you're special to me." And it's a time where you
could use it to ask for things,
you could,
it is a time where he's giving you attention,
and if you ask him for something,
he'll likely say yes because he's giving you that special time now.
But even aside from the asking for things,
just the very closeness is a value in and of itself.
Just the very feeling,
"I'm enjoying spending time together with my father who is close to me." This
is an opportune moment.
דרשו השם בהמצאו,
this these 10 days that we're now already at the end of day three
is a time,
an extra time of תפילה.
Even beyond the special עשרת ימי תשובה aspects,
just the very fact that we have a time of closeness to הקדוש ברוך
הוא,
where he's taken away time for other things.
So it should be a time that,
as well as the regular דאווענען,
don't let it go to waste.
If you only have these these days throughout the whole year,
הקדוש ברוך הוא is always available for you.
If you need to call him,
you can always call him.
But in these 10 days,
he's saying,
"I'm putting everything else aside,
and I'm here just for you.
I'm here just for you." So it's a time for extra תפילה.
It could be a תפילה of a רפואה שלימה for a particular person,
it could be a תפילה of just,
"I want to be close to you,
הקדוש ברוך הוא,
I just want to spend time together,
help me to grow and feel your presence in my life." So just to
be aware of the סגולה of these days and not let them go to
waste,
to take to take them seriously.
דאווען,
even not during תפילה time,
for help in learning,
help to continue your path of being a תלמיד חכם.
דאווען not only in learning time,
just when you're walking from the from the בית מדרש to your room or
back,
just it's an opportune moment the whole time,
these are all these 10 days.
דאווען to הקדוש ברוך הוא for growth in יראת שמים.
And it sounds like far-reaching,
but it's not going to be too long,
דאווען for a good שידוך,
דאווען for your children to follow the path of תורה.
These are things that you need as many תפילות as you can get,
and it's never too late to it's never too early to start.
If you have a time now where it's a special מסוגל time,
then bank in on it.
We're going to start off just by continuing where we were in מסילת ישרים
for let's say 15 minutes,
and then I have a page here that I want to give out just
to give help how to use these days effectively and and make an effective
חשבון נפש.
That's how we're going to divide up our half an hour that we have.
והנה מה שהורונו חז״ל אדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על השם וליהנות מזיו שכינתו,
שזהו התענוג האמיתי והעידון הגדול מכל העידונים שיכולים להימצא.
We left off last time by saying that,
maybe you could say it like this,
there are two different factors that motivate a person in his עבודת השם.
And it's important to know what your main motivating factor is,
because if you're not aware what your motivating factor is,
then it could be that it would it would stop and then you would
stop because the motivation's gone.
So for many people,
their main motivating factor is pleasure.
Everything that causes them to act and behave is where they're going to get
pleasure.
Some people's pleasure is very base,
and what they're acting on to give them pleasure are things that are immediate
physical pleasure,
and they will at a whim they will drop other things and go and
do things which might be prohibited even,
because they're looking for pleasure and they need to get that pleasure answered,
and then they'll go and do that.
And that's a lower base level of someone who's living his life for pleasure.
And there are some people who their definition of pleasure is higher,
where they are still looking for pleasure,
but the definition of pleasure is more refined.
So maybe their definition of pleasure is reading a book which has deep ideas,
or listening to music which gives gives them comfort,
Or maybe some people's idea of pleasure is feeling a sense of purpose and
having accomplished,
and they feel pleasure from having made a difference in the world.
That's a much,
much higher level,
because now they're proactive,
they're producing things,
and at an even higher level would be the higher level of giving נחת
רוח to הקדוש ברוך הוא.
And it gives a person a sense of pleasure that I know I'm doing
the right thing,
I know I'm making הקדוש ברוך הוא happy.
So there's a scale,
a wide scale,
of pleasure,
where the lowest one is very base,
the highest one is very lofty,
but the underlying value behind all of those things is all pleasure.
משל למה הדבר דומה,
there was a story with the חפץ חיים,
that once the חפץ חיים was traveling,
and he stopped in an inn.
And there was a משכיל there,
a non-religious Jew,
who was there as well.
And they started he said,
"Can I engage you in discussion?" And they agreed,
and they started discussing.
And the discussion went like this:
he said to him,
the חפץ חיים said,
"What are you looking for in the world?
What are you gaining?
What are you hoping to gain?" And the man said all the physical accomplishments
and wealth that he wants to get.
And then he said to him,
"What are you looking to gain?" And the חפץ חיים said something along the
lines of,
"I want to give נחת רוח to הקדוש ברוך הוא." So the משכיל said,
"So there's no difference between me and you.
You're looking for pleasure,
and I'm looking for pleasure.
You define pleasure your way,
and I define pleasure my way." And the חפץ חיים said,
"There's a big נפקא מינה.
You're right,
there's no נפקא מינה there,
we're both looking for pleasure,
but what the outcome's going to be,
there's going to be a big נפקא מינה.
Your outcome is going to be that you get pleasure in this world,
and there's not going to be a continuation in the next world.
My outcome is going to be that I have pleasure both in this world,
because I'm enjoying what I'm doing,
and I'm going to get pleasure in the next world." So the מסילת ישרים
is tapping into the idea that the main motivating factor that we have is
pleasure.
But he says that I want to help you get the ultimate pleasure.
העידון הגדול מכל העידונים,
I'm aware that there are other עידונים,
there are plenty of עידונים,
there are plenty of types of pleasure.
But if we're looking for different types of pleasure,
let's go for the best.
הגדול מכל העידונים שיכול המצא is קרבת השם.
Where does that take place?
מקום העידון הזה באמת הוא העולם הבא,
כי הוא הנברא בהכנה המצטרכת לדבר הזה.
I just want to explain that line.
There's pleasure in this world,
and there's pleasure in the next world.
But he says that the next world was designed for pleasure.
That's the phrase:
נברא בהכנה המצטרכת.
The next world was created with the necessary preparations that's needed for pleasure.
So the next world is all about pleasure,
and what's this world?
This world sounds like it's not designed just for pleasure.
What's the difference between the pleasure in this world and the pleasure in the
next world?
The pleasure,
and I'm talking even about spiritual matters,
the pleasure of spiritual matters in this world,
the pleasure in this world,
it's designed to pass.
It's designed to be temporary.
It can't last a long time.
You'll do something which is a good thing to do,
you'll enjoy it while you're doing it,
once you finished,
you'll have a bit of a memory of "Oh,
that was good," and then you feel empty again.
What's next?
What are you going to do now?
When you get to the next world,
all the reward of all the good that you did,
all those moments of all the pleasure that you had throughout the time,
all are a constant and ongoing sense of pleasure.
Now that sounds not so pleasurable if you think about it,
because then what am I going to do next?
How long am I going to be in that state of just having pleasure?
So we're designed differently in this world to how we're designed in the next
world.
The way we're designed in this world this is a world of עשיה.
This is a world where we need to work.
So הקדוש ברוך הוא programmed us that we can't be satisfied with our accomplishments.
We can never reach a level of full pleasure in this world,
that's the way we're designed.
We'll only feel a very temporary pleasure just to sense that what we're doing
is right as we go along,
but then it'll go away,
and we'll have a memory that we did a good thing,
but we won't have that feeling of pleasure like we had when we did
the good thing.
And Hashem designed us like that in this world in order to continue our
task:
do more,
do more,
do more.
Hashem wants to encourage us to keep going.
If we feel satisfied with what we've done,
we'll rest on our laurels,
we'll feel satisfied,
we'll stop,
we won't continue working.
We'll say,
"I've done everything I need to do.
I can end." So in this world,
it feels to us like we can never be fully satisfied.
We come close to הקדוש ברוך הוא,
as we come close to Hashem and we feel that we've got קרבת השם,
then we feel like He's far away again.
We say,
"Hashem,
what do You want from me?
Why did You make it that every time that I feel that I'm close
to You,
then You feel out of reach again?
Am I doing something wrong?
Am I not serving Hashem properly,
that every time that I feel close to Hashem,
that I feel distant from Him after?" after a short period of time?
Why can't I just hold onto that feeling of קרבת אלוקים?
But Hashem designed this world that way,
that we can never feel fully satisfied.
Albeit,
temporarily we can,
like on שבת we can,
because שבת is מעין עולם הבא.
You can have a sense of עולם הבא on שבת,
where you can feel already like all your work was done,
כל מלאכתך עשויה,
so,
yeah,
you can feel קרבת אלוקים.
But then the weekday comes again,
and you need to work again.
In the next world,
there won't be that sense of,
"What am I doing next?" That's only a motivation,
a drive that we have in this world in order to keep us pushing
and doing more and more and more.
In the next world,
that world is having arrived.
Having arrived,
having come home,
having come close to הקדוש ברוך הוא,
and having accomplished throughout your life's accomplishment of being close to Hashem.
So the next world is designed just for pleasure.
Not pleasure which is temporary and then you have to work again,
but just for the pleasure of קרבת השם.
אך הדרך להגיע אל מחוז חפצנו,
הוא זה העולם,
והוא מה שאמרו חז״ל,
העולם הזה דומה לפרוזדור בפני העולם הבא.
This world is considered like an entry room,
where the whole goal there is not to remain there.
The whole goal of your עבודת השם is to keep moving,
not to pause on עבודת השם.
You served Hashem?
Okay,
but you're moving on.
You're not supposed to remain there.
Do the next.
האמצעים המגיעים את האדם לתכלית זה הם המצוות אשר ציוונו עליהם.
Hashem did us a great kindness,
and He showed us the direction of what we need to do.
ומקום עשיית המצוות הוא רק העולם הזה.
And the place for doing the מצוות is only this world,
like the famous story of the הגר״א.
At the moment when the הגר״א was dying,
he was crying over the fact that he couldn't stay in this world longer
to continue being in a world where he could continue building and building and
building.
Now,
I just want to pause for a second and say that I said there
are two main motivating factors.
The one that we've been speaking about here until now is pleasure.
Now,
pleasure is a dangerous motivating factor,
because if you have a sense that,
"I need to have pleasure," then you'll always be judging:
"Is it worth my investing in this act?
Is it going to give me enough pleasure?" And then you judge if is
it worth your while.
If it's going to be really fun,
really enjoyable,
it's going to give you pleasure,
it's worth it,
and then you'll invest in it.
But if it's not,
then you'll say,
"Well,
according to my measure,
it has to be fun.
It's not fun,
I'm not going to do it." If a person learns תורה only because he
enjoys,
and he said,
"I was made to enjoy myself,
I was made for pleasure,
and I'm not enjoying my learning,
so it's not for me," then חס ושלום he could say,
"It's not for me." And what about his מצוות?
"I don't enjoy them." And what about coming to דאווענען on time?
"Well,
I don't enjoy that." If his measure is pleasure,
and pleasure alone,
then he's set himself up for a very dangerous motivating factor.
He's going to reassess and judge day by day,
moment by moment:
"Is it worth it for me?" So,
pleasure is a good סימן,
but not a good סיבה.
Pleasure is a good סימן that if you're working hard and you're working well,
you'll feel a sense of satisfaction.
You'll sense,
"I'm doing the right thing.
I can sense that I'm doing something which is giving me pleasure." You get
feedback from what you do,
but it shouldn't be the motivating factor.
The motivating factor should be בקשת אמת,
seeking to do truth,
identifying what הקדוש ברוך הוא wants from me,
and I'm dedicating myself to הקדוש ברוך הוא.
It doesn't always feel pleasurable.
It doesn't always feel enjoyable.
There are days where I feel like waking up,
there are days I don't feel like waking up,
but I'm dedicated,
I'm loyal,
I have a work ethic.
I'm in.
When I feel it,
I'm in,
and it's pleasurable and I get good feedback.
When I don't feel it,
I'm in,
I don't get the feedback,
but I'm going to remain in.
A person can only feel satisfaction and pleasure once they're locked into working hard,
and they've dedicated themselves to the task,
and they're committed to learning,
and they're committed to serving הקדוש ברוך הוא,
then they'll start to feel a sense of pleasure.
But if they're looking for the pleasure ahead of time,
it's going to be elusive,
because they're always checking,
"Am I feeling pleasure?
Am I not feeling pleasure?
Ah,
I'm not feeling it,
forget it," and they drop,
and they didn't give it a chance to have committed long enough to feel
the long-term pleasure.
משל למה הדבר דומה.
A person's learning how to be a professional sports player.
So he says,
"I'm going to see if I'm good.
If I'm good,
then I'll do it.
But if I'm not good,
I'm not going to do it." So he plays and he's always checking,
"Am I enjoying myself?
Am I having a good time?" Days that he feels like coming to training,
he comes;
days he doesn't feel like,
he doesn't come.
And then after a while,
he says like,
"I don't feel like I'm advancing well enough.
I'm not really enjoying myself here.
I'm not seeing results.
It's not for me." And the coach says to him,
"Well,
of course you're not seeing results,
and of course you're not seeing pleasure.
You haven't committed yourself to" To play well,
first commit to coming to every training session,
no matter what the weather is,
no matter what you feel.
You're in,
you're in,
you're in.
You're locked in.
And he says,
"But I don't always feel like it." So he says,
"You can't judge by the feelings yet.
You haven't proven to yourself that you're committed." So he says,
"Okay,
I don't feel it,
but I believe you.
I believe you.
I'll give it a try." He comes to training the whole season.
And the beginning of the season,
he's begrudging.
"Why do I have to be here so early in the morning?
I could be sleeping in.
Why do I have to be spending so much time learning all this new
information,
these learning skills?
Let me just do what feels natural to me and what I'm enjoying doing."
But he's committed.
He's locked in.
He recognizes that it's true,
and therefore he commits himself with a work ethic.
And it took about three quarters into the season until he starts recognizing that
he's got tremendous skills,
and tremendous potential,
and he's an amazing player.
And now he starts feeling satisfaction.
"I can do that!
I didn't know I could do that!
I didn't know I have that ability!
Wow!" It's unfair to use pleasure as a measuring stick too early in the
game,
because you can't use the pleasure as a way of telling until you've committed
yourself.
But if you first commit long enough to show that you're in,
no matter what,
easy and hard you're in,
then you'll start to feel the feedback of the pleasure and the enjoyment,
and you'll use it as a סימן that you're on the right track.
על כן הושם האדם בזה העולם תחילה,
your place in this world first.
It's not always easy,
and you don't always feel the pleasure,
but there's a clear commitment that you can make.
The מצות were given to you,
dedicate yourself to them כדי שעל ידי אמצעים אלה המזדמנים לו.
I like that word מזדמנים.
What does the word מזדמנים mean?
Things that chance upon you,
is that what it means?
Or is it that הקדוש ברוך הוא will send your way exactly what you
need to fulfill your task?
Some things are built in:
דאווענען is built in,
מצות are built in.
But some things are not built in:
where you're born,
who you meet,
a particular challenge that you particularly have that not everyone has,
whether it be physical,
whether it be emotional.
Everyone has different life settings.
מזדמנים,
הקדוש ברוך הוא sends you exactly what you need.
Some things are very easy for some people and very hard for other people.
But הקדוש ברוך הוא puts you here with המזדמנים לו,
exactly what you need specifically for your task להגיע אל המקום אשר הוכן לו.
The word הוכן לו means that you're a בן עולם הבא.
You're designed to get there.
That's your destination.
הקדוש ברוך הוא designed you in a way,
כל ישראל יש להם חלק לעולם הבא.
Everyone is designed to get there.
That's the natural path for every Jew.
הוכן לו,
it's prepared for you.
It's not that the default is you're not going to go to עולם הבא,
but if you're worthy you'll get to עולם הבא.
That's not the default.
It's the other way around.
The default is you'll get to עולם הבא.
כל ישראל יש להם חלק,
everyone has a portion there.
That's the default.
You have to earn it,
but it's natural.
It's prepared for you.
עולם הבא is prepared for you לרוות שם בטוב.
And when you get there,
you won't have a sense of dissatisfaction of,
"I always put in effort to get close to הקדוש ברוך הוא,
but it always seems elusive,
it's always beyond me.
Why is it like that?" And that frustration that you feel that,
"Why can't I just feel close to הקדוש ברוך הוא all the time?" There
you won't feel that.
לרוות שם בטוב,
there you'll just feel,
you'll bask in the joy and the goodness אשר קנה לו,
that you yourself built על ידי האמצעים אלה.
It's a little bit like a pension fund,
that throughout your life you're setting aside money,
and you always look at your slip,
and you see like,
it's so unfair.
It says that I'm getting this amount of money,
that's what it says,
but into my account only comes about half.
Where's all the money?
And you feel frustrated,
like where's all the money going?
Where's all the money going?
It says that I'm earning this amount,
but I'm not getting it.
And suddenly you retire,
you retire,
and suddenly you say,
"Oh,
what am I going to do?
I'm not going to get my monthly income,
what's going to be?" And suddenly you discover this wealth of money that you
have.
Where did it come from?
Where is all that money from?
And you discover that all that money that you were losing month by month,
month by month,
was actually set aside for you to enjoy.
And now you don't need to work,
you don't need to work,
and you can just enjoy.
It's not such a good משל,
because in that משל you're losing out along the years that you're working.
In עולם הבא you're not losing out.
In this world you're not losing out.
From מצות you're not losing out.
You can benefit and enjoy the pleasure from the מצות that you did by
knowing that you're giving נחת רוח to הקדוש ברוך הוא,
here in this world and in the next world.
It's not that you have to set aside and it's a loss,
but you don't have to work there,
you can just enjoy the good.
In that sense the משל is a good משל.
והוא מה שאמרו חז"ל,
היום לעשותם ומחר לקבל שכרם.
That's round one of the depth of this insight.
Round two,
בעזרת השם,
we will do tomorrow.
So we're pausing on the מסילת ישרים.
Can you give out these pages?
Half that way,
half that way.
A number of years ago,
in discussion with a חבורה that we had,
there was a sense of frustration that it's ימים נוראים,
you want to work on yourself in an authentic manner,
but it's not so clear how you do that.
Okay,
so it's a time for תשובה.
I want to do תשובה,
I'm ready to do תשובה,
but how exactly do I do it?
What do I do?
And it's a bit elusive.
So some people say you read through the דאווענען,
and that helps you to דאווען with more כוונה.
But what's your unique task and your unique role?
Some people say,
"Well,
if you go through a list of all the מצוות and all the עבירות,
then you can identify what you're doing well and what you're not doing well,
and that's a very good one to do." There's a ספר,
well known to everyone,
שערי תשובה,
and there's a chapter three,
I think it is,
where he goes through the list of all the מצוות with a very brief,
one paragraph about each one,
the קיצור of what you need to do and how to do them,
and it's a list that one can go through during ימים נוראים.
There's another highly recommended ספר by the חפץ חיים called ספר המצוות הקצר,
where he goes through all the—it's in English in the library they have it—where
it goes through all the relevant practical מצוות nowadays,
again,
one paragraph,
very simply defining what the מצוה is and how you do it.
And that's a very good read to go through in the in the days
now of עשרת ימי תשובה.
Even even just not even reading what he writes,
even just reading the the the index,
and just seeing what the מצוות are,
and then just like to identify where am I holding,
where am I holding,
where am I holding.
If there's something that you think,
"I'm not sure about," then you can go and open up that page and
see in more depth.
And those are very good methods.
We were looking for something else beyond those methods where it works from the
inside,
not from the outside.
Those Those are examples where you take someone else's list and you're working through
trying to say,
"Does that fit me?" But there's another way of doing תשובה,
which is that you work from the inside where you're asking yourself questions which
you have to be honest and answer the questions yourself,
not from any prompts of a list,
but rather you you just have to be where you're holding,
and then stand before הקדוש ברוך הוא in an honest way and say,
"This is where I'm at right now." Where you can present yourself to הקדוש
ברוך הוא and say,
"השם,
this is where I'm holding right now.
This is how I see myself at this stage in my life,
and השם,
I'm asking you for help to take the next step." But it's hard to
ask הקדוש ברוך הוא for טהרה and for כפרה when you're not sure what
your next step is,
and when you're not sure where you're faulting.
But if you're aware of where you're holding in an honest way because you've
done a חשבון הנפש,
then it's easier.
And if you do this year in,
year out,
and you can use this list or make up your own list or find
some other list,
but then it's a way of checking yourself:
"Oh,
I was struggling with this last year,
ברוך השם,
I'm answering this question in a different way this year than the way I
answered it last year." So I just want to very briefly go through the
questions,
explain the rationale behind them.
One more book recommendation:
there's an excellent book by Rabbi Pliskin called Gateway to Self-Knowledge.
It's a book this thick with questions.
The whole thing is questions,
according to topic order.
Some are מצוות,
some are מדות,
some are life situations,
every topic you could think of:
Gateway to Self-Knowledge,
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin.
You have to use the book well,
you have to know yourself a little bit to start using it because if
you just start from the beginning,
it's endless,
it's endless.
But if you if you use that book where you've identified which מדה you
want to work on or which area you feel that you're faulting in,
and then you open up that book to that page and you answer the
questions in order and you're honest with yourself,
then he's very clever,
the way he writes them,
some are more information and some are more direction,
guidance.
"Have you tried such-and-such idea?" he asks in italics.
Where it's not just about knowing yourself,
but it's about like giving you guidance on how to take the next step.
So that's also a recommended book once you've got an idea of where you
are.
So let's just go through the list.
Starts off by saying that you should learn מסילת ישרים in the third פרק,
because there he speaks about doing a חשבון הנפש,
and בעזרת השם,
we'll get to that at the right time.
So number one and number two:
if you if you're looking at an external list,
then you'll probably say yes and no to everything because you have an element
of every מדה.
Are you kind?
Yes.
Are you cruel?
Yes,
because there are times when you're kind,
there's times when you're cruel.
Meaning it's hard just to look at a list and say yes or no.
But if you give real examples of stories that happened to you and real
things that you did in recent history,
things that happened recently,
the last half a year,
the last year,
things that are relevant to you in the current,
then you can bring out an understanding of where you're holding now from real
time,
not from an external list.
So,
list three times when you like yourself most,
and why.
List three times when you like yourself least,
and why.
If you say,
"I'm really proud of myself,
I'm really happy with myself when I do such-and-such a thing," that's real,
that's authentic,
that's where you actually are happy with yourself.
What is it there?
What trait is there?
What מדה do you have that you're expressing in those good times when you
like yourself?
That's going to show you where your strengths are.
What when you do something which makes you feel embarrassed,
it gives you a sense of shame,
you feel upset about who you are,
what you're doing?
So,
when does that usually happen?
And what is it?
What מידה are you embarrassed about?
What flaw do you have that that's expressing?
This is a way of getting to understanding of yourself.
What are your five strongest traits?
And then again,
it has to be למעשה.
What do you specifically do to express these traits?
Not just giving a list of חסד and גבורה and תפארת,
and there's five good things,
but rather,
like real things that you can show.
Here,
I I actually do this.
Here,
for example,
there's something I do every day,
every week.
This is authentic,
I can see it.
Sometimes you speak to a person and you you're discussing them,
they say,
"I want to work on such and such a מידה," and you say,
"Okay,
well tell me the last time you struggled with this." And they start thinking
and thinking,
and they remembered that when they were 14 years old they they made they
messed up with something,
and then you say,
"Well,
do you have any more recent examples?" And they can't think of any.
So,
you say,
"Well,
it's not your most pressing issue that you have right now." If you can't
think of any examples from the last half a year,
it's not your most pressing issue.
That's why number number four,
sorry,
number five,
which negative trait causes you the most difficulties?
It has to be ones that are relevant to you now that you can
see are bringing up,
and which one is causing you issues.
Which right now?
So,
if you identify that low self-esteem,
that's what's causing you major issues right now.
Being lazy is what's causing you the major issues right now.
Try and identify what it is.
It could be a deed,
it could be a mindset,
but what is it that you've identified through example after example after example that
you see that's bothering you again and again?
And what's the trait behind it?
There's two broad categories of negative traits.
One is an inflated self-esteem,
and one is a deflated self-esteem.
So,
it's important to know where you're holding in order to learn the right type
of מוסר and give the right type of encouragement,
because if you learn the wrong type,
it will take you in the wrong direction.
So,
number six,
if you identified any negative traits,
is it based on arrogance,
conceit,
power,
or is it inferiority or discouragement?
Those are two opposite ends.
And if you give a person encouragement and you build him,
and he's already arrogant,
then that's going to take him in the wrong direction.
And if you give a person אימת הדין when a person is already discouraged,
it's going to take him in the wrong direction also,
to become depressed.
So,
you need to identify where it is that you're holding to encourage yourself in
the appropriate way.
And now we're looking more forward to a vision.
What do you want to build?
So,
number seven and eight,
what are your ultimate goals in in תלמוד תורה?
You come to ישיבה,
it's not just about the time that you're in ישיבה,
but it's a long-term plan.
When you present הקדוש ברוך הוא on יום כיפור that you have a long-term
plan.
It may change as the years go along,
but you're showing הקדוש ברוך הוא,
I'm looking for טהרה,
קדושה אני מבקש,
and this is my way that I want to express it.
I have goals in learning תורה,
I have goals to be a בן תורה.
And then let's be practical.
Right now,
in the present,
what can you do to increase your quality of תורה knowledge?
Sometimes a person is stuck on using a dictionary,
not using a dictionary.
And that question of whether they use,
don't use dictionary,
or how quickly they go to dictionary,
or how quickly,
how much they ask רבנים questions,
or ask other friends questions,
that could be a small change in behavior and a big change in how
quickly they increase their תורה knowledge.
Number nine and 10 are about mindset.
Do you focus on what goes right in the day or what goes wrong?
There's obviously a right answer to that question,
but that doesn't mean that's where you're holding right now.
So,
just pay attention.
Some people you speak to them,
you hear by the way they speak that their their mindset their default mindset
is to be positive,
optimistic,
growth-orientated,
and some people,
whatever happens,
you can see they're complaining,
and they're upset about it,
and that's something worth fixing.
And then number 10 is a follow-up on that.
If you make a mistake or recognize a fault,
there are some people who they berate themselves,
"It proves again that I'm not worth anything," and then it takes them down
and down and down.
There are some people who say,
"This is an opportunity.
I did that wrong.
How can I grow from that?" And that's that's one of those italic questions.
There's a right way and there's a wrong way.
Identify which is the right way and change your way that you think,
if need be.
Okay,
the next two are about דאווענען,
three about דאווענען,
and then about מידות,
and then about positive מצוה experiences in order to connect to הקדוש ברוך הוא
in a positive way.
And then the last three are much more practical towards a קבלה,
which בעזרת השם tomorrow or the day after we'll speak about,
about how to take on a קבלה,
what type of a קבלה to take on,
what are the guidelines of making a successful קבלה.
So,
the last three are more towards the קבלה.
What changes do you want to make?
After you've recognized behavior and personality and you've identified within yourself more,
how would your life improve?
Meaning,
try and envision how your life would be better off if you would make
changes in your life.
And then when you're דאווענען on יום כיפור to הקדוש ברוך הוא for a
better life,
you can already envision how your life will be better,
and you will be more of a טהור and קדוש individual.
And then number 20 was,
let's put this into action,
choose one area and make a tangible and measurable plan of how to make
an improvement,
only one area,
and בעזרת השם we'll follow up on this tomorrow or the day after in
order to have more clear guidelines on how to make a קבלה towards The
ימים הגדולים שעומדים לפנינו.
דרשו השם בהמצאו,
we're about to דאווען מעריב.
It's not a regular מעריב,
it's a מעריב with extra קרבת השם.
Enter that frame of mind for this מעריב and for the next seven days.
It's an opportune time to speak to אבא,
אבא קרוב אלינו,
אבא's's very close to us.
Don't let that opportunity of קרבת השם go to waste.
We should all feel that קרבת הקדוש ברוך הוא in our lives.
שכוח.