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The Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection is the one-stop shop for the Torah inspiration shared by Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe in one simple feed. The Jewish Inspiration Podcast, Parsha Review Podcast, Thinking Talmudist Podcast, Living Jewishly Podcast and Unboxing Judaism Podcast all in one convenient place. Enjoy!
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
Good evening, everybody. Welcome back. Welcome to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast. It is so wonderful to be here tonight and today we are going to continue in the gate of fear of heaven and Again, we're in the book of Orchis Adikam, the ways of the righteous in the treasure for life edition So my dear friends, let's continue. We're in the middle of page 983 V'at ha'odiacho chokh mas ha-nefesh v'ruach u'nishama
It says now I'm going to teach you a little bit about the wisdom of the nefesh, the ruach, and the neshama K'dei l'yiro es ha-kodesh bochu In order for you to gain a fear of heaven Ha-nefesh hi bakovit Where is the nefesh? Where does the nefesh hold? Where does the nefesh exist? In the liver. For the blood is the nefesh, right? Ki adam hu ha-nefesh, the passage says. The verse states in Deuteronomy, I believe that is, yeah, Deuteronomy 12 23
Ki adam hu ha-nefesh, v'hu ha-mishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol ha-hishgol Okay, what is the nefesh, what is the ruach, what is the neshama? These are different layers of the soul. The nefesh resides in the liver, where all the blood rests, or that's where it's all gathered together. And the blood is what brings desire to a person. You want to eat, you want to drink, you want to sleep, you want to cohabitate, right?
All of these things are desires that are brought about by our blood. He says this desire comes from the nefesh, and the nefesh is sourced, that's where it resides, inside the liver. For the liver is full of blood, and it lusts to satiate a person with pleasures, enjoyment, and delights. And this is what the Pasuk says in Proverbs, the satiated nefesh will trample a honeycomb. A ruach, what is the ruach? A different layer of the soul.
Now this is all of mystical nature, we have to remember that we live in a very organic world, where what we see is what we think we get. What you see is what you get, right? That's not exactly true, because there's a whole other sphere, a whole other world that operates. You ever wonder why one person puts together the deal, and it doesn't close? The other guy puts together the same exact deal, and it does close. Why? One person, it was his idea, didn't succeed.
His, not his idea, it did succeed. And you have this in so many ways, it seems sometimes that the world doesn't operate in a just manner. But the truth is, is that we're only looking on a surface level, on a natural level, we're not looking with the spiritual eyes. Which is why many people love to go visit Kabbalists, because Kabbalists sometimes, this is a true story. There was a guy, I heard this from the rabbi that was on this visit.
There was a rabbi from New York, who had a very, very wealthy businessman, who asked him if he can come with him on a trip to Israel. So, why? Because business wasn't going well for this wealthy businessman. And every deal that he tried to put together, fell apart. Every deal, he'd come to the closing table, and suddenly the bank said, no, we're not interested, we're not funding this deal. One after another, after another. And he was mystified, what's going on.
He said he has to go to Israel on a special trip, and speak to holy Kabbalistic sages. And he asked this rabbi to come along with him. And I heard this story from the rabbi. So he went into one of the great sages, Kabbalist. And the Kabbalist typically would begin the conversation by asking you your name. What's your name? What's your mother's name? What's your father's name? They would figure everything out. You know, all the hee-gee-bee-gee stuff, with just the name.
So, he went to explain his story. And the rabbi says to him, to the businessman, do you want your rabbi to stay here in the room with you? I have something I need to tell you, that I see, on the spiritual sphere, I'm not sure you want the rabbi to be here with you. And again, I heard this from the rabbi. He said, no, no, it's okay. Keep the rabbi right here. The rabbi can stay, not a big deal.
See, he said, there's something called Kedushat HaBrit, which is the holiness of the covenant. What's the covenant? The bris. Where a baby boy has a bris, that is something that needs to be protected, that it stays holy. That a person doesn't waste seed. Heaven forbid, it's a terrible sin. So the rabbi, this Kabbalistic sage, tells this man, he says, the reason why your businesses are falling apart, is because you're not careful with Kedushat HaBrit, the holiness of your covenant.
And this guy starts turning colors, not knowing what to do with himself. He's in front of his rabbi, and he's in front of this Kabbalistic sage, and he's like, he says, and I'll explain to you why. He says, when you spill your sperm, he says, what's happening is you're creating souls. And those souls are sitting at the gates of livelihood in the heavens, and they're saying, God, before you provide for this guy, you have to provide for us.
Before you give him success in his livelihood, you have to feed us. He created us. You can't go give him success and not feed us first. And they're blocking your success, he said. And this person did Teshuvah, and all his business returned to its successful ways. Now, we look at it in an ordinary world. We're like, well, okay, bad luck. He didn't close it. It wasn't a good deal. No, no, no. He was able to see a totally different world.
He saw that there's something blocking. There's a blockage in the heavens. We don't see that with our ordinary, typical, simplistic eyes. We're not necessarily able to see that. And that's what he's trying to get us into when he's starting to talk about the different layers of the soul, the Ruach, the Neshamah, the Nefesh. This is things that are beyond the ordinary things. What do we see? We see flesh and blood. We're simple people. This is me. I'm a nobody. What am I?
We need to understand that there's a whole sphere that's well beyond what our eyes see. And it's only those who are holy, those who are pious, those who are special, that are able to see and able to decipher and help guide those who don't see that. It's a fascinating idea, and I think it's one that's important for us to know, that particularly this example of the holiness of the covenant is something that Reb Nachman, for example, talks about it as the source of all blessing.
When someone is cautious in these areas, areas of holiness, this is the source of all blessing, and that's why there's such a heavy focus on it. He says, So where's the Ruach? I don't want to call it the spirit, but really the Ruach means spirit. Where is that? That's inside the heart. So if a person wants to understand where his desire for honor comes from, that comes from your spirit. Therefore, arrogance is called which means grossness of Ruach. Okay.
So that's what causes a person to want to show off, what gets a person to want to feel like he's above other people, that he's a controller of other people. That comes from the Ruach, which is in the heart. And what's the Neshama? The Neshama is in the mind, and that is intellect. He says, and the Neshama is compared or is similar to God, who's in control, who's on top. We know that in Judaism, we see this concept that the higher something is,
the more prominent it is. Jerusalem is on the highest mountain, on the top of all of that is the temple. The highest, the holiest is on top. Oh, the mind is what's supposed to be controlling us. If you look at all animals, they're all horizontal. Humans, vertical. Why? Because for an animal, their purpose in this world is not to be godly. That's not their purpose. They have a very specific set of tools that they're given, and they execute them perfectly.
They don't have the Yetzirah like we do. They don't have the temptations like we do. We do. How do we overcome them? The Yetzirah is the heart. The desires come from the heart. How do we control them? With the mind, which is above the heart. The mind controls the heart. I'll give you an example. Your doctor tells you that your cholesterol is too high, and you've got to stay off the fatty foods.
You've got to stay off the meats, stay off of red meat. Okay, so what does the Yetzirah do? The Yetzirah will try to get you to do something that you know is not good for you. You're going to have an old friend call you up. He says, hey, what's going on? All of us are getting together. All the boys were making a barbecue. Barbecue? My doctor just told me to stay off of meat. What are you going to do?
He says, you know, I'm going to go. This is the Yetzirah tactic. I'm going to go, but I'm not going to eat. I'm not going to eat, right? Okay, so he goes. Then he's there, and he's looking at the food. He's like, this food is glaring at me. The food is glaring. You know what? I'll just have a little bit. Just a little bit, right? And that's the way. Why? Because the emotion is much more powerful by this person than his intellect.
Your mind knows this is a terrible thing. But my heart desires. So who's going to win that war? A person needs to train themselves that the mind, the intellect, controls the emotion and not vice versa. Okay? So that's what he's saying over here, that we need to be, our soul needs to be at a place of elevation, where it can look and see the playing field and realize right away, I'm better than that, and I need to stay away from this.
This is, even though I know it's wrong, I'll fall into doing it anyway, because it's okay, just a little bit. You know, that's the way the excuse is. He says the soul is repulsed by our physical urges. It is repulsed by our desire for materialism. It is repulsed by our desire for pleasures. And all the soul thinks about is, how can I get closer to God? And the soul is worried its entire existence. Oh my goodness, what am I going to do?
This guy who's carrying me around, okay, the soul is part of us, right? But the soul is like this observer from above, like looking at us. What are you doing? Why are you going to that party? Why are you doing that? Why are you acting that way? Why are you talking like that? Why are you arrogant like that? Why are you jealous like that? All of the negative things that we're doing, the soul is repulsed by it. And the soul is worried.
He's like, what's going to be? We're going to have to stand in front of the heavenly courts. And what is this guy going to answer? He gave a lofty soul, but he didn't do anything about it. He instead used the physical parts of the body, not the spiritual parts of the body. A man has two masters. And when he dies, he is going to be released of both of those masters. The verse says, small and great are their equal, meaning a big person and a small person.
The senator and the president and the simple voter or the illegal alien, all of them are servants and are free of their masters when they come up in front of heaven. Because at the end of the day, everyone's going to need to answer, what did you do? What did you do? You were given talents. You were given skills, abilities, qualities, virtues, flaws. How did you perfect yourself? So we all have these.
And that's the ruach and the nefesh, or the two masters that are constantly pulling at a person. He says, what are these desires of the ruach and the nefesh? They're always thinking about pleasures, how to make more money, what to eat, what to drink, where to party, what to do with everything that we see that we desire. You go to the store and you're like, oh man, I would love to buy that watch. Oh, did you see that car? It's my dream car. This is my dream vacation.
Everything we see, we desire. That is the ruach or neshama, all the things that bring physical pleasure. So what does the neshama say? What is it going to do any good for you? It's not going to help your soul. It's not going to help you in the big grand scheme of things. And these things are fleeting pleasures. And the minute the body ceases at our death, these things are done. And what's all that beauty worth? You're investing in your beauty. You're investing in your foods.
You're investing in your brilliance. And what's that going to do for you if you haven't taken care of your neshama? He says, if so, all these things are a waste of time. And the only thing we should be focusing on is how can we build our relationship with G-d. Creator of heaven and earth. And to be cleaving to G-d. He says you have two forces. One desires and one is trying to stay grounded. And when one wins, the other loses.
When the other wins, the other loses. And that's the way it works. It goes as a seesaw. You can't say I'll stay in the middle. You don't stay in the middle forever. One eventually will fall. Which one is the one that's going to weigh more on you? Someone who's busy with food and drink. Always whining and dining. He'll never become great in his wisdom to overcome them. However, when the neshama overcomes the urges and desires,
then that neshama is introduced to a whole new world of elevation. Therefore the neshama needs to chip away at the ruach, which is desirous. And desiring of things. And temptations are rampant. And also what comes after those desires? Because we don't get our desires the way we imagine them, we get angry. Because we do get some of our desires, we get arrogant. And the nefesh is what desires and urges, has so many urges. And when the neshama gets wise, then it brings humility.
So what happens here, you see, there's a massive struggle between these two worlds. It's a massive struggle. This is the struggle of life, my dear friends. This is the struggle. And this concludes day number 189.
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