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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.
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.
And now my dear friends, we return to the Ways of the Righteous, the Treasure for Life edition of the Orchas Tzadikim, in the Gate of Repentance, day number 160, in the middle of page 862. There are six different ways for a person to be inspired, to be inspired. He says, when a person is confronted with troubles, he should connect closely with his heart,
acknowledging that these troubles are the fruits of his ways and his actions, and that his sins and evil ways have brought them upon him, and he should return to Hashem. So a person has to realize that the things that happen to me are not random. You hear this Mark? Things that happen to us are not random. Everything that happens to a person is by calculation of Hashem. And if a person has great things happen to him,
it's a calculation of Hashem. And if a person has devastating things happen to him, it's a calculation from Hashem. And Hashem is calling for our attention. He's waking us up. What's if you have someone who's running into the street, Mark? What do you do? You grab him. What do you need to grab me for? Can you stop? Can you not grab me? You know, you hurt me with your fingernails when you grabbed me. What are you gonna say?
Hello, you almost ran into oncoming traffic. What's wrong with you, right? Hashem sometimes grabs us. He says, don't you see you're making a fatal error for your neshamah? And sometimes it's not so pleasant. Hashem needs to wake us up with, you know, my daughter. She has a reforsh lema. She hasn't been feeling well the last couple of days, so high fever. And we have to give her medicine. And hopefully Hashem sends the medicine to be a messenger of healing.
But she doesn't like the medicine, right? So what do you do? She doesn't like the medicine, right? But if you want to be healed, sometimes you're gonna have to taste medicine. That's not the most delicious thing in the world, right? If you like the candies, right? You like those candies? You have a sweet tooth, Mark, don't you? Yeah, you like the candies. Sometimes there's a result. What happens with that? You get a cavity. It's painful. It teaches you, okay, you got to stay away from this stuff.
Ki in yeshineh among mutza'u uros rabos v'etzoros ve'omar ba'yom ahu ha'lo al ki ein elokah b'kirbi mitza'uni uros ha'eleh. Listen to this amazing, amazing verse from Deuteronomy. Amazing verse. Have these evils not come upon us because our God is not among us? It's a verse in the Torah. Perhaps whatever troubles, whatever woes we face are only because we moved Hashem out of our lives. V'a'teshuva azoz meku be'lis lefnei Hashem, and this kind of tshuva is
very beloved in front of the Almighty, elokim min akbar sefer dama, not like man of flesh and blood. Oh, now you lost your wealth. Now you come in begging for your job back, right? You went to the competitor and they didn't treat you nicely, so you're coming back here and people hold a grudge. Hashem doesn't. Hashem says, you know what, whatever it takes, I want you close. I want you in my company. I want you here with me. Ki kishayekh ata ish le'ish
be'eis tzoroso yizkharet v'yikana elov, v'pnei shu'u tzorok le'ezroso, zo zaharot eti yegrua be'enov. Kemo she'omar yiftach, u'madua basem elai ato, ka'asher tzar lochem. When people, when they went back to Yiftach, what did he say? And why do you come to me now when you are in distress? Oh, it didn't work out for you, so you're coming back. Right? Hashem doesn't treat us like that. Hashem says, you know what, I want you however I can get you.
Av ome'chaz do'el yisbaruch, one of the gifts from Hashem, shu'u me'kabel tshuva mitok tzora v'hu misrat ze'bo. Hashem accepts tshuva. He accepts repentance that comes through pain, through affliction, through suffering, and Hashem desires that return. She'nemar shu'u v'Yisrola t'shem lokecho, ki koshalte b'avonecho. Because the verse states, return, O Israel, to Hashem your God, for you have stumbled in your transgression. You tried going that way, it didn't work for you, so you came back. Hashem loves it anyway.
Shu'u v'Yisrola, Hashem says, return. Ve'er pe'mu shuva sam'avos nedava, and I shall heal your backsliding. I shall love them freely. Ve'im lo yaaseh ha'adam tshuva b'yisra so, az ancho ye'chpal. And if a person doesn't repent, even after all of those patches that he gets from God, then Hashem says, you know what, I guess I need to, I need to cause him a little bit more pain. That's not a good place for a person to be. Kemo melech basav adam, im yishcha tolo, v'hu miyaseh roso, ve'ino rozo le'kabel mosero,
yosef le'yaseh ve'yachbid ulo. Kein mides ha'kadosh boruchu. And in this way, Hashem acts like a king of flesh and blood, whom, if you don't wake up from his message, he's going to double down and give you more pain, give you more taxes, give you more affliction, so that you wake up and you realize the mistake that you made. Ki dechseh ve'im ha'ad eyleh lo tishmu li, ve'yosefto li yasra eschem. And if you, if you, despite this, will not listen to me, then I will afflict you even more.
Ve'im lo yisbonen sheharoz ba'oz alov, mi'pnei chatov el yomim mikrehu. And if a person says, heaven forbid, if a person says, this didn't come to me because I sinned, this just came to me out of random, random. Bo zeh yeh ketsev gado ala ishahu, then there will be great wrath come upon that person. She'eino ma'men shemeh mechamas avonosav ba'im lo yisrum. Because he doesn't consider, he doesn't believe that he is being afflicted because of his sins.
And this is a grave error for a person who doesn't realize that there is cause and effect. You know, the most important thing to learn from the entire book of Genesis, if you look at it from a 30 foot lens, 30,000, 30,000 foot lens, you're all the way up and you're able to see a big picture. You know what you see? You see the most amazing thing. If you did good, you got good. And if you did no good, you got no good.
And you see it from Adam and Eve, from Cain and Abel. You see the generation of the flood. You see the generation of the Tower of Babel. You see it with Nimrod. You see it with Abraham's brother. You see it with Abraham's son, Ishmael. You see it with Isaac's son, Esau. You see the reward with Yitzhak. You see the reward with Yaakov. You see the reward with the tribes and the punishment with the tribes for their mistakes. You see it with each and every character in the Torah.
You see that when they did good, they got good. When they didn't do good, they didn't get good. Oh, but suddenly to us, it doesn't work like that. It just so happens to be. No, it's not the way it works. Any time a person has affliction, any time a person has pain, they have to attribute it to their relationship with Hashem. Hashem, I did something wrong. Hashem, I misspoke. I did a misdeed. My great-grandfather, blessed memory, in his book Torah Savrom,
dedicates a tremendous amount of ink to this idea that everything... You stump your toe. You have to think, what did I not do right with my toe? Oh, it just so happens to be. Wrong place at the wrong time. No such thing. There is no such thing, Mark. You bump your head into the door in your pantry. Ah, that really hurts. How did I not use my head right? How did I, what did I think? Did I think bad thoughts?
Hashem gives us, and you should be thankful. You should be thankful. Say, Hashem, thank you for clearing up my sin right away with that punishment. Okay? So, again, we pray and we ask Hashem every single day. We ask every single morning, Hashem, don't bring evil upon us. Don't bring pain upon us. Don't bring temptation upon us. Don't bring the Yetzharah upon us. Give us the Yetzhar Tov. Give us the desire to do good. Because we don't want to be embarrassed.
We don't want to be humiliated for the sins that we've done. My daughter said that there was a kid in school. Half of his elementary school was walking around with a cast and crutches. She said, I was always so jealous of him. He always had a cast and crutches. And in a way, you can think about just the opposite. Right? What sign is Hashem sending? A person that they have an illness, that they have a pain, that they have something.
Now, for children it's a little bit different because they don't get their punishment. They don't get the punishment in the world to come. They get all their punishment in this world until they're 20 years old. You know that. Until you're 20 years old, you don't have an accounting in the world to come. Once you're 20, they open up the books in the heavens. That's when you start a new account. Because at that time, that's when you have the development of your mind.
You should be responsible for your actions at that point. And then you're in the big leagues. You know, that's when real accountability kicks in. All right, either way. And there will be great wrath since he does not believe that he is being afflicted because of his sins. When Hashem does punishing things upon a person, he's doing it for your good. He's doing it for our good. Hashem is giving you two benefits in that. Immediately, the first one is to atone for a sin.
As it is written, See my affliction and my travail and forgive all my sins. And what is the second benefit? Hashem is trying to bring you back. Number one is atonement. Second is change your ways. Reverse course. But fear me and accept chastisement. And if a person doesn't repent, even after the affliction, He says, And if his afflictions do not lead him to repentance, then he is unfortunate. Indeed, for he has suffered affliction and his sins have not been atoned.
And what is more? His punishment has been doubled because he is not believing that his sins are the cause of his afflictions. So a person has to realize this. It's an important thing for us to remember every single day of our lives. And the more we can internalize this, we can hopefully be in a place of, Now a person shouldn't go crazy. We have to make sure that we maintain a healthy lifestyle. I'm not talking about in the eating healthy and doing exercise.
I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about a person shouldn't say, And then a person can't be a normal person. That's not either good for a person. A person has to be normal. And a person has to realize that there are consequences for my actions. When I do good, I get good. We have to recognize that. And sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes, not always. Most of a person's life, hopefully, is good things. And a person who trusts in G-d should know
The only reason G-d brings punishment to a person is for his benefit. Number one, atonement. Number two, G-d takes away the punishment from the world to come. G-d takes away the punishment from the world to come. As the verse states, Do not rejoice over me, my enemy. Though I have fallen, I shall arise. Though I sit in darkness, G-d is light to me. He says an amazing thing here. Therefore, a person has to know.
Our sages tell us that if a person didn't fall, they won't get up. They'll never get up if they don't fall. And if they don't sit in darkness, they won't appreciate the light. And therefore, when a person has any type of pain, whether it be in their body, whether it be financially, whether it be with their children, whether it be with any other area of their life, a person should impress upon himself to include fasting in his repentance.
Just as the congregation is obligated to fast when there is a tragedy that befalls a community, just like our sages told us of blessed memory, Therefore, whenever a person has a sorrow, a person has a challenging situation, they should internalize, they should look inside, they should do an accounting, an examination of their deeds. If a person studied his deeds and saw that he didn't do anything wrong, if he can't find anything, then it's something which is called afflictions of love.
Hashem sometimes, to those that are dear to Him, He says, I'm going to give you extra credit here. I'm going to give you extra credit so in the world to come you'll get extra reward. And that sometimes Hashem gives added punishment to those who are extremely righteous so that their portion of the world to come can be even more perfect. So this is some interesting things that we need to internalize here. Number one, Mark. Number one. There's no such thing as random.
If a person does good, it's impossible for Hashem not to reward them with good. If a person does bad, their hope, our hope, is that if God forbid we do something bad, that Hashem give us punishment right away. We much prefer the punishment here than the punishment there. It's much better. It's a much better... It's a much better bargain to get it here than to get it there. We want to be close to Hashem and we have to declare that every single day.
So my dear friends, this concludes day number 160.
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.