Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Of the Orchos Tzaddikim. We're on page 90. God there, what is a fence, a barrier to protect yourself from arrogance and from other negative traits? Anybody who wants to uproot the coarseness out of his heart, the arrogance, the haughtiness out of his heart completely, you, the haughtiness out of his heart completely. You can't do it just by thought oh, I'm going to think about it, I'm not going to be arrogant anymore. No, no, no. He says arrogance. You have to go to the opposite extreme. If you were a person who would dress in refined clothes, you would wear beautiful, nice clothes, always clean, always beautiful, spotless, like those who are arrogant. You want to return from this. You want to correct yourself. It doesn't have to be perfect, it could be okay. It doesn't have to correct yourself. Im yilbash begodim tovim vi taknem osim b'midah beinonis. It doesn't have to be perfect, it could be okay. It doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be sparkling. B'zeh lo yakur milibu hagasos. He says if you do that, you're not going to get it all out. You're not going to get all the arrogance out. O im hoy. He says it doesn't go by you just being a little bit, you know, in moderation, let me be no. No, no, no, no. When you want to uproot a negative trait, you got to go to the opposite extreme and then balance out. Opposite extreme and then balance out. I'll give you an example for this. Okay, we'll get to it in a second. You know, I'll tell you. I'll tell you.

02:03
In the yeshiva of of the Musser masters, they knew that they needed to break their arrogance and their haughtiness. So you know what they would do they would humiliate themselves. You know how they would humiliate themselves. They would go to a pharmacy and they would say where can I find a hammer? And the people were like hammer. You came into a pharmacy, you didn't come into a hardware store, and everyone would laugh at him what an idiot. You came to a pharmacy. You came to a pharmacy to look for a hammer and they would be humiliated and like this. That would get them to humble themselves. Be humble, don't think like you're so great. And they would intentionally do that. Imagine walking into a Home Depot and saying where can I find the organic? You know it's like what's wrong with you. You know it's like you're in the wrong place. Go down the block and go to a pharmacy.

03:01
You know, the idea here is that don't take yourself so seriously, Don't think like you're so holy. Go to the opposite extreme to completely eradicate that arrogance from your heart. Someone who gets angry, someone who has a bad temper, a hot temper. The way to break it is that let people beat you, let people embarrass you, let people curse you, and don't, don't be impressed by it. Let it hurt you. Let it hurt you, don't respond.

03:50
V'yelech baderech zo zman meruba. And go this way for a while At sheyak yashor shachem amalibo, until you're able to completely uproot that anger from your heart. V'oz yachzer v'yelech baderech haim tzoyes. And then you can go back to the mid-path, to the normal way of living life. And a person should go like this his whole life, constantly correcting. But you have to over-correct to then return and be balanced. And so should a person do in all of his good traits, first, when you're trying to correct it, all of his good traits Mitchili Yisrachik Mimeno Ad Shaloh. Yuchal Yisrachik Yoser. First, when you're trying to correct it, correct it, over-correct all the way to the opposite extreme. V'yinag v'zeh Zman Mirubah for an extended period of time. V'oz Yachzer V'yitzfos B'darach Beinonis. And then find a moderate course, a balanced way, and this is the proper healing, the proper cure for all negative traits, and anybody who's inclined to serve Hashem should do the following exactly what we mentioned for himself and for his friends. And to the one who sets his way, I will reveal the salvation of God, says King David in Psalms 50, verse 23.

05:33
We need to set a course. We have to understand that we're all plagued with a negative trait here and a negative trait there. We're all challenged in one way or another, and if we want to fix it, it doesn't help to just like slightly fix it. No, no, no, you have to over-correct to then balance it out. Think of it as a plane. Right? If you're trying to turn the plane to get to the right place, what you have to do is you have to go. You can't just turn right there. You have to over-turn a little bit and then correct it. Okay. And the idea here is that when we realize that we're in a trap of the Etzahara, it's not going to help by appeasing the Etzahara and saying I'll just be a little bit more balanced in my response. That's not going to take it away. You have to break it. Once you break it, then you can have balance.

06:22
My dear friends, this concludes the gate of haughtiness and I look forward to continuing the gate of humility on page 97 tomorrow. And this makes all the sense in the world If you remember what the Talmud says that one who is humiliated publicly and doesn't respond that he's forgiven of all his sins. It makes all the sense. After learning everything we learned about in this chapter about arrogance, we want to be at a point, at a place that we realize that we control nothing and if someone humiliates us and we are able to accept that and not answer back and just recognize that everything is from Hashem and that Hashem gives you all of your talents, he gives you all of your skills and we have nothing to take pride of. That's a very special place. That means a person is whole, a person reaches his perfection, and that's something that we should all strive for.

07:20
One of the great stories of one of the great Hasidic masters was approached by one of his students who said what do I do? I've been humiliated. Someone masters was approached by one of his students who said what do I do? I've been humiliated, I've been. You know, someone yelled at me in public and just embarrassed me in front of everyone, in front of my family, in front of my friends. What do I do?

07:37
So the rabbi turned to him and said to him what did you say in return? He says I said nothing, I just kept quiet. He said in that case, please put your hands on my head and give me a blessing. The rabbi said Give me a blessing Because the Talmud says that one who is humiliated publicly doesn't respond is forgiven of all sins. He says you, my friend, are a perfect human. You have reached perfection because you didn't respond To go and defend yourself and be arrogant like oh, you know who I am. In such a case, it's a very, very special thing that you didn't respond. I want a blessing from you. Hashem should bless us all to attain that level of greatness.