Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back, my dear friends, welcome back to Orchos Tzaddikim, the Ways of the Righteous. We are using the Treasure for Life edition and we are on page 143. Today we're going to start a new topic and that topic is the topic of shame. Shame or feeling a sense of much-needed privacy perhaps and we'll see what that means as we go through this chapter. Amru Chachamim, our sages, told us Haseichel hu haboshes Intellect is shame. Veboshes hu hasechel and shame is intellect. Ki al-adam v'chav anema. We know about Adam and Eve, and shame is intellect. We know about Adam and Eve. We know that it says.

00:52
The verse states in Genesis 2, verse 25, they were both naked and they were not embarrassed from one another. They weren't embarrassed from one another why? Because our sages tell us they didn't know to distinguish between good and bad, between good and evil. And after they ate from the tree of knowledge, nehmer, the verse states and both of their eyes opened, meaning you don't know what blue is until I show you the color blue and you see blue. You don't know what red is until I show you the color red and you know that you associate the word red with the color red. But if you never saw red, you don't know what red is. I could talk about red and blue all day and you will never know what I'm talking about. How did Adam and Eve know what modesty was if they never had the concept of modesty? Well, till they didn't eat from the tree of knowledge, they did not have any awareness of what modesty even meant and therefore they were ignorant to that concept. Once they ate from the tree of knowledge, they were introduced to what it means having a lack of modesty.

02:22
וְכֵּן כָּל בָּל לְכָּיִם זְׁוּלָּשִׁי הָדָ�. Having a lack of modesty. All animals, except for mankind, since animals don't have wisdom, a higher level of wisdom, like human beings have. Therefore, they have no embarrassment with immodesty. And everybody knows the virtues of wisdom and intellect. Only through wisdom do you get to the truth, can you investigate, can you overcome challenges, and only through intellect and wisdom can one come to the realization of Hashem's oneness. Blessed is he. And only through intellect and wisdom are we able to be compared and similar to the angels. And since the virtue of wisdom is so great, it needs to have a friend that is identical to it, identical in value. What is the parallel? Or the peer? For you know, they do wine peering, they peer it with food. What's the peer to wisdom? Shehimidas habusha. It is the trait of shame. Shame is the partner, the mate to wisdom. Krovala b'malosa. It is very, very identical and close to it in its virtue. Ve'harayesh yidamola. And what's the proof to that? Mipnei sholor eisi b'ishon, chasar da'as, ve'lo da'aton, m'bli b'ishas, he says.

04:20
The author says because I've never seen someone who's humble and carries shame. See, the word that we use for shame is like we say oh, shame on you. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about a sense of, I would even say a modesty Okay, let's use the term modesty for now but the idea of having a little bit of introspection on oneself. So the author says I've never seen someone who has that modesty, who doesn't have wisdom. I've never seen someone who's wise, who doesn't have that modesty, he says. Therefore, he says it's proper for every intelligent person to live their life with this trait and he should pronounce it in all of his goings on. And it should be, it should be more pronounced than all of his other traits. And by having this trait he will reach great, great heights in his spirituality and he will stay away from really awful traits in his spirituality and he will stay away from really awful traits. Midas habusha hi geder gado mechitz barzel lefne kol aver, having this sense of shame.

05:53
Shame means a value for yourself. A person who has no shame is the person you see walking in the middle of the. Maybe some of those protesters have no shame, they have no self-worth. But imagine the guy you see walking down the escalator in the mall eating his footlong pizza in front of and everyone has this image in their mind. They know what I'm talking about because, like we've all seen that guy, I just know like an animal, no self-worth, no self-value, right. So such a person is guaranteed to have certain serious flaws in their character that is going to be very difficult to work on without that level of self-shame.

06:47
Again, in our generation, we have to be very, very cautious about using the word shame, because we're not allowed to—we'll see this soon, the author will tell us—we're not allowed to shame others. It's a big biblical prohibition. Number two is a person should not be online. People feel like they can say whatever they want, which is an abhorrent thing. Imagine this right who gives a newspaper the right, in their desire to share the news, to annihilate people, to murder people, to crucify people because they're on the opposite political spectrum, because they don't act like they do. They're not their color, they're not their religion, whatever it is who gives them that right. But people think like, well, all in the name of news. In the name of news, you have the worst midos, the worst character traits of all. So I think it's very, very important for us to realize that just because someone does something that we don't like doesn't mean that we're allowed to go out or have the right to go out and now plaster their names all over the billboards, et cetera, et cetera.

08:08
Mi desabusha yigeder gadol mechitz. Barzel lefnei kol averos. Having the proper shame will protect us from all of the sins. Ki adam overkam averos b'seser. Imagine someone is sinning privately Many different sins, okay, a few different sins Masha mizbayish lasus bifnei b'ni adam. So would he do that in public? No, he would never do that in public. But privately, okay, but privately, nobody knows. V'chein amor chachamim ki b'shas p'tir s'r'b'yohan ha'menzaka amor le'talmidav.

08:41
At the time that Rabbi Yochanan Bezaka was passing away, his students said to him Our teacher, give us a blessing. He said to them this is on his deathbed. It should be the will of Hashem that the fear of God should be like your fear for your fellow man. How many times would we do certain things only in private? Oh, nobody sees me, so that's fine. But out there in the public, I would never do that in front of other people. Amrullo ad kanvesullo, that's it. That's your blessing for us, your parting words before you're going to die Amr lehem ulevai teidu kisha odam oyver avera. Just know, he says halavai.

09:25
We should understand that when someone commits a sin, he says I hope nobody sees me. And only because he's afraid, because he's afraid of being embarrassed, he's afraid of that shame, he says it's worthwhile. We know there's a famous principle in the Talmud that it's better to do things for non-altruistic purposes so that you'll come to do them altruistically. Meaning, you know, giving charity with your name posted all over the campaign is something negative. I want everybody to know my name is on that building and I want everybody to know how generous I am with my charity. So, although that's not modesty, but it's better to give charity in an immodest way because one day you'll come to do it modestly.

10:28
So what we're seeing here is that people are afraid when we talk about shame. People are afraid of what people will say, but they're not afraid what God will say. I'll give you an example Out in public. Out in public, would someone who looks like me walk into a McDonald's and sit down and eat something? Oh, people are going to see me, but what's the matter? In private I'll do an Uber Eats and nobody will know. Nobody knows where that's coming from. Well, guess what? Someone who has proper bush or someone who has proper shame won't do something privately that they wouldn't do publicly of shame properly. What that will do is it will elevate us that, even when we don't have that, when we have that concern of shame because of what other people are going to say, what other people are going to think, but when I'm private, I'll just do what I want. No, no, no, no. I'm going to use it also for when I'm private, to utilize that shame as well, even though nobody else sees, because God sees everything.

11:55
I once told one of my students. I said I want you to know something If you want to know. I don't know when I said this, but he reminded me this several years later. I told him the way you conduct yourself privately in your bathroom is one of the definitions of how you are in your fear of heaven, because we're in our bathroom. Nobody knows, nobody sees. It's private, it's me, it's just me alone.

12:23
Well, guess what? The way in which we act there privately, with modesty, the halacha says a person shouldn't reveal too much of themselves. Why who's here? Nobody's going to see anything. Guess what? You have your own personal shame. You're a dignified human being. As a dignified human being, we should carry ourselves in a certain way, even if nobody sees. Even if nobody sees. Even if nobody sees. The halacha says, for example, that a person shouldn't eat something that's larger than the size of an egg with their hands. Imagine what that means. That means we've got to get our knife and fork out when we eat our pizza because it's bigger than the size of an egg. But what's the halacha telling us? It's undignified. It's undignified. We're royalty. As people who are royalty, you know you'll never find a picture of the Queen of England eating no place. You know why? Because eating is a dignified exercise. You don't do that in public. You don't eat in front of other people In your own home. It's one thing, on camera for sure not. It's an amazing thing, my dear friends. This concludes Day 27.