Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back, my dear friends, to day number 41. We're on page 237 in the Treasure for Life edition of the Ways of the Righteous of the Orchos Tzaddikim Ya'azov, ha'odom kol ha'avos v'yidbak pe'avas ha'bor e'iz baruch hu. A person should let go of all of the other loves or obsessions or hobbies and stick to the Almighty man, should abandon all loves and cleave to the love of Hashem. The love of Hashem is the purpose of all qualities and the end of all virtues on the scale of all servants of Hashem. All of the traits are as a ladder to attain this love, to get to this trait of love, to get to this trait of love, to get to the bottom line of the levels of all of the great sages of yesteryear. You should just know it's the trait of love for Hashem. There's nothing higher. You want to know what all the great Kabbalists and all the great Tanayic sages and Amoreic sages, you know what they desired Love of Hashem. And that's what we're being tasked here tonight to attain that same level of love according to our own abilities. Shememra, as the verse states, ve'atu Yisroel Ma Hashem l'kecha shol mimoch Ki im liyira u'le'.

01:43
The verse in Deuteronomy says what does Hashem already ask of us, if not just to serve Hashem out of fear and love of Hashem. And since the fear of Hashem, since it is the closest level of Hashem, since removing, since it is the closest level of Hashem, since abstaining is the level closest, that gets us closest to love of Hashem, he says, since it is impossible for a person to get to a point of love, ואהלכן הירוק דם ישלעבו, he said, since it is impossible for a person to get to a point of love without having fear first. What does fear mean? Fear doesn't mean trepidation. Fear means putting things into the proper perspective. God is God and I'm not, I'm just his servant. God has a perfect understanding of the world, god has a perfect creation that he has created and therefore, when I understand my place, now I can love Hashem. First you have to fear Hashem properly, appropriately, and then you can get to the stage of love. And what is that love, ava? First you have to fear Hashem properly, appropriately, and then you can get to the stage of love. And what is that love? He kloyis ha-nefesh u'nutayisa be'atzmo el ha-bayri yisala. It is the yearning of the soul and its natural inclination towards the exalted creator in order to cleave to his divine light. What does that mean?

03:24
We talk about this all the time. What are we trying to do in this world? What are we trying?

03:30
People who preach a certain ideology? Think about this for a second. People who preach you know, the Christians murdered more people than any nation on earth More Jews. Why? Why? What was bothering them? What did they want? Already they have a certain idea, a certain concept of closeness with God, and if you don't want to live your life with that closeness to God, you don't deserve life. Boom Out.

04:04
Islam is the same thing. The only one who says live your life and let others live their life is Jews. Because we don't believe you need to be Jewish in order to be good. You don't need to be Jewish in order to be quote saved. You don't need to be Jewish in order to be, quote saved. You don't need to be Jewish in order to have your place on the world to come. On the contrary, when someone comes to convert to Judaism, what do we say? Eh, we don't think it's such a good idea. Why? Because you can fulfill your perfect place in the world to come as a Gentile. Why do you need to burden yourself with 613 commandments when you have seven, the seven Noachide laws.

04:50
But what does everybody want? Everybody wants a closeness with Hashem. That's the bottom line. Is that everybody's yearning, everyone's searching for that closeness to Hashem. The problem is is that in our modern day, people don't even know what they want. All they know is that they're addicted to their phones and they're addicted to their technology and they're addicted to their TikTok and Facebook and YouTube and Twitter and their games, and they're just busy being busy and not thinking about any purpose in this world.

05:30
We said you want to connect to the highest levels of God's light, god's divine light. The soul is the source of knowledge and it is pure and is refined. This is what we say all the time. God takes that lofty soul and puts it into this lowly body, he ties it into this body. It's locked in a prison. You know what that prison is? The rib cage. It's like a prison. He's stuck there. Oh, you can't get out. That's the soul. But what's God's intent? To test it here?

06:18
I'm going to give you some challenges. I'm going to give you a challenge with your livelihood. I'm going to give you a challenge with your parents. I'm going to give you a challenge with your spouse. I'm going to give you a challenge with your business partner. I'm going to give you a challenge with your neighbor. Everybody's got challenges. Only dead people have no problems. Show me a human being who's alive on this earth that has no problems. They're dead already. Dead people have no problems. Living people have challenges. If he is going to test us throughout our lifetime, are we going to go in his ways?

07:00
And because we are locked in a physical body, because that physical body is created with an animalistic form, an animalistic form, an animalistic desire. And koach banashamah hanivreis, me'alokim lachshav, achra borah, kim oreves, hi betavis aguf. So there's this perfect blend of physical and spiritual. And now that spiritual body, that spiritual force within us, can't just do things. It needs to get its body, it needs to coerce the body to do the good for it. Our entire life of childhood is asking for our own physical pleasures. That's what we ask for.

07:59
Think of a baby. Baby is the quintessential human. I mean physical human, not perfect human, physical. What does a baby do? It cries. I want to eat. I don't care that anyone's sleeping, I don't care that you're tired. I don't care that you're tired, I don't care that. It doesn't make a difference. That baby is crying. Why? Why is that baby crying? I want to eat. Now give me food. That's the real essence of how the body is as a body.

08:37
Ki mirov tavas haguf la'achilu l'shti'u li'idunei ha'olam hazeh. Because the body desires to eat and to drink and all of the pleasures of this world, because it wants from this world. That is false and this world that is vain. And I want to make a lot of money, a lot of desire. I want to live a lavish lifestyle. I want to make a lot of money, a lot of desire. I want to live a lavish lifestyle.

09:10
Ein koach ba'nishamah lach ha'shov. Achra ha'bori yisborach. Because he's so busy trying to fulfill the will and desires of the body, he doesn't get a chance to ever notice his soul. Ki hi melubesh es baguf. Because it's coated with a body, the soul is blocked by that body. It's an animalistic beastliness and deceitful vanities that blocks us from giving proper attention to our soul. And when the soul feels that there is something that it can do without the body's assistance, he says what happens. But when the garb, sorry. But when the soul senses its own good, apart from the body, it desires to seek out a reprieve from bodily tribulations, as a sick man desires to be healed, and when the soul is healed of the body's illnesses, it finds light and power within itself.

10:28
V'hanefesh yim le'o avah v'oso avah kshura. B'simcha v'oso simcha mavrachas. Me'alavavo ni'imos haguf etanugia. Olam v'oso simcha aza u'mizgaberes. Alevavo v'chol anos. Sh'ba'olam hein ka'ayin k' ומסגברת על לבובו.

10:47
וכל הנושא בעולם ההן כעין כנגד תגבור. السמכה עבס השם ישברך. Listen to this amazing sentence. The soul is then filled with love, and that love is bound up with joy which chases away from his heart bodily desires and worldly pleasures. That joy grows and overpowers his heart, and all of the pleasures of the world become worthless compared to the exuberant joy of love of Hashem.

11:18
You know my grandfather would say about his rabbi, rabbi Rucham Lovavitz, that he instilled in his students such a fear and love for God that they never enjoyed from worldly pleasures anymore. They never enjoyed. They said whoever touched the doorknob of that yeshiva never looked at the world again. The same way I heard once from the name of a student who after many years left the yeshiva and left the ways of the Torah, moved to the United States and became secularized, and someone once met him. He says you know, I learned in the mirror by Rabbi Ruchem. He says really, you learned in the mirror, like wow, that's like he says, and I'll never forgive him. He says why won't you forgive him? He says because once I saw him I could never enjoy from this world again it was so real the clarity of our mission in this world. Everything else is vain, everything else is a waste of time.

12:23
Rabbi Ruchem would say, say he once went into someone's house. He says you see that drape on the wall covering the windows. That too is taking away from your connection to Hashem. That too, why that doesn't mean that we should live. I want to just make a disclaimer here. That does not mean that we should not live a life and have pictures. I see you have beautiful pictures behind you there on the wall and you have books there behind you on the wall and you have a beautiful. This looks like a sound room over there, right? So it doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a beautiful home, but we have to be very, very careful of falling into the trap of ignoring our neshama, our soul, and connecting to Hashem.

13:10
And here he concludes. Here he says in everything that a person does, in all of his thoughts, he should think how can I assist others in attaining this elevated light of Hashem and to make a kiddush Hashem, to sanctify God's name and to be willing to give our lives for the sake of glorifying God's name in this world. My dear friends, it's an important task we have here the task of being godly every single day, living our lives eating, drinking, sleeping For what? So that I can serve Hashem.

13:55
But what do we really want to do? What we want to do is chisel away from our body's desire to just be physical and instead focus on being spiritual, connecting to God. And then what the physical things have? No, it has no taste, it has no value to us. Again, it does not mean disclaimer. Again, it does not mean that we shouldn't enjoy our food. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy our drink. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't enjoy our sleep or all of our other physical pursuits, but it means that when someone is so intense in his relation with Hashem, other pleasures fall to the side. My dear friends, hashem should bless us to be able to attain this trait of love. I look forward to continuing with day 42.