Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

00:00 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Welcome back everybody. We are in the ways of the righteous Orchos Tzaddikim page 301, day number 50. Ha'gozal ani ki ilu notil nishmaso. The Talmud says that one who steals from the poor is as if he takes their soul. V'afilum gozal mimeno davar mu'at k'gon pruta. Even if he stole one penny from them, he is warranting a penalty of death, and this is cruelty. We were talking yesterday. We talked about this form of cruelty. We continue here.

00:41
Someone who puts out a false claim about his friend If it's a true claim, it's called lashon hara. If it's a false claim, it's motzi shemra slander, or in English, they have. What is it called? It's not called defamation. Ubezeh gorem lo tzarubusha. And from this defamation he causes him pain, suffering, shame. And one who puts out a bad name and does this derogatory defaming about a family, there is no atonement. Forever you destroy a family's reputation. You say that you know, whatever it is. For example, if someone was to claim that someone who comes from a kohanic family, from the priestly family, that they're not priests, they're not authentic priests, they're not from the lineage of the levites, that's a tremendous derogatory statement. And to them and you see, if someone said that to me that wouldn't be a problem. I'm a yisrael, but if someone said that to a coin, who believes that he's a coin? And now you put all of their lineage in question. There's no curing for, there's no atonement for that. Lo siya lo kenosha.

02:09
The verse says do not act with him as a creditor. This is in Shmos, shlo yitzda erhalove. The lender should not afflict the borrower and he should not pass before the borrower. V'loyavar ha'malveh lefanov. Yodea she'en lo malifra. He should not pass before the borrower knowing that he has nothing to pay him with, for by that he causes him suffering. Ki hu matzik lo bozeh, you're causing him pain. So it's a very important thing.

02:48
The Torah says that you cannot bother someone who borrowed money from you if you know that they don't have money to pay you back. So someone borrows money from you, they borrow $100. And you say, okay, when are you going to pay it back? They say at the end of the month. Okay, comes the end of the month. They don't come, they don't call, they don't ask. But you find out that they're having some severe, severe challenges financially and they definitely don't have food to put on their table. They don't have money to pay back your $100. But what's going to be with my loan. So you have two ways you can approach this. Number one follow the Torah. The Torah says if you know that they cannot pay you back, you cannot ask, so you don't ask. But if someone goes and asks now, you're causing them pain, extra grief, extra pain. And that's something we have to be very, very careful of because, as we mentioned yesterday, there is a verse in the Torah that says lo sonu ishes ha-misechu you shall not cause pain to your fellow Jew. That in itself is a sin. So you ask, rightfully what's with my $100? How am I going to get paid back? Hashem pays back. Hashem will take care of it. Don't worry, you'll get your money back.

04:09
I will tell you my own personal story about this. My wife had a business that we started with some little bit of savings that we had. We started a little business. She was selling paper goods and that little paper goods store sold a lot of inventory and my wife put all that money back in the business and the inventory went from a few thousand dollars to many tens of thousands of dollars and it really grew very, very exponentially and my wife was very proud of it. But my wife was mothering children and that took a toll. A lot of paper goods weighs a lot of pounds and, as you we'd get, these trucks and pallets would be coming. It'd be a lot of schlepping and I'll do most of the schlepping, but still she'd do considerably uh, considerable schlepping either way. You know, putting boxes here, putting them up on the shelves and down here and putting everything on display, etc. Etc. She loved what she was doing. She never pulled out a penny and we had some debt that we wanted to pay up. So we sold the business and everyone told me make sure that you have a contract and it's a legal document, et cetera, et cetera. And so we did. We hired a lawyer. The lawyer drafted a document, a sale document, and it was executed legally with certain timelines of when the payments are going to come through. Comes the first timeline and no payment. Comes the second timeline no payment. Comes the third timeline no payment.

05:39
I meet the guy and I'm like is everything okay? And I learned what the Torah says. The Torah says you cannot bother someone. This person got very, very agitated and irritated. Sadly, I caused them pain from this. Now, what do you mean? It's a lot of money. I need that money. I got to pay up debts and I told my wife. I said we have two ways we can deal with this. We can sue him, take him to court and get nothing and just waste a lot of money. Or we can say that everything is in the hands of Hashem and if Hashem decides that we should get that money, we'll get that money. If Hashem decides that we shall not get that money, then we won't get that money and we won't get the money anyway. Okay, so a few days later my wife decided right away. She says you know what I prefer being in the hands of Hashem than being in the hands of the court and trying to fight.

06:31
It turns out this person ended up leaving town. Their house was foreclosed on. I mean, they were in a lot of issues in their life to begin with and we decided we're going to put our faith in Hashem. A few days later I get a phone call and it's a friend of mine who I trust it's a very successful business. He says listen, I need to open up an office in Texas. I don't have a residence in Texas, you do, and if you put it on the perfectly legal business, if you put the business on your name and you just deal with the bank account, the mail that comes, I'm running the business, guy's taking care of everything. I will give you 10% of the business earnings and I did the math later on that the amount of money that came in from that business was exactly to the penny how much the business was sold for. That we did not get paid for. And as soon as we got to that amount he called and said okay, we've already set up our office now in Texas and you know we appreciate your help till now. But now, you know we've already set up our office now in Texas and we appreciate your help till now, but now we're going to run the business on our own and thank you so much. And I was like Hashem is so incredible, so incredible that every single penny that would have come in through that sale including the taxes, by the way, is what came in from the other, a different source.

08:10
Hashem has his messengers. So we think sometimes like, oh, it's my dollar, hashem has the dollars and Hashem is the one who distributes them, takes them from one, gives them to the other. We think that we're going to control the justice in this world. That's not the case. Okay, we are warned to not have this trait of cruelty and to remove it from our soul, like the verse that we studied yesterday that we should not pain the widow or the orphan. You shall not cause pain to your fellow. You shall fear Hashem, your God.

08:56
Also, to return the poor man's security. One must also return the poor man's security, as it is written. If you take a poor man's garment as security, you take it as a mashkon, as a collateral for a loan. Return it to him before the sun goes down. You take his pillow. Give it back to him so he can go to sleep at night with a pillow. He gives you a blanket as collateral for his loan. Got to give it back to him so that he can go to sleep at night. He gives you his bicycle as collateral. You got to give it back to him Sunday afternoon so he can ride his bike with his kids. Just because he gave you collateral does not mean it does not mean that he's a prisoner. This is what Torah tells us in Mishpatim, just after receiving the Torah.

09:46
Command of the Torah is that when someone gives you collateral for a loan and now they need that collateral back for their regular life pillow, blanket anything, his car. He wants his car back so he can drive to work. Okay, so he comes, picks it up from your driveway, takes it to work, comes back, gives back the car to you, okay, okay, picks it up from your driveway, takes it to work, comes back, gives back the car to you, okay, v'nemar v'hoya ki yitz'ak ilayi v'shamati ki chanun ani. The verse states and it will be. If he cries out to me, I will hear him, for I am merciful. Hashem is merciful. V'nemar v'ger, lo sonne lo silchot senu, and you shall not afflict or oppress a convert. This is very, very important.

10:29
Converts don't have family. Converts don't have a support group. Converts don't have a team of people that they can rely on because they're alone. They left their family to convert to Judaism. They're alone and therefore the Torah gives an extra warning Be careful, don't make a convert feel bad, don't make them feel lonely, don't make them feel like they're not loved. And we know that you have to remove all cruelty, even from an animal, because the righteous as King Solomon says, the righteous man knows the needs of his animal. You have to be careful that you feed it on time and that it doesn't get hungry or thirsty, and it shouldn't work too hard.

11:23
And I saw this in real life. I remember when I was a shepherd for a few days in the northern Galilee with a friend of mine. We went to his uncle's house. His uncle was a shepherd and we asked. We said we want to be shepherds though 16 years old. It was a great experience. I wanted to be like Moses, like Abraham, shepherding their flock. So we went out there.

11:47
But I remember the first time when the, when the shepherd came back with his flock so he needed all of their troughs troughs is that what it's called? Trough to be filled with all of their, their, their food and all of the drink. And it's, it's israel, it's hot, it it's humid, it's you know. And the animals came back and you can hear all of the sheep. They're, they're meh right, they're all, they're all thirsty, they're parched, they've been out in the field grazing for hours and hours and they come back.

12:22
The son who welcomed us into the house was supposed to fill up the troughs but he didn't. He forgot to because we distracted him. And when the father came back with his animals, he was crying at the pain that his animals were experiencing. He was so upset at his son. How can you let my animals cry like this? You feel the pain. A tzaddik feels the pain of his animals. It's a sensitivity that the Torah teaches us not to be cruel. So it's an animal, big deal. No, no, no, no, you don't be cruel to an animal. V'chein k'siv. And so it says ki tir e chamor, son'acho ro ve'etz'tachas ma'asov, v'chodal to me'azov lo, your enemy. You see his animal under the burden of its load, it collapsed. The donkey collapsed.

13:20
Torah says don't turn a blind eye to your enemy's animal. Go help him. Go help him. Why? Because it's not only your enemy's animal, it's Hashem's creation and therefore we have a lesson in mercy. Yeah, you know it's your enemy. Okay, get over it. Hashem's creation is in pain. You go help them out.

13:45
Our sages in the Talmud tell us that the your enemy. Okay, get over it. Hashem's creation is in pain. You go help them out. The Amor, abus, seinu Tzar, b'ali, chaim Deoraisa.

13:50
Our sages in the Talmud tell us that causing pain and affliction to animals is a biblical prohibition. Ve'im ato ish yaruy, ve'eimoscha mutalas alabrios. And if you're feared by people and they're in awe of you, sh'titzave aleim yireim. And they would be afraid to not fulfill your command Be very careful not to overburden them, even to have them warm up a jug of water or to send them to the marketplace to buy only a loaf of bread.

14:34
Don't overwork your employees. Yeah, he's your employee. You don't need to overwork. He's not your slave. Yeah, he's your employee. You don't need to overwork. He's not your slave. Even if he is your slave, don't humiliate him. As the first states he's my employee. Let him get me my cup of coffee. No, no, you don't make him schlep your stuff for you. Empty out the luggage from the car, you don't.

15:20
There's things that you why? Because we don't humiliate people. We have been warned not to impose strenuous work, strenuous labor, upon others and not to order them to do anything against their will or consent. You know, force people to do things, and although it is permitted to do so with the Canaanite servant, still it is the way of saintliness to be merciful to him, not to overwork him and not to shame him either physically or verbally. The Torah has designated him for work and not for shame. You can work, but you don't shame him.

16:19
And if you have a laborer, a worker, speak with them pleasantly, with a pleasant voice, and don't argue with them. If they have a complaint, listen to them. Did I despise the judgment of my servant or handmaid when they quarreled with me? What would I do if Hashem rose against me and if he took me to task? What would I answer him? Did not he make me in the stomach like he made him, and did he not fashion me in a womb? So we see, just like the other individual and this is from Job Right we're all the same. At the end of the day, we're all flesh and blood. It's a creation of man. There's a dignity.

17:21
I'll share with you something very, very incredible. You know that if someone warranted a death penalty in Judaism, in Jewish court, so there was a process where he'd be, how he'd be put to death, but the last part of that process he'd be hung and he'd be put to death, but the last part of that process, he'd be hung, and he'd be hung till nightfall. Why? Because he's still a human being and there still has to be a human dignity that we're sensitive to. Why do we hang him to begin with? Because people need to know that there's repercussions for your actions. So people need to learn. L'man Yishmu V'Yerol. But that doesn't mean that he stays there for three weeks. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have a dignity Until nightfall, and then he's buried with dignity. And this is something which is very, very important for us to always remember. You know, he's guilty and he's a thief and he's a this. He still has a dignity.

18:15
Just because people make mistakes and people do awful things, people do terrible things, they're still human beings. Our sages would give their servants to eat before they did. They'd give their servants to eat before they did, they'd give their animals to eat before they did. Shaarei Hu Omer, because the verse states the beautiful verse in Psalms, as the eyes of servants to their masters, as the eyes of the maidservant to her mistress, so our eyes look to Hashem, our God. And the righteous, pious person gives to his servant to eat before he eats. And because he did so, elijah the prophet spoke with him beforehand.

19:29
The Torah tells us in Leviticus you should love your fellow as yourself. Anybody who has the trait of cruelty is very, very distant from this commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself, loving your fellow as yourself. Someone who is cruel, people don a grace, a kindness, people don't find favor of him. And even when you're obligated to give reprimand and criticism to your fellow. Even then it says to do it only in the nicest way, not in a cruel way. The verse states you shall surely reprove your friend, but do not bear sin because of him. You're going to start yelling and screaming. They're not going to accept it. Then it's going to be sin. This means do not rebuke him with vehemence and cruelty so as to shame him and thereby sin. So this concludes day number 50. My dear friends, we're going to continue now with day number 51.