Way 23: The Engine of All Virtues – Cultivating a Good Heart
Welcome back everybody to way number 23. Way number 23 is the Tov Lev with a good heart. So we know in the Shema that we recite thrice daily. We say, V'ahavta et ha'shem elokecha b'chol levavacha, u'v'chol nav'shacha u'v'chol ma'odecha. We say you should love God with all of your hearts. What is all of your hearts? Our sages tell us this refers to the two temptations we have inside us. The temptation to do good, the yetzer tov, the desire to do good, and the yetzer hara, the desire
pushing us to do bad. So we know that we have these two forces, these two hearts that are battling it out constantly for our time, for our attention, for our action, and we need to choose the good heart. You want to use your time effectively, but you feel like procrastinating. You want to eat healthy versus you feel like eating chocolate cake. You want wisdom, but you feel like watching TV. You know the famous verse in Deuteronomy, V'yadatah ha'yom v'hashivot alevavecha, and you shall know, have knowledge, and
that should return your heart. It should bring your heart back. Meaning we need to use that knowledge, the solid understanding of what's right and what's wrong, prioritizing. We need to remind ourselves daily about how we want to be good. Don't get caught up with life. Career is great, but career should not take us off our goal and our mission of the things we need to accomplish. We need to be conscious of our battle between our wants, our desires, and our temptations.
As soon as we have clear of what is our wants, our desires, and temptations, then we can have a very clear battle plan of how we overcome them, but we have to at least identify things. The world we're living in has a facade. You ever see a beautiful BMW? You know what that BMW is made of? It's made of some piece of scrap metal that they soldered together, and then after they did all of that, and there's wires going everywhere, after they did all of that,
they put a nice sheet of metal with many different contours and a nice design, and then they painted it beautifully and gave it a little glaze covering on top, and now it looks so beautiful. But the truth is, what is it? It's a bunch of twisted metal inside. You look at a wall like, wow, this is a beautiful wall. But the truth is, you have wires in that wall, you have a sheet rock, but it's just painted over so beautifully, so you don't even notice it.
What's really going on behind? It's very easy to get caught up with confusion, because things look, and they appear to the eyes of the undiscerned as being something which is possibly beautiful, something which is possibly virtuous, and sadly, many times it isn't. So we have to be careful of the matrix in our lives, the things which are not real, but present themselves as if they are. There's a lot of fake going on around us, and don't get caught up in that, is the warning of our Mishnah.
This Mishnah is warning us not to get caught up in that. We need to do what's right regardless of social pressures. One who truly desires to be good should be learned, this will help you discern between good and not good. Before every decision conclude, what does my soul want, and what does my body want? Two different things. Your body might want to have that other drink, but your soul doesn't. Your soul is saying, bring me back to another torch class, bring me back to another learning opportunity.
Before every decision conclude, what does my body want, what does my soul want? In Ethics of our Fathers, Chapter 2, Mishnah 9, it says, What is the just way for a man to conduct his life? The Mishnah concludes, and all the students went to go figure out what's the best way to conduct your life. Rav Eleazar ben Arach gave the correct answer, and that was, the lave tov, with a good heart. Because if you have a good heart, if your heart is in the right place,
everything else will be virtuous, everything else will be good. The heart is the engine of all of our other strengths, and the source of all actions. The body does the actions, but the heart inspires it. The commentaries, the Tosfat Yontif on that Mishnah says, good to have one perfect trait, which will energize all of the other traits. We all have one trait in which we're dominating in. We need to take that dominating trait, and have it influence all of our other negative traits.
It's a good thing for us to sometimes let our children fail. Many times, many times, parents protect their children, they're helicopter parents, and they don't let their child fail. And the result of that is that the child never feels like he has to push himself further, push himself to excel, because he'll get the trophy anyway. I remember my son once went to a soccer league,
and once they were done the season, it was the last game of the season, it was like the World Series sort of of the soccer, World Cup, and my son's team sadly lost. Okay, get in the car. I'm so sorry, you guys did a great job, great season. Okay, let's go in the car, we're gonna go home. And the coach says, no, no, no, no, we're giving out trophies. I'm like, giving out trophies? They lost.
He said, yeah, but we don't want them to feel bad. I'm like, that's it. No more going to this league ever again, because I want my child to experience what it means to lose, for it to hurt, so that in the future, he'll fight harder, so that he not feel that pain again. But if I cover it up, and he's never going to feel that pain, he'll never fight, push himself forward, and to propel himself to victory in the future. We are our actions.
Look at the actions that someone does, and you'll see who they are. One of the prayers that we recite from King David every Shabbos, multiple times, we're asking God, you're going to keep us busy, right? Keep us busy with good things. God forbid, it shouldn't be with illness. God forbid, it shouldn't be with tragedy. It should only be, it should be good and kindness, and we should fill our lives constantly with good deeds. There's a mitzvah to emulate God.
This is our true innermost desire. We all want to be godly. So let's do that. We need to ask ourselves, which is more important, money or happiness? What's more important? And every person needs to ask that question. If money is more happy, you've got big problems. Big problems. If happiness is, you've also got problems. Because you have to now pursue the happiness. We see people all the time pursuing money as if it's the most important thing in life.
And then they have the money, and then what? And then they're not happy. Happiness is what people are always looking for. Happiness is the most desired pleasure on earth. Everyone is searching for happiness. The only way to attain true happiness is when our heart is in the right place. Get in touch with the conflict by asking two simple questions. What do I want to do versus what do I feel like doing? What you want to do is usually the right thing.
Whereas what you feel like doing is usually the easy way out or the more comfortable choice. The alarm clock goes off in the morning. You want to get out of bed and start your day. But you feel like hitting the snooze button and sleeping late. It's a tug of war. Getting out of bed becomes a real moral dilemma. What do you want out of life? Having our heart in the right place. Having a lave toe is the key. Key number 23 to maximizing life.
Thank you so much.
