Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

And now, my dear friends, we continue day number 151 on page 827, in the middle of the Gates of Repentance in the Treasure for Life edition of the Ways of the Righteous. HaChamishi, what is the fifth step in repentance? Hada'aga. Now, again, we summarize these in our Sunday class, there are three, it's a three-step process of repentance. Very easy. The past, the future, and the present. The past, regret.
Future, stop with the sin, accept for the future, and make change. Okay? So you have to confess, confess your sins, own up to it, and accept for the future. So these are three very, very important parts, the three important. Now, if you break down each one, you can have 20 different steps in each one. And that's what the author here is doing. So the fifth step, Hada'aga, the worry. He says, one should worry over the punishment for his sins. Now, does anybody want to suffer?
Nobody, we don't want to suffer, we don't want to have pain. What is the difference between sorrow and worry? He says, sorrow is about what happened in the past, worry is about what's going to be in the future. Maybe a person has to be worried lest he fall short in repentance and not fulfill all of its requirements. Maybe his evil inclination will overcome him. As our sages said, in Ethics of Our Fathers, do not believe in yourself until your day of death.
Why does the Mishnah say that? A person can be very confident, and a person, oh, I'm going to this, I'm going to that, and suddenly we realize how we're so delicate and fragile, and we're not going to live forever. See, he says, don't rely on yourself, don't think you've got this covered until the day of your death, which, what does that mean? The Mishnah also says that consider every day your final day. It says a person should always repent one day before he dies. When is that?
Well, I don't know, maybe it's today, maybe it's tomorrow, I have no idea. So always be in a state of repentance. What's the sixth step? Habusha, embarrassment, shame. A person has to be ashamed and humiliated because I bore the shame of my youth. We all know that most people don't sin in front of others. We don't want to sin in front, we hide in our sin. Oh, do it privately, I don't want to, in public, which, sadly, our generation, it's become a devastating thing to see.
Like, someone's committing murder and they're live streaming it. What's wrong with people? What's wrong with people? There's what happened to a person having a little bit of a moral compass, something to just like, don't you have some values that people do a, they break into a jewelry store and they videotape it. What's going on? There's no shame, that's the problem, there's no shame. There's no shame and it's a travesty. We know that most people naturally feel a little bit ashamed, we feel a little
shame, so we try, oh, we'll do it without anybody looking. Okay, fine. It's like, you know, it's like that's the attitude that most, so we should realize the eich lo yeh vosh lefna kodesh pochum, but is there anything that God doesn't see? We're like worried about what people are going to say. We're worried about what people are going to think, but are we not worried about what God sees and He sees everything. So a little bit of shame will take us a long, a long way.
The eich lo yeh vosh lefna kodesh pochum, v'kvar b'yarnu in yon habusha b'shar abusha, and we already spoke about the gate of shame in the chapter previously. The seventh, the seventh part of repentance, ha'achno b'chol lev ha'shiflos, humbling oneself with all of his heart and lowering oneself, being a little bit humble, ki ha'mak yirezboru yeda kama ha'over al divorov shach v'shofel v'nigra me'erko, when someone realizes and recognizes that his creator knows how humble and lowly and defective is the transgressor of his words, right?
We know, we know we're limited. We don't like to show it to other people. Nobody, you know, it's like one of the things that they say about parenting. A child calls their parent when they're 10 years old, 11 years old, 12 years old, maybe even 13, 14, they call, they're asking, my father's the greatest thing in the world, and then when they get to like mid-teens, 17, 18, my parents don't know anything, my parents don't, they don't get it, they're not as smart
as I am, and then when they get to 30 and suddenly they have their own children, they call back their parents and they say, oh, I need some advice about this and I need some advice about that. Suddenly they start realizing, and that's the way it is, you know, every generation has that where, you know, at some point the child, but what happens? It's a common thing that boys have very, very boring conversations with their mothers. Very, very small talk. How's everything? Great. That's it.
Conversation's over. How's it going in school? Great. Right. You ask your daughter that question, be ready. Okay. You need an hour to hear about all the friend drama. You have to hear about all the school drama. They like the teacher, don't like the teacher. Teacher was in a good mood today. Teacher was not in a good mood. Boys, you ask them, how was school today? Great. Can I go play now? Right? It's like, why? Why?
So there's something that we have to understand in the nature of how, um, a child, who knows the greatest potential of the child? The parents, the parents know the great potential of the child. When a child isn't living up to their ability, they don't really want to talk about it. Because every time they look at their mother, their mother is reminding them, I know how great you can be. I know what you can accomplish. You can fool the entire world, but you can't fool me.
He does not like having that conversation. Does not. How are things going? Great. Now leave me alone. Okay. That's like, let me go do something else. Uh, because at the end of the day, it's the mother, the father who are able to know, nah, I don't know. No, you're not doing as well as you should be doing. And not all people want to have that conversation. Now between us and the almighty, is it not even more so? Is it not even more so?
That, you know, for me personally, I think that, uh, children, at least till at the end, till the end of high school should be home. They shouldn't be away in boarding school out of town or something like that. They shouldn't, they should be home. Why? Because it's a very, it's a very important age where parents need to monitor their environment, their friends. That doesn't mean that you become a Gestapo police. It doesn't mean that you become, you know, a dictatorship and a communist
like regime inside your home, God forbid should always be pleasantness. But if my child comes home, I can smell in a second if something wasn't going well that day. And it's important to be able to have that conversation, to be there, to guide your child. If they're not home and they're living 2000 miles away out in New York or California, wherever it is in some yeshiva or school, you have no idea. You go, Hey, how's it going? Okay, great. Lunch was not good today.
I'm so sorry. Like you don't, you can't feel out exactly what's going on. I'm a big, big encourager for parents to keep their children home till they're about 18 years old. They can, they can get out then. But either way, in our relationship with Hashem, Hashem knows what we're capable of, and sometimes it's a little bit embarrassing when we fall that much short of our potential. So it requires us to humble ourselves. Look, I, I, I've fallen so much short of my expectations.
Alkein yikonav yeshav obeinav. Therefore, a person should always be humble himself and be lowly in his eyes. V'david alo ha'shalom, behizfadoso al-kheto, bevo eilav nasan anavi. And David, may peace be upon him, in confessing his sin, when Nathan, the prophet, came to him, he said, the sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. You want to know a broken spirit? Someone, someone once said to the holy Rebbe, the Baal Shem Tov, he says, I don't know what to come to God with.
I'm just like, I'm just a broken person. I don't, I don't have what to offer. I like, I have nothing to bring to God to tell him. He says, there's nothing more whole than a broken heart. And a broken heart, a crushed heart is the greatest sacrifice, says King David. Ruach nishbora hu ruach namucha. A broken spirit is a humbled spirit. And that's a great place for a person to be where they realize, you know something?
You know, it's nice to feel good in front of our friends, our neighbors, or maybe even our spouse and our children, showing how accomplished we are and how great we are and how this and how that, but deep within ourselves, we know that we may have fallen short or we may better be better than everybody else in the world, but still living short of our own expectations for ourself. So I guarantee you that, you know, one of the most accomplished public
accomplished people in today's culture is a man named Elon Musk. And Elon is a, is a, is a, a freaky genius. Okay. Because he has, you know, six or eight companies that each are fortune 500 companies that are doing the best in their industry. You talk about space X and, and, uh, Tesla and boring company. You, I mean, the, all of his AI X AI, I mean, it's unbelievable. Twitter, the, the, it's really phenomenal. It's unbelievable that he can run so many companies so well.
So, so incredibly well, but I guarantee you that if someone spoke to him privately, he'll say, yeah, I didn't accomplish everything I need to accomplish yet. I still have a lot. God has given me so much ability. Now imagine how many more people like him. Or maybe can, it could have accomplished much more than him. And they haven't even scratched the surface of their potential. That is every single person needs to look at themselves and see, maybe I could have
been much greater than I led myself on to be. This Psalm, Psalm number 51 is very, very classic in the realm of, of repentance. When a person has humility, then they're accepted by Hashem. They're loved by Hashem. And I will look upon this one, upon the one who was poor and of a crushed spirit. Well, this is the highest level. When, when the highest level of humility, which is required by the process of repentance is magnifying and glorifying the service of Hashem without taking
credit to oneself, a person should always be humble. Even if they accomplished great things should always feel like I'm inadequate because I haven't even accomplished half of what God wanted me to accomplish. The only testimony that I have of such a thing is my grandfather, where my grandfather of blessed memory, who was by all accounts, a great Torah master, a great leader of the Jewish people and one of the leading rabbis in Israel. And he was very harsh with himself privately.
He was very harsh with himself that he did not, we asked him, how did you become so great? He says, I didn't. I wish I did. I'm a nothing. He wasn't saying it to be humble. Excuse me. He was saying it because he really felt that. He really felt that he could have been so much greater and that he didn't maximize his potential. And that's, that's something that is really something we should all try to
imagine if I made that decision, if I had more willpower, if I had more spirituality in my life, if I learned more, if I acted in a better way, could I maybe have been able to save that relationship, would I be able to maybe have excelled in my business, done better with, with, with others? These are questions that a person should always ask and maybe be a little humble and say, I could have done a lot better. Hashemini, what is the eighth piece of Teshuvah?
Ha'achno b'masa, humility in deed, in action. She yisnaik b'ma nerach, one must accustom herself to respond with soft words. Im herif oso adom almaso almaso v'rishonim yishtok, if someone shames him about his early deeds in his early days, oh, you remember when you did that? You remember when you did this? You remember, you know, just reply with softness, keep your mouth closed. Don't, don't say anything. O yomer yadati kechotasur, I know I've sinned. I made grave errors.
V'lo yasam arbushim noim v'tachshitim, one shouldn't fashion beautiful garments and ornaments exceedingly. Kemo shenemar ve'ata horeid ed yecha me'alecha, and now remove your ornaments from you, v'yiyu tamid einav sheikhos, a person should always be with their eyes lowered in a humble way. Kemo shenemar ve'shach einayim yoshia, ve'simone achno ma nerach ve'kol namuch ve'sachos ho'ayin ve'elu ho'inyonim achninas aleif, he says a person needs to be humble. How does a person act humbly? They talk with a soft tone.
They don't answer with a loud tone, with a, with a, in a brash way. They respond pleasantly and their eyes are humbled. Their eyes are lowered. They're not looking up. They're not like, oh, so arrogant, just like, um, um, um, you know, and that's the important way for a person in action to be humble, not from other people to make believe so that people will think, oh, he's so humble, but rather to realize that there's a big spotlight on us from heaven, and that big
spotlight from heaven is Hashem recognizing as clear as day on loud speakers, you could do better. You could do better. You are better. And you're selling yourself short. It was very humbling. It's like, yeah, I should be much better. Like I'm walking around. Like I own the place. I really don't. It's all a gift from Hashem and I'm not even touching 1% of my ability. So that my dear friends concludes day number 151.
We're going to now quickly do day number 152 because it's right before Yom Kippur. The more we can talk about Teshuvah, the better off we are. So that concludes day number 151.

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