Jewish Inspiration Podcast · Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe

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

Welcome back. Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the Musser Masterclass. Tonight's class is dedicated in honor of Mi'ir HaBasahava and Shimon HaKoin Ben Rus. Anybody who's interested in dedicating a class, you're welcome to reach out to me, and I look forward to many more Torah classes to us learning together. We are now in the Treasure for Life edition of the Orcha Tzadikim, the Ways of the Righteous, in the Gate of Repentance on page
876, day number 164. HaShishi le'olam yir'e'odam atzmo ki'iluhu no telomos. These are things that awaken a person to Teshuvah. We're in the Gate of Repentance. It's important to know, like, different things to think about that can guide us and make sure we're in the right path of Teshuvah. What's the sixth we mentioned previously? Five different things that can inspire us to Teshuvah. He says if a person realizes that he's one foot in the grave,
v'lo yomar kisha azkin oshuv. You know when I'll do Teshuvah? I'll do Teshuvah not now, not today. When I get old, that's when I'll do Teshuvah. Shemu yomos kodum shiaskin. It is possible that one might die prior to getting old. Alkein bekol eis yikon likras elokav. Therefore, a person should at all times be prepared to face his Creator. Ki ein adum yodea ito. Because nobody knows his moment. Nobody knows the time where God says, I'm pulling the plug and you're out. Alkein y'orer esnaf sho lihi yostor.
Therefore, a person should always inspire himself to always be pure. L'ho shivrucha betahara. To restore his soul with purity. El ho elohim ashin sona bo. And make sure that that soul that you receive from the Almighty is ready to go back to the Almighty in its pure state. V'yichapis masa bechol rega. And a person should search his ways at all times. A person should inspect his actions. Ki ma'amar Rebbe Eliezer. As Rebbe Eliezer said shuv yamechod lefne misascha.
As the Mishnah tells us in Ethics of Our Fathers that a person should repent one day before you die. Amr lo tamidav. His student said to him, V'chi adum yodea ezi yom yomos. Does any person know what day he's going to die on? Amr lehem. He says, therefore, Bechol shekein yoshuv hayom shemo yomos l'moch. Therefore, a person should always be in a state of repentance. A person should always be in a state where his actions are reconciled
so that, heaven forbid, it shouldn't come time of death and he not be ready for it. See, he says that way a person will always be ready for death. And that will be as a result that he will always be in a state of repentance. V'yeh meskashet bechol shah ki ilu ata yovol lefne ha-melech ha-gadon. A person should always adorn himself, be dressed like a mensch. What if this is the moment you're going to meet your Creator?
L'chein yidag adom lo olam. A person should always have this in mind. Afilu kishu hu sha'anon v'shalef. Even when a person is relaxing, he's in a peaceful state, he's at the spa, he's just kicking it up a little with a beer, you know. Just relaxing, right Mark? He's just sitting at the beach side, he's sitting at the pool side, and he's just relaxed. What if today's that day that I check out? I have to take accountability for every moment.
And at every moment, a person should always be in a state of repentance. As if he is going to die now. And he should have the fear of heaven upon him. A person should always look for opportunities to do mitzvahs. Every day. Because what happens if tomorrow, see if I push off a mitzvah that I have today, to tomorrow, what's if tomorrow doesn't come? What if I don't have the opportunity and the privilege for tomorrow? So what am I going to do?
I'm going to miss out on this opportunity. It's an interesting thing our sages teach us, that just like there's a mitzvah to study Torah every single day, there's a mitzvah to do mitzvahs every day. There's a mitzvah to do acts of kindness every single day. And if a person is always in a state of doing a mitzvah, whether it be the study of Torah, doing acts of kindness, doing other mitzvahs, looking for an opportunity to do another mitzvah,
then the person is preparing himself by virtue of his desire and his actions, he's preparing himself for the ultimate day of judgment. Now you have to remember, this does not mean that a person has to live like a crazy person and always be worried, oh I'm going to die, I'm going to die today. That's not a healthy way to live. We have to remember that everything in Judaism is about balance. Everything in Judaism is about balance. If you're out of balance,
that's not what the extremism is in Judaism. You remember we spoke about that. Extremism is not Judaism. So a person has to have balance, a person has to be normal. And if a person always focuses on searching for mitzvahs, he'll hopefully never miss an opportunity to do one. As our sages have told us, anyone who performs a mitzvah close to his death, it's compared to a person who did all the mitzvahs. Imagine a person did all 612 mitzvahs and he missed one mitzvah.
And right before he died, he did that one mitzvah. That's what our sages say. It's as if now he completed it all. He's a perfect specimen. He returns to the Almighty in total perfection. And if heaven forbid, someone did a sin right before passing on to the next world. It's as if he forsaked the entire Torah and didn't fulfill any of it. A person should therefore wake up. When you wake up in the morning, jump out of bed. I just read a story yesterday.
I was in Thomas River, New Jersey. And I had a meeting there with a friend. And he said, why don't you meet me in my synagogue at 420? We're going to have mincha and ma'arif. Mincha right before sunset, ma'arif right after sunset. And it's called a buy one, get one free. All right, you come to shul, you get your mincha and your ma'arif, afternoon and evening services in one shot. But I was there a little bit early. I thought he said four o'clock.
I was there 20 minutes early, which is very rare. You know, I'm never early. Sometimes I'm on time, but I'm never early. So either way, so I'm working on it. I'm working on it. So what happened was I was there early. And I see that there's a book about the great, great sage, Rebel Yashiv. Now, you know what Rebel Yashiv did in his life? He sat and studied Torah like no one's ever seen before. I mean, he sat all day, all night.
He only slept two and a half hours a night. And you know what? The second he woke up, it was written by his grandson. His grandson would live in his house after his wife passed away, and he would be his caretaker. He said he couldn't look fast enough. The second Rebel Yashiv woke up, he said, Modani, he had already washed his hands and already sat down by the book to study the next piece of Talmud.
And not only that, is that when he was, he had a mass. I saw his library. Rows and rows and rows of bookshelves in his house. And when he would look for a book, he didn't want to waste the time that he was looking from the Talmud to the book. See, he would review the last few words that he was saying, that he was reading in the Talmud. He would review it again and again and again and again
till he got to the place that he needed to find from that book. And he would, and he would then, see, he didn't want to waste a minute. Every minute was precious. Every second was precious. He woke up, boom. He didn't have to, oh, today I'm a little tired. Today I'm a little cranky. Today I'm a little, right, Mark? There was no room for that, right? So that's a great example. L'chein yakutz ad ha-mishnaso. A person, when he wakes up, jump out of bed.
Yisor l'hachin achariso. To prepare for the afterlife. L'kashet atzmo betachshite mitzvah. To adorn himself with the beautiful mitzvahs. Not to adorn ourselves with jewelry, with bling, with clothes. To adorn oneself with mitzvahs. Li yos lefnei ho elohim b'chol rega. To always be ready to stand in front of G-d. A person should always be smiling. A person should always be happy. A person should always be confident. You're going to stand in front of G-d. I should be terrified. No.
If I invest my life in doing mitzvahs, I have nothing to fear. I'm going with confidence. Arba minei tshuva seim. So there are four types of tshuva. Tshuvas ha-ba, tshuvas ha-gadar, tshuvas ha-mishgal, and tshuvas ha-ksav. There are four types of repentance, which are called repentance of coming, repentance of offense, repentance of weighing, and repentance of scripture. We'll see what this is coming, what this is talking about. Tshuvas ha-ba, oh, ketsad. What does it mean, the repentance of coming?
If one sinned with a woman, or if he stole, or committed any other sin. Imchota b'isho, o b'gneva, o b'shem avon, b'shum avon. U ba ha-isho, o oso avon liyado. V'hoya yochol lakhto k'barishono, v'ho adayin b'chozek ta'avoso, u b'cheshek yitzro. V'gam hi, v'libo bo'er akhareo, v'hi misratses lo. V'otze rucho menatek ta'avoso, mi yiras shamayim levad, zo yitshuva shlemo. So he says, what's the type of a tshuva of opportunity? What is a tshuva of opportunity? Let's say a person sinned with stealing.
If a person sinned, God forbid, with a woman that he was not allowed to be with. Or if a person, that could be one's wife, if she's not at the proper time of the month, where they're not supposed to be together. Or if a person had any type of a desire or temptation that he fell for. So now he did that once, but now he learned better. He knows how to act better. He has that same fiery passion and he doesn't do it.
He has the same opportunity to steal and he doesn't do it. He has the woman who's desiring him and he's desiring her and he doesn't do it. The same opportunity comes again and this time he withholds and withstands the temptation. This is called tshuva shlemo. This is called pure, complete repentance. What is repentance of the fence? He says, what is the repentance of a fence? He says, not looking at the frivolity of women or young girls,
not gazing at a playful activity or at women in general or looking at their breasts. He says, even at his own wife's body when she hasn't gone to the mikvah. Okay, because at that time, they're completely, they're separated physically. Completely separated physically. So this is, we know, this brings desire to a person and this is, our sages warn us, this brings a person to do bad things and to think bad thoughts. So what does the Torah tell us? The Torah says, avoid getting into such situations.
Don't go to places where you're going to see things that are immoral. Don't, where you're going to see immodesty. Don't, don't go to a place where you're going to be tempted to look, right? So it's not a good idea for a person to go, that's why many people don't go to a beach, men particularly, don't go to a beach where there are going to be women there. Why? For what purpose? My wife is sitting right next to me. It's not better.
Okay, it's not, that's, it's not, it's not a healthy choice that one should make to go and fall into a place where they could be tempted. You're, you're just adding a challenge to your life. And this is something that a person should put a fence to protect himself from such casualty. Because of Rabbeinu Avram ben David, Zichron HaLev Racha. And Rabbeinu Avram ben David says as follows. And we see our sages were very, very pious.
And they would create barriers for themselves so that they don't fall into a trap. Every person needs to know their, their teva, their nature. And accordingly, every person needs to protect themselves based on that nature. I'll give you an example. If a person knows, this is not only about things of, of, of sexuality. It's not only this. It means if a person knows that he gets, he gets very desirous in such a thing,
it's probably not a good idea to go to a place that is created for that, right? Certain, whether it be, you know, all these places, right? Mark, you wouldn't know. You wouldn't know, right? You wouldn't know. So, so, so those places a person should avoid going to if that's going to cause a person to, to bring about temptation, right? A person has to do everything they can. But a person has to know their nature.
And if a person, by the way, if a person, my grandfather, my grandfather, this is a true story. It's an amazing story. My grandfather was a very, very righteous man. He was a big, big tzadik. And my father worked in 47th Street. One time, my father brought my grandfather to 47th Street to where he worked to show him what was the, what was the diamond in the street to see. And they walked into someone's, someone's store on 47th Street. And this store had diamonds everywhere.
I mean, you'd see piles of diamonds or what they would call parcels of diamonds. And my grandfather says to my father, he says to my father, he says, hold me back. Hold me back that I shouldn't steal this. Right? My grandfather was in his 80s. He wasn't about to steal it. I guarantee you. But what he was trying to, what he was trying to teach is how careful one needs to be. How careful a person needs to be.
You know, sometimes people don't realize the dangers that we put ourselves into. Okay? A person has to be careful. Don't put yourself into a place of challenge. Our sages teach us this. Don't put yourself into a place where you're not going to be able to overcome your temptation. I'll give you another example. So you're hungry. You know what? I have two options. I can either go to a restaurant that's not kosher, really nearby my house,
or I can travel 15 minutes to the kosher place. Right? So maybe a person could say, you know, again, the Yetzirah is going to play tricks with us. The Yetzirah could say, you know what? Just go in, smell the food of the non-kosher place, and then you'll go. At least it'll, you know, squelch your desire. You're not going to. And a person, before you know it, he's on his fifth cheeseburger. God forbid. No. Okay. Right? No. A person has to know themselves.
I'm really hungry. I'm going to fall into a temptation. Or a person has to prepare themselves in advance to not get into a situation where they're in that trap. All right? I told you this about myself. I've shared this here in this class. I've accepted myself blee-nethered with a promise to never go to, remember? To Vegas. All right? To never go to Vegas. I don't want to ever go to Vegas. Why not? Rabbi, it's a little close-minded of you.
You know, what's if you have a meeting there? What's if you have some event, someone invites you? I had someone who invited me for their bachelor party. They were going, you know, a bunch of people to Vegas. And they invited me to come. I said, I'm sorry, I don't go to Vegas. They said, why not? I said, because any place that calls themselves Sin City, I want nothing to do with. I want nothing to do. Whether sins do happen or don't happen, I don't know.
I've never been there. I don't know. But you know what? It's not a risk I'm willing to take. It's not a risk I'm willing to take. I'm willing to, you have an event here. I have a party here in Houston. Maybe I'll participate if it's appropriate. If it's not appropriate, I won't go. I don't want to be in a place of temptation. And what the author here is teaching us is the importance of not allowing ourselves to fall into a trap. Okay?
So that concludes day number 164.

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