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 my dear friends to day number 155. We're on page 842 in the middle in the Treasure for Life edition of the Orcha Tzaddik and Ways of the Righteous. Arbo ve'esrim devoreh me'akvimeh seshuvah. Now there's 40, there's 24 things that push away the Teshuvah. We talked about 20 aspects of Teshuvah, 20 dimensions of Teshuvah. Now we're going to talk about 24 things that do not allow Teshuvah to reach a person.
Or do not allow a person to get to the state of Teshuvah that they want to. Arba me'hem avon godron. Four of them are very big sins. Ve'ha'ose echad me'hem ena kodesh boruchum masbik b'yodo l'asos teshuvah lefi godo chato. And some of these are such big sins that it's not so simple for God to give the person the opportunity to repent from these sins. Ve'elohem. What are they? Ha'machti sarabim. Someone who causes other people to sin.
If someone causes other people to sin, it's not enough because, you know, misery loves comfort, right? And sins love comfort. If I know I'm doing something wrong, well if I do it myself, it's lonely. But if everybody does it, so you see, it's okay, it's fine, it's not such a big deal. U'b'chal avon zeh me'akev esarabim l'asos mitzvah. And additionally, part of this is if someone stops others from doing a mitzvah, that's a terrible thing. Number two.
Ve'hamatez chaveru mi derach tovah lederach roh ke'gon me'sisu midiyach. Causing another person to deviate from the path of goodness. Someone's on the path and we pull them away. This is a very, very wicked thing. Someone who, A, causes others to sin, and someone who pulls someone away from their good deeds. Ve'haror ez b'no, number three, yo tzil etar b'sro ve'eino moche b'yoder. Someone who sees his son corrupting his ways and he doesn't protest it. Ki hoyol u'b'no b'rushu so lu hoye moche b'yoder hoye poresh.
If he would just say a word, he would have changed his course. It's as if because the father did not correct the son, it's as if his sin is upon him. If you're able to talk to other people, and sometimes with a simple word, you could change their trajectory. You can change their way. Some people just don't know. They don't know. If you can teach them, that's part of your responsibility. Number four, ve'omer echte ve'oshu, if someone, God forbid, says, I'm going to sin, but I'm
going to repent, it's fine. It's not a big deal. I'll sin, I'll enjoy, eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow I'll repent. That's not the way the song goes, I know. But that's not a good thing for a person to say, I'm going to sin now because I'll repent. It's fine. It's okay. That's a terrible thing. He says, or someone who says, it's okay, it's okay if I sin, it's soon Yom Kippur, that'll cover me.
Someone who does a sin on the account of soon I'll do repent, I'll repent for it, is a very terrible thing. Because what do you think the Yetzer Hara is going to tell you? Say, you know what, why stop this Yom Kippur? You got next Yom Kippur, so continue sinning. It's not a big deal, you have next Yom Kippur. No, that's a very, very grave and terrible thing. Of those 24 things that we mentioned, so we already mentioned four of them,
These five that we're going to mention, lock the door for tshuva and a person can't do tshuva. Locks the door. They close the path of repentance of those who are guilty of them. What are they? When everybody is doing tshuva, the whole community is repenting, this guy says, it's okay, I don't need to be included in that. They're repenting, the whole community is repenting, you're standing out and not including yourself in that? You're not included and the repentance of the community does not count you in.
Someone argues with the sages, someone argues, disputes with the words of the sages. He says why? It's because someone is disputing the words of the sages. It's caused, it causes a person to disassociate himself from them and as a consequence, the person won't know the proper way for tshuva. So he distances himself. I have found, very sadly, I know people who now tell me that they remember their zaydi, their grandfather used to go to shul.
They remember their grandfather, you know, whether it be back in Brooklyn or in Williamsburg or in the Bronx, I remember my grandfather used to go, my grandmother used to have a kosher kitchen, my grandmother, right? What happened is that, what happens is that perhaps there was a time where someone in that family, again, this is perhaps, I don't know and I'm not here to judge anyone, it's not, I believe the Amech Kulam Tzadikim, our entire nation are holy, righteous people. They're all holy, righteous people.
But sadly, there are many people and I've had people here sitting in this room crying to me saying, I can't believe how far I've come from where my grandparents were. My grandparents were committed, dedicated Jews. But then you had suburban Jewry and Jews lived out in the middle of the wilderness and you know, what are you going to have of Judaism in Kentucky? You know, you went for your job, you went to the military and then you lived in Montana. What are you going to have there, right?
Today you'll have a Jewish community here and there, you'll have a, you know, a synagogue that the, but you know, 50, 60 years ago, you didn't have that. So what was going to happen with your Yiddishkeit, it was just a matter of time till the Judaism was no longer. And this is a tragic thing because then those people don't even know what truva is. They don't even know that there is such a concept and that's what he's referring to.
Someone who mocks, who scoffs at the mitzvahs, he says, someone who mocks the mitzvahs, you mock the commandments of the Torah, then you'll never pursue them because they're a mockery in your eyes. If they're a mockery in your eyes, they're not going to be important to you. They're not important to you. You're not going to fulfill them. You're not going to fulfill them. What's going to be your merit for teshuva? Number four, of someone who embarrasses or shames his teachers, such a thing causes him
to be driven out of this world, as was in the case of, in the case of that man. Who's that man? This is brought down here, that man. That man is seemingly referring to Hesus, whose name has the numeric value of the word that man. According to some opinions, citing the Meiri, he was a student of Reb Yishua ben Prachah. The Gemara relates that Reb Yishua ben Prachah and his students were once lodged at a certain inn, and Reb Yishua commented how pleasant the hostess was.
He was speaking about her good deeds, however, thinking that Reb Yishua was talking about her physical appearance, this individual said, but her eyes are not pleasant. Reb Yishua then referred to him as an evil person for gazing at a married woman in her eyes and consequently excommunicated his student, after which he worshipped an idol and caused others to do so as well, which Reb Yishua requested. When Reb Yishua requested that he repent, the student replied that he had received the
tradition from Reb Yishua that whoever sins and causes others to sin is not given the opportunity to repent. And the Gemara then explains how he caused others to sin. So this is an interesting side note here, but this is brought down here, it's a Talmud in Tractate Sotah 47a, okay. ובזמן שנטרד לא ימצא מלמד שמורה לא דרך אמס, and when a person is driven out of this world, he's not going to be able to find someone who's going to teach him the proper way of Teshuvah.
And the fifth and final for tonight, someone who hates rebuke, someone who hates rebuke or reproof. So if he doesn't like reproof, then what's going to guide him onto the right path? What happens when a person hears rebuke, that's what leads a person to do Teshuvah, if it's done obviously in the right way. When someone comes to a person's attention, what he did wrong, then he can do Teshuvah, he doesn't know about it otherwise.
It says in Deuteronomy about the Jewish people, remember, do not forget how you angered Hashem, you rebelled against Hashem. And then what did the Jewish people do? They cried and they repented, right? So you have to be willing to hear, Hashem has not given you a heart to know, a foolish, a people that is foolish and not wise. We see that Isaiah rebuked the Jewish people, and all of the prophets at some point or other rebuked the Jewish people until they repented.
Therefore every community and every congregation, they have to find someone who is wise, who is elderly, who is God-fearing, God-fearing from his childhood, and who is beloved, who can bring it to people's attention when they go off the path, to bring them back in Teshuvah. And someone who hates, reprimand, will never go to such a person, and therefore he'll stay in his sinful ways, which in his eyes are good, but that is a huge mistake.
My dear friends, we conclude day number 155, and my dear friends, thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you so much for learning together with me, and I look forward to learning together more and more and more. Have a terrific evening, thank you so much. Any questions? No, God forbid, we don't walk around sorry for existing all the time, no, not at all. A person should remember, I made a mistake, you know, I'll give you an example.
I have a friend of mine who has a terrible gambling problem. So he got into a lot of trouble, he sat in prison for a while. Do you think it's a good idea for such a guy to go to Atlantic City and to go to Vegas? He knows, he knows exactly, right? So what he needs to do is when he is driving on the Garden State Parkway down towards Atlantic City, he needs to remember, remember, remember, this is not a place for me, this is not a
place for me. He cannot go in there, not even just to use the bathroom. Why? Do you understand what I'm saying? Because he knows that this is his place of falling. Exactly with an alcoholic is the same thing. Not even once, and a person needs to, that doesn't mean that when he's walking around with friends he's thinking, oh my gosh, I was an alcoholic, oh my gosh, I was, no, no,
there's a way to have a very healthy balance, not to think low of yourself, not to think bad of yourself. On the contrary, to think, you know what, there is a tremendous opportunity for me to continue growing if I protect myself. And I need to protect myself. Everybody has their own gambling issues, not gambling with money perhaps, but everyone has their things, everyone has their things. There you go. Okay, but that's not a bad addiction, that's a good addiction. He has an addiction to Torah books.
Every book he sees he buys, and it's a good thing, it's a good thing. No, we have to think of the right way to approach everything that happens in our life, and if we're able to find the right way to do it, you know what, you can go ahead, it's fine, I'll wait. It happens once or twice, and then people, you know what I find? I find when you extend kindness, it gives back tenfold.
I was once trying to merge into the highway, and nobody was letting me in, okay? Eventually one guy was on his phone, a guy went in, and then the next time that happened, I stopped and I let someone come in, and I saw that every car behind me did the same. They let a car come in. They let a car, like, nope, not letting anybody in, not letting anybody in, right? One person broke that, and then suddenly it became a thing. Let someone else in.
You can change the trajectory. I accepted upon myself that if I do chesed, do chesed, okay? What do I mean by that? Don't do chesed half-heartedly. Do it whole, acts of kindness, okay? Let me give you an example. Someone calls you and says, hey, can I borrow your car? I need to run an errand, okay? You come back to your car, and they left their gum wrapper in your, you know, in your thing. He's like, I can't believe it.
I lend them my car, and this is the way he returns it? No, no, no, no. The act of kindness is accepting that, too. That's part of your act of kindness. They didn't fill up my tank of gas. What's wrong with these people? That's part of your kindness. I remember every time, and I still do it, I still lend out my car every single time, something comes not working. Something comes broken. Something, something. And they usually don't say a word about it, right?
And it's not because they're bad people. It's not because they thought it was broken before they got it, right? But every time, there's always something. I have a g'mach. I lend out tables. I lend out chairs. They're out every single week. Chair comes back broken, and it comes back, they spilled this on it. They think I, you think I don't know that it comes back dirty? I see that it comes back dirty. It's fine. That's part of the kindness.
If I'm going to start getting upset because, then what is, then what did I do? I lend it to them, and then I'm holding a grudge. Part of the kindness is just being with all of my heart. So you know what? So if someone comes and asks, can they use my pool, and I'm very happy to lend out my pool, it's okay if they leave their wrappers. It's okay if they leave their bottles. That's part of my mitzvah. I consider it as part of my mitzvah.
Do the full mitzvah of kindness. Oh, the four times. So we said it was Yom Kippur. It was Erev Rosh Chodesh. Rav Shabbos. And the bedtime Shema. Those are four special opportunities for tshuva.

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