#5: Iggeres HaRamban (10 Minutes of Meaning) - Transform Yourself

good morning and welcome back to 10 minutes of meaning as we continue to study theer the wonderful letter the ramban wrote to his son while he was in Israel writing back to his son in Spain promising his son if he reads it once a week and we try to read it once a day included in many s that it will bring a greater awareness a greater mindfulness greater meaning greater purpose Greater Life and therefore greater reward I want to express our gratitude to the sponsors of the the 10 minutes of meaning schm and EST sh it's in honor of their parents and their children so grateful and honored for their sponsorship so so far we've begun just to go through the opening ran quotes a teaches the word means not just to listen understand comprehend Focus pay attention Ben when is someone more open more predisposed to listening to the message to hearing what someone else is trying to inspire them with when there's an attitude of B when there's love when there's affection when there's genuine concern listen to the and we last left off and his H for the tone of rebbit what is the difference between we saw the powerful words ofek who despite the majority of his learning coming at the feet of his father said if not for his mother the Tora he would be a dry soulless being he might have taught his father taught him the letter of the law but his mother taught him the spirit of the law how to live with a vibrant active dynamic yish and with that then begins so much to unpack again every word here we could spend a separate 10 minutes on accustom yourself condition yourself get used to that everything you say and everything you speak every interaction you have never Raise Your Voice never lose your cool never be filled with rage never indulge anger always speak calmly always speak to everyone to everyone yeah every even that yeah even that person at all time even then even then and if you can accustom and condition yourself to always speak calmly and patiently then you'll be spared and you'll be saved anger why is it important to be spared and saved from anger because anger is a categorically Bad Evil Wicked character trait that comes translate the word means L will cause to sin translate the word sin what is the word sin if you've been learning with me for a while you know this is one of my personal pet peeves my Hang-Ups there is no Jewish word sin sin is a Catholic word it's not our word it doesn't come from our Torah what does the word sin mean I have no idea but if you open tanak and you look at the word a is a missed opportunity if you shoot an arrow at a Target and you miss for a long time I give the example Shaquil O'Neil was hack a shack and he was at the foul line the announcer would likely say he missed he missed a is a Miss because a is not a sin I don't know what a sin is it's a missed opportunity it means our life is filled with opportunities to reach our potential or miss our potential opportunities to come close to Hashem or become more distanced from Hashem opportunities to be our best selves or opportunity to indulge our worst selves a is a missed opportunity anger leads to K when a person's angry just think about it for a moment anger absolutely sabotages every relationship in life anger never made marriage better parenting better anger never made you make more business deals or acquire more customers anger never solved any real problems rage is never All the Rage what's right that's what I wrote an article about this week based on the Dr shabas not rage but outrage Channel and turn rage into outrage the emotion of Rage of anger is a pure emotion with no intellectual component and it causes us self defeated self- sabotage so a person indulges that anger that rage towards the spouse towards their children they will damage those relationships possibly even Beyond repair if a person indulges anger they'll walk into that business meeting instead of walking out with a deal with a partner with a customer they'll absolutely sabotage their own success anger sabotage of success anger is a categorically bad Mida rage is bad but outrage when something bothers you offends you disturbs you to no end like everything going on in the world right now against the Jews and against Israel like the double standard and the hypocrisy and the Injustice and the lies and the distortions then channel that to outrage outrage leads to action so something bothers you fix it repair it redeem it be better Elevate and lift the people around you to be better fix the world around you outrage leads to action so the ran is saying that is a it is a categorically bad quality and we've spoken about this many times that this the raan and the ran both agree the ra that when it comes to our qualities our Behavior walk the golden mean walk the golden path category qualities are neither categorically good or categorically bad they're all what we do with them is stubbornness good or bad the answer is yes what does that mean well if stubbornness is making you cling to the wrong opinion or behavior stubbornness is bad but if stubbornness makes you cling to yish a life of kadus and tahara a life of Torah and mitzah no matter what's happening around you stubbornness can be good so it's all what we do with it that's why they're called mid what does the word Mida mean a measure a measure the sikim writes that life is like a chicken soup recipe so if I ask you is pepper good or bad what's the answer it all depends what measure you put it in too much pepper you ruin the soup too little pepper it has no flavor it all depends on what measure you put it in so our MOS our qualities our characteristics it all depends what measure you put it in how much there are two exceptions they don't belong in any measure the ram writes it as mishna Torah the ran writes it here in his letter both refer to both of these qualities they agree there are two qualities that don't belong in any measure they shouldn't be part of our recipe they shouldn't be part of our repertoire of Life two character traits that are categorically bad they don't belong in any measure and what are they anger never indulge anger it's never positive it's never constructive and the other is arrogance you have to be exceedingly humble both came to the same conclusion so the ran writes that that is a it's going to cause you to mess up and Miss opportunities and sabotage your life so how do you save yourself and spare yourself from anger anger what do we do about it could sign up for an anger management program they're good they're important study muser what do you really do so the ran gives the winning formula for how to improve anger and listen to what he says he was so ahead of his time and it's incredibly brilliant and no wonder he promises his son if you read this letter and put it into practice you will see your life get filled with blessing your relationships will improve your life will improve what's the formula it begins with the word t what form of the verb it's early in the morning I don't want anyone to break out in hives if I invoke dict grammar but what form of the verb is the word t h what's hitel reflexive it's not something I do to another or to the environment around me HP reflexive is something I do to myself TI means transform yourself condition yourself T always all the time yes whether you got a lot of sleep or a little sleep whether you're belly's full or whether you're hry tumid always no matter what Le when you speak cold everything you have to say everything should be B listen to what the ran is telling us if you say you know what I'm never going to get angry again it's not going to work you know why it won't work because right now in a state of Cal right now you're eating a cookie you're having coffee you're at 10 minutes of meaning you're learning Gan and it's very easy in this environment to conclude I'm never going to get angry again easy easy peasy what's the problem the problem is when you come home later today and you step on a Lego Barefoot that someone left in the middle of the room and it hurts it's one of the greatest curses you could wish on another may you step on a Lego Barefoot sinir may he step on many Legos Barefoot filled with poison that kill him but it's very hard not to indulge with anger someone ran late someone ruined your plans somebody sabotaged your business deal somebody then in that moment how are you not going to get angry because three days ago at the 10-minute of meeting you heard something and you decided you weren't going to get angry how's that going to help later your spouse with your children with your colleague with your neighbor with your friend how's that going to help it's not and that's the mistake most people try to conquer anger how by just deciding they won't get angry but that doesn't work what do you need to do you have to change you have to absolutely transform you have to condition how you speak always and if you condition yourself that you never Raise Your Voice then in a situation in a moment where ordinarily you would want to indulge anger you've already changed your habit you've you already changed your behavior you've already conditioned yourself that you never raised your voice that's the Ran's willing formula we'll pick up with it again next week but he doesn't say anger is really bad and it really ruins everything so don't get angry he says transform yourself to always speak calmly it's not easy it's not easy but if a person can live mindfully if you can live consciously if you can be present in every conversation interaction both in every circumstance don't wait till the moment that you tend to want to flare with anger condition yourself beforehand be prepared and be ready know and picture and imagine and envision what's gonna happen someone's going to disappoint me someone's going to frustrate me something's gonna happen some night I won't sleep well some moment I'll be hangry but it doesn't matter because I have a habit I've conditioned myself I'll never I'll end by giving you this metaphor you know you have those Health nuts those people who will never eat sugar I he'll never eat sugar he's allergic to sugar for him sugar might as well be K he'll be more likely he would never eat kazer but he'd be more likely to have a piece of bacon than he will to have sugar for him sugar is like poison so let's say he and I were traveling one day and we had no access to food and we went the whole day and there was nothing to eat we're flying and we're going and we're doing and then we're in an airport and the only thing there is is to just buy some Nash buy some candy that's it you're starving I would say you know what trying to be healthy I'm trying to eat right but I haven't eatting all day this is all there is there's a big OU on it so I'm going to indulge in a big bag of M&M's going to have a big thing of Reese's Pieces I'm going to have a big Snickers bar because that's all there is my M who has conditioned himself to never eat sugar would rather go a few more hours hungry he'll never eat that sugar so even in that moment of weakness where I will fall apart because he's conditioned himself he'll never touch it I'll never eat it that's our attitude towards anger to condition ourselves to be allergic to it to condition ourselves and create a habit that we always speak calmly we don't even know what it means to raise our voice it never goes over a certain decimal level it never happens not in the best of times not the worst not when we're well rested not when we're sleep deprived to condition ourselves that the ran says is the formula and that's your homework until next Wednesday this week to transform ourselves reflexively to change ourselves and condition ourselves catch yourself never allow your voice to go over a certain decimal level even if it's excitement even if it's positive always and in that way will save ourselves and we spare ourselves from C we'll pick up with this next week maybe we hear