CHAZAQ's Torah Talks #61: Rabbi Yehoshua Zitron - Daf Yomi: The Secret Path to Relationships

welcome to torah talks kazakh special program tuesday night guests we have with us a very dear friend of ours probably yeshua zidron rabbi welcome how you doing thank you so much for you know inviting me on this it's always amazing to be part of anything kazakh related it's so it's so amazing the work that you do and i just to be a part of it is just tremendous because it for me and but it happens to be it's a school it's a huge huge slush so thank you thank you so much for having me robbie zadron love that energy i feel it through the screen exciting and uh has been giving shirin for many many years speaking for kazakh and many other organizations and before we jump into tonight's exciting topic which is the secret path to relationships rabbits can give us a little bit of a background of yourself the great work you're involved with yes of course um so my i guess my work in the club i work in as a speaker i guess we could call it began about 12 years ago and it began kind of by accident i wasn't planning i wasn't intending it to the point that 15 20 years ago if you would have asked me uh you know like what's your plans in the future or whatever it is i would have never even begin to think as this as being an option uh but the the really short version is i had a friend of mine a very close father of mine a friend of mine that was also my harusa my learning partner and he was unfortunately nifter very very young and i what happened was that he used to learn with a group of boys bulgarian boys and yeah and and they knew that we were harbusa so long story short they came over to me one of the guys came over to me and he's like listen you know we don't have unfortunately because of the passing the the early passing of our dear friend we you know we don't have anything can you uh you know take over and learn so i kind of started with that and then one thing led to another one share led to another it started off as a small kabula and then it ended up branching out this year and so it ended up i i kind of was placed in this i can't give take any credit that i worked hard to get to where i was i think the problem gave it to me you know sort of you know speak uh obviously i you know do my establishment preparing and and uh gathering whatever information that i need to but but it happens to be it's it's a skuster who gave me and um my focus became uh more towards the cure of worlds to get uh people closer to hackersparkle to realize the beauty of this guy judyism and how amazing it is and how enjoyable it is and people look at it as a negative what's really it's because it's i can't do this and i can't do i eat this some people look at it as so much restrict restrictions but in a sense it's it's a beautiful relationship and any relationships has restrictions you have uh you know when you get married you're restricted to a certain point but it's worth it because the positive is so much greater so so the idea beyond judaism being beautiful and amazing is is unfortunately you know overlooked and it's interesting because i started focusing a lot on the care of world on people that are not so religious or people were religious at one point and they went off and then you know they're slowly coming back but from the audience that that come and listen it happens to be that i get a lot of regular from religious people they're like wait you know like this is an interesting angle that you know it's not always taught in yeshivas it's not also in the jewish schools so um [Music] i was i was a zoka to be able to be uh um part of this great uh you know i guess kirov uh movement and i'm so happy that i had i had the merit to be able to uh contribute the little that i do right amazing i believe is true many great things happen you know by chance in a sense that we also when we started we weren't planning for it to be an organization and we were just doing some good things you know organizing uh a weekly newsletter and then we decided to organize a small share which ended up being a massive share and uh one thing led to the next and thank god it's spreading so much torah but you should never be satisfied we have to always do more because the google is not here yet so anyways robbie's you're trying we're going to jump into tonight's topic which is the secret path to relationships uh you know people are spending thousands of dollars in the pursuit of happiness uh you know by taking trips right now in the summer people going on vacations people are buying fancy cars but what is the proper definition of happiness and how does one achieve it so i i think the when we're dealing with something called definition everybody defines something a little bit differently because it's their own there is a true definition if you want to call it a fact but there's also what people define as happiness so a single guy would think happiness is when i get married a couple that doesn't have any children happiness is when i have children uh somebody who's you know struggling financially happiness is when i achieve success in that area and that's when i that's when i'll achieve the contentment and and happiness in my life and it's all correct that all these things can attribute to happiness but the source of happiness the real definition of happiness is not dependent on outside forces in fact the hebrew word for happiness is to be the happiest very common you know idea behind this the semicolon you mix around the words is it's it's the it's a thought process really happiness is all dependent on your inside not on your your outside granted it does help you know you're a multi-billionaire yeah you know it's gonna happen not saying that everybody wealthy has it the happiness but it does help you married happily it's gonna help you have kids they're good kids it's gonna help but the definition i think is is really something that's internal that's your thought process so when we you know when we think about the idea of happiness and we change if we chase certain certain things that we feel is going to give us that happiness we're sort of chasing a symptom but we're not getting to the root of the problem and i've spoken to people where they have everything and then they have nothing you know like they have everything but unfortunately they're empty inside and then you have people and this is the greatest because like the greatest amount of like the the power that i that i see what people have when they have like almost nothing and they're so happy like i there's like a few people that come to mind i know you know woman who is you know going through so much in her life like so much from all angles from health and fun everything and i i haven't met a happier person and like and it's crazy when i think about it i guess i have the ability or anybody who feels in the public has an ability to kind of look at things a little bit in a bird's eye view like looking down because when we're just dealing with ourselves all we could see is ourselves and many people think you know what my neighbor he is so successful everything is great in his life but the rabbi of the community knows that no your neighbor is suffering from x y z you're suffering from a b and c everybody's got their peckle everybody's got their their thing that they are dealing with the idea behind happiness is knowing how to deal with what you're going through and channel it to not affect your state of mind which is your thought process of being of being happy so i think if i could summarize the idea of happiness is is your state of mind of and and how you relate to outside forces powerful amazing loving and we actually see this in this upcoming week's parts of where there were the spies that went into israel into quran to check out the land and they said that we looked like grasshoppers into our eyes and so we were in their eyes their mind they perceive themselves as small and that's the way others perceive them as well the like the rabbi is saying happiness is a is a mindset it's powerful amazing so rabbi you know we're you dean we're we're we're jews and yudhim comes from the word of hodaya which is thanks so many we often mistakenly define hakarata tov you know as thank you but we know that literally means to recognize the good right so how will recognizing the good improve our relationships in life okay so so i i think this is actually a a powerful tool that often goes unnoticed and untapped if i may we're and i'll explain let me let me back it up a little bit so we all know that mood affects your you know your response to things so an example somebody just got laid off his wife is so upset and then just screaming and through some dishes he's in the dumps right we could go on to explain it but like you know his kids are causing problems speak back in like everything is and he's driving and some guy goes in front and cuts him off like like really aggressively as they you know unfortunately there's like one or two drivers in the tri-state area that drive really aggressively so we know that every once in a while we come across it's the same person that drive across aggressively and and you know and then there's a response so what's going to be the response so somebody who is in a very rotten mood and sour mood the response is going to be like it's just going to blow the lid it's going to go to a point where he's going to get upset it's going to ruin his day even more he's if he has a chance to scream he'll scream sometimes he'll wave a certain hand or a certain finger you know there's a certain thing that people will do they just get so angry they can't hold themselves back then imagine the same scenario but this guy has a successful you know what let's change this guy just won the lottery his wife loves him unconditionally his kids shower praises at him every time he wakes up he's the kingdom he's the king of his of the kingdom and someone just cuts him off he just got the best news he won the lottery is it gonna matter to him okay you know it's gonna be one of those people like you know go go go go you know sit over there in the in the corner and and just let everybody go to the point that even somebody gives him a fender bender he's gonna go i'd be like don't worry about it life is great why am i gonna worry about this little thing i got 10 billion dollars that i just want i have amazing wife and amazing kids am i going to worry about this little thing come on okay so you cut me off who cares so we see the mood affects our response so if you have a happier mood your relationships are going to be better your your your uh you know work is going to be better you're going to be more productive more effective multi you know billion dollar companies spend a lot of money some of them have an in-house psychiatrist an in-house psychologist so they could talk now some yeshivas are starting to do that where they have you know a therapist on step because if a kid is happy they can achieve a lot more than if a kid is depressed sad going through something so our mood not only affects on our relationships but it also affects our productivity on how much we will be effective our relationship with with god with that goddess barku it's gonna it's gonna affect so the mood affects everything now when you zero in on relationships it does if you're a happy person and your spouse does something to you you're not gonna sweat it be like okay fine so so you know dinner wasn't ready or you know my husband you know didn't buy me a present for my birthday whatever it is it's like you know all right but everything else is amazing so the idea behind gratitude is that when you are a grateful person you see so much amazingness stuff all around you yes we all have stuff that we're going through and we all have difficulties that we're going through but a grateful person focuses on the positive and then he's a pa inside he's positive so gratitude brings positivity which brings you contentment which brings you happiness when you have happiness your relationships are all of a sudden okay niska fellas not the biggest deal if my wife did this and my husband did this so the i think the secret behind that we're just touching and scratching the surface over here but the idea behind is that if you're a grateful person then you will be happier if you will be happier your relationships will be better you won't sweat the small stuff as they say you're not going to be bothered by it because i just won the lottery i want my you know i'm my wife married me you know can you imagine that like me the person the lowest brother she like me my kids actually respect me you know like i'm a nothing i like it so so the gratitude changes so much that even when we go and we have in our relationships with god with with our council so we pray for something and maybe we don't get it or maybe or we don't get it yet i should actually rather say but if we realize how much god has given us then we'll be like wait a minute god is awesome like this is unbelievable okay fine so i didn't get this yet but it's just gonna strengthen our relationship with god and when you have a strong relationship with god then you're gonna be able to increase on that on the observance you're gonna be able to increase on your relationship with it so i i think gratitude is something that has such a powerful underlining effect that it affects every aspect of our life from business to spouse relationships to relationships with god relationships with our kids it touches everything so what you're trying to say rabbi is that gratitude happiness and relationships are one and the same they're all connected yeah there is other ways to have good relationships and other ways to be happy this is just a path but i think it's a strong path that will accomplish tremendous amount and and people unfortunately don't utilize this this important thing besides the fact that you're being grateful you're just going to be happy who doesn't want to be happy right we all have something but if we can't we all have issues but if we contemplate on our positive things that we have it makes us happy it doesn't hurt anybody other than ourselves to be sad depressed anxious annoyed it doesn't affect the person that you have a grudge against it affects only us and rabbi was constantly mentioning about winning the lottery and winning a lot of really just for the record okay a lot of people according to what i understand that win the lottery and they're used to you know polished shoes they used to sell hot dogs on the streets right they would win the millions or the billions whatever it is and then after a few years they didn't earn the money easy come as you go so they go back to their original jobs so in a sense that you know a person that earned and works for his money he's also more appreciative and that's a concept to take to heart rabbi john very very inspiring very very very powerful uh so if you would have to um you're mentioning a lot about the lottery you know unfortunately not everyone wins the lottery so so is there a way to inspire those that have not won the lottery or unfortunately are not going through a good relationship or the sean buys or a piece in the home and things like that to inspire them to continue on this path like you're saying of cinema club happenings of gratefulness etc right so so it's interesting one i do like to speak about lottery because lottery is something that people can relate to and it's like oh okay fine i have nothing at all i have everything you know so rabbi who relates to that you know who won the lottery let me introduce i don't know anybody that that one but the truth of the matter is is really we all won the lottery there's a a beautiful acronym so ash here in in in hebrew wealth uh a rich person is a sheer ashira that it stands for a nine shenanigan eyes uh uh you know a name is eyes shining his teeth you die in his hands where glynum is feet who's a wealthy person somebody who has eyes teeth hands and feet a mindset it's a mindset right it's a mindset so so in a sense when we look at like who won the lottery i think if anybody looks in their life they won the lottery in some aspect maybe not financially and sometimes financially people don't realize when i hear people's stories and how they go and how they they tell me how they got into a certain business and they were successful it was like it wasn't because of their geniusness yes some people are very smart and they know how to capitalize and they know how to move investments around and they know what they're doing but so many people in fact most of the people that i spoke to that were successful and very wealthy in the business just either having to get into the business by accident or placed in a certain situation or they even told me like i had to get a certain you know client that just boomed everything and it wasn't like anything to do so in a sense what's a lottery a lottery is like something that you you did a very little work and you got a lot but when we look at it how much work do we got a lot you know like anybody who has apartment you know you did a little bit of work but now you have a roof over your shoulder you know you have a house you have a wife you know people you know some people the first date second second third fourth five people they did and then they find their their spouse some people unfortunately more uh but but i think if we look inside we we can each find a lottery in each one of our lives of what we of what we want we just have to focus on the good so the question is like so so how do we do that one thing that i do um and and i try to to spread this out as much i think it's an amazing idea um is that uh i think every night a person should do to themselves think and tell i could just tell god five things that you're grateful for before you go to sleep just like five things that you get before to the point that i you know on the on the shabbos table i when we don't have guests because my kids are a little bit shy and we have guests we don't have guests after the torah that i say we each go around the table me my wife all my kids they go around and they say five things that they're grateful for so you have little kids you know i have a six-year-old that goes and have a 13 year old they go out and they go and they each go and they say five things and it's beautiful to hear where a six-year-old will say like i think full fashion that i have we have a car you know and and it's it's a mindset that we have to start beginning to think about so i think a simple way to do it is is every day try again you might forget some of the days but try every single day five things that you're grateful for it doesn't have to be amazing things sometimes it could be that you have eyes teeth hands feet you know whatever it is we even as long as we begin to focus and and realize that we have so much good that this buckle gives to us once we tap into that knowledge our whole our whole viewpoint is going to change so whether we're you know a billionaire a millionaire or or lacking anything in between you know we could still focus on things that we have good and and it's a huge school as you said when you have gratitude it brings so much blessings so maybe we have blessings in one area if we focus on the positivity that brings us tremendous amount of let's call it spiritual power right you you're thankful yeah you have somebody the example that i like to use is that if you have somebody that's going and collecting tobacco charity come to your door and you give them a dollar and this person starts praising you from today until tomorrow giving you all of a sudden he becomes the baba sally over there and he's giving you a thought from today until tomorrow to your children your grandchildren your big grandchildren from your family and that everything in all areas what do you want to do to that person be like look hold on one second you just want to give more money to that person they were so grateful oh you gave us a dollar and they spent a minute giving you a blessing first you have the other scenario where you give someone 20 and then they do the look into your wallet and be like oh by the way i have another 15 children that are orphans that are living by me they don't have any hands feet these are eyes can you please increase their money and they go instead of saying thank you for what they got they're like can you give me more okay you know like oh we really need the money who do you want to give more money to do you want to give more money to the person that said please you know like thank you so much for everything that you've done or do you want to give them more money to somebody who says can i please have more obviously we want to give money to do we have more so it's a tremendous you know power when we yes we should always ask for this problem we should always ask god for for everything that we need and more but if we're thankful that makes that fila so powerful we say modern we say this in our field every single day where we have that gratitude in there but sometimes we have to just say it a little bit more with a with a thought process and be like wait a minute yeah thank you and when we get to a higher level we can begin to start thinking god on things that are problematic to us because we know vatican gibraltar has you know a massive planet everything that happens is for the best having an attitude of gratitude how important it is uh torah talks are i mean our custom is to have a final message and uh you know one final grand clam from the speaker from the rabbi we're going to have you leave off for a broad audience okay so i want to share with you something that i thought about yesterday when i was driving my kids to eshiba um it's a thought it's still a work in progress but i think it's a very very interesting thought and i and i was thinking you know there's a very common idea that the more sophisticated something is the greater the potential right so so let's say you look at inventions right so a pair of pants is is sophisticated to the level that it covers you and does whatever it needs to but a phone is much more sophisticated so what has more potential a pair of pants or a phone obviously a phone has more more potential but when you look at the difference between man inventions and huckabee god's creation god's god's you know not inventions god's creations there is a difference when you look at the potential of the creation so when you look at anything let's say in in technology a phone a computer a car as time goes on the potential decreases the battery is not as good the cpu the processing is not as powerful everything decreases over time in man's man's creation which is very interesting because the more sophisticated we said is the more potential phones will only last three years four years five years if if you're really able to do it you can you could stretch it out for for a little bit longer than that but it is a limited is to where it goes pans which is less sophisticated can last 50 years it could last i mean maybe it shouldn't but i know my grandfather uh lived you know until 102. wow and he got a brother from wasserman barry has yeah and uh he had i remember in his you know in his his suits his suits when he bought it was in style then it went out of style and then went back in style he was able to wear the old suits and it was still it was still good it was still it was it didn't rub out it was expensive it was good suits so it lasted the more sophisticated the creation for some reason why is it that human creation the more sophisticated the less the potential goes down as time goes on and let's flip the do on the flip side on god's creation so we know that god's you know creation falls into four realms right which in simple terms it's just you know there's animal uh there's inanimate objects like a rock dirt then there is plant life which is a little bit higher then there is an animal world and then there is the human world those are the four four realms so when you do when you look at rocks dirt they just they just exist plant an animal is also about survival but they have to do a little bit more so a plant needs sunlight it needs it needs rain it needs something more an animal has to actually go and to get its food as opposed to it just coming into it to it to a uh you know like through the sun or through the rain so when you look at an animal for example an animal it starts off with very low potential a seed starts off with very low potential if it has the right environment it's able to survive the seed is able to survive and the animal with them you know with a ju it needs a little bit but i need something to help it survive as the animal or the plant grows it gets the potential grows the ability to accomplish more growth so so in a man's creation as time goes on the potential decreases as god's creation as time goes on potential increases a baby has only a certain amount of potential as it gets older the human gets more and more potential we have more potential today than we had yesterday because we gained knowledge right we every even though we didn't focus on it it could be subconscious knowledge but we gained more you know to tell your wife certain things based on the knowledge that last time you did it wasn't such a good response so you learn even subconsciously what to do so humans animals but as time goes on we increase our potential man's creation as time goes on there's a decrease on potential now unfortunately and this is the point that i want to bring home is when you speak to people they say you know so how how's it going and uh you know they say common thing is hanging in there uh day by day you know they so so what you're doing is is that you're surviving an animal survives a plant survives you're we're not there to just you know spend our days and just like let it go by and well day by day where we're living we're surviving we shouldn't be just surviving animals survive there's uh the potential stops by survival an animal is not going to start an organization doesn't have the potential for that a human being has the power the potential to do so much so we have to stop living life in an animal or an inanimate object or whatever it is we have to realize we have so much potential and today's potential was greater than yesterday's potential and the beauty of it is that to achieve potential you don't have to start organizations when you grow in the spiritual realm you're achieving potential you're sitting and you're learning today a little bit more you just gained potential so you gain more than you had yesterday so my message my final message is i thought that i had yesterday and i think it's a powerful idea i love it is that we have to stop you know surviving and we have to start living to our potential amazing amazing amazing robbie zitron very very powerful final message very powerful torah talk in general the importance of having gratitude the importance of being happy the importance of having good relationship they're all one in the same and uh rabbi we want to thank you for joining us in torah talks thank you thank you for zach tuesday uh torah talks uh with special guests we encourage evan to visit us every single tuesday night 8 30 p.m eastern standard time kazakh.org live along with many other platforms including tora anytime and uh if you have something called social media kazakh has all those stuff and you could join and follow as well we want to uh dedicate uh tonight's uh sheer for the complete reforeshalema of uh maisha benrezo and allocated in loving memory of um once again and uh looking forward to seeing you all and bizarre serotonin spilling in the days of complete redemption amen you