Controlling our Desires Shaarei Teshuva 1:31-32 with Rabbi Aaron Dovid Poston

[Music] chuva khabura for women hosted by and produced by yebene this series is uh at least strictly for women online and we when we turn off the camera we have sometimes a longer discussion many questions come up but if you want to join there is a whatsapp number at least we'll send you the information on how to join through through zoom but in the meanwhile we are before we actually begin i want to mention that we are praying hard okay we have rabbi pinto-in-law in mind yeshua joseph ben zachary he is i don't know if you know who he is but he is the great grandson of the baba sally one of the greatest moroccan kabbalists of the last century he actually lived in my neighborhood in baka the babasali did yes and he went to the shoulders down the street and many people older people older than i am who remembered him and almost half of the population of israel goes to the bobby sally's grave goes to his hometown and uh on his yard site and whatnot um but rabbi pinto has um not just yuku's but he has the fervor the flame that his great grandfather had and he's one of um he was the one of the go-to guys i mean i don't know if he still is but people who uh people who wanted to know what direction they should go in in life he is a great macarthur right he started several yeshua's and runs several yeshivas for bali chuva and i want you to know them he's presently the chief rabbi of morocco which israel has presently or the process of making peace with um many many of these we'll call them smarting many of the spartak uh community even the secular uh in israel from morocco and they have such great esteem not just for the rabbi's family but for the rabbi himself so this roth hashem tonight's this this learning today where whatever time you're listening to this it should be in the merit right that rabbi pinto should have a reformer again joseph ben zachary that he should have refused to aim that he should get back on his feet and uh share the light of torah mizrat hashem through a little bit through the merit of our learning and the people who hear this uh sheer afterwards and actually implement what we're learning not just to not not just to go in one ear and out the other but somehow stay in the middle and uh hopefully influence our hearts to become better people so we're starting to not today sheer we're still in shar alef that's the first gate the first chapter and we're going to cover bizarre to shem all of paragraph 31 and hopefully get through 32 it's a very short 32 is a very short paragraph first of all we started in 30 talking about how to break one's physical desire you can go back and listen to the previous um para the previous year we're going to continue by mentioning there's other benefits to gaining control over one's physical desires and rabino yonah continues okay i'm going to translate this but understand what he's trying to say that the desires behold the desires that are they give over to the heart of man and they're basically sitting in the that's where they're sitting in the heart of man in the heart of the person that is the root charish of all the actions right you can tell when you watch somebody what where they're at in life what their desires are whether they're holy whether they're not holy the more torah you know the more torah you're living you can see where people are at it's you you gain a certain clarity hopefully we'll gain the clarity over ourselves but there's a famous expression about how how do you know somebody you want to go into business somebody with somebody you want to become a roommate you want to marry somebody you can tell about them through their coast kiskas you heard this before cosquis three different words they all sound alike a coast is a cup keis is a pocket and a uh kosuki's cuss and cass is anger okay so how do you know watch when their coast what how do they hold their drink right how important is the drink to them right um i don't want to go into this whole idea but i don't go deeply i think that you get the idea right when you drink even the word wine you jude nun is the same gemachi as sod soda means secrets the wine goes in the secrets come out watch what happens when they drink are they happy are they loving or do they get uh a little bit out of control you know who knows and who wants to even talk about what could happen but you can tell how god-fearing and how spiritual a person is by watching how they handle or what kind of things they drink how often whatever close okay what about peace what they spend their money on we said it means pocket right are they spending it on mitzvahs or mahuda are they spending it on um you know righteous things on positive things things will improve the world things will improve other people's lives they're using charity right or are they spent thrift as they say they're wasting their money and using it for either harmful things or things that are not positive they're not bringing any positive result uh consequences to the world i can tell you could tell about people's actions and cause what do they get angry about how do they handle their anger is it just a short second to show that they're angry and then they get over it and and what are they getting angry about to begin with is it something that's very important that anybody should put their foot down or is it pettiness and selfishness okay so that is important so basically how we act what we do how we speak how we carry ourselves is all because of our desires that's it eventually comes out in all of our actions and that's the first statement that he makes knowing that therefore so basically if you you talking if you fix your tavos if you're able to conquer your your your physical desires usually means in place of he says instead of letting all your limbs serve those desires because you you're showing you have control you actually have to be in control so if you're in control you're not allowing your limbs to act the way they would if you were trying to get to the to the bar or trying to get to the bank to pull as much money out to go and bet on a course but whatever i'm using extreme examples but we have to bring them down into our life you know you go window shopping and then you say oh my god i have to have this and you can't even talk to this person until they acquire it right i have no idea but perhaps everyone will have to look at themselves what their own desires are they they go nuts over they go wild and they lose control it basically their their mind is no longer in control but their limbs are following their heart's desire um no but you should you should control that rather what you need to do is that the limbs should be drawn after what we call the seiko now what is cycle cycle is more of a mind thing right we call it either intelligence the truth is like this i want to tell you the rambam usually translates sekha as intelligence however i am of the school of the maharao and that's the clear card was the famous student of the morale and i give a lot of classes on the clear car as some of you guys know already so the the morale says the word sechel is spirit it's your shama so what i'd like to do is i take the two different definitions and put them together means an intelligent spirit okay it's it's an intellectual spirit it's not one without the other they really and if you follow what i'm trying to say then you understand this and if not meditate on it and think about it um i don't think they are diametrically opposed i think that they work together and that's what you want you you want your limbs to be able to follow the direct the direction the intellect gives it and the la vu i love the ishartuhu and what will end up happening is they the the limbs will join with your intellect and serving it and serving the true spirit and serving hashem yuksha kolhapo ali what does it mean yukshiru what's the word kosher kosher kosher actually means it's fitting it's proper right you hear the expression oh yeah it's kosher right that means like you know whatever you go to a gym so it's the gyms kosher because they have men hours or the pool's kosher because it has you know separate hours for women or something like that it's the same thing with food it means that it went through the proper procedures of preparation and it was prepared in a proper way and that's what it means when you go and say i want to buy kosher it means it has been prepared and it is now fit to eat okay so here the word is basically the idea is your actions will all be proper your actions will all be kosher now that we're going to go through a lot of verses the verse first verse he wants to bring us is from proverbs michele 21 8. let me pull this up i know i have it here on my computer somewhere here it is a man's way is changeable now i don't really like that translation but that's not the part of the verse he wants us to see derek vazar whatever this fake is like reversal changeable the way of a man if it's all changeable it's i'd like to i think the word on not the word unsteady i'm thinking of another word when you're not stable that's a man who's not stable a person who's not stable is tsar is strange but it's the last part of the verse but as for a pure one his deed is right so zach means purified right we just got done we just experienced hanukkah and we used oil that was zach zach is pure clear so the the one who is clear the one who is purified his his actions are yashar his his actions are ishar by the way just you should know i'm not here to promote islam i'm not here to justify anything but their word for sharia law comes from this word yashar right just like we have they have sharia law sri is just like it's it's the path of the just so they have their customs or whatever but it's based on uh this word yashar and that's what ultimately we want to do so again the last part of the verse is the pure one the one who's worked on himself his every deed is considered upright so i do want to read the comment that a pure one is a person who has control over his passions now everyone must engage in physical pleasure i just want to say something about my mother i love my mother very much but she was involved in a group called overeaters anonymous when she was young okay and she introduced me to the 12th death by the way so she said you know when it comes to like a drug addict or a gambler you know they have to abstain and i'm not gonna she's not gonna say it's easy but when you abstain it's like out of sight out of mind when you're uh it's when you're involved in overeating you can never stay away from eating you always have to eat right we know we have to eat so it's much more difficult for somebody who's constantly involved in that thing that they're trying to break and we're going to talk about this olivia i'm bringing this up because we're going to talk about eventually tonight this this class staying away not staying away entirely but having a moderation for those things which are permissible right so i know that a cake that is all kosher 100 kosher but that doesn't mean i should eat the whole cake right it's kosher so even that which is fitting is proper we're going to find that trying to be moderate and you know is going to go take you a long way because if you're able to conquer something that you're constantly doing from being let's say overindulgent you're able to be moderate and keep a you know i'm sure i think of another word you know not extreme then you can certainly kick something that you're staying away from right out of sight out of mind it's much easier to kick that kind of habit than it is when you're constantly around food everyone has to be around food right maybe the astronauts they have little tubes right and they're rationed so you have like i don't know you're up there 180 days in the space station and they give you 180 tubes okay so it's in a tube and it's gonna be ratchet but that's not that's not reality reality is you walk around you have a fridge full of stuff and you have to eat okay let's move on so the next verse he wants to tell us about is something that we're going to have to deal with in terms of the language because it's from um it's actually from michele chapter 13 verse 19. now i want to tell you that the translations are not always good you have to go into the hebrew it says a desire fulfilled pleases the soul that's not a good translation at all because we're going to see that the word actually means broke so a tiva that's broke the desire that you're able to break that is going to be pleasant to the soul okay and anybody who's ever been able to overcome right i know that they they the secular new years is coming up and i know that they say whoever they are that they make um these new year's resolutions we obviously seem to do as well around rosh hashanah right we want to see a new year come with um bring us to higher levels so we we kind of make certain commitments towards doing things well the secular world the non-jewish world they seem to do the same thing around new year's january 1st or whatever december 31st um what was i getting to so anybody who's ever been able to overcome some kind of resolution does have us hopefully independence but it is a satisfaction within the soul that they know they were able to break a bad character trait so this is what it means right desire that is broken that's how to read it not a a desire fulfilled but that's how some translate it and we'll see that the word yet means broken as he begins to tell us the in that kimonos bara that word niyet is broken and where do we know look at daniel first it's chapter 8 verse 27. daniel himself after seeing this vision that really shook him to the core he writes and i daniel became broken and ill for days but i rose and did the king's work and i was terrified about the vision so vani daniel ah me daniel i was sickened i was broken and we know that's what it means okay so you see that the word in that original verse that we said of proverbs 13 19 means that if you can break that that desire that is what is really pleasing and pleasant to the soul now this is where we're going into this idea that if a man when a man is able to break to conquer his evil inclination or in this case any of his base desires in things that are actually permissible this is going to result in success that his soul is succeeding right there's a constant battle going on between our body our physical body and our desires and our spiritual ascent in trying to make ourselves zock and pure there's this constant battle so you know that you're winning when you're able to break those desires now there's an asterisk here because he's going to talk about the famous ramban the ramban who i mentioned already the ramban's daughter married the robin ryona who's the author of this book so the ramban there's a famous well we read it every year it's called kadoshin to you it's one of the parshiot actually it's in vayikra in leviticus i think it's chapter 19. and um it says you shall be holy for i your god i'm holy what does that mean so again the word holy does not always mean what we think it means you have to go to the hebrew kadosh right kadosh means separate i am you should be separate just like i am separate now it's true separate could be just mean physically separate but once you separate something it is sanctified you're putting it up on a pedestal so to speak god wants us to be elevated that's why we use the word sanctified holy that's true i'm not denying that's what it means but it literally means okay and that's how it becomes sanctified so the very interesting lesson that he gives over in this that passion in kadoshin to you is that god wants you to separate yourself from that which is permissible like that cake yes it's kosher but there's something wrong with over indulging you have right um it gives you a few other examples gorging yourself with meat or guzzling wine or as we spoke about in the past um like a man who's acting with his wife like like a chicken like you know a rooster hello just because it's permissible doesn't mean you spend the whole day in the bedroom right there's other things to do in life okay so if it's your first week you're married you have a honeymoon we get it okay fine move on but to live your life like that is something there's something wrong so let me just quote what he says according to the ramban we're actually commanded to abstain from excess pleasures as this is the intention of the verse in vayikra leviticus 19 2 which says kadoshim to you you shall be holy although the torah prohibits many things outright it would still be permissible for a person to grossly indulge in things that the torah permits he could guzzle war wine gorge himself with meat be steeped in relations with his wife to the extent that he could be he could be a corrupt person within the guidelines of the tar this is not what the torah wants god does not want you to become corrupt with it you know oh i'm keeping all the torah but you're maneuverable but i'm confused like yeah god does not want you it's just because it's permissible to overindulge you have to do things with moderately and modestly therefore aside from the categorically prohibiting many specific things the torah gives a general directive you shall be holy with this it commands us to be removed from excesses of permissible acts so that we will lead our lives in a sanctified manner okay so can you imagine yeah um does this have to do with the um sun that um how does that fit in with the sun that won't listen to his parents because he's a he drinks too much he goes out too much you i mean that's a mitzvah of um taking him to court and props possibly executing him this is a what's the word first of all it's been suramar it's the wayward sun the the talmud tells us that it never happened and it never will happen we also have a gemara that says a great sage stood on the tomb of a person who was this type of person let's assume there's no contradiction there yeah so rabbi yochanan's wife taught me this this type of person who steals meat and wine from his parents and perhaps money whatever it is and he's so gluttonous and we're going to kill him look at it i have to tell you i'm of the opinion that it never happens okay that we're going to kill him while he's still innocent because this type of person is going to grow up and become a robber a thief a murderer he's going to be so uh addicted to meat and good meat and wine like that he was stealing from his parents when he was only 12 we're talking about 12 and a half year old kid okay he's he's like habituated in such a horrible manner that he's only going to grow up and actually kill people if they don't have the money that he needs for his meat and wine so we're going to kill him while he's still innocent okay so that i'm glad you brought this up because ravioli said how do we fix this contradiction of this other rabbi who says he stood on the grave of somebody that was a bensoramar see he says like this that it's not a contradiction that this type of person is so self-destructive that when that that it never came to be it never came to be that eventually the parents would take him to court and convict him and have him killed it never happened because they self-destruct and therefore when the person the sage stood on the on the grave of someone he claims was one he was potentially one but never made it to court because he self-destructed okay i happen to like that shot but and maybe because i kind of knew everyone's in adolescence at one point in their life so we know how destructive and if we're old enough we have children and we know that our job sometimes just to keep them alive till their brain starts working and their heart is awoken and and they can love life right and uh and learn the proper way um because okay mizrat hashem i don't know if i answered your question okay so this is very interesting now we're talking about the idea that this verse means to say that when a person breaks this desire to the extent that he abstains even from that which is permitted and we said this is where we know that the soul will succeed in its mission and this is the character trait that will be so much pleasant to the heart to the soul the soul will just kevel kevel right maybe you don't understand that when you're 12 13 14 going through adolescence but trust me if you're able to get through it yeah you'll understand how important because if you don't get through it then you know in your early 20s at least by then it's really hard to break much later on right that's why god gives us i'm gonna tell there's a secret a seven year grace period a lot of people don't know this think about this right when one girl is 12 boys 13 they're obligated in the midst but what about in heaven in other words the sin the the punishment yes if a child i'm calling a child we're talking about a 12 13 year old right now a 14 year old kid steals and they're witnesses and the court says sorry you know you have to pay up you have to either pay back what you did what you stole if he lied they right tried to get away with it they have to pay double okay but there's also a heavenly uh din well guess what hashem has such mercy he created us he loves us he knows we go through adolescence he created it there is no heavenly judgment until we're 20. yes in this world we are you know there's witnesses and we'll be uh held accountable for what we do between the age 12 13 until the age of 20 in this world but in terms of heavenly judgment there's we'll call it a grace period okay hashem has such rachmanu he loves us he created us he knows we're just flesh and blood all right so don't tell all your adolescent children this they'll find out anyway i'm sure they all talk amongst themselves okay so now we're going to oh so the last line here on page 74 is kiyarum hase when it's pleasant when this the the spirit or the intellectual spirit is able to um feel the success of breaking this negative traits and overcoming it so it's like the intellect is raising its hand so to speak and gaining control over all the limbs and that's ultimately what an adult right you're already becoming an adult that's what hopefully a responsible member of society is able to do is have control over his life over their limbs okay now robin and jonah will take some of these verses we already spoke about and break them down a little bit because we mentioned the word we really mentioned the first part all right desire that is broken is pleasant to the soul that we said was in michele 13 19 but he wants to discuss the latter part of the verse the latter part of the verse says but turning from evil is an abomination to fools right like imagine okay we were all young hopefully we you know only experienced this when we were young you know there's like peer pressure there's all kinds of all kinds of stuff that goes on so like i think they have it bullying you know in today's world there's bullying on the internet and that's very bad i mean you can it's like murder so imagine you know what people do like if you say this person is going to the nerdy side it's going to the straight side so it's like that would be an embarrassment but to say like oh they did like everyone else they did the wrong things so that's like um like a badge of honor for these for these young kids right so imagine turning away from evil would be an abomination to fools it reminds me a little bit of what we spoke about i'm trying to remember the exact verses but the idea of um when yaakov did the yates say when yaakov went out from beer sheva so we talked about to the car that there was a rosham there was a impression that was made the impression that was made why wasn't it mentioned by avraham or yitzhak when they when he when they left they left the place what kind of impression was made only when um when yaakov left there was an impression made so the answer is that he left alone see when abraham and sarah they left they went from one place to another they didn't leave anybody behind yitzhak and rifka if they moved around they brought everybody with them they didn't leave anybody behind but when yaakov went from beer sheva right when he went out to find his wife he left behind getsocken rifka an impression was made so a positive impression a positive impression was made on on righteous people so when a righteous person leaves the righteous people left behind feel like uh they make a sudas preda some kind of separation we feel the loss but if all the people that were left behind are evil they're jumping for joy they don't care mama's a mazel tov right that guy who you know keeps fixing his hat and just to fill in and whatever he's so righteous when he leaves if we're all evil we're so happy that he left what do we need him coming in reminding us as a god reminding us how to act right so so for evil people this idea that turning away from evil would be an abomination and that's what that verse means [Music] this means fools don't even try to break their desire they live by their desire they you know the newest lamborghini or the newest this or the newest that i mean can you imagine the rush that's all they talk about right that's just one example obviously people can be into sports and there's like no end you know the greatest hitter like they look through the i don't know if they still have this the newspapers they used to have newspapers that had i think the whole page was with all the sports sections and the stats and people would just memorize it and they would live and that was like their god i mean i'm sure there's still people like that but it you know when you take something to the extreme and you're living by it you just can't wait the road team tommy ta nugent they're constantly pursuing human pleasure they can't wait to get to the next i don't know horse race or baseball game or whatever it is to the store to buy the newest shoes whatever you know when the desire encounters a sin or any other bad thing on its way the kho davara then what happens no you're surimi they're not going to turn away from it they're going to run right for it this is what they're living for nikrik selim are radhifa and these people are called fools because that's all they're running after is these human pleasures of this world and we have a verse in mishlai proverbs chapter 21 verse 20 that says like this precious treasure and oil are in the dwelling of the wise man that's the first part what he wants to show us is the second part but man's foolishness will swallow it up seal ugh give a lena am i right it's the last part yeah the last part of the verse which means like this so your wise man is cautious with his money investing in it for greater profit and saving it for future needs i know i deal with a lot of people that they converts people who are searching for meaning and they say i see the difference between jews and non-jews you know the jews are very smart they take their money they invest properly it's one of the things they see you don't have to be religious to see it you have to be religious to use your money wisely but jews want to invest in the future right even the most secular of jews education is still really high up there you know they want to change the world they want to make the a better world for their children they want their children to live in a better world than they were given okay so i'm not saying that non-jews don't i'm not saying that but you know it happens they're also jews that don't behave properly anyway but a fool consumes it immediately what is that statement drink and eat today for tomorrow we will die this is not a jewish concept okay this is because the fool is controlled by his desire and cannot resist the temptation to eat up or spend his resources for the same reason when the lustful person encounters the sin he will not only not turn away but he'll go ahead and indulge in it okay ruben and jonah now cites additional verses i told you today is going to be a lot of verses regarding um they condemn the pursuit of these pleasures in isaiah chapter 5 verses 11 through 12. so it says like this you have to read both verses i don't know if any of these uh words stand out more than any others woe to those who rise early in the morning that should be a good thing like however they pursue strong wine i remember my wife and i we were looking for a house to buy we went to a certain neighborhood i won't mention the name but it was uh it wasn't a very good neighbor at the time it's totally changed so many of these neighborhoods broke hashem have changed so we went i think it was like nine o'clock in the morning we met the realtor and on the front step of the house was some guy drinking a beer i mean like we decided we didn't we didn't even need to go in we didn't buy that neighborhood like thank you very much the guy i think was there the whole night and he was still sitting on our front step drinking beer thank you very much okay one of those who rise early in the morning they pursue strong wine they sit until late in the evening wine inflames them in other words the passions are taking over them for the whole evening and there are these different um instruments instruments are fine they're the heart the loot the tambourine the flute and wine at their drinking feast it's all about the party it was all to enhance the wine and the work of the lord they do not regard they're not interested and the deed of his hands they have not seen not only is it not interesting they would run far away from it okay so it okay you get the idea this is showing you those people that are totally following their physical desires another verse in michele that's proverbs proverbs 13 25 so it sounds a little familiar from the pre one of the other verses but it's it's different a righteous person eats to satisfy his soul okay but the stomach of the wicked will always lack so in hebrew who bet and show him the the bet and the stomach of the evil people there's never satisfied it's always wanting okay never satisfied so here this idea right we talked about this before someone who has a million dollars rich but his desire has strong desires he'll he'll never die with even half of his desires fulfilled if he has a million he wants two million right he's one house he needs two he has five cards he needs ten whatever he has is not even half of what he desires so the comment here says a lustful person is never satiated the more he eats the more he needs the verse calls this person wicked wicked the righteous person however is satiated since he eats to sustain his soul and doesn't crave the physical pleasures okay we have more verses that's chapter 2 verse 3. um did i finish that no so i'm sorry there's another verse where is it yes it says like this behold i rebuke the seed because of you and i will scatter dung upon the your face the dung of your festive sacrifices now this is very interesting because we it's very cryptic what in the world is it talking about it's saying that people live like they're on a constant vacation right i know we have pasak we worked hard we deserve to chill right there's time of course you should be learning torah you should have family time right you should do holy things right you have sukis it's twice a year you have a whole week off right and the truth is it's i'm just saying this is a rabbi but ideally if you have like one or two weeks off of the year you should ask your employer your right your boss you put it ahead and try to get those days off because there's no blessing there's no barakah in working those days those are really the important days to try to take off not everyone has such a choice right but the idea is like this that there are people who mama sure are constantly on vacation all year round i'm not talking about retired people again maybe they they deserve it they're going to go back and forth visit all their grandchildren they have a whole system when corona is over and that's what they do okay we're talking about people who just have a party mentality i mean that's all they're doing is running around feasting and that's what the verse is really talking about okay again i'll read it again behold it's in malachi chapter 2 verse 3. i rebuked the sea because of you and i will scatter dung upon your face the dung of your festive sacrifices okay the idea that someone makes the whole life as one here he says like this this refers this is um hazal tells him or shabbos 151b this is referring to banaya dom shikoh mayhem that their whole life is like festivals meaning opportunities to for self-indulgence okay and he brings down in rambam hilton's days how one should be moderate right then not go to extremes even with that which is permissible but let's go on now he brings down another verse in proverbs chapter 18 verse 1. he who is separated seeks lust in all sound wisdom he is exposed now this is a little bit complicated because we're going to talk about this idea is it because he lusts that he becomes separated or is it because he is separated he seeks lust let's discuss it how he brings it down in a very organized fashion he brings two sides like i just mentioned to how this is understood in hebrew let's nip to the one with these desires he seeks nifrad so the one with the desire seeks to be separate that's possibly how to read it one who seeks lust is separated and we don't know what the word to shia means yet but in all of this he will be revealed everything will will come to light perish what does it mean so if you look at the first part of the verse mishamava anybody who's seeking they're just they're following their desires right whatever they want that's what they do nifran he will end up being separated because everybody has their own thank god every human being is different we all have different faces we have different fingerprints we have different desires we have our own individual heart and it'll take us different ways but if you follow that you will be separated from people because nobody has the exact same desires as you have which reminds me the other way around that if you're really interested interested in unity of the people you're interested in godly things you really can see the root of your souls connected to everyone else you're not going to be following your desires and you're only going to be following the unity you're going to be unified just imagine so by following your own physical um subjective physical desires you're going to be separate from you're going to find yourself a very lonely place in life but when you realize there's a higher place that is in the the shared soul of israel and you have higher goals and you want to be on a higher place then you'll feel the unity of the other people who are sharing that with you so again one who seeks to follow the pull of his lust and his own want will be separated from every possible associated companion you're gonna you're gonna your friends and colleagues will distance themselves from you as well they also have their loss their desires and it doesn't match up with yours everybody has their own distinct desires and character traits ain't ratsono josek rutono jose right nothing matches up 100 perfectly and that truth is that's the beautiful thing about marriage right i mean when you realize you're one flesh you're one entity you're there to help the other person to to be kind to the other person to be to hear them just to be a uh uh what do you call a um a listening board right so for them to vent for and to lift them up and to to carry them through life right you're you're sharing a common goal so you you can't be that selfish and remain married it's just not gonna it's not gonna work right you have to be selfless if all you're there is for your own desires he'll go his way she'll go her way and the never the two shall meet you have to be selfless okay so what he says like this so what this person wants is not the same as what the other person wants thus following the lure of his own desire will surely pull him away from the others and cause him to remain without friends however on the other hand on the other hand the person follows the path of his intellect spiritual intellect and avoids being lured by human pleasures you will find yourself connected with other people you have rabbi and so many people will love you the amru be moosa and it's talked about in ethan ethical teachings misha wrote rabu hakov seem all love if someone is able to refine their character traits properly many people will be chasing you they want to be your friends um now i mentioned there's two ways to look at this and he's going to go through the verse again an alternative explanation of the verse yes look at the worst exact the verse exactly the way it says nephron he who seeks lust the one who is separated that means each nephron the the it's teaching you that if you're separated you're you you you following your lust you have no friends the only thing you love is yourself is your the base desires because all he s it's only your lust it's only your your desires that you're you're in you're seeking uh anybody who's experiencing an addiction should really try to if this ruins relationships right even the ones who love you and are supporting you your your i don't know what word to say you're hurting them right and you're of course they love you they might they might be flesh they love you but there's a point where they may give up on you so now's the time to turn your life around do it now right listen to what he says since you're constantly seeking your own desires as we mentioned and it's not the same that others want so you're separate from others and because of this your friends have distanced yourself themselves from you now this is where i want to read the note because he brings down both approaches according to this approach which is the second view the verse teaches that if a person has lost all his friends the reason must be that he seeks to satisfy his own desires according to the first approach the verse means the person who seeks to satisfy his desires will eventually lose all his friends like i said either way you look at it the end result is you have no friends okay you're all by yourself and you feel alone okay and he bases this on an idea kenyan there's a verse in mishlai vidal mere eu so it says in michelle 19 4 this is proverbs 19 4. it says wealth adds many friends right the guy that got the money everybody wants to be his friend but a poor man is separated from his friends so what does it mean according to either approach the word nifrad in this verse has the same meaning as the word yifared just like in this verse because in hebrew it says vidal may ray you the poor person from his friends he will be separated so who is a poor person someone who's poor in torah poor and medos okay someone who's rich that is someone who has torah and good meat us now roberto young now explains the end of the above verse going back to chapter 18 in proverbs verse 1 where we said now here is spelled with an iron and i was not aware i had a hard time figuring out what that word meant but it's the same word with the hey it does mean to reveal so let's see one who seeks lust is separated in all of tushya will be revealed he will be revealed one who's chasing after his desires don't think you're just going to sin in one thing once you have given over your heart once you have all your limbs as we spoke about in the in the beginning are under your heart watch out will sin not only in the one thing that is initially the object of his desire wrote with a hay that rather his desire will be revealed in regard to all of the torah's pro prohibitions um okay now we're going for the final finale here it says um [Music] that you eventually the person will eventually transgress all of them just think about it when ramosha feinstein's they asked him i'm gonna guess 50 60 years ago is it permissible to smoke marijuana okay it's permissible he thought okay he's a genius he said it should not it should be permissible i don't really see the problem with it but at least back then they didn't it wasn't prescribed you couldn't have it delivered to your door through a drone you had to go out onto the street corner and okay you end up associating with undesirable people with undesirable behaviors and it would probably lead you to other things i'm just talking about what happened 60 years ago right you start smoking marijuana you might end up shooting heroin or maybe it's laced with something and then you get addicted whatever it is these people back then okay not everybody some of them we don't know this is the general idea that back try trust me when i say this that back then most of the people on the street corners were unsavory and it could lead you to bad character so that was his thinking maybe the marijuana itself wasn't so bad but it leads you to other things and i'm not even saying i have no idea many people grew up and grew out of it and never really became indulged in it but for those that did they gave over their whole life to their lust and their pleasures and who knows where they ended up i have many friends who never survived they died whether it was overdosing on heavy heavy drugs or getting shot in criminal activity like he said it leads to other things so okay so we got that now that's what he says i'm going to read the comment once a person follows the pull of his desire in even one area he falls under its control and has likely become a puppet of the desires in other areas as well i remember friends who wouldn't want to touch drugs i wouldn't like to be out of control i know it could happen or i feel like i'm just too afraid and are no adults today that would not do drugs because where they don't drink a heavily or they don't drink it too much at all because they know that if they get drunk anything can happen so people like to feel in control and you know even from a secular point of view they their their intellect does not feel comfortable in knowing that what the results could be simple as that and so in um i think it was a michelle chapter 20 verse 3 it says like this it is honor for a man to refrain from quarreling all right oh no i'm sorry kavodlish so the order to a person is to quit don't get involved in quarrels and every fool will be exposed so i'd like to read the rashi for a sec a second it's an it is honor for a man to refrain from quarreling right don't zip your mouth don't get involved but we said every fool will be exposed who does not refrain from carling his disgrace will be exposed you know one of the we're talking about wisdom in our 48 ways to wisdom class 48 ways to wisdom you know to gain wisdom sometimes you just have to be silent right it's the best thing if you're around people who are smarter than you right you have to so some humility if you feel there's something to gain what do i get by speaking they're much more wise than i am i have so much to learn from them yeah i might have a funny story i might have you know a good joke but what's the point i have so much wisdom to gain i should just keep quiet and you know what else if i open my mouth i'll show them how foolish i am so i get i really gain two things keeping my mouth shut i can gain wisdom number one at least in their eyes this kid's smart because he's keeping his mouth shut he doesn't know anything and if he opens his mouth it's only going to be foolishness anyway so hashem wise people know when to speak and when to be quiet okay the last comment and we're now in paragraph 32. ode tim solo to ellis there's another benefit that you can find by breaking by crushing your physical desire for physicality now these next two words is because what happens is only when this desire starts asking you for something i re that once he becomes accustomed to abstaining from pleasure so once his desire asked him to partake in something criminal or or sinful yadav or el libo he should say to himself you know that whole cake i didn't eat and i was able to control myself how can i ever do something criminal how can i ever do something which is absolutely forbidden right if you're able to control that which is permissible and you you know practice that like a muscle bizrat hashem you'll be able to even that which you never tasted right even that which you're not habituated even that which you're not accustomed to you'll stay far away from because you know that it's 100 forbidden okay so that's where we're going to leave it today and like i said we have people on zoom i turn the camera off i ha they have my attention my full attention so if you want to join us you can hit the whatsapp ask to join we'll send you the zoom link and um anyway so we rufus element again to repinto um yosef bin zakri bizrat hashem he'll come back and with full strength uh speed of recovery a full recovery and and sharing rabbi yoshiyahu yosef ben zachary so anyway have a great week have a great life we'll see you next week [Music] is