The Spiritual Origin of the Amygdala, Limbic System, & Prefrontal Cortex

Good morning everybody. Welcome to our Thursday morning siddhis [snorts] class. The first day of Rosh Chodesh Tammuz Lamed Sivan Taf Shin Pei Alef, the 30th of Sivan 5781. June 10th, 2021. Thank you everybody for joining us. It's a pleasure to have you. The chevra on Zoom, could you just give me a thumbs up that you could see me and hear me? Beautiful. So what have we been learning? We have been exploring the ma'amar of Parshas Shlach L'havan Inyan Tainas Hamraglim Taf Shin Tes Vav the ma'amar of 1955 Parshas Shlach to understand the deeper dialogue between the spies and between 10 of the spies and two of the spies, those who opposed going into the land and those who advocated going into the land. But here we are discussing the whole story from a deeper spiritual perspective. This is quite an intense and profound ma'amar exploring the various facets of the human personality. But to sum it up we have learnt about three aspects of of the human personality. Let's call them primal drives. middos Let's call another component which is ideas and thoughts which is seichel and machshava. And then what you have what's called emotions which are the way the middos are expressed as hergasha, as as visceral experiences that we feel. Now, it's important to clarify something here, I think very important. When people say, "I feel." It could mean two very separate things. For example, a person tells you or tells himself or herself, "I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling lonely. I'm feeling glad. I'm feeling scared. I'm feeling anger. I'm feeling resentment." That's a very visceral description of what I'm feeling. I'm actually feeling it in my body. It's actually like a a sense You can even call it a sensation. Some people it's It's more conspicuous if you're more in touch with your with your body, if you have more body awareness. With some of us, it's less conspicuous. We have to work more on it because of disassociation that we have perhaps done during some point in our life. But that's one type of emotion. I feel as I actually feel. I I can feel it. It's It's It's vibrating. It's pulsating inside of me. Simmering, you know, the You can experience it. It's an experience. A visceral experience. There's another another expression when people say, "I feel." That means something else. For example, somebody will say, "You know, their sibling is making a wedding. My sister, my brother are marrying off a daughter. And the wedding is in Montreal. I don't feel like driving to Montreal. I'm exhausted. I'm tired. I'm not feeling so well. I've had a hard day, I've had a hard week. I don't feel like going to Montreal. But I feel that I have to be at the wedding. One second, you just said you don't feel. Oh, it's a different feeling. I don't feel like going to Montreal meaning I'm not in the mood of it. My body is like, let's just go to sleep. But I feel that I have to go to the wedding. This is a value. It's my sister. And I love my sister. And even if right now that love doesn't translate in a physical sense of excitement, I want to go to the wedding. I don't want to. I'm not in the mood of it. But I feel like I have to. That's a different type of feeling. That's That's a value. That's das. That's a conviction. That's based on my perspective on life. What is What is the right thing? What is the right thing? I may feel it, I may not feel it. I may be excited about it, I may not be excited about it. I may be in the mood, I may not be in the mood. So what? You don't have to follow your values only when you're in the mood of them. Even when I'm not in the mood, I could still see the different options and then choose that which is my value, which is which is a reflection of of what I believe in, what I think, what is dear to me, what is really meaningful to me. I just wanted to make that clarification. So generally speaking, we have here three levels, middos, moichen, and the hergesh of middos. Middos are the primal drives of a person. And he says, you have to respect those drives in you and in somebody else because they don't change. In fact, they are a mirror of the etzem hanefesh. They are a mirror of the etzem hanefesh. He's calls it a Shorashe pshutos of Etzem HaNefesh. If you trace them back, you will find them embedded those characteristics, these drives are embedded in the core of the soul. And those things, you don't want to change those things you can't change. This is this is who I am. Respecting me means respecting this. Respecting these primal drives of a person. It's a fascinating idea. And this is what the And this is middos. And they're deeper than ideas. Ideas are what the soul possesses. Middos is what the soul is. It's who I am. That's middos. It's deeper than mochin. Mochin is intellectual ideas, perspectives, values. And And therefore thoughts. There's seichel and machshava. Ideas are manifested through thoughts. That's how I process ideas to myself. And how do I communicate ideas to you? Through words. That's dibbur. And then there's action, which is implementation. But before action, there are thoughts. Thoughts is my conversations with myself. You can't talk to yourself without thinking. And thoughts are also which we think in a certain language. And then there are words. You communicate in words to others. There's communication to self and communication to others. As a result of this, we have the primal drives called middos. We have the concept called seichel, mochin, machshava, ideas, thoughts. And then there is the middos, the hergashos, the feelings, the way they're actually manifested in a person's real life. I feel it in a visceral way. These are the three components we have been exploring in the previous classes. Now, now the fact is the fact is that every single mida every single emotion So, we have like this primal drives ideas and thoughts and then emotions. midas moichin and midas the way they come out in hergesh and feeling. And again, when we hear the word midas, people often get confused. Just like we get confused in English about the word feelings. What does feelings mean? Is feelings a feeling or is it a value? Is it here or is it here? Where is it? It depends. Depends on the context. The word midas also we could be referring to midas that transcends moichin completely. It's who I am. It's my primal drives. And then there's midas the way they're born and they emerge through moichin. And those are the emotions I feel, which will always be preceded by certain thoughts. Every mida in the world needs engine needs an engine. Every feeling in the world, every feeling you're having needs fuel. It needs a soul. And the soul that gives it life is always a thought. There's no such a thing a mida without a thought. It's not easy to see always because I get overwhelmed. I'm like, this is what I'm feeling. I'm feeling so because of certain thoughts that produce these emotions. That's very important. That's why we often talk about seichel as being the mother of middos. Because without a mommy, there's no baby. Without a tatti and mommy, there's no offspring. So, you need parents to be able to have children. They are the ones who give birth to the children. So, we talk about in so many seforim, including in chassidus, especially in Chabad chassidus, already in Tanya in chapter 3 and many other places in Tanya and in the works of the Baal HaTanya, that seichel is the source of middos. It's the mommy of middos. In fact, chochma is called tatti and bina is called mommy. Chochma is awareness. Chochma is conception and bina is comprehension, understanding. You have chochma, bina, daas, wisdom, understanding, knowledge. They are considered the progenitors, the parents of middos. Because every single emotion is preceded by a thought, by an idea. Always. Look at any emotion you're having and there is a thought that preceded it, which is so important in life to know. Because that's the only way you can have understand what's going on in your feelings. I'm experiencing something in such a powerful and potent and visceral way. And ain't no milvado, there's nothing else, right? But I'm feeling it and this is everything. But that's that's an immature form of experiencing your middah. A deeper, mature way of looking at it is, okay, I got it. I'm not I'm not I'm not questioning this is your visceral reaction, but now my question is, can we ask ourselves, what was the thought that I experienced just 1 minute ago right before this emotional explosion or implosion? This is such an important process in life because by understanding the mother, I can understand the child better. [laughter] Right? It's like the therapist will ask the patient, "Can you tell me about your mother and your father?" Did you ever Did you ever do that? [laughter] Can you tell me about your house? Can you tell me about your father? It's one of the first questions. Why is that the first question? Because if I know what type of home you grew up in, I know about your mother, I know about your father, I can understand I can understand everything. We'll soon see that the real things I don't understand, but I understand a lot. So, I want to ask my emotion, "Who's your mommy? Who's your daddy? What ideas, what thoughts produced you? Who comes to May I in Boston? Where do you come from?" And when you can look at that, you will learn so much. I didn't just get angry, or to put it differently, I never We never respond emotionally to what somebody else says or does. We respond emotionally to the way we processed what they said and did. That's why two people can hear the same thing and one person gets overwhelmed from, say, anger and the other person, it's like, "Okay, next. What happened?" They both heard the same thing. The answer is they didn't hear the same thing. Yeah, they heard the same words, but they processed it differently. The me that doesn't come from you, it comes from me. It comes from my thoughts about what you said. It's not what you said that evoked and triggered such a reaction. It's the way I processed what you said that triggered such a reaction. Does everybody understand what I'm saying? This is so important. Because this is where you begin a journey into the MS, into your truth. Without this, I'm stuck. These are my reactions. Okay, I understand these are my reactions. So, a child can't always do this. As an adult, we also can't always do it, but this is what we work we try to work on. Understanding, tracing back the source. And that's what the Seforim talks about. That's That's part of what Hassidus means. When it says in so many places, including in this Ma'amar, that Moichin is the parent of the Middos. And parents have to take responsibility. The worst [clears throat] thing for a parent to do is, "Oh, sorry, I'm not responsible in this house. Things happen on their own." You're not a parent. A parent got to call the shots. I know in America, 2021, it's maybe not politically correct, but it's still the truth. Parents got to call the shots. [laughter] Parents are parents. A father has to be a father. Mother has to be a mother. Not in a mean way, not in a negative way, in a very meaningful and productive and loving way. The worst thing in a company is the boss comes in and somebody says, "We have to make a decision right now, right here." He says, "Oh, I have nothing to do with this place. Do whatever you want." That creates chaos. Parents have to take responsibility for everything that's going on in life, in the home. At least for many things that's going that are going on in the home. I can't Now, we'll soon see that there's a very important qualification here, which we didn't get at yet. We discussed it in the previous classes, but this is this is stage one. So, Moichin take responsibility. I am responsible for my emotions. Responsible doesn't mean I can eliminate them or transform them with a snap of a finger. Responsible means I have to be able to see what is happening within my own system that is creating this cycle that is creating this. That's what responsibility means. Responsibility doesn't mean as some people say, "Oh, I'm responsible if I can get rid of it." No, no, I can't. I may have a leak in my home, right? That I'm responsible for because of certain things I did. But now I not I got to bring in the plumbers and we got to work on it. But responsibility means to identify what's going on. That's what responsibility means. Very important. Responsibility doesn't mean you can go like this and it's gone. Responsible parents, they can't fix the helm like this, but they can take responsibility. This is what's going on and this is our part in it. And this is therefore our calling right now. Very important. The same is true with me that I send my hand. I can just get emotional and say, you know, every time you come into my room, my heart starts palpitating and I feel stress and anxiety and anger and frustration. Every time I even see you on the phone, my heart is already not calm, okay? But remember, it's not the other person. It's the way I'm processing the other person. It's the way I'm processing you. It's It's the way I'm experiencing you. It's It's It's what my thoughts are telling me about you. Well, you say, "No, it's the other person that has nothing to do with me." That's not true. It has all to do with me. Now, this is not guilt. It's not judgement. This doesn't mean you're bad, you're guilty, you're horrible person. This may be something that for me is survival. It may be that there's something in your being, in your words, that trigger my amygdala. And my amygdala, which is my reptilian brain, that's what they like calling it. I'm not sure if it's an appropriate name, but they like calling it the reptilian brain. But maybe it's associated a little with the nefesh bahamis, operates with fight and flight. The reptile is part of the nefesh bahamis. It's fight and flight. And when you're coming when you're coming you know when your fire alarm goes off in the house, you know when it goes off you're in the middle of a Shabbos meal, you're in the middle of singing a song and there's a fire alarm. You can't sing. The fire alarm is buzzing. It's so hot cuz it wants you out of the house or it wants you to call the fire department. My amygdala starts lighting up. Danger, danger, danger, danger. I'm not blaming the person. This have This may have been my survival skill from the age of 7 years old. And when you're walking into that room, that is being triggered. I can't think anymore. I am overwhelmed. So this is not about judgment, but it's about identifying what is the engine behind the mida? What is the soul of the mida? In Tanya there's an expression in Shaar [snorts] HaYichud VeHaEmunah perek ches, perek tes that every single mida has a soul. And the soul is the machshava that is fueling it. There is always a thought that is responsible for the mida. And that's why we say seichel is the source for midos. It's the It's the progenitor, it's the father, it's the mother that produces it. There is always an awareness that precedes a mida. And this is where avoda comes in cuz when I can become more and more and more aware of that, I can see what is going on. I can almost see the process happen. And that's where healing can be introduced because I can start making choices. I can start gaining perspective. I can start seeing the various options. But as we're learning in this ma'amar, that's only the way midos come out, that they're children of mychen. But in their source, they actually come from a place that's deeper than tati and mami. They come from a place not that's deeper, they come from a place that's independent of tati and mami. They emerge They emerge just like a child. Tati and mami are not responsible for the child's soul. They don't give you your soul. God gives you your soul. Yes, the body of a child develops from the conception from the synthesis of the of the of the egg and the seed, the sperm and the egg. Where the egg is fertilized and ultimately develops into a healthy embryo. And as the fetus develops, it becomes a full-fledged person. And through the father and primarily through the mother in 9 months of pregnancy, the child's soul and body emerge into the world. But tati and mami are not the ones who draw down and create. We don't create our child's neshama, our child's soul. It's a chelek eloka mima'al. This is God's creation. This is God's product. The thing Talmud says, every child has three partners. Hashem, father and the mother. Gimel shutfin in the Gemara says in Maseches Niddah. Similarly, in our moshol, in our nimshol, your mychen, your father and mother don't create the essence of the middah. They give birth to it. Just like a mother gives birth to a child. She allows the neshama to come out into the world, but she doesn't create the neshama. She's not responsible for the neshama. [snorts] She's responsible for bringing it out into the world. Very important distinction. Middos themselves are rooted in the etzem hanefesh. Your visceral reactions to these thoughts can be traced back, if you go way way way back, to primal drives that are embedded in you that transcend any intellectual ideas or thoughts. And that's the reason why certain thoughts produce certain emotional reactions. Why these thoughts Why do these thoughts produce such reactions for you and not for me? And conversely, the answer is because of our different experiences, of course, because of our different stages in life, and primarily because how they What they say about our primal drives. When the thought When the thought introduces an idea that makes me feel that my primal drive is being threatened or compromised, it will result in a very harsh emotion. Con- Contrary to that, conversely, when my thoughts are telling me this is a person or this is a situation that will actually promote your primal drives and bring you closer to the fulfillment of your primal drives, this creates a positive emotion. So, we have three different levels of life. Primal drives, that's midos. As he says, it's the hashra'ash of etzem hanefesh. It reveals the essence of my soul. It's a mirror that allows you a peek into who I am. There is mochin, that's awareness, thoughts, ideas and thoughts, seichel and machshavah. And then there are midos, the way they come out in hergesh, meaning my visceral, emotional, bodily reactions. I call them primal drives, ideas and thoughts and emotions. Emotions. When we say the word midos, we can get confused between the two. Are we talking about the primal drives that I may not feel in my body. I may not feel my primal drives in my body, but they are me. They are who I am. Those are the things that are most important to me because that's who I am. That those are the that's the midos and they're deeper than my And then you have the mychin, ideas and thoughts. And then you have midos the way they come out as emotions. I'm actually feeling it. I'm emotional about it. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it in my body. It's it's a reaction of my body. It's an experience in my body. Those are the three dimensions that we speak about. What is primal drive in Hebrew? Primal drive in Hebrew is da'chafim rishonim. Drive is a da'chaf, da'chafim. Right? Rishonim. The the ma'amar the mychin the ma'amar compares it to ratzon. Ratzon hanefesh atzma, it's meshichat hanefesh. Masha hanefesh rotzah. Ani lo bocher bazeh. Zeh masha ani. Afshar litkachesh lazah. Afshar lasot kilu eno. Afshar lagid lemisha, "Eh, mi ichpat?" It's like I told you once a therapist told me that uh that when he speaks to a patient, how does he know he's getting somewhere? The patient is very emotional about something, very upset about something, very excited about something, very overwhelmed about something, right? So, he starts peeling, you know, the layers of the onion. And he'll say, "So, this is doing what to you?" And he'll say, "It's making me feel, let's say, sad." Right? "Making me feel lonely. It's making me feel misunderstood." And and there'll be a question, "Why why why is that a negative thing? Like Okay, so that's what you're feeling. Why don't you like that? And he'll give a reason. And he'll challenge that reason. So he'll give another reason, and he'll challenge that reason. I'll give a deeper reason. And he he told me as long as the patient has an answer why I know that I'm not getting anywhere. And then at some point he'll lift up his hands and maybe a tear will come down his cheek and he'll say I don't know why. It's just it's just what I want. So now he knows he touched something much more real. Because this is the the the border between say between analyzing things and me dice and rots it. I went to a place that's deeper than why because ultimately there's no why. You can always ask so why this so why? You can always ask so why is that important? And at some point you have to say as I this is this is who I am. This is what I want. That's what primal drives are. He calls it here Russia should have some of an office. Which I translated as these are characteristics that are embedded in the undefined essence of the soul. They are mirrors into who you are. Understood? Somebody [snorts] translated it as primitive drives. The coffin primitive in but I I prefer much more primal. Primal the coffin primal the coffin shining. They sometimes call it the coffin behind him but it's not not the right translation. It's not animal drives. It's primal drive. Primal drives means pre-verbal drives, pre-mark shovel drives. They're not processed in thought in order to feel them or experience them. They're pre-verbal. They're pre-machshava. And as he says in the mind me, they're there the moment you're born. And they exist in every person. In a child you won't see seichel. And sometimes in a shoter you won't see seichel. At least no serious development of it. But middos, you'll see by everybody. Why? Cuz it's it's the nefesh. It's the soul. And every person has a soul. A child, an infant one day old has a soul just like a 90-year-old genius or a 60-year-old genius. It's a beautiful vort. And since a one-day child has a soul, middos you'll see by everybody. These drives, these primal drives. And what do we mean by primal? Primal mean they predate machshava. They predate seichel. Zah ba'atika achas v'talia, the words of the Zohar. Very important words. Zah, emotions come from atik. Atik is the pnimius hakesser. So the primal here means that it comes from a deep deep place that is beyond words, beyond thoughts, beyond seichel. It's not like I think and therefore I have these drives. No, no, no, no, no. On the contrary, your machshava is a result of these primal drives. I develop certain ways of looking at the world and certain values because of these primal drives. Beautiful. So you're saying the word primal is associated with the word primate. Primate. Because prime. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like that which is in the beginning, that which is the source, that which is the core of everything. It's the beginning of everything. And you said that in your in your university they they taught that they did research that when somebody's, let's say, walking in the forest and they see a bear, Yes. and the amygdala, the fight or flight reaction is triggered in a split second is 250 changes in the body. That's amazing. Yeah, more or less, yeah. That's amazing. And in a split second. In a split second. Huh? All the little protein that Right. That prepare the person that prepare the person for this confrontation. Right. It says in Zohar we blow shofar not with a human sound. We use an animal sound. We use the horn of an animal. Right? We use the shofar of a ram, the horn of a ram. Why? Cuz we're looking for the primal voice of a person. I'm looking for the pre-verbal voice. I'm looking for the pre-machshava voice. I'm looking for that voice of the animal inside of me. In other words, my my deepest deepest voice, kol p'nima, the inner voice that can't be articulated not only in words, but even in a cry of a person. So, we use the horn of an animal in order to be able to cry out by t'kiat shofar. I don't just go No, we take the ram's horn. The ram, the ayil, the behema. And we blow into the ram's horn. That's like a a much more primal voice. Of course, it's processed through the human being as a human being. But in order to get to that place, we use the animal's horn. So, that's a very powerful idea. That's pre-verbal. It's pre-machshava. It's pre-seichel. And it's pre-the human, even the human experience. The way it becomes a human experience. So, that's why we use the t'kiat shofar, the ram's horn. It's It's almost a cry of pain. Uh The cry of pain. Yeah. And it could be a cry of um um exclamation or um Yeah. you know, waking up. I mean, my my the [snorts] opposite of pain, also. There's pain, there's waking up, there's exclamation, there's coronation. Yeah, there's a lot there. Somebody asks, I think it's a big mistake to reference the brain as an explanation for anything. According to Judaism, the body, including the brain, exists within the soul as opposed to vice versa, where the soul exists inside the brain. It's the other way around. Yeah, the brain can serve as the visibility of a movement of the soul, just like of movement of the body serves as the visibility of some desire, but it doesn't mean that the brain causes anything, whether a reaction or otherwise. And just like erasing a word can prevent its meaning being shown in the world. Without that meaning, the word is the meaning. Damaging the brain, God forbid, can prevent an aspect of the soul from expressing itself. It doesn't mean that the brain that aspect the amygdala is responsible for everything. So, yes, when you erase a word, you prevent the meaning from the word not being shown in the world. So, without the brain, God forbid, that aspect of the soul can't be expressed and manifested, but don't give all the credit to the brain itself. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the for the comment. So, now let's go to the next step. The metaphor that we learned previously in the mind map was when it comes to seichel and middos. Middos, we're talking now in terms of emotions, the way the primal drives are manifested in real tangible emotions. The example that was given to that is a person has a desire for a great treasure. But if I don't know that there is a treasure or where there's a treasure, I'm sure any of you you know, would have a desire for $100,000 or a million dollars. It could pay the bills, you can do good things with it. But right now you're not feeling this craving to it because because nobody showed you where it is. But let's say somebody can point and say, "Hey, there's a treasure right there." And you trust them. You trust them. They're not lying. At least you don't think they're lying. Suddenly, your desire to that treasure is triggered. It comes out. You're excited. Your heart is palpitating. Wow, wow, wow, I'm running. You're running. What happened? The The person who said there is a treasure, he didn't create the excitement. The excitement is part of who you are. You like You would like a million dollars. And when you see it and it's yours, you're going to get excited about it. But without that person pointing a finger to that place, that excitement would remain dormant because there's nothing to get excited about. But when that person pointed to that closet and said, "Hey, there's a million dollars waiting for you." suddenly, you're having a visceral emotional reaction. You're running towards it with a lot of enthusiasm, with baited breath. And the reason you're running to it is because you're feeling your desire. So, did this person create your desire for a million dollars? No, he didn't create it. But this person is triggering it, arousing it, revealing it. That's the metaphor for seichel and midos. Seichel is the maramakem. It's that person pointing their finger, putting up a sign. That's where the treasure is or that's where the danger is. That's where the treasure is or that's where the danger is. Without that sign, without that my ramacon, the middos are there inherent. Seichel does not birth the middos. Seichel does not Say it does Say it different. Seichel does not create the middos. Seichel births the middos into revelation. Seichel does not create the middah. You didn't create my desire for a million bucks or 10 million bucks. What you did do was by pointing my your finger towards that space and showing me, "Hey, there's a treasure there and you can access it." You brought out from concealment, you brought out from my own system the feeling that was always potentially there, but it was dormant. It was not alive. It was not vibrant. And that's what awareness always does. That's what seichel always does. Seichel labels things. It categorizes things. It processes things. It gives definitions and therefore it allows these hergashas, these feelings to emerge in a very real way in my body. And that's why going back to awareness is going to help me see how the middos emerged, but it's not going to it's not going to help explain and clarify the ultimate secret of the middah, which is rooted in my primal drives that are primal, they're pre-seichel and they're higher than seichel. Which as a result of this, the Rebbe asked the big question. If it's this this is the case that middos really come from a higher place than seichel, a much higher, a much deeper place than seichel, how is it that seichel has any control and balabatishkait over middos? How does How does that process work? So now we're going to continue inside. I know this was a very long introduction. If you don't have your source sheets open, please open them and we will continue base your sham inside. You can go to the yeshiva.net. That's t h e t h e the y e yeshiva y e s h i v a .net and you'll see this class on the home page and uh and you can open the source sheets either above the video or below the video. So let's now continue inside in the source sheets. We're up to 145. The last paragraph will be yoitzer ainay muvan. Will be yoitzer ainay muvan. The fact is the last paragraph he finished that me does listen to saychel. I listen to that person who is telling me there is the million dollars. I listen to him and I trust him and I respond to him. In other words, in many ways me does looks up to saychel. Me does is subservient to saychel. I'm going to trust my ideas and thoughts to be able to know how my me does should emerge and what me does emerges and at what point. How does moichen have that power if me does are really deeper than moichen? If the child is not really a child, the child is really the parent and the parent is the child, so So how is it that the parent controls the child? If really the child is the parent and the parent is the child. That's the question. What is even more not understood It's not just that say how points a finger and therefore arouses or triggers the revelation the birthing of a meter. [snorts] It also affects is maturity development. In the maturation process of meters there are two stages. There is the maturity of meters on their on their own as he will explain. And there's the maturity of meters that come from the my hand. As as as he's going to explain now two aspects in the meters growing to become more mature. What are these two things? So the rabbit starts explaining. The maturity of meters on their own and when he speaks here about meters what is he talking about? The feelings. Remember this primal drives ideas and thoughts and feelings. The maturity of meters themselves is time. It's growing up. The moment you're born you already have meters. Nonetheless they grow, they develop, they mature just like the body. Every living thing, what's the sign of life? The sign of life is it goes through changes, it goes through developments, it matures. A tree that is alive continues to grow. You can't compare the middos of a 1-year-old, a 1-day-old baby to the middos of a 1-year-old baby, to the middos of a 5-year-old, of a 10-year-old, of a 20-year-old, of a 30-year-old. We're talking about a person who grows up and develops and matures. So, the fact is that as our awareness, it's not just our awareness points a finger and says, "Hey, this is what's going on. There's a treasure there and the middos emerge in their full in their full splendor." No, as we grow up and our awareness matures and our perspectives change, our middos respond, right? We all know that. That's how it works. I think the CBT model in psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy, is based on this idea that my every middah has a source and that source is awareness. And you change your awareness, you can change your middah to a significant degree. There is also the maturity that happens in middos with my hand. The difference The maturity of middos on their own is they retain their identity, but they're just more mature, they're more developed. But then The maturity that comes from my hand from very, very serious and deep uh process of the mind that he's going to discuss is actually a change in the core. Come right by in in the ebor you niko my head. This is explained this is a sugia in Kabbalah and in Seder known as ebor you nika and my head. Ebor you nika and my head are three stages of development which basically are translated as pregnancy, nursing, and full development of the mind. Ebor is the fetal state when the fetus is impregnated in the mother's womb. That's called ebor. Then there is birth and then there is you nika. You nika means nursing. Like it says about Sarah, right? That she was maynik. Lahanik is to nurse. You nika is the nursing. That represents the baby after birth when it begins growing as an independent person, but it's nursing mama's milk. And then there's my head. My head is a third stage which represents a fuller state of cognition and consciousness and identity. So it's three stages of identity and it's three stages of me days. There's the way my emotions are in a state of ebor, in a state of you nika, and in a state of my head. Kashira hamida say uh What happened What happened to birth? Yeah, birth and you nika. You nika is birth. When the baby is born when it starts nursing. So that's after birth and then there's my head which is like a a mature state of development. So in every state of life, I could be 30 years old or 50 years old, but I'm still in a state of ebor. My emotions are still in a state of pregnancy or in a state of nursing or in a state of my head. Ebor is fetal fetal position. Your me days are in fetal position. You nika is already a baby emerges, not a fetus anymore. But it's nursing and then there's my hand which represents a a form of self-sufficiency. A deeper state in human development. Kashiram in the same be ebor. Sometimes my meters I always have meters from day one you have meters. There's always the meters cuz meters is a mirror of my soul of who I am. But there's meters in a state of ebor fetal position. As I am the queen is me shabani he and he below that. The he is netzach hoyed yesod. I am the queen is netzach hoyed yesod shab netzach hoyed yesod which means generally in the meters there's three components. There's chagas [clears throat] in in in a person's in when we speak about a person's persona we have three levels. We have chabad, chagas and the he. Chabad is chachma bina daas. Those are our cognitive faculties. Chagas is chesed gura to tiferes. Those are our basic emotional drives. Chesed is the need for attachment. Gura is the need for authenticity. Tiferes is is empathy, compassion. Then you have netzach, hoyed and yesod. Netzach hoyed yesod are associated with the lower part of the body. Netzach is the right thigh, hoyed is the left thigh, yesod is the procreative organ the is brisket. Chesed is the right arm, gura is the left arm, tiferes is the torso. When a person is in a fetal position, right? So the head and the heart are tucked in. They're tucked in into like the thighs. So what's dominating is the netzach hoyed yesod which is called ebor. What does this mean in a person's life? Who queen is hoyed da the hoyed da. Like we learned in the mind of Lag Baomer if you remember written on a few months ago before Shavuos tough there's something called the What does mean? means to be to submit or to acquiesce. A person agrees that I have to acknowledge. I have to admit, I have to concede, I have to acquiesce. Or I have to thank. We say, "I'm for the fact that I'm the The itself comes because of the This means that a person has healthy instincts, but there's not much awareness that is fueling it. I'm because of the In other words, there's a drive in me to be because that itself I'm I'm that I have to be It's not that I understand it fully. It's not that I feel it fully. But there is a certain awareness, a certain deep instinctive acknowledgement that I have to acknowledge. So he says, "I'm thankful at least that I could be thankful. I'm grateful for the fact that I can be grateful. I'm grateful for the fact that I can I can I can do the right thing. I can say the right thing even if really it's not very developed in me. It's not I'm not fully aware of it." What What What is What is top men? A second Heskim heskim. There's like an agreement heskim like There's like an agreement in the soul. There's an agreement in the soul, yeah. A fetus, take a fetus. A fetus does a lot of stuff, right? But you're not going to say that it's from a state of premeditation and awareness and emotion. In other words, the middos are coming out, but they're coming out more in an instinctive fashion. And that's why it's such a primal place. It's such a primal place. But then our middos develop to a state of nursing. We're born as we grow up, there's much more awareness. The middos mature more and more. We always have middos from day one and even in the womb there's middos. But there's middos in a state of ibur, there's middos in a state of yenika, and there's middos in a state of mochin. But they're always there. There's middos in a fetal state, there's middos in a birth state right after you're born and the first years and then there's middos when you become much more self-aware and your prefrontal it's the different parts of the brain actually developing, you know? The amygdala, the limbic brain, the prefrontal cortex. And this is really the three levels here. We have the primal brain, the reptilian brain, right? Like you say fight or flight. There are very serious drives coming out. In fact, the primate in us will emerge there in a very powerful way. That's why the child, the infant is such an important moment. That's when the deepest impressions People used to think that education starts when your kid is 10. We know today that education ends when your child is three. I don't mean that literally, but I'm saying [laughter] Right? They used to think It's true. They used to think that education begins when your boy or girl becomes 10 years old, you'll start educating them. You know, when they become bar mitzvah. Today, when they're three, it's done, finished. Why? Because it's in the primal the primal when a person is in their most primal state that the deepest impressions happen. And the processes are not happening cognitively. They're not happening through consciousness and meditation and listening to classes. That's not how it happens. It's happening all on a primal, often unconscious level, and therefore it goes in so deep. So, there's always middos, but even a fetus has middos. And certainly when you're born. But how are these middos processed and how are these these middos emerging? Is middos emerging in a state of ibur? Is middos emerging in a state of yenika? And is middos emerging in a state of mochin? And this is the development of it. So, even the child who's just born and even that fetus, they're expressing their primal drives. You can see their middos. Listen to their tears and you'll hear it. The kicking in the womb is coming from deep primal drives. And yes, those primal drives are connected with survival. I want to survive. And it's not just survival in a very primitive way, but also it's as he said before, an expression of my soul. It's not It's not just It's really an expression of of the needs of the drives of my soul. Then our middos become more developed. What do we mean they become more developed? As our brains grow, we have that amygdala. Then we have the part of the brain that's responsible generally for emotions, for the emotions of a person that we share with primates. Then you have what's called the prefrontal cortex. That's an example perhaps of mochin. So, you have ibur, yenika, and mochin. It's three stages of the brain. It's fascinating that what we know today in neuroscience has been articulated in chassidus for hundreds of years. Fascinating. These three place ibur yenika Ibur is very instinctive. It's fight or flight response. The reptilian response. But we can't stay there. We can't stay there. Then there is yenika. Yenika is an expression of emotion. And that's what you see in a child growing up, very intense emotion. And then you have going into adulthood where the prefrontal cortex is developed. That takes a long time. It's probably I think the development finishes in the 20s, right? At 24 or so, because it continues to develop because the prefrontal cortex, that's already going from the state of unique to the state of mychin. Ebor, unique, and mychin. And the middos mature, they go through a maturation process. They go through literally a maturity process. They go through, they become They even though the middos are always there. The middos are always there, but because there's different functionality that developed in my brain and in my soul, they affect the middos. And he says, "Until you reach a point sham middos misgadlum ach anasim kmo chus amoychin." Doesn't happen with everybody. The middos become so mature, they actually become like a reflection of the mychin. The gadlus amiddos kmo gadlus amoychin. The greatness of your middos mirror the greatness of your ideas, of your mychin. Which is when a person When a person's emotional emotional reactions really really mirror, they really become reflective of the ideas itself that my soul understands. Umizam muvin shagdulus amiddos b'tsad amoychin. And that's why this level of the development in middos is not like the development that happens on its own in ebor unique with more awareness, the middos automatically develop. But it's that the middos themselves become a mirror of mychin. Anu shagdulus amiddos amiddos asmo midak bakli. What do we mean? There is the maturity of meters that happens on its own as a person grows up and this is in the cali. Cali means in the container. in the meter in the in in the meter the container of the meter What is the maturity? The maturity is actually that the meter the of the meter becomes greater. It becomes more powerful. The the identity the reality and the being the the ego the existence of the meters becomes greater. The the maturity in the meters that develops because of the this is in the energy and the life that fuels the meter. And the more of the cali of it is nullified and this meter doesn't come out in in in in a way of and it's not so conscious and felt as meter rather the meter represents the of the meter. We find in a story that when he heard the greatest secrets of from the faithful shepherd from says just he bent down he reclined he reclined to the earth he reclined to the ground and he kissed the earth. His whole heart was overtaken. You're listening to a why are you kissing? Why are you why are you kissing the earth? The answer is because this wasn't just an intellectual experience. This was an experience that encompassed him completely. So his whole life was also moved. But there's two types of emotions. There's an emotion that he calls here and there's a emotion that's not with a that's not an example for this is what we spoke of in just two words is spilus this. Spilus means when you're very excited about something. Vaikus means when you're one with something. And when you're one with it, you often will not see any excitement. Not because you're not excited, but because there's absolutely no separateness. It's like when somebody is glued to something. You're just mesmerized. You're consumed. You don't even have the ability to experience it as a separate being. Mida's by definition is I. I feel. I feel. It's my drive. When mida's become like machen, what does it mean? It's not anymore I feel. It's that the reality permeates me so deeply that I'm just one with it. So I don't even feel the excitement of it. Not because I'm not excited, but that the excitement is one in which I'm completely dovek. I'm completely subsumed. You know, you saw over the generations different sadikim davening in different ways. There were those who davened with a lot of ecstasy and they would jump and run and scream. And those that they're davening, you almost saw nothing. It looked like they were emotionally not present, but sometimes it's a deeper presence. It's dveikus. It's like I go to the airport. I haven't seen my child in two and a half years and I see him from far and I start running. Hey! Hey! You see your daughter, you haven't seen them in a few years. You know, they come back after a year of Corona from Israel and you meet them in the airport and you start screaming. Hey! And you're so excited and you run over and then you give a hug. And during the hug, everybody is quiet. Everybody is silent. What happened? Now you should start screaming. And the answer is the screaming before was representing the fact that there was a distance that we were trying to overcome. There was a gulf that we were trying to overcome. Once you're actually connected and you're embracing each other, now there's complete silence. It says this is the different stages in davening. Like psukei dezimra, you're supposed to say bekoil uvenigan. Especially Karliner chassidim, you know, they scream the whole davening. It's amazing. But people Sukkot is supposed to say it's true with Krias Shema and the blessings of Krias Shema. Shemoneh Esrei silence. Should be the other way around. Shemoneh Esrei is the is the zenith of davening. That's when you should start screaming. The idea is that Shemoneh Esrei you reach a deeper space of silence. There's silence that comes because I'm not interested, so I'm just quiet. But there's silence that comes from the fact that I'm completely subsumed. There's no I experiencing it. So middos by definition is I am driven to something. Like ratzon, I want, I feel, I need, I experience. When when middos in their ultimate maturity reach mochin themselves, what's mochin? The idea of mochin is I'm trying to understand an idea. It's not about me. That's the beauty of ideas. There's no bribery. Middos are about subjectivity, all about subjectivity. Mochin are about objectivity. Middos becoming like mochin, going through this transformation which is the highest level of development of middos is that middos lose that element of I in the sense that they assume the mahus of mochin when Reb Shimon throws himself down to the ground and he kisses the floor when he hears those secrets of Raya Mehemna, it's representing the fact that the middos themselves assume the identity of the mochin which is bittul. It's not a metzius, it's not murgash. You don't feel the middah, you don't feel the I because my excitement, my emotional oneness is completely experiencing the full deveikus, the full intimacy, and therefore you don't sense the self-consciousness and the excitement of middos. This is the deepest level of the development of middos from ibbur to yenika to mochin from the amygdala to the limbic to the prefrontal cortex. This is the ultimate mochin. And he says, the answer the the It's a little different to what the the Zohar says that when Rabbi Akiva heard the secrets of Torah from Rabbi Elazar, he began to cry. Over there Rabbi Akiva cried because of the spirals in his mind in his in his brain, so to speak. He couldn't contain the the depth of the secrets. Tears are called moisture in my hand. That which I can't assimilate into my conscious brain. It just doesn't fit in. So, it comes out in tears. Sometimes you cry not just because you're sad. Sometimes you cry because you're happy. Right? You cry from happiness. And sometimes you cry from an overwhelming awareness that surprises your brain. It's wow. You start crying. That's where Rabbi Akiva started to cry. It didn't fit into the brain. So, I start crying. But it's not it's it wasn't so much a focus on me this. It was the focus of the learning. The learning it was such a powerful idea that the only way for him to assimilate was through his expression of how it startled him, how it overwhelmed him, how it was beyond the kingdom of his mind was through tears. When Rabbi Shimon kisses the ground Over there it's actually a spiral of Amida. It's the heart being moved. Even though Rabbi Shimon was so excited with the common these middos were not felt. This excitement was not conspicuous. The bittul. Because the light was so deep that the keli became subsumed in the light. Every middah has two elements, the keli and the ohr. The keli of the middah is the self-consciousness of it. The ohr of the middah is the truth that is giving birth to the middah. That's the light, the soul of the middah, like we spoke before. Every middah has a soul, and that's the awareness, the thoughts. Usually the ohr is bottle to the keli. That's the first levels of middos, ibbur and yenika. Mochin is where the keli of the middah is bottle to the ohr. And when the keli of the middah is bottle to the ohr, it's not felt in a self-conscious way anymore. Because what's felt is the experience, the truth that this middah is expressing. And this is the ultimate maturity of the middos that happens through the development of a person's ideas and awareness. But the bottom line here is that mochin has a tremendous impact on middos. So the Rebbe gets back to the question. Since middos in their essence transcend mochin, how do they develop and grow and mature through mochin? Even the first idea that we spoke earlier in the maamar, that seichel is like a mara makom, is like the guy pointing to the treasure and saying, "There's the million bucks." And as a result of that, the middos get triggered and aroused. That's also not understood. The canal, as we said before this and Since meters are higher than motion, why are they obeying and listening to the instructions and the guidance of the say Therefore, it's surprising. Even when you think about the fact that meters can be revealed and led and controlled on some level through motion. Even that is surprising and startling. How exactly does that happen? What is it if meters essentially are the primal drives? They are the eye, the core of the eye, the etzema nefesh. Say is something the soul has. Meters is what the soul is. So how is it that say has that ability, that capacity to yield any influence whatsoever? Even if we said say doesn't create it. Say just burrows it. Say reveals it. Say points out to meters where what reality is. This is danger zone. This is good zone. This is cotton candy zone. This is lollipop zone. This is vanilla ice cream. This is chocolate ice cream. This is hazelnut ice cream. This is whatever it is. I'm giving an example. Say is the one who gives labels and as a result of that, the meters respond. Even that's startling. How that happens? Why are the meters listening to the say? How is come of the coming in dollars on meters? But when you think about this last paragraph in the mind, that motion don't only bring it out. They also change it. They cause it to develop ebor, unique, motion on all the levels we spoke about. Here the say is the counselor, the madrich. The madrich is the mentor, the mentor of the mida. I raise you, I develop you, I turn you into a man or a woman. As I explained earlier, now the question becomes even greater. The question is how the mida works. The parent is really the child. The child is really the parent. So why is the child SAYING I'M A CHILD? The midos are the parents. The midos are the children really. If so, why is it that in life it becomes topsy-turvy? If the parent is really the child and the child is really the parent, so then the parent should listen to the child, the child shouldn't listen to the parent. And yet what we're seeing here is that the child is guiding the parent. The midos on one in one way or another in all the levels he spoke about are affected by this. What exactly is happening here? So the rebbe now we're going to take a break. The rebbe is now going to give one answer and then he's going to get into a much deeper answer which is going to give a whole new perspective to understand the relationship between midos and mochin, to understand who we really are. And as a result of that, who we can be. Okay, we're going to take a break here. We'll take some questions for a few minutes. Question. What relation do the efforts in life to elevate, develop, refine the midos, if that's the right term for what is meant, have to one's experience after the passing of the body? That's a great question. And of course, everything that we work on, everything it's all part of our soul which is eternal. So all of this work is not wasted. You know, when we work with our with our brain and we work with our animal soul, it's all elevated and becomes part of the divine soul, which is eternal. So, none of it none of it is wasted. None of it. When you work on your body, you work on your middos, it's not wasted. Even the work in our body is not wasted. And that's the whole idea of chiyas hameisim. Why is the resurrection of the dead a principle of faith in Judaism? Let's say the dead will never be resurrected. You die and you die. The soul is eternal, I understand. It's not like a person is is worthless. You know, you're dead and you're dead. But what's wise and what's so important that the body is eternal? Because that's the that's the very basic idea in Judaism. It's not just the soul that's eternal. The body is also eternal. That's an amazing idea. Even the work in the body is eternal. Yeah. So, that's the answer to your question. Okay, next question. Rabbi said, is that me when I work out and put on some muscle, it'll be with me in the olam haba? Bigger biceps, bigger triceps. [laughter] Who's talking? I'll be working out all day. Who's talking? Uh Jeff. Yeah. Can you introduce yourself? Oh, yeah, Jeremy. Jeremy. Um uh Okay, you just finished a workout? Yeah, yeah, yeah. As as motivating me, you know, gains for olam haba. Forever. Yeah. Listen, I'm I don't know, you know, this bicep, that bicep, but generally the the work that we do in in in refining our body, and part of refining our body, as the Rambam says, is keeping our body healthy. The Rambam says that the a healthy, strong body uh uh what the Rambam says, bori visholem midarkei avodas Hashem in Hilchos Deos, perek gimmel. The body being healthy and wholesome is is part of serving God. Yeah. Baruch Hashem. Baruch Hashem. Glad to hear. I'm very Somebody says, "I don't understand. Why don't Why don't you talk about the fact that our main work is to align our primal drives with Hashem's will? Without that, what is the point of everything?" This seems like such a endorsement of individuality. It's all about me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Where is God in the picture? Oh, that's a good question. That's a good question. Okay, we're not finished yet. We're not finished yet. But let me tell you something. You'll only get to God in the picture if you understand all of this very well. If you deny the value of your primal drives, you're denying a major part of God's creation. So, you're But you're asking, "Where's the bittle? Where's the bittle? Why is it about my soul versus your soul?" Very good. That's a very good question, and I'm going to ask you to wait for that till we get to the answer in this my mirror because we did not get there yet. But a very good question. Next question. You speak about primal me da. Then you speak about thoughts, then you speak about emotions. [snorts] They exist for us humans. Do they also exist for Hashem? Yes, of course. They exist by us cuz they exist by Hashem. You have Hashem, so to speak, primal drives, so to speak. Right? You have his thoughts. And then you have his me dos. Yeah. Somebody says, "Is it possible to say that his primal drive was to create a home below?" Do you remember the time? His thoughts went back and forth, create the world, don't create the world, sustain the world, don't sustain the world. As the Medrash says that the angels were arguing with him. His middos were his alternating His middos were his emotions alternating between chesed and gvurah, acting to the conduct of man, Adam, Moshe, Noach. Adam asks Hashem to spare everybody. I'm going to have to think about this more. Primal drives beget thoughts, which beget emotions. [snorts] Yes, I think that's very true. The farmer has a primal drive to continue to live, which necessitates food. This leads to planting seeds, which corresponds to thoughts. These thoughts lead to the food, which grow emotions. So, I would say that the farmer has a primal drive, he wants to live. He really wants to live. So, he plants seeds. These seeds allow him to live. And that's basically machshavah and seichel. And then these thoughts, these seeds lead to the food that grows, which is emotions, which it allows him to live. What I find Another comment. Just by noticing the primal drive as you put it, when they create negative emotions, can affect the visceral reactions. This is the whole point of real healing. I see in my life, when I notice the primal drive, when they create emotions, negative emotions, it creates a visceral reaction. And this is where healing comes. Why do you say that this drive cannot affect lower manifestations for the better? No, of Of it could. Of course it could. What I'm saying is that my [clears throat] primal drive may not be expressed in my body. You're lucky. You have a direct flow, but some people I can have a very deep primal drive and I'm not feeling it in my body, but doesn't mean it's not real. It's very real and I may be feeling it all over my body and I may be feeling it so much that I don't know that I'm feeling it or I'm just not in touch with my bodily feelings, but the point is it's not defined by that. It's a very deep drive. It's It's beyond just the fact that I'm feeling something in my body or I'm feeling a particular feeling. These things go to a much deeper place in a person. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to wish everybody a wonderful and beautiful and meaningful day. Oh, I see more a lot more questions here. Okay, on the yeshiva.net I see more comments and questions. On the chat, I'll take another two questions. Is there seichel producing emotions in davening or are we supposed to go past seichel in davening to a much higher place and experience the davening from a place that's higher than seichel? It would be interesting to go through all the 10 sefiros and all the middos with the mashal of the money in the treasure chest that when revealed incites the desire into a very strong emotion to get the money. The maiseh examples of how the world of seven middos are used to get that money. Yes. That's very very good. That seichel really points a finger and allows chesed to come out, gevurah to come out, tiferes to come out, netzach, yesod, malchus. It always needs the pointing of the finger of seichel which says, "Hey, look at that. Look at that. There it is. There it is." Or there he is, or there she is. And that is what brings it out. And yet we have to go through specifically be'ezras Hashem one day. Okay, chevre. A good chodesh. Hatzlacha to everybody.