Transforming Pain into Purpose
Bilvavi Bitachon Chabura with Aveeshi Lev - Shiur 5
Transcript
Okay, let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker A:So it's been about a week or two since we spoke last, and when we left off in Bulvi, the last time, we left off talking about the world of death and the fear of death and where it really comes from.
Speaker A:And ultimately it comes from really death of the ego, death of the physical, much more than death of the mental and our death of the spiritual.
Speaker A:And so when we look at those two different paradoxes regarding death of the physical and death of the spiritual, the question we had last time was really, what is it that we fear?
Speaker A:Do we fear death of the physical or do we fear death of the spiritual?
Speaker A:And ultimately, what we came to is that we really have to ask ourselves to what are we ultimately connected to in this world?
Speaker A:What in this world is holding us, is grounding us, is surrounding us, is in us, and what is outside of us, and what are we grabbing for to find peace and serenity and connection?
Speaker A:So I had the opportunity this past week to really think through a few different things.
Speaker A:But it was inspired by a podcast that I was listening to by the pretty famous business consultant Simon Sinek.
Speaker A:Simon Sinek came up with Power, or start with why that is his book on businesses know what they do, how they do it, but they don't know why they do it.
Speaker A:And he created a methodology for that and ultimately became a very big business consultant and public speaker.
Speaker A:And in one of his more recent podcasts, it's called Optimism, something on Apple Music or on podcast or whatever platform you may use, he interviewed a gentleman by the name of Mo Gadot.
Speaker A:And Mo Gadot was a.
Speaker A:Mo Gadot was a Egyptian engineer.
Speaker A:Is an Egyptian engineer who lived in the States, lived in Dubai, lived all over the world.
Speaker A:He worked for Google, opened their Google X division, ended up spreading Google throughout the world outside of the United States, made a ton of money and was very, very successful, highly educated, highly successful, international type of player.
Speaker A:And he had two children, and he had a daughter, and he has a daughter and a son, and he had a son.
Speaker A:And his kids were traveling the world every summer, living the best of lives, great kids, sweet kids.
Speaker A:And Mo was terribly unhappy.
Speaker A:Mo had everything you could imagine.
Speaker A:He bought cars, he bought houses, he traveled completely miserable.
Speaker A:And he decided that if he could engineer things, he could engineer a way to happiness.
Speaker A:And so he started to dig in and he started to go inward and start to work through some of the things that he had to work through in order to find his way through some of the darkness that he was experiencing in his life.
Speaker A:And he had really uncovered some pretty fascinating ways to look at happiness, different than how most have have been taught to look at happiness.
Speaker A:And the problem with happiness and getting to a place where we would honestly consider ourselves happy, we feel a that it's something we have to reach for and that we have to get to.
Speaker A:And two, when we get on a good path, it doesn't last very long.
Speaker A:Something throws us off, something doesn't allow us to connect in a deeper, more meaningful, more happy way.
Speaker A:So we end up in the same cycle, looking for it, searching for it.
Speaker A:So what did he uncover as he was about to start writing his book?
Speaker A:His son went into surgery for a very minor surgery, appendectomy or something for appendicitis.
Speaker A:And when he went in for the surgery, he never came out.
Speaker A:There was multiple malpractice issues during the surgery, and the child died on the table.
Speaker A:And he was on this happiness journey.
Speaker A:And then 17 days after his son's death, he started writing the book and somehow, someway, he persevered.
Speaker A:He obviously was terribly saddened and he was grieving.
Speaker A:To this day, he cries every day over the loss of his son.
Speaker A:You can only imagine how painful that is.
Speaker A:Chas V?
Speaker A:Sholom should never be for any of us.
Speaker A:And he started writing his book.
Speaker A:What was the main ichor that he shared in the podcast?
Speaker A:The main ichor he shared in the podcast is we already know that trying to gather things from outside of us won't make us happy.
Speaker A:We already know that all the money in the world helps but can't solve the gaping hole, the black hole of discontent.
Speaker A:We already know that anything material, any more, work any more, reaching any more striving, all of those things can't bring us to joy.
Speaker A:So what he said, which we know comes from one of my mentors, Moshe Gersht, is that joy is our natural given state.
Speaker A:Joy, peace and serenity were given to us at birth by God and ultimately are within us.
Speaker A:And there's nothing that can change that.
Speaker A:So what has happened over the years?
Speaker A:Traumas, experiences, Klepos, challenges, barriers, the wanting, the constant wanting, Addiction, disease, health, all sorts of things occur in life, and we cover over that natural state of joy and happiness.
Speaker A:He talks about the common thing of if you're in pain, you have to stop the pain from the source.
Speaker A:But if you're suffering, suffering ends up being a choice in most cases.
Speaker A:And he goes through some of those economics or engineering tips on how to conquer that.
Speaker A:But what does he say happens?
Speaker A:We figure out okay, so great, I understand.
Speaker A:It doesn't make me happy.
Speaker A:And then Simon asks me mo, but we keep chasing that same thing.
Speaker A:We keep going for the dopamine fix on a small scale and then we keep chasing the career on another scale.
Speaker A:Then we keep chasing the purchasing on another scale and then we keep chasing the materialism on another scale.
Speaker A:We keep chasing, chasing, chasing.
Speaker A:Because as long as if I get there, if I get there, if I get there, we turn around and we're 40, 50, 60, 70 years old and we're still chasing or comparing.
Speaker A:So what do we do?
Speaker A:Why can't we break the habit?
Speaker A:So he said that instead of the avodah being what can I fill in from the outside, we have to start crossing off the things from the inside that are blocking the access to the joy that we've been given.
Speaker A:We have to start making the lists of things that in our lives are blocking joy from being able to shine forth, for joy and serenity to be able to sweep over us.
Speaker A:And it's a daily avodah, he says, so it's not about adding anything, it's about deleting.
Speaker A:It's the act of deleting.
Speaker A:Because if it's already a God given state and a God given gift that's within us, then there's absolutely nothing we can do to add or delete from it.
Speaker A:So you'd ask yourself, okay, well I'm already naturally, if I already have natural joy, then what's the point of the learning?
Speaker A:What's the point of the steiging?
Speaker A:What's the point of all the other pieces if I already have full joy in me?
Speaker A:I just got to remove things.
Speaker A:Those are enhancements, Those help you remove things.
Speaker A:The positive acts in our lives that are not material based helps us all of a sudden remove the klepos and the challenges that come and occur from wanting from the outside.
Speaker A:So we have to write the things down.
Speaker A:So he said he wakes up in the morning and he goes through his avodah, he goes through his avoda and he ultimately writes things down that are going to be that day, they're going to affect him.
Speaker A:And he sits for a half an hour and he does it during his meditation or mindfulness routine.
Speaker A:And he says, where am I at today?
Speaker A:Is it the weather that's going to piss me off?
Speaker A:Is it my schedule?
Speaker A:Is it my wife?
Speaker A:Is it my kids?
Speaker A:Is it my workload?
Speaker A:Is it my bills?
Speaker A:What is it that's going to upset me and let me remove that?
Speaker A:So you're going to Say you can't just remove all your responsibilities.
Speaker A:It's never about removing responsibilities because responsibilities have nothing to do with joy.
Speaker A:Joy is already within us.
Speaker A:It's been given to us.
Speaker A:It's a God given gift.
Speaker A:But the reaction to all of these things, the reaction to every single circumstance is our choice.
Speaker A:And he goes through a list and he starts to just cross him off.
Speaker A:Okay, I'm stressed because of the meeting I have at nine.
Speaker A:Okay, I have the meeting at nine and I can choose not to be stressed and surrender that to God.
Speaker A:And then he goes through the next thing.
Speaker A:I've got to get to the gym and I've got to do carpool.
Speaker A:It's at the same time.
Speaker A:So what can I do?
Speaker A:Let me text my wife, hey, if I go to the gym earlier, can I do car pull yet?
Speaker A:Okay, so I worked that out.
Speaker A:That's done.
Speaker A:So some are more pragmatic, some are more philosophical, some are more spiritual.
Speaker A:But you get in the habit of saying, if joy is my nature, that means that the only thing that's blocking joy is from within.
Speaker A:And I've got to take things out from within.
Speaker A:So not only is it that we're not going to find joy and peace from things that are outside of us, but we're only going to find it from within us.
Speaker A:And if we're finding it from within us and we're not stealing, we're not still feeling it, there's going to be something we have to do to clear the blockage.
Speaker A:And so what a beautiful way to think about things.
Speaker A:He wrote a book that I purchased.
Speaker A:I just started it.
Speaker A:But what a beautiful way to talk about the ability to connect to ourselves internally and realizing.
Speaker A:Wait a second.
Speaker A:Okay, I get that.
Speaker A:You've told me a million times it's all internal and nothing excited me.
Speaker A:I'm still not happy.
Speaker A:Now what?
Speaker A:You want me to learn more?
Speaker A:You want me to work out more?
Speaker A:You want me to do those things?
Speaker A:Those could all be true.
Speaker A:But just by showing up and being radically present, that's where the peace and serenity is.
Speaker A:And he goes through that.
Speaker A:Because the vart across the board is always the same when it comes to how we show up in the world.
Speaker A:If you show up in the present moment, there's no one listening on the camera or on the zoom right now.
Speaker A:And there's no one in person that just walked in that can say that in the moment, they suffer.
Speaker A:Moment to moment, they're in pain.
Speaker A:Moment to moment, we are saturated with wealth and goodness and health and food and Shelter and clothing and air conditioning and all the amenities that people didn't have 40, 50 years ago.
Speaker A:We have.
Speaker A:The present moment is usually very, very geshmak, but we don't get presence, so we're always living outside of presence.
Speaker A:So the message from Belvavi, the message from Mo Gadot, the message from Hasidos, the message from the BAAL Shem Tov, the message from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, all of them is about showing up with the Abishter in the present moment.
Speaker A:And if we don't practice that, none of this is going to matter.
Speaker A:Because the only reason we're unhappy, and that's one of the big reasons for joy, is because we refuse to be here right now.
Speaker A:Because right now everything is perfectly okay.
Speaker A:But there's so much noise in our head, there's so much things coming through us that ultimately we want to be able to clear some of that noise.
Speaker A:This is the avoda he was talking about, so I wanted to share that with you guys.
Speaker A:Another avoda that I wanted to share with you guys, a personal one for me is I've been dealing with since we spoke the first year, some stressful things at work.
Speaker A:Nothing we're not overcoming, nothing we can't overcome, but things that were new to my business, that started three and a half years ago or so.
Speaker A:And with these new challenges, there were more unknowns.
Speaker A:And with more unknowns, a V Shoe gets more anxiety.
Speaker A:When a V Shoelev gets more anxiety, he becomes irritable and discontent.
Speaker A:And when I become irritable and discontent, then I'm not a very good father, I'm not a very good husband, I'm not a very good boss, I'm not a very good friend, I'm not a very good member of Claud Yisroel, I'm not a very good ev at Hashem.
Speaker A:All of these things very quickly dissipate.
Speaker A:And for me, when I'm dealing with incredible stress, or I think I'm dealing with incredible stress, because there really is no such thing, my reaction is to knock things off that I don't find dear to me or that I find to be a burden.
Speaker A:And for me, a lot of the times it can be the stuff related to Tefila, it can be the stuff related to my learning, it can be the stuff that isn't directly affecting my work, that isn't directly impacting my work to make that pain go away, so those get knocked off.
Speaker A:Even though we know, and this chabur is all about the fact that Those are the exact things I need to be doing more of in order to have those things alleviate themselves.
Speaker A:So I'm in the same hamster wheel of complete opposite behavior that needs to be done in order to get to a better result.
Speaker A:In Baruch Hashem, I'm able to notice some of those things.
Speaker A:But one of the avodahs that I had to do for myself, and they talk about gratitude lists, and I'm not so much into gratitude lists.
Speaker A:Maybe it's because I don't like the word, or the word is a little cheesy for me, or friends are going to make fun of me for using the word.
Speaker A:But maybe it's more of the fact that it's, what do I have?
Speaker A:What do I have in my life?
Speaker A:And what do I still want or need?
Speaker A:And when you word it that way, you have an opportunity to get yourself in the mind frame of both of those things separately.
Speaker A:So I made a list of the things that I have, and I'm not going to give myself a night hard, nor does anyone really care.
Speaker A:But the list was lengthy on what I have in my life today, as it stands on July 30th at 9:13pm Central, this is.
Speaker A:I have a list of things that are.
Speaker A:All the important things are completely checked.
Speaker A:Baruch Hashem, BLI ein ar.
Speaker A:The things that I want.
Speaker A:It was hard for me to even come up with it.
Speaker A:And what was the last piece of the exercise?
Speaker A:Just again, I did this to get myself out of the state of poor me.
Speaker A:How could this be happening to me?
Speaker A:Why am I having these hard times when it couldn't be any more the opposite?
Speaker A:So I wrote, this is just the way I put value on my life, which is my own work that I need to do.
Speaker A:I wrote where I got married, what I was making, and then what I'm making now today, and all the different things that occurred in my career and how every leap in that place was God driven throughout each of those.
Speaker A:And how if I look back and it's not some, like, crazy story, it's just literally how God said, okay, you're done.
Speaker A:Go here.
Speaker A:And then from here, go here, go here, go here.
Speaker A:And Baruch Hashem, my careers have grown, my path to success has grown, and nothing supersonic, but all, all upward with zero downward trend.
Speaker A:And I looked at that for my relationships and my family and all those other things.
Speaker A:And I realized to myself, so I have this gratitude list of all the things that, excuse me, I have this things I have list.
Speaker A:And then the things that I want list.
Speaker A:I've got this very short list of things that I want.
Speaker A:I've got this massive thing that listed not only that, but the span of the last 20 years of my life.
Speaker A:It's gone completely upward constantly with very little blee and horror issues, except some addiction and sobriety and marriage and raising children and being a good dad and showing up differently for Roni than I did with my other kids because I wasn't out there and being able to have a group of friends that I could grow with and being able to have my learning and continuing all those things.
Speaker A:And I still have so much left to accomplish, and that's really what I ended up doing.
Speaker A:And I have so much more growth.
Speaker A:But the life, the actions, the things that were occurring, seeing how they progressed in the right direction would only be godly.
Speaker A:But then I realized also that I based everything on money.
Speaker A:And the way I judged myself was by my career.
Speaker A:And I've done that my whole life.
Speaker A:I've done it my whole life.
Speaker A:Being able to look at all right, here's where I was financially and here's where I am now.
Speaker A:So I went from 30 to 40.
Speaker A:I went really from 20 to 40 on this journey.
Speaker A:Now I'm turning 40.
Speaker A:And I took a second page and I wrote 40 to 50.
Speaker A:And I wrote the same line because I'm going to be optimistic that I'll continue to grow in whatever Hashem has been able to do for me the last 20 years.
Speaker A:And on that same line, I decided that I don't want it to just be career, career, career.
Speaker A:Because if I looked at the list from the first 20 years and it was all God driven, literally every move was handpicked by God.
Speaker A:And then I did my shadowless within those moves, but the moves themselves had nothing to do with me.
Speaker A:Why would I predict or want a path of things that I don't control versus giving that control to God?
Speaker A:Let him continue to have that, because he hasn't let me down.
Speaker A:I was at 40k, year one of marriage, and now I'm wherever I am today and it's different.
Speaker A:So the next 10 years, do I really want it to just be more of that?
Speaker A:And a good friend of mine said to me, he's like, when is it going to be enough?
Speaker A:It's hard to feel enough when we have all the pressures of our marriages and our children and our Yiddishkeit and all the things that we have to do as community members.
Speaker A:But doesn't mean the mindset can't be that.
Speaker A:So I'm Thinking to myself, do I really want another 10 years of chasing, of looking at this guy and that guy and wondering how that happened when I know the answer already?
Speaker A:It wasn't me.
Speaker A:It wasn't me in any of those things.
Speaker A:Yet I'm obsessed.
Speaker A:I'm obsessed with keeping that the forefront and keeping that the main thing.
Speaker A:What if I wanted serenity, mindfulness, connection to Tefillah, more learning?
Speaker A:And by the time I'm 50, I'm able to say to myself that I have a seder, that I'm really learning Gemara, I'm really connecting to it, that my mindfulness behaviors are strong, that I've really focused my energy, I've moved all the energy from money, money, money to internal and external health.
Speaker A:Doesn't mean I'm not going to work as hard.
Speaker A:I've worked hard in every environment I've ever been in.
Speaker A:That's not going to change, but it doesn't have to consume being the main thing.
Speaker A:What if I could have a reality that's going to be different again?
Speaker A:I only share these personal things because for the group, people have said that it helps as far as far as connecting to it.
Speaker A:But I'm not trying to talk about myself.
Speaker A:I'm trying to really share the mission and vision of like, we can realign the lens in which we see things through very quickly.
Speaker A:We don't have to be in a situation where we continue to do the same thing over and over again.
Speaker A:But we can't expect anything to change without putting intention to paper, without doing the work.
Speaker A:And this is the work that Mo and his example of the Simon Sinek podcast was talking about.
Speaker A:We can make a decision to do things and change things.
Speaker A:But I know for me, I have to write it down.
Speaker A:When I learn a piece of Gemara, I can't just learn it auditorily.
Speaker A:I have to write down the Shaka Levitarya or I'm done.
Speaker A:Halavay.
Speaker A:I do that Halavay.
Speaker A:I get to learning Gemara.
Speaker A:I'm just saying when I do, those are the things that I have to do in order to be able to understand.
Speaker A:The same thing goes through life.
Speaker A:These types of exercises are the exercises that ultimately change someone from going through the mundane over and over again to see, saying, I'm stopping the craziness, I'm stopping the chaos.
Speaker A:So we'll jump into Belvavi.
Speaker A:But I wanted to share, I wanted to share something.
Speaker A:Bhavavi.
Speaker A:We're gonna do page 36.
Speaker A:This world has nothing to offer.
Speaker A:So we'll go into A section that's very connected to what we're talking about.
Speaker A:And then hopefully we can glean some more from Bhavavi here and we can be able to find ways to connect deeper.
Speaker A:But the point I want to make on this last piece is we don't have to continue to live like everybody else lives.
Speaker A:We don't have to continue to do what everyone else has done or people before us has done.
Speaker A:The world in general is not conscious.
Speaker A:The level of DAs is missing.
Speaker A:And we can find that DAs again, we can find that connection again.
Speaker A:But unfortunately we really can't do both well as it relates to where we put our focus.
Speaker A:And if we believe that G D is in control of one and our hashtag matters more in another, let's put more hashtags in the other.
Speaker A:But let's make an intentional shift and it's monumental.
Speaker A:Because I promise you, if I sit here from 40 to 50, I should be healthy and everyone should be healthy.
Speaker A:If you sit here from 40 to 50 and you get to 50 and the focus left from business, not that you didn't do business, the obsession and the addiction and the focus left from money to connection, freedom, health, learning, davening, family, time travel, meditation, hispodidus, spirituality for those in recovery, the recovery being part of that.
Speaker A:And that became your mehus.
Speaker A:I don't know, I think someone could be a pretty big person and then from 50 on be able to enjoy their later years being able to be at a completely different level.
Speaker A:But it almost comes with giving up certain things to the point that you may look may not make as much if you really want to think that way and you got to be able to sacrifice that.
Speaker A:I'm not saying I'm there.
Speaker A:I'm saying this is what I'm thinking about and trying to get to okay.
Speaker A:The world has nothing to offer.
Speaker A:A person should imagine to himself what it would really be like to leave this world and why he is so afraid of leaving it.
Speaker A:When a person is clear about all the reason he fears death, he should then review the words of Mesella Shishar.
Speaker A:And besides, for this connection to Hashem, what people think is good is nothing but futility.
Speaker A:He should repeat this tens of times, even hundreds or even thousand times until he acquires the attitude.
Speaker A:Just like Hazara is the most important thing for a guy to get connected to his learning.
Speaker A:Hazara of this type of learning is just as equally important just is Belvavi is so prescriptive, like we've talked about in everything that he Means what he says in every single word, hundred or even a thousand times until he acquires is written, it's not good for man to be alone.
Speaker A:I shall make for him a helpmate opposite him.
Speaker A:Simply speaking, a helpmate opposite him is good, and a person is tied to this situation on this world.
Speaker A:But the true meaning of this is that when a person is too connected to his helpmate, a reference to the body which his soul inhabits, as well as worldly matters, it's too hard for him to leave this world or his family or anything else that he has in this world.
Speaker A:But when a person realizes that his stay on this world is so that he can become connected to spirituality, to the neshama, he will naturally want to leave this world when time comes.
Speaker A:Because he'd rather be a soul that isn't tied down to a body than a soul that is bound than to be a soul that is bound to a body.
Speaker A:The big changes that we can choose to make in our lives is, are we going to live through the neshama or are we going to live through the body?
Speaker A:Right now, 90% of my life is driven around the body.
Speaker A:What food can I eat?
Speaker A:What food is on the trip that I'm having?
Speaker A:What pleasures are in store for me today?
Speaker A:What's going to cause me discomfort?
Speaker A:How do I deal with that discomfort?
Speaker A:Why is there discomfort?
Speaker A:Why is this guy making more than me?
Speaker A:How come I can't buy this?
Speaker A:How come I can't do that?
Speaker A:How come if I do it, I'm in debt?
Speaker A:Why am I in debt?
Speaker A:And.
Speaker A:Or gamzu.
Speaker A:Gamzu, Gamzu Lu Tayva this, Baruch Hashem that.
Speaker A:You know, I'm going through some things at work.
Speaker A:They're okay.
Speaker A:This is what Hashem wants.
Speaker A:It's his money, it's his business.
Speaker A:I'm just operating it.
Speaker A:We can make the list of what blocks our joy.
Speaker A:We can cross out the things that give us the anxiety and the pain.
Speaker A:The reactions are the same job, two different complete reactions.
Speaker A:The classic Avishay Lev reaction of overthinking and overstimulated and over worrying and overworking in order to get a result that I don't even fully control.
Speaker A:Or gamzu, it's fine, okay?
Speaker A:I mean, that guy has it.
Speaker A:And again, the haha with so much of what we see out there is the guys who have it make no mathematical sense that they're the ones who have it.
Speaker A:But yet we still are crazy enough to wake up the next day and be like, I need to fight to get more as if we have a say, but we don't have a say.
Speaker A:As if that's our main passion.
Speaker A:That's what people are going to remember us by.
Speaker A:There's not one person in recent history that was a big veer in the city of Chicago that were remembered because of how fiery of a businessman that they were.
Speaker A:They were remembered because of the tzedakah that they gave.
Speaker A:They were remembered because of the type of person that they were.
Speaker A:They were remembered because of the chesed they that that they were.
Speaker A:Some of them weren't remembered for very positive things.
Speaker A:That's just what it is.
Speaker A:But it had nothing to do with the one way or another.
Speaker A:It didn't result to my God the way he emailed on his iPhone with consistency no matter where he was around his kids, around his family right after.
Speaker A:The way he responded to whatsapps and text messages at Hasana's during the hasana the way that he was able to multitask a WhatsApp on a Teams call while answering emails, leaving nothing left in his inbox, doing it professionally while ChatGPT was simultaneously researching things for his next business.
Speaker A:Business.
Speaker A:That's just not what the reality ends up being.
Speaker A:But yet we walk around like zombies looking down at our phones chasing the dopamine addiction and we can say whatever we want about addicts.
Speaker A:Most people I know are completely addicted to dopamine.
Speaker A:They need the check mark.
Speaker A:They need to cross off things off the list.
Speaker A:They need to be busy constantly.
Speaker A:Not being busy is kryptonite to most people I know in my chevre.
Speaker A:If they're not busy or distracted.
Speaker A:It is the worst thing in the world.
Speaker A:It is literally worse than someone taking hot nails and scraping their skin with it.
Speaker A:I'm serious.
Speaker A:They'd rather feel some pain than not do anything.
Speaker A:I'm that.
Speaker A:I am that guy.
Speaker A:I went from drinking and drugging to filling myself with a tremendous amount of dopamine constantly dopamine and caffeine, however I can do it.
Speaker A:And now I'm trying to peel back that onion because I can't imagine being 50 and having the same type of stuff situation.
Speaker A:When a person realizes that his stay on this world so that he can become connected to spirituality, to the soul, he'll naturally want to leave this body.
Speaker A:When a person is sad when he thinks about death, sometimes this is consciously, but usually it is a is.
Speaker A:It is deep in one's subconscious.
Speaker A:It is really because he is too connected to this world and he doesn't want to give up a Person's avoda then is to truly reflect about this in a calm manner.
Speaker A:He should understand that true joy can never be connected.
Speaker A:Come from connecting to this world.
Speaker A:Shalom just took a deep breath.
Speaker A:It has to be the main thought for a while.
Speaker A:The obsession of wanting to find your joy has to be the obsession.
Speaker A:It can't be the side job, it can't be the ancillary to the main thing.
Speaker A:It can't be the side hustle.
Speaker A:All of this work is side hustle for most of us.
Speaker A:Side hustle.
Speaker A:I gotta make money, but then I got the side hustle is that like I'll work on this stuff.
Speaker A:Same thing with my learning.
Speaker A:I can't seem to stick to gemara because when things get tough, gemara is the first thing that goes out the window.
Speaker A:Because it's the hardest thing for me.
Speaker A:I can do other learning I can't do tomorrow.
Speaker A:I can do Shinai Mikra because it's mindless for me.
Speaker A:Can't do it.
Speaker A:Minion Minhamarev When I'm stressed versus just staying at home, isolating.
Speaker A:Maybe, maybe not.
Speaker A:Because it's not the main thing.
Speaker A:Survival becomes the main thing when you're in a position of survival.
Speaker A:We've seen that over and over again.
Speaker A:We don't have to survive because we're spoiled rotten.
Speaker A:We live in the best of times, the most wealthy of times and we're still.
Speaker A:We're in this beautifully and yet completely non beautiful situation of our lives of this.
Speaker A:We've been given it all to literally have the peace of mind to be able to connect deeper to ourselves.
Speaker A:And we believe this, this is the Torah of the Baalshemt of Mamish.
Speaker A:That in Ikvasada Meshicha we're going to be in a position where we have the ability to have that sense of peace, to connect deeper to ourselves.
Speaker A:And we're not going to take advantage of it.
Speaker A:You've got all the creature comforts.
Speaker A:Fifty years ago, if they talked about how life would be today in my house, which is not a fancy house, 2,600 sq ft ranch in Chicago with a fan and a sun room and a TV room and a kitchen and air conditioning and water pressure and hot water, people would be like, if I had that, I'd finish as if I had that, I would dedicate my life to chesed and I would do some work.
Speaker A:But what else would I need?
Speaker A:My mindset is I need at least 5,500 square feet.
Speaker A:I need the same vacations are equal to everybody else.
Speaker A:And I Act on it.
Speaker A:And then I come back from vacation and then it's the same reality.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:For a few weeks, it's.
Speaker A:Where were you?
Speaker A:Mykonos.
Speaker A:How was.
Speaker A:Whatever, you know, Baruch hashem.
Speaker A:You know, everything's baruch hashem when things are, you know, Baruch hashem.
Speaker A:Nice tan.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:You know, I spent some time in the sun.
Speaker A:Got good sun in Mykonos.
Speaker A:You know, Mykonos is in Greece.
Speaker A:You know, it's not like, you know, not Mykonos, Wisconsin.
Speaker A:It's Mykonos, Greece.
Speaker A:And I stroke my ego, my ego gets stroked.
Speaker A:And then Tuesday of the following week, I'm back to where I was of.
Speaker A:Why am I not connecting to my davening?
Speaker A:Why am I overeating?
Speaker A:Why can't I get myself to the gym?
Speaker A:Why do I want to drink after being sober for six years?
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Why?
Speaker A:Because I thought that would make me happy.
Speaker A:Doesn't say not to do it, but it can't be the main thing.
Speaker A:The words of the Vilna Gyne are famous.
Speaker A:This world is like salty water.
Speaker A:The more a person partakes of it, the thirstier he becomes.
Speaker A:Love that.
Speaker A:We can all know this intellectually, but how much do we succeed in remembering this?
Speaker A:How much do we live with this idea?
Speaker A:If we really believe in the words of Chazal, we wouldn't be interested in all the world's salty water.
Speaker A:Worldly pleasures just make you thirstier for even more.
Speaker A:So if a person decides that he's ready to give up this world one day, it shouldn't be done with a feeling of sadness or regret.
Speaker A:It's the.
Speaker A:The best realization.
Speaker A:Don't even think that he won't get into all the different hurdles with that.
Speaker A:But John, I'm going to ask you, because you're a doctor, you started medical school with one philosophy and one intention, and you still have that intention of wanting to help people.
Speaker A:But medicine at some point became a business, became a need because you have a family and they're from.
Speaker A:And they have kids and you have tuition.
Speaker A:And it's not that you're not as honest of a doctor, but I have to imagine it's a little bit filtered down compared to what it was the day you entered medical school.
Speaker A:Am I wrong in that assumption?
Speaker A:You're 100% correct.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:So you're talking about a doctor who's there to help people with consistency, which Doc John does.
Speaker A:And he's there and he gives patients.
Speaker A:I'm sure he has patients that drive him crazy.
Speaker A:And he sits there and he listens and he's patient.
Speaker A:And he runs from appointment to appointment.
Speaker A:He can't breathe.
Speaker A:He's exhausted, exhausted.
Speaker A:He's on call.
Speaker A:All of these things as a doctor.
Speaker A:But at some point, life's pressure comes and that joy and that serenity and that not even right word, serenity.
Speaker A:Enough serenity.
Speaker A:When it comes to the connection to the mission, when it comes to the intention of like, let me solve people's pain, it's still there, but it's just not as much.
Speaker A:The light is dimmer.
Speaker A:It doesn't take away from the fact that that light is still in him.
Speaker A:Or else none of this would have happened.
Speaker A:It's just been covered up by the pressures of life.
Speaker A:And I said this early on.
Speaker A:I said, when I'm sometimes doing this bay to do this, I kind of pick a fight with Hashem.
Speaker A:I say, you don't make my life hard.
Speaker A:You give us all these really good things.
Speaker A:But like, I'm crazy.
Speaker A:You make me crazy.
Speaker A:It's like, how could I still not realize that?
Speaker A:Like, I have what I need and I can find that joy.
Speaker A:And everything has gone nearly perfect.
Speaker A:I wrote it down.
Speaker A:It's gone nearly perfect.
Speaker A:For the last 20 years.
Speaker A:Bli naro.
Speaker A:I'm still waking up with like a half a half ass.
Speaker A:Moidaani and Neglevasser.
Speaker A:Blatant.
Speaker A:Maybe not even the right amount of times, the right hands in the right order, tying my shoes, don't know the halacha, scabbarding to shul and like sometimes being super connected, but most of the time fighting for that connection because I'm obsessed with the things that are connected in the world.
Speaker A:So when you think about the true good in comparison to whatever good this world has to offer, you realize that you're not giving up anything at all by deciding to disconnect from the world's pleasures.
Speaker A:When one reflects into this, he should do this slowly and calmly and happily.
Speaker A:To accomplish this, one can use parables that help him come to this understanding.
Speaker A:We can give a few examples that can be of aid and each person can add on his own.
Speaker A:Let's go through these examples.
Speaker A:Recently a wedding hall collapsed.
Speaker A:This was written a while ago.
Speaker A:Imagine.
Speaker A:I remember when this happened.
Speaker A:Imagine if the.
Speaker A:Imagine if the owner of the wedding hall would come to us two weeks before it collapsed and he would offer to see it, to see it to us for 20 shekel.
Speaker A:We would yell at him, you're crazy.
Speaker A:20 shekel for a wedding hall.
Speaker A:He would answer, let me explain to you something.
Speaker A:I know that in two weeks from now, this hall will fall to the ground.
Speaker A:Would anyone even agree to give him 20 shekel?
Speaker A:In such a situation, no one in their right mind would give him 20 shekel for the building because they have been informed it's going to collapse and be worth nothing.
Speaker A:But if none of us think it's going to collapse, we would all run to him, give him 20 shekel.
Speaker A:Now, if you think about it, that would be a huge mistake.
Speaker A:Even if the owner himself gives you 20,000 to take the building, you still shouldn't take it.
Speaker A:Why not?
Speaker A:The answer is because the amount of stress and worry that this building will cost you much more than 20,000, it's far from worth it.
Speaker A:Naturally, though, a person looks at what he will gain momentarily from accepting 20,000 to take the building, and he doesn't think about the consequences.
Speaker A:He will have to spend so much time worrying about maintaining this building, and he will have to put all his energy into it.
Speaker A:But he doesn't think about this, and he thinks about the 20,000 that's being offered to take the building.
Speaker A:That was the parable.
Speaker A:Now let us use the lesson we learned from this.
Speaker A:When a person considers that he only has one goal in life, to only search for Hashem with all his heart, and everything in his life is always about how he can become close to Hashem through it.
Speaker A:And if you use every situation now differently, what seems simple to other people isn't so simple to him.
Speaker A:Because since he seeks Hashem, he realizes that how certain undertakings can interfere with his avodah Hashem and cause him to have pain.
Speaker A:A person has to become more clearly focused in everything and think, will this bring me closer to Hashem or further away from him once one has to get used to purifying his mind more in this way, slowly but surely, for example, money is something that a person can use to become closer to Hashem.
Speaker A:Or the opposite.
Speaker A:Money doesn't exist for itself.
Speaker A:It can be used as a tool to serve Hashem.
Speaker A:So here's my takeaway for myself.
Speaker A:We have to decide, as balabatam, which we all are, that we're in the working world and we're not in the four walls of the Beis Hamidrash, which causes a tremendous amount of confusion and distraction to us, refinding our joy.
Speaker A:But if we all agree that joy is our nature and joy is what's within us, then the answer has to be that we have to remove the blockages.
Speaker A:The blockages, for the most part, for the many that I speak to, is that there's this feeling of impossibility to get to serenity or peace or forgiveness or okayness, and that we're constantly on this hamster wheel trying to find that.
Speaker A:But if we were able to remove those feelings because the work didn't become the main thing anymore, then all of those byproducts of the work, which are the klipas blocking the joy that we just went through, wouldn't logic dictate that those would also start to dwindle and fade?
Speaker A:That if we didn't make the main thing, the thing that actually drives us the most crazy, that if we replace that main thing with another main thing, which is finding that joy and connecting to our health and well being, meaning if you weren't stressed about the money or whatever the pressures are that's driving you crazy to be successful, you missed one step before the stress.
Speaker A:If life wasn't about work and money, then the stress wouldn't occur.
Speaker A:The stress is a byproduct.
Speaker A:The stress is what's blocking us from the joy.
Speaker A:The anxiety is what's blocking us from the joy.
Speaker A:The vard is.
Speaker A:Is that the reason why we have that is because we've decided that we have an order of things that are the most important to least important to us.
Speaker A:I'll say it for myself, but I'll say it for Shalom too.
Speaker A:The most important thing for us every morning is not let me be connected to Hashem and let me be joyous and free today.
Speaker A:Let me appreciate what I have.
Speaker A:There are elements of our day, but the main thing is how do I get precision heating and air conditioning to the next level?
Speaker A:How does get dripped to overcome its challenges and continue growing?
Speaker A:How does I afford this house that I want to get?
Speaker A:How do I afford this car?
Speaker A:All of the materialism.
Speaker A:If we have a conscious approach which takes writing, I've got plenty of notes I can screenshot and share to you on my own personal notes on the writing of where our heads are at and making the conscious decision to say that I'm going to start crossing things off the list.
Speaker A:The gift we have through it all is that we will feel this joy.
Speaker A:The hard part, which no one wants to talk about but is the absolute truth, is that we said it last time.
Speaker A:Everything doesn't always have to feel good right away.
Speaker A:And if you're an addict, it's very hard to deal with that because you want the dopamine fix right away.
Speaker A:That's why Hasidas and Panimi ya satire for so many is so beautiful because it hits the Neshama, this is Ms.
Speaker A:Mamish and this is Hashem's Torah Mamish because it hits the neshama versus a cow goring another cow in a field.
Speaker A:And it's not.
Speaker A:Doesn't take away from the importance.
Speaker A:The gemara is just as important.
Speaker A:It's just much harder for some to stick with.
Speaker A:Doesn't have to all be easy, but it gets a lot easier when that becomes our main thing.
Speaker A:Because then you're not working hard in both right now.
Speaker A:We're working super hard in both.
Speaker A:I want all the things that my neshama needs and I want all the things material wise.
Speaker A:I want to be the best of both.
Speaker A:Want to be a Talmud chacham, an askin, wealthy and at peace.
Speaker A:I don't know anyone like that.
Speaker A:And the few that we know that are world renowned are extremely, they're on one hand of the people that have the reputations of being serene, honest, Ehrlich, Tamil, chacham learners and all those things.
Speaker A:Doesn't end up being something that's very easy, just something that's hard.
Speaker A:Okay?
Speaker A:It ends up being something that's very hard.
Speaker A:But it doesn't have to be that way.
Speaker A:Ultimately guys, we can decide to make the switch.
Speaker A:We just have to decide to make the switch.
Speaker A:And the switch has to be authentic and real.
Speaker A:And it can't be accomplished in both being able to do both things.
Speaker A:It has to be accomplished in being able to do one or the other as first priority.
Speaker A:Everything has to be done, but the priorities have to change, change.
Speaker A:So like we said here in Bovavi, if we can get to a place where we can realize that the world has nothing to offer, that we will end up dying, being connected to it and not finding what we want and that if we just decide to change priority and work desperately hard on that priority, that we can ultimately see that change.
Speaker A:So I know for myself I've got a compass of what I'd like to be able to accomplish over this next 10 years.
Speaker A:Because 10 years flies by, every day flies by now.
Speaker A:It's insane.
Speaker A:But I also know personally I'm not holding where I need to be to get that done or realized or materialized or manifested.
Speaker A:Because I still have an obsession with the physical realm of things, the physical pleasures and the physical niceties and the competitiveness on something I just looked back on that I didn't control most of the bit.
Speaker A:So hopefully for all of us we'll be able to be able to have the strength to do that and we'll continue next week I'll be away.
Speaker A:But when I get back, Amir T.
Speaker A:We'll continue doing this.
Speaker A:And we will start from page 38 for the true test.
Speaker A:What does Hashem want?
Speaker A:All right, guys.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:You guys make me better.
Speaker A:I appreciate it.
Speaker A:Talk to you soon.
Speaker A:By.
