Transcript
Good morning boker tov everyone, welcome back to Ten Minutes of Meaning. What a joy and pleasure to resume our study of the great and seminal work Mesillas Yesharim, the Ramchal's incredible contribution to help us navigate a path towards becoming better and better versions of ourselves. Please help yourselves to coffee and donuts, the benefits of listening and learning live and in person. Big thank you to our anonymous sponsors, sponsored לזכר נשמת אלתר שלמה בן פנחס and I want to invite everyone, we've created a WhatsApp group for each of the shiurim that we give in order to stay up-to-date on the schedule of the shiur, bonus material, extra learning, you can join rabbi ephraim goldberg dot org slash whatsapp. We are beginning perek chaf-aleph, the twenty-first chapter. We're in the home stretch of Mesillas Yesharim. We've been taking these twelve steps towards a better version of ourselves. How to live with mindfulness and alacrity, how to purge from ourselves the poor behaviors and choices and bad judgment, how to be able to strive to be a chasid, to live with piety, not a piety that is determined or displayed externally by anything that we wear, but a piety by what is in our heart, the piety of what is in our soul, the piety of the choices that we make, of going above and beyond, not being satisfied with good, but striving for great. And now we're up to perek chaf-aleph, darchei kinyas hachasidus, this is the very clear instruction, the how-to to acquire piety. The Ramchal begins as follows: הנה ממה שיועיל הרבה לקנות החסידות, what will greatly enable or facilitate the ability to become a chasid, who doesn't want to be a chasid? We shouldn't strive to only get away with the bare minimum in life. I don't know anyone who says minimum wage, I'm happy earning minimum wage, that's what I want, that's what I need, that's how hard I'll work, that's the education I'll get, that's the career I will look to have, minimum wage. Who wants—we want more, we want better. So why should it be any different in our pursuit of ruchniyus, in our spiritual ambition? So a person who wants chasidus, you want to be pious, you want to achieve greatness, not just goodness, הוא גודל ההסתכלות ורוב ההתבוננות. And here we could spend a long time just on this sentence, which we don't have, but the Ramchal uses two words. He says if you want to facilitate, if you want to accelerate, if you want to enable and empower growth in this area of how to be pious, how to be a chasid, it comes down to two words: the godel, the greatness of histaklus and hisbonenus. What is histaklus? Lehistakel means to look, to watch, to observe. So what does that mean? Be a people watcher? Sit and observe the world? Sit and surf the web? What does it mean to look, to watch, to observe? What is the Ramchal talking about when he says histaklus? And then the histaklus, what you watch and what you observe, what you see should lead to hisbonenus. What is hisbonenus? Binah, the root of the word hisbonenus is binah. What is binah? Understanding, analysis, clarity, comprehension. Look and see and comprehend and understand. What are you looking and what are you seeing? So we have been using this wonderful sefer of the Mashgiach, Rav Dan Segal, on his commentary on Mesillas Yesharim, and he says the following: בדבר הנראה לעינים יש הסתכלות ויש התבוננות אומנם לגבי דרכי קניית החסידות הסתכלות הכוונה כמו שהתנא אומר הסתכל בשלשה דברים ואי אתה בא לידי עבירה. He reminds us histaklus in this context is not talking about ophthalmologically, is that a word? It's not talking about what we see with our eyes. It's not talking about how good your vision is, did you have LASIK, are you wearing your contact lenses? Histaklus, to be able to improve and grow, to be able to become pious and a chasid, is not about how clearly you see with your eyes. We see with our eyes, but we see much more with our soul. What we see with our soul is the way that we perceive and interpret and what we extrapolate and how we are moved and transformed by what we experience in the world. And he says, Rav Dan Segal, that's what the Mishna in Avos says. The Mishna in the second perek of Avos reminds us: הסתכל בשלשה דברים ואי אתה בא לידי עבירה. Look at three things and you won't come to sin. What does it mean look? Where do you look? You look with your eyes? What are you looking at? And what are those three things? What is above us and so on? They're not things that you look at, they're not things that you measure with the eye. What it means to look is to be contemplative, to be thoughtful, to be conscientious, to be aware, to be mindful, to be present. So many people are coasting through life, it all blends together and it's all one big blur. This hurricane, the last hurricane, the next hurricane, they all blend together, that was a joke, they all blend together, one big blur. But we're living at such a super speed and we're living so mindlessly that the days and the weeks and the months, they blend together, and we're not fully present, we're not fully experiencing, and therefore we're not moved or transformed or molded by what we experience. It doesn't really It doesn't really touch us or penetrate into the deepest way. And that's what the Ramchal is telling us. If you want to really be living the richest life you can, if you want to be living your best life, your most meaningful and purposeful life, it means don't let momentum carry you. Don't let it all blend together. Don't let it all become one in such that it's a blur and you have no vision. Live with a vision, Histaklus, Histaklus and Hisbonenus. Be present and be aware and be conscientious and conscious and take out, draw from everything that you experience, everything that's going on in life. Histakel b'shlosha devarim, Chazal tell us as you live life, think about three things. In that moment where you're tempted and you're drawn to make a mistake, to sin, think about those three things, Histakel, look at those three things. Where are you looking? What are you looking at? I got a picture this morning, Adar's on their trip to Israel, someone sent me a picture, Mr. Shacket in a shul, the tissue boxes. I'm going to call this number, I'm going to see if we could do it. The tissue boxes of the shul say אסור לדבר בשעת התפילה. They're all messages about not talking during Davening. Every shul has tissue boxes all over it. There's a lot you could say about that, why that should be. But every shul has lots of tissue boxes, you might as well use them to get a message. And when you go to blow your nose or even if you're not, you're staring with judgment at the person who is blowing their nose, at least you'll see the message and you'll remember don't talk during Davening. So is that what Histakel, look? Look at the message? Or Histakel means you say, I'm in shul, I hear the Chazan, I feel the Kedusha. There's something special going on, there's an energy here. I'm going to look at that energy and I'm not going to talk during Davening. Histakel. So in order to become a Chassid, in order to become pious, Histaklus and Hisbonenus. We have to live a life where we're actually living with vision. We're seeing, we're thinking, we're being moved to be mindful, to be present, to really extract and draw from everything, and with it Hisbonenus, to be contemplative, to think about what does this mean? What does this mean and what am I experiencing? So I joked, but you know, here in Florida, we're facing yet another hurricane. And each one is a reminder that while Hashem has handed the keys to everything in the world to us to go conquer, to go manipulate, to go control, to go study, there are three keys he holds on to. The key of conception and the key of the resurrection of the dead and the key of the rain, of the weather. And no matter how advanced, no matter how much progress we make, no matter how much technology we control, we cannot only not even control the weather, we know the drill, we can't even effectively predict the weather. Hakadosh Baruch Hu holds those keys. So either you could live a hurricane and it be only about, got to fill the cars with gas, got to buy water, got to make sure the batteries are in the flashlights, all I'm sure very important things. Or each time you could say, wow, Hashem is reminding me and us yet again that we work for him, he doesn't work for us. That he's in charge and he's in control. And the cone of uncertainty is the story of our lives. Every day we wake up and we are in a cone of uncertainty. We don't know what that day will bring. We don't know what will happen for the good or for the bad. And so each time that we're watching and we are Histaklus and Hisbonenus, we are attached to that cone of uncertainty, we remember and we remind ourselves that it is a metaphor for life. And you're never really out of it or free from it or safe from it. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the Ribono Shel Olam's in charge. כאשר יבא האדם להתבונן גודל רוממותו יתברך ותכלית שלמותו when a person contemplates God's greatness, his exaltedness, how categorically different, superior he is to us, then ורוב ההרחק הבלתי משוער שבין גדולתו לבין שפלותנו יגרום לו שימלא יראה ורעדה מלפניו. If we really paused and stopped to think about the vastness and the greatness and the complexity of the world and the universe and the cosmos and the galaxies. If we began to scratch the surface to understand chemistry and biology and physics. If we understand Lehavdil the vastness of Torah, how endless it is, how little we know or understand of him and of his world, that we would recoil. We would recoil and realize, wow, he's everything and I'm nothing. I defer, I surrender, I submit, I dedicate my life in his service. I want to get from the pleasures that he's given in this world. I want to enjoy and have happiness and pleasure. But what I'm really here for and here to do and the measure of my life will be what difference I make and how much I am living in service of him. But you can't get there if all you're trying to do is the rat race of life. Earn the most and have the most and watch the most. If you're caught up in that hamster wheel, that rat race of life, and you never press pause and you never look around and you never take a deep breath and you never think and you're never mindful and you're never present and you're never looking at a hurricane and not only watching the winds and the cone of uncertainty, but thinking about, what does this mean for me? What's the bigger picture? What am I meant to learn or understand, how am I meant to improve or become better, then you'll never become a Chassid. Being a Chassid is Being a chassid is not numbing yourself to life or escaping life. Being a chassid is not being indifferent or apathetic to life. Being a chassid is being fully immersed and marinating in life. It is being so mindful and present that everything penetrates and moves, that there is a histaklus. I'm not just looking and seeing but I'm actually perceiving with a vision. And it leads to a hisbonenus, it leads to a contemplativeness that can't help but change the trajectory of my life. Im yirtzeh Hashem we'll all be safe and secure and dry and pick up with this next week. 8:45 Living with Emunah, tonight 9:00 PM Going Behind the Bima, Meyers Leonard, NBA veteran, to learn about how we can fight anti-semitism. Have a great day, stay happy, healthy.
