Latest / Rabbi Moshe Haber - Daily Mussar/Weekly Perasha / Rabbi Moshe Haber Path of the Just-Purity of Motive and Action 8.19.25

Transcript

Rabbi Moshe Haber Path of the Just-Purity of Motive and Action 8.19.25 · Rabbi Moshe Haber - Daily Mussar/Weekly Perasha

• 0:00
  Yes, now. 225. 325 South, the idea we've been developing and
• 0:07
  working on is the concept called OK, yeah, more some of us.
• 0:14
  Inside. Concepts called Taura and the
• 0:18
  concept is purity, which we said sounds like a very big word.
• 0:23
  Purity sounds like someone who goes to the McVeigh everyday and
• 0:25
  all these things. It's not exactly what it means.
• 0:28
  Purity means purity of mind, and I mean to someone who does
• 0:31
  things for the right reason. It was, he explained.
• 0:35
  The more a person has solid, genuine motives #1 the more real
• 0:43
  successful have, the more lasting says that.
• 0:47
  And the more, as he explained as well, this these actions that
• 0:51
  you do, whatever good thing that you do will help develop you.
• 0:55
  If you do a good thing for the wrong reason or a bad reason, it
• 0:59
  might be a nice deed, it might have a good outcome naturally,
• 1:04
  but it won't help you. In order to help you has to be
• 1:07
  done some degree of a good motive.
• 1:09
  That's the idea. So now work at the person to
• 1:12
  remove alter your motives. The three motives are all
• 1:14
  natural. They're all coming our way.
• 1:16
  They really all have the pulls and the urges to get us all out
• 1:20
  of their motives. You think about it.
• 1:22
  Honor is a motive that's right in front of our face, being
• 1:26
  relevant, being well known, making a lot of money, having
• 1:30
  power, all these ideas or to your motives and all pulling us.
• 1:35
  Better not to do it, or better to do it if you know you're
• 1:37
  doing something for the wrong. Reason as you're doing it, so
• 1:41
  the demands the level of wrong if the wrong is these I just
• 1:44
  mentioned, which is to have power over another person
• 1:47
  actually better not to do it and how people have done big things
• 1:51
  for the wrong reason. And if you ask great people
• 1:54
  whether that should be done or not, the very person would have
• 1:56
  said, I know it's so. I know you saw a great
• 2:00
  unbelievable organization that was built by so and so.
• 2:03
  But the reality is you did it for the wrong reason, really the
• 2:05
  wrong reason better off having not been done.
• 2:07
  Just because the outcome seemed beautiful does not mean it was
• 2:11
  meant to be there. The framework of certain
• 2:14
  communities could have been built on people with the wrong
• 2:18
  motives, and they're better off not having it.
• 2:20
  But how many times do we teach our kids?
• 2:22
  Or do. Or do we learn do it even though
• 2:25
  it's for the wrong reason because one day?
• 2:28
  You'll get back. There are different kinds of
• 2:29
  wrong shalal really legit. There's a different shalala
• 2:33
  Ishma means I'm doing it because I like people know my name or I
• 2:38
  like to feel good about myself. Let's say I get involved in the
• 2:41
  case. You know, the real altruistic
• 2:44
  mindset is I want to do it to help people.
• 2:46
  OK, but a lot of us have other elements in there as well.
• 2:49
  We want to be, you know, we want to have to be known as a person
• 2:52
  that's involved in I said things like that.
• 2:55
  Those are not so bad. And that's Shalal Ishma.
• 2:57
  It's not the real purity of mine, but it will lead
• 3:01
  eventually, if done right, it'll lead to ishma what the Gemma
• 3:06
  says. But if you do things al manal de
• 3:07
  kante, you do things in order to get power or in order to put
• 3:11
  someone else down or in order to become those things.
• 3:15
  Those mindsets are not healthy and that will not lead to good.
• 3:19
  It'll lead to fights, it'll lead to challenges, it'll lead to
• 3:22
  power only and all these things sometimes you see in
• 3:25
  organizations, you wonder how can it be?
• 3:26
  These people are involved in volunteer work and they're
• 3:30
  fighting. Sometimes it's because the
• 3:33
  volunteer work never really was a volunteer.
• 3:35
  It was rather, I may not be getting paid monetarily, but I'm
• 3:39
  getting paid with power or I'm getting paid with all on it,
• 3:42
  right? This is just the way it is and
• 3:44
  now it leads to struggles at times.
• 3:46
  Let's see it further. That's for sure, right?
• 3:49
  I could die in that first stand what I ran a non profit 15 years
• 3:53
  OK and a lot of all good attention, but a lot of
• 3:57
  volunteers have different. Motives in my ass and it comes
• 4:01
  out. Very, very, very, very, very
• 4:04
  prevalent. Very prevalent.
• 4:05
  So this is the challenge. It's.
• 4:06
  Like you say, it's not about not and and the currency is not
• 4:10
  money, it's power. Exactly.
• 4:11
  I'm saying, by the way, I realized over time it's much,
• 4:16
  there's far greater drive, the power, and it is for a drive for
• 4:21
  money. I know the Mishnah, it says kina
• 4:24
  tava and Kava with jealousy. Money is better temptation,
• 4:31
  honor, Motiya donaram, take a person out of this world.
• 4:34
  These drive people and it doesn't say money, it says
• 4:38
  jealousy, temptation and honor. Take a person out of this world
• 4:43
  with money in there. The answer is money is the most
• 4:47
  simple currency that people think of, but it's just a means
• 4:50
  to an end, right? And the end is power.
• 4:53
  Now often times power can translate into more money
• 4:55
  eventually. Many people are thinking that
• 4:57
  way when in politics and often times money translates into
• 5:00
  power. But the ultimate goal for people
• 5:02
  in their mind really is I need power.
• 5:05
  And the reasons is so if you go deeper, the reason is so is
• 5:10
  because people like to exist and power is its strongest form of
• 5:16
  your existence. Which means if I run, if I run a
• 5:19
  company, I run a shoe, if I run whatever it is and I have power,
• 5:23
  right? I feel very good about myself
• 5:25
  and I feel very much in this world, very relevant, every
• 5:29
  spoken about, very much existent.
• 5:32
  Other people have the answer to me and all these things.
• 5:34
  So power is obviously the most dangerous currency, but it's
• 5:37
  also the ultimate currency people want.
• 5:39
  And that becomes a driving force when people are trying to do
• 5:43
  good and you have to sift through when you see good things
• 5:46
  happening. Why is so and so doing that?
• 5:49
  If he's doing it for power, OK, there may be a good outcome, but
• 5:54
  really, really speaking, this may not represent the good
• 5:56
  person. If he's doing it for good
• 5:59
  purpose. Wonderful, beautiful.
• 6:00
  It's a big difference and you find.
• 6:02
  Still want them to do it. No, not always.
• 6:05
  When do you find the difference? How can you tell if he's doing
• 6:09
  it for power purposes, doing it for monetary purposes, doing it
• 6:12
  for honor? You can tell always if there's
• 6:16
  an element that leads to none of that.
• 6:19
  If on the side he's doing some reset that gives him no power,
• 6:22
  no relevance, no honor. If he's, you know, running a
• 6:25
  shul and parts of the people he's dealing with don't blame
• 6:28
  through his power, don't really give him that sort of feeling of
• 6:32
  self existence and all that. If he has an element to track
• 6:36
  that's outside of motive, great. If every track leads to I am
• 6:41
  great, I am wonderful and the biggest thing on earth if you.
• 6:44
  Have one good track, it clear clears up all your other.
• 6:47
  Tracks it indicates and he has a little shma, Dr. 'cause you
• 6:50
  can't tell. How can you tell that I'm a
• 6:52
  shma? How can you tell that a rabbit
• 6:53
  is a shma? How can you tell that a person
• 6:55
  running you can't tell, you can never tell, you can never really
• 6:59
  decipher 'cause they might be doing good things for a long
• 7:02
  time. And at the core, it's building
• 7:06
  this persona very care though. How can I tell?
• 7:09
  First of all, the few times I've met rabbis that Natalie Schmab,
• 7:13
  you see how they are when nobody's looking OK?
• 7:16
  You also see how they are with children.
• 7:18
  OK, like. We know the kids are getting all
• 7:20
  crazy and rabbis and and, and, and in both those scenarios that
• 7:25
  happen, I was, I was right on my, my wife was right on, on her
• 7:30
  instinct. And I was just blinded by words.
• 7:33
  Right, Right. You know, but I find that people
• 7:36
  really can't come. And there are some big people
• 7:39
  out there in the world whom I know a little bit there, let's
• 7:42
  go story. And people do not catch up on a
• 7:44
  roll. We had a case where a client
• 7:48
  called me and said I need you to borrow a name here, I need to
• 7:52
  have a name up and I need it tomorrow because he won't give
• 7:55
  me a penny until his name is up, right?
• 7:58
  So you. And he's running out.
• 7:59
  Like I vote, but not because I know a million other things that
• 8:02
  the guy does and he has amazing. That's not, it's not a perfect
• 8:04
  example, it's a good example, but that really is very delicate
• 8:08
  one where people know the system and they know that they don't
• 8:11
  get, you know, they they paid for a plaque, they believe in
• 8:15
  Plas, whatever the mindset is right?
• 8:17
  And they just have a structure. That's not Lishma.
• 8:20
  That's not, not, not. Lishma, that's not guaranteed to
• 8:22
  be A and other smart case. No, it's actually not, because I
• 8:26
  know the plaque business also from the shul.
• 8:28
  I know there's some people who are strong about it, and it
• 8:30
  makes sense. It makes sense of the same, the
• 8:32
  same. Basically.
• 8:33
  I tried to have my father's name projected in the future, and now
• 8:36
  I don't know if it's going to be.
• 8:38
  And I know the way systems work, organizations work.
• 8:40
  Once you give the money, you never get what you want.
• 8:42
  They have a point. They have a point, absolutely.
• 8:45
  So that doesn't take away. From now, I've seen good people
• 8:48
  who are strong about that. And they look bad, but they're
• 8:51
  not really. Bad at all.
• 8:54
  It's a good example. Uma namazi mamad rahima da Adam.
• 8:57
  So let's see what makes a person.
• 8:58
  That's the way the transaction. 'S supposed to exactly, that's
• 9:00
  the currency right? What makes a person gets them
• 9:03
  more used to becoming pure minded?
• 9:07
  A da dam la volla de MI da azo who has manal de Vida vah vah
• 9:12
  mitzvah, which means the more a person gets used to serving a
• 9:17
  shaman doing mitzvah. For that reason I know Chile
• 9:19
  cannot speak human. It's not, but pet up it on Shane
• 9:24
  Dato dying. You shave it up.
• 9:26
  The more in person think about this, the more the person is
• 9:31
  clear before he gets involved in something.
• 9:33
  He doesn't just jump in, he thinks it's about it before he
• 9:36
  does. So if he thinks about what he's
• 9:38
  about to do and he will be clear minded and we'll do it for the
• 9:43
  right reasons, which is we think, we know that people are
• 9:47
  reactionary. We think to jump in and jump in.
• 9:49
  It's a great thing. When you jump in, you're at risk
• 9:53
  of doing it for the wrong reason, because the more a
• 9:55
  person jumps in, the more it's a physical instinct, the more it's
• 10:01
  a reactionary thing. And there it's more connected to
• 10:04
  my body than it is to my mind, to my physical way than it is to
• 10:07
  my soul. You think reactionary is good,
• 10:10
  And I'm a very reactionary guy as well.
• 10:12
  But the reality is the more thought out, you know, a guy
• 10:15
  offered a job, I'll give you classics, guys offer a job.
• 10:19
  He's going to teach Torah. Some people, they jump.
• 10:22
  Sounds like a good job. I'll take, I'll be what's at the
• 10:25
  street with my wife and I think about it, give me a few days.
• 10:28
  There's a big difference there. The person that thinks it's room
• 10:31
  has a greater chance of doing it with the right intention, the
• 10:35
  right focus, the right motive. Whether he jumps in might get
• 10:39
  excited and he might think that was tickling.
• 10:41
  And what's getting him excited is the Twitter aspect.
• 10:43
  He doesn't realize. He should realize what's
• 10:46
  actually getting him excited are the other things, because when a
• 10:49
  person does something very reactionary, they're at risk of
• 10:53
  not involving their mind. They're at risk of not involving
• 10:56
  their soul. Instead, they're involving the
• 10:58
  other feelings. Those are at the forefront.
• 11:00
  That's what he's telling you. Again, persons offered a job.
• 11:03
  He's offered a hassle idea. He's over these things and he
• 11:06
  jumps and he says yes. And he thinks to himself, two
• 11:08
  weeks in, why did I say yes? I didn't seem right for my
• 11:11
  family. What happened to my time at home
• 11:13
  and all these things. He's wondering what happened.
• 11:16
  I feel like I did a good thing. You may have done a good thing,
• 11:19
  and it might have been your, you know, your feeling of doing good
• 11:21
  that pushed you, but ultimately at the core with something else
• 11:24
  driving it. And that's noticeable.
• 11:27
  After that settles, that's what he's telling you.
• 11:28
  All right? I know.
• 11:30
  Shuli cannot speak humor without being calm, thought through,
• 11:40
  thought out. He should not jump in the
• 11:43
  Khalalali. It's Poneni, Marshall would say.
• 11:45
  He needs to think what he's doing.
• 11:47
  He has me not smola davar. He should prepare we are Hindi
• 11:51
  Bob Mattoon and he should prepare his mind.
• 11:54
  I'd she connects with Bon anout until he comes in well thought
• 11:59
  out maz be it born in Mahuola, then I'll realize what he's
• 12:04
  about to do. And who is he doing to Cervano.
• 12:08
  He's about to serve Hashem. He's about to do a good thing
• 12:11
  and a good deed with the right mindset and the right approach,
• 12:15
  and I'll build it into his family.
• 12:17
  I was having a conversation with my wife last night.
• 12:20
  I told her something I think my father told me a long time ago.
• 12:24
  That is actually one of the most powerful things.
• 12:27
  You know, there's something called the ballot tissue Val.
• 12:30
  What's the ballot tissue Val? Riyash.
• 12:32
  Riyash, right. The guy person who comes back to
• 12:43
  the fold now in our community, my father used to say this
• 12:45
  doesn't really exist because everyone was always religious
• 12:49
  some level, right? He had a line strengthening.
• 12:52
  He had a line from his father, a grandfather of Shalom.
• 12:58
  I think the line was were non observant.
• 13:03
  Even the people who drove on Shabbat in the old days, they
• 13:05
  were non observant Orthodox people, which means Orthodox and
• 13:09
  non observant. That was a line.
• 13:11
  There's also this thing as someone who's from left field,
• 13:14
  doesn't work not. In the community.
• 13:16
  My. My Rob Owens told me that years
• 13:19
  ago when I was just really starting to get very Jewish or
• 13:22
  whatever, he said to me. Erwin, the Syrian community is
• 13:26
  Orthodox thinking, right? He's driving Shabbat, you know
• 13:30
  you're not doing, but maybe one day you won't drop.
• 13:33
  But we know the game plan. So give a you do go with Syria.
• 13:37
  What did happen? 19 O 6 in hell of itself is
• 13:40
  different. How about that once they can't
• 13:42
  no anyone who was mehalesh Shabbat was a full tack on
• 13:45
  against and those world by all the robbers of all different
• 13:48
  countries. Sure, but in those worlds things
• 13:50
  are probably much more kind of dry.
• 13:52
  Once you came into America and you're building in this sort of
• 13:55
  ray area. This is the challenge and now
• 13:58
  you see and people are shocked by the numbers of so many people
• 14:01
  learning and Torah and observance.
• 14:03
  It's actually positive because it was there.
• 14:05
  It's funny in Israel to certain degree.
• 14:06
  And when they have people who come back to the fold in Israel,
• 14:10
  who are the far greater numbers? Sarah Adim.
• 14:12
  Why? Because they left 20 years ago
• 14:15
  and they're going back now. It's not really, you know, it's
• 14:16
  a short term vacation, right? So now.
• 14:20
  But there is something out there called the real about the Shiva.
• 14:23
  I thought my wife, you know, about the Shiva, you know,
• 14:25
  great. But sadly they have a very they
• 14:29
  have a very difficult rate in certain areas, have a difficult
• 14:33
  rate when it comes to their children staying in the fold and
• 14:36
  certain things. And why is that the case?
• 14:39
  The reason that's the case is partially because it's such a
• 14:42
  strong pull. They pulled in so fast and so
• 14:47
  extreme, went against an age of so much.
• 14:49
  You have a guy who you know didn't work on Shabbat or
• 14:52
  didn't, who went all over the place, went to parties all over
• 14:55
  the place, and now you tell them stop cold Turkey as an extreme
• 14:59
  and it becomes difficult. So the concept is the things in
• 15:03
  life. Now, there's nothing wrong with
• 15:05
  that. It's a great thing.
• 15:06
  But the idea is things in life have to be both mainstreamed in
• 15:10
  our minds. We'd have to work into our life.
• 15:13
  You can't do something that's going against your lifestyle too
• 15:15
  much. Then it becomes unhealthy things
• 15:18
  that the built into our lives and they have to also be built
• 15:20
  in with the right mode. If you want a strong, solid
• 15:23
  foundation, you do the things A for the right reason, B.
• 15:29
  They work within your system. They don't work against your
• 15:32
  system ever. You do things that are going
• 15:34
  against your way of life, but they were done with a strong
• 15:36
  pull or strong desire or strong drive.
• 15:39
  You know, it's very funny. People who jump into new things
• 15:43
  very fast often jump out of those things equally as fast,
• 15:46
  right? People get excited.
• 15:48
  Hey, there's new guy joined our class.
• 15:49
  It's awesome. And what's going to happen in 10
• 15:51
  minutes? There's no guy who's going to be
• 15:53
  out of your class you because you thought about everything
• 15:56
  we're saying like, right, correct.
• 15:58
  Incorrect. Why?
• 16:00
  Because they jump. And when people jump, it's
• 16:03
  coming from the physical side. It's coming from the excitement,
• 16:08
  the motivation in a restaurant. All right, it's hot early.
• 16:11
  And you got. To be I went to a new restaurant
• 16:13
  last night, the Schumer's successful in Lakewood.
• 16:16
  First time I've been there I was looking around my wife like
• 16:19
  where should we go that's where this conversation basically came
• 16:21
  from I go to the new restaurant, it's wildly successful to me
• 16:25
  it's not the Brahmer. If it's going to succeed, the
• 16:28
  Brahmer is let's come back next year next year if they're still
• 16:32
  successful oh, that's Brahmer. Not the initial shock is not
• 16:36
  really the proof. I think they will succeed.
• 16:38
  They have a good model, but you know it doesn't prove anything
• 16:41
  because the first drive and the first connect and the first
• 16:43
  thing, right? It's a new kid on the bar.
• 16:45
  Exactly. A new kid on the bar and looking
• 16:46
  at school, all that excitement kind of.
• 16:48
  These all come from the other place.
• 16:50
  They don't really prove anything.
• 16:52
  A person in their growth and their direction has to be
• 16:56
  thought through, thought out, healthy along with the way of
• 17:01
  life and then you have a development.
• 17:03
  That's the idea of a genuine build.
• 17:05
  I bet Joey says it all the time. He goes, don't stand up and
• 17:07
  pray, stand up and take a second.
• 17:10
  Say what am I going to be praying for right now?
• 17:12
  What am I about to do? Take a minute and then start.
• 17:15
  A new thinking through. Always.
• 17:16
  Ever. Just jump in.
• 17:17
  Right. Everything in life has to
• 17:19
  acquire, I think, the rabbits. This morning said.
• 17:20
  That that was not like how we just said exactly every
• 17:24
  everything in life requires a level of being thrown out.
• 17:27
  It could be the next moving in there, which means learning,
• 17:30
  praying in a minute from now, or it could be a life decision
• 17:34
  where you send your kids to school, where you do things
• 17:36
  because everything in tuara mitzvot has a seemingly clear
• 17:41
  path of the shma. But really between you and I,
• 17:45
  there are so many layers of other motives that are there
• 17:50
  that can really blind us before we get to the reality.
• 17:53
  Anything talking about learning, praying, joining a shul, joining
• 17:58
  a school, getting involved. And I said, there's a lot of
• 18:00
  good there, but if you do it the wrong reason, There's a lot of
• 18:03
  challenges. That's why it's so important to
• 18:05
  do it this way. He thinks things true and try to
• 18:07
  find why am I doing this? What's getting me now?
• 18:10
  They could be honest with yourself.
• 18:11
  You know, great rabbis. I've been very honest by saying
• 18:14
  I do big things, only a small percentage of what I do.
• 18:18
  All this month many great rabbis have said that.
• 18:20
  But it's a fine, isn't this a fine line?
• 18:22
  The guy could be listening to the shoer now and said I'm not
• 18:26
  ready yet. I'm not going to push myself
• 18:28
  because the rabbi said, you know, if you're not bringing it
• 18:31
  for the right reason. Absolutely right.
• 18:34
  Whatever with me. Absolutely right?
• 18:35
  And then he never. 1000% the real starting point is Shulali
• 18:40
  Shma. The real starting point does
• 18:42
  include some other motives. It just can't be bad motives.
• 18:46
  If the bad motives don't start, stop.
• 18:49
  That's it. The power motives, if the
• 18:51
  competitor motives is to put the other guy down, drive, it's to
• 18:55
  be well known all those things. Real bad motives like not not
• 18:58
  well known power competition. Put the other guy down.
• 19:02
  Stop like that. Get out.
• 19:04
  But if it's to be connected socially to the.
• 19:07
  School to That's the type of that's fine.
• 19:12
  That's the type that will eventually be streamlined into
• 19:15
  good correct. 100% find the difference between not a decent,
• 19:20
  not a great motive and a bad motive bad.
• 19:23
  Keep away nothing special, not really for Hashem.
• 19:26
  Yet we're all human and human drives us all the time and we do
• 19:31
  that. We go in with that drive and
• 19:33
  eventually becomes part of the home.
• 19:34
  Exactly that example a guy he joins class for social reasons
• 19:39
  and then he because he sticks perfect example.
• 19:42
  That's the. Wrong reason, but not a bad
• 19:43
  reason. That's fine, but a guy joins
• 19:46
  because he wants to, I don't know, stick it to somebody.
• 19:49
  Else sitting next to it even. Though, I mean, that'd be the
• 19:51
  worst reason. Stick it to somebody else and
• 19:53
  say, hey, look, I'm a religious guy.
• 19:54
  Whatever it is, that's no good and that will lead to nothing
• 19:57
  good. I will stop with this.