Latest / Rabbi Moshe Haber - Daily Mussar/Weekly Perasha / Rabbi Moshe Haber Iggeret Ramban: Refining the Self Through Constant Reflection and Tiny Changes 12.28.25

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Rabbi Moshe Haber Iggeret Ramban: Refining the Self Through Constant Reflection and Tiny Changes 12.28.25 · Rabbi Moshe Haber - Daily Mussar/Weekly Perasha

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  And there's another lie when you just say you start off when you
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  are talking to a rabbi or reading the Seth.
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  Even if they don't quote you something, they don't give you
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  the source. What they are doing usually if
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  they're, you know, if they're genuine, if they really know
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  what they're doing is they're giving you Torah and different
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  source. That's always how it is.
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  They might always know the Pisakima.
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  They better know exactly where their source is from, but their
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  mind eventually becomes like a turn up, I don't know,
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  wellspring. And they combine it with their
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  own thoughts and stuff like that and it comes out.
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  That's what the Rabbin's letter is.
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  It's his whole approach. I mean, he was a man who was a
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  reassuring revention many times and he was one of the most
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  famous Rishonim. And people learn to Shiva.
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  They learned that I'm banned to shed on ban and they go on it
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  for hours or they learn every week Prasha that I'm banned is
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  considered one of the top few explanations his Rashi and then
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  I'm buying comments on Rashi. It's how it works.
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  So he's unbelievable with his knowledge of today.
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  It's on the out of this world. And because of that, the the
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  simplicity of this letter and the fact that it seems like such
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  a basic idea of how a person should treat another person, how
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  to act, how to carry yourself with Ramba is telling his son.
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  It's unique in its simplicity, but it's really backed up by the
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  whole Shahs, the whole Tanah, his knowledge of Omidashim, his
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  knowledge of everything. And he's giving you this letter.
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  Sometimes what he's giving you is the entire world's knowledge
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  produced in the letter, right? An amount of the example that if
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  you like this amount of the example, it's the equivalent of
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  if AI would be told, give me a letter, right?
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  But AI is not backed up by Torah.
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  It's backed up by a lot of information here.
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  It's backed up same idea, it's backed up by Torah.
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  So with the rabbi wrote, is a very simple seeming letter to a
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  very obviously deep concept, which is how a person should
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  carry themselves, how he should act toward others.
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  He gives you simplicity. Be be.
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  I'll be humble. Put your head down.
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  Give everyone respect all these different examples.
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  What was really telling you is the entire tada, the entire
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  thing Is it a produces it produces a nice simple seeming
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  person. And deep down that person is
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  built on layer of the layer of the layer of Torah, of knowledge
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  of, you know, you could absolutely quote yeah, Torah you
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  have you have Gemara, you have the Mishnah, you have Kabbalah.
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  So much information turns out to be a good guy is very simple.
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  It's based on a lot of deep information.
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  But to be a fine person requires that you are to my face in a
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  room with regular people, a fine person.
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  It doesn't require to give me. You can't be a deep guy.
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  I'd be a bad guy. You got to be a simple good
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  person. Let's just tell you another TV.
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  Next example, he says. I have been telling us last week
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  the need for a person to analyze the actions every morning, every
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  night, we discuss the basic concept of inventory.
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  Have you run any business, Literally any business, no
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  matter what it is, looking things over all the time can
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  save you thousands and millions of dollars.
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  Whatever it is, it could save you so much money.
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  Just looking these over, reviewing, checking to see any
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  mistakes, checking to see if not selling your certain item,
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  whatever it may be, inventory if you call that, or reviewing the
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  books or look at these over can make a world of a difference.
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  So he says once a person gets used checking themselves and
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  analyzing in this way, reflecting every morning and
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  every night. And you say, sounds like it's so
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  frequent. Why every morning, every night?
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  So he said very simply is that all of us by now are good people
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  in general, but we have many moments where we make mistakes.
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  So as I go hand in hand, how could a good guy make so many
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  mistakes? So the simple shot is, is that
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  you're a good person when your mind is on your head, but when
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  you are hard and your, your emotions get the best of you or
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  you're not yourself, you're tired.
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  Remember, maybe I remember when I was a kid, my mother used to
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  always ever got to any sort of mood where it'd be upset,
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  crying, fighting, whatever it was always say, oh, you're
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  tired, you're tired, you're tired.
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  I do it to my kids now all the time.
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  You're tired, you're tired. I, I get used to get so nervous.
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  I'm not tired, I'm upset. Father, write everything.
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  Did your father write everything he did?
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  He wasn't busy with this stuff. My mother had her own angle.
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  My father would never handle any of these things at all.
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  So I'm saying that every night he used to go over his day, if I
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  used to do this, he gets what he gave him about it says true how
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  he's born in this issue where every single night he wrote it
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  down his simplest, smallest things.
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  And I was after I saw that only after he passed away with Mitch,
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  I believe that's probably where I finally got I worked on his
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  character so much was because what happens is the more you
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  analyze, let's go to that point. The second the more you start to
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  account analyze. Here's what happens.
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  You start to get better and better because if you look at
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  things every single day, what happens?
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  I did say you review, you do inventory once and you do it
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  again. So the first time you look over
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  the general things you do. The second time you start
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  getting opportunity to look at the details, 1/3 time you look
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  at the details and more and more and more and over time you start
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  to look at, if you're analyzing constantly, you start to look at
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  the finest, most detailed things.
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  That's how it works. I'll give you example in the
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  shoe, when the shoe is a mess after let's say a cardio,
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  something like that. So the first move is just clean
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  the basics, just carry, you know, just mop, whatever.
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  Just put the books in the bookshop, right?
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  Let the book go. Now just put them in the
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  bookshop. But then in the middle of that's
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  a Sunday, right, you have the Shabbat where they probably set
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  up to the Kedushi, just dump everything in the bookshop in
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  the middle of the week. The goal and the hope is after
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  you did the basic, now you get an opportunity to review it
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  again. And now you can put the right
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  books, the right shelves, right, the right spots.
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  And the same thing is true with character.
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  If you do this reviewing the actions once in a blue moon,
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  you'll, you know, stop yourself from becoming a disaster.
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  That's great. But if you do it all the time,
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  then you start getting used to key every few may, every few
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  hours or a few days, whatever they be, you reflect.
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  If you're constantly a reflector, become a better and
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  better person. That's all I need.
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  Yeah, that's all you need. Because the more you reflect and
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  what you think, apply it to your life.
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  And as we've said many times, we all have a good enough
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  upbringing and good enough Torah and good enough surroundings to,
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  with that basic level of reflection, become a very, very
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  good person. That's all we need.
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  Reflect your reflection all the time.
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  Why do you need reflection? Why can't you be a better person
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  in the moment? Because the moment, like we said
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  before I was saying retired. The moment includes so many
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  other components. Can be nervous, you can be
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  tired, you can be upset, you can be frustrated, you can be not in
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  the mood. There are 1000 different
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  moments, feelings, and those are all feelings and those all do
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  not give you the chance to use your mind.
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  Boy, you reflect. You have none of those.
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  You're not reflecting while you're tired.
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  You're not reflecting while you're sad.
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  You're not reflecting while you're upset.
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  You're reflecting while you're angry.
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  You're not reflecting while you're, you know, in a
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  downstate. You're reflecting in a normal
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  clear mind. So you have the opportunity to
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  see things what they are. How many thousands of times how
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  we had a conversation and then walked away and said, I
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  shouldn't have said that, but you said it.
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  Why? Because in the moment you were
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  in the moment afterwards you have the opportunity of
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  reflection. How many off color jokes are you
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  and I witnessed in our life off color, not funny, not smart and
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  just destructive jokes. Are you say to yourself, what's
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  the guy thinking like what's what's, what's what's the end
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  game over here? What's his goal?
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  Where's the positive? Maybe he'll get a chocolate.
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  Maybe no one thinks he's smart. No one's going to be impressed
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  by him. He's probably going to hurt
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  somebody. Where's the goal here, right?
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  He wants to totalize. Not a comedian.
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  It's not his business. But people do it, time it again,
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  and they do it all the time. And you stop, you say.
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  So if this guy would only just stop and tell them something, it
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  ain't working, it's not helping, it's only destructive.
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  But in the moment, he does it. He does.
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  He does it. He's a good guy.
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  That's after the moment. In the moment, he's frozen and
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  he's in that mood, He's in that feeling, and he makes such
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  mistakes. But the more you apply
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  reflection of me, the more you apply clarity.
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  And therefore, the next time you come to that moment, you have in
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  your mind a little bit of a stopper saying not really worth
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  it to say that comment. This time I realized it didn't
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  get me anywhere. Didn't really help me.
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  Even if I'm angry. Hey, man, I should hold myself
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  back from reactor right now. Yeah, I want to gossip.
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  Maybe I shouldn't say that piece of secret information talking to
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  help me. All those junior, all those
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  things are clearer and more developed the more you reflect.
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  And then he says the next step is teshuva.
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  Teshuva is repentance. Repentance is a heavy word.
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  How often do people do to Shuva? I mean, we know every once a
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  year and at the end of their life maybe, right?
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  Not all the time. He says that that's the truth.
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  The truth is that a good guy is repenting all the time.
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  Not heavy duty. Huh?
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  We do it every day. We do not every day.
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  We say we do it every day. Exactly.
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  Ubaze, you call your mecha. But to Shuva with the mindset of
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  reflection, all your days will be with repentance.
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  What does that mean? You're panting every day.
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  Who's repenting every day? I mean, he's telling me David
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  Wright and to feel out. We do it, correct.
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  But who's a heavy? It's a heavy statement.
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  It's not a heavy statement. Regret.
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  Do you like the feeling of regret?
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  I like it. Nobody does.
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  Nobody likes the feeling of regret.
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  No, a regret happens to be a feeling that in America today
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  they tell you no regrets to the classic term, no regrets as if
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  you can make all sorts of mistakes and you made a bad
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  business decision, but no regrets.
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  Why no regrets? The reason why they say no
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  regrets because no one can live with regrets because wasn't
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  going to get me. It's not going to get me
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  anywhere. If I regret making that business
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  decision or saying that comment, you know, it didn't work out.
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  Yeah, I changed team pool player.
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  I changed teams. We didn't work out.
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  We went to, you know, we went from the championship team to,
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  you know, a New York football team.
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  But no regrets, right? Why no regrets?
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  Why do you have any regrets? You let have a regret.
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  So the truth is, is an American term because people do not like
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  feeling guilty. Guilty is a feeling and drives
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  people Batty. Times are crazy.
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  Who wants to feel guilty? One of the reasons you don't
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  want to feel guilty is because you really can't do anything
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  about it. You feel guilty now.
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  It was a mistake. Was a mistake in that time or
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  that loss. You say I'm sorry you regret.
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  That means you regret very good. I'm telling you.
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  But in America today they have this term, no regrets, classic
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  term people use all the time. You're right.
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  So he is telling you in this letter, he's telling you when
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  you have the level of reflection which you should have, which is
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  all the time looking back and analyzing and you're getting
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  better. Don't feel scared to reflect and
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  fire mistakes. Feel empowered to do so because
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  the more you do so, the better you'll be the next time.
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  And then you will have in the process you will have constantly
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  regrets. Nothing wrong at all with having
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  constantly regrets. It's an arrogant person who
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  doesn't have regrets. An arrogant person says I made
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  no mistakes, I don't think I did anything wrong.
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  It's arrogance and it's a person who doesn't really want to look
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  himself in the mirror. That's real.
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  There's nothing wrong with making mistakes.
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  There's nothing wrong with accepting your mistakes.
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  There's nothing wrong with looking and saying next time
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  I'll do better. Absolutely nothing wrong, right.
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  In the early parts of marriage, some guys, we've all been down
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  this road, they can't handle the feeling of making a mistake.
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  They just can't handle it. And they try, right?
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  They tried to turn, they tried to talk themselves out of
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  mistake. How many roads have you and I've
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  been down and maybe married to other areas, how many roads have
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  we been down? But we made there something
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  wrong and we spent two hours trying to talk about that one
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  second. And at one minute, how about you
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  just, you know, just hold up and say I messed up and I wish I had
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  to do it. And hopefully over a few
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  minutes, it goes away. Instead of talking, you're
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  talking. You're talking and probably
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  bring your friend in the mouth more and making yourself seem
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  like a hazy case in the process. And all those things that make
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  us like lose our masculinity, we like, we run away.
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  We went, right, How'd that happen?
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  It happened because you just can't own it.
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  But he's telling you a good person who reflects all the
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  time, a good person who looks at life and says to himself, it
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  wasn't really worth it. I shouldn't have done that.
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  And then he does the Shiva. He becomes a beautiful person
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  over time in life, we are supposed to be literally like
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  the classic examine Messiah Shame says.
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  Messiah Shame writes. He takes it to get washed.
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  He washed a dirty piece of clothing, general wash.
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  You wash up some big stains. He washed it again and again and
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  again. And he gets cleaner and cleaner
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  included. The exact same thing is supposed
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  to be our character. We are not supposed to be
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  developed in character the same way at 20 as we should expect to
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  be at 40 and 40 at 6060. At 80, over time, our character
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  has gotten and will continue to get better and better and
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  better. And it's only possible with this
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  level of humility. It leads to reflection.
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  It leads to tissue VAH that leads to remove, removing those
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  mistakes. And then next time you don't do
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  it. And even next time you do it,
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  you do it with a little less oomph and a little less feeling
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  of gratification when you made that mistake the next time.
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  And then after that you do a little less.
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  And then over time you become a person who's a completely
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  different person. How we know this by now?
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  Any drastic changes you made in your character went nowhere nice
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  for me. It went nowhere myself.
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  I have never made a drastic change character wise and seen
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  any results. Why?
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  Because you can't. It doesn't work that way.
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  Your character and your actions, your words or a development of
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  so much of your combination. What brings out your words,
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  Iggy? What brings out your words on
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  your mind? What brings out your words on
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  your situation, your financial situation, your social
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  situation, your home situation, what's going on in your life?
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  That's what brings on your words.
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  And to change all that is not possible or you have to do in
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  order to change that as a change and shift the balance is how it
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  works. You shift the balance of your
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  mind to shift the words. What that means is you can't
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  make a drastic change. It will and never has happened.
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  You can't. What you do is you shift your
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  balance a drop. How do you do so?
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  I don't feel that good when I say a nasty comment anymore.
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  It doesn't result in that much. When I say an off color joke
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  joke, like I mentioned before, it doesn't really result in that
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  much good, right? You shift your balance a draft,
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  and then you shift your balance a little more, and then you
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  should be balance a little more. And before you know, you become
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  a different person. Not by making a drastic change
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  that will not happen, that has no results, rather than by
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  making a tiny change. The kind of changes shift to the
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  drop. I know.
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  How do you make those tiny changes?
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  Reflect, reflect, reflect over and over and over again.
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  And yes, regrets. I have regrets.
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  I'm allowed to have regret. I accept them.
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  I don't feel sad about my regrets.
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  I don't feel bad. I don't feel like I'm a mistake.
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  You know, people have this comment that they tell people
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  all the time. I hate this comment.
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  OK, You want us something that I can never handle.
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  Why do you want to push my body? Here's my body.
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  If you tell me you always do this, you always are nasty, you
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  always are me. You always you always make same
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  mistake. Why do I not like hearing the
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  word always? Because although we you're not
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  going to change because, I mean, you're telling me that over the
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  last three years, let's just say, let's take a small window
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  size over the last three years. Those three years are garbage.
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  Those three years I've had the same issue.
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  So I'm always obnoxious. Every time I walk into the room,
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  I'm going to mean I don't want to hear always mean or I'm
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  always. Yeah, has happened.
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  Sure, has happened. Have I assessed any rule?
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  Sure. But the word always.
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  It gets me crazy. They don't really mean it, but
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  that's the level, that's the level of reflection that's
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  really going too far because that will lead you to sentence
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  and that will lead you to too much regret.
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  We are supposed to be at a level and at the stage and we can have
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  regrets constantly. Perfectly fine to have those
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  regrets. You know, sometimes people can't
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  live with themselves. If they made a mistake, you're
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  making a mistake and you move on.
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  You move on, not because no regrets, you move on because
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  yes, regrets and I'm going to get better the next time and
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  better the next time before. You're going to be the cleanest
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  person and the most developed character.
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  And not with drastic changes, no, rather with small balance,
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  little tweaks and you tweak over and over again.
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  You get into control, you get into the strength mode and you
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  become a different person. And if you tell yourself no
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  regrets, you're telling yourself, I just can't own up
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  for my life. You don't want to be in that
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  state either, because then you're a person who's not
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  producer. You own a free life, you'll
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  accept it and you move on. Not with the word always, but
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  small changes. I can't.
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  Let's stop it. Lose.