Latest / Rabbi Moshe Haber - Daily Mussar/Weekly Perasha / Rabbi Moshe Haber Iggeret Ramban:The Heart the Mind and the Power of Speech 1.4.26
Transcript
- 0:00Enter upon so he gets another is another.
- 0:03Closing points After developing a person's character and telling
- 0:07you to externally practice being a fine person, they're keeping
- 0:11your head down and being humble. And then telling us most
- 0:14recently to be a person who's always reflective.
- 0:18Always reflective. What we've done in debating.
- 0:20I could have done better, which we said last week on Sunday,
- 0:23that although you know, people love to say the term no regrets,
- 0:27I know you shouldn't be a very regretful person because it
- 0:29makes makes you negative, but it's fine to have some regrets.
- 0:32That's how you get yourself and you build yourself.
- 0:34Constantly be reflected. And he says the person would be
- 0:37in constant state of teshuva. That sounds like a heavy thing
- 0:40to Shiva is when we get to the ear, no constant state of
- 0:44development and change. When they have the right head,
- 0:48the right character, and when they're constantly reflecting,
- 0:51they end up always changing, always working on themselves and
- 0:54next conversation never looks the same as last conversation
- 0:57because they thought about the last one and so they did it
- 1:00wrong. Now they come to the next one
- 1:01and they're going to do it better.
- 1:02That's what he says. And then he goes on, which seems
- 1:05like a, you know, veering off a exit.
- 1:08He says from there you lead to good Tifula.
- 1:10He doesn't say it lead, but he says now let's go to good
- 1:14Tifula. And he talks about the fact that
- 1:16a person, when they're praying and they're praying to Hashem,
- 1:19they should remove all things from their mind.
- 1:22And their prayer will be a very powerful prayer, very difficult
- 1:25to do, but it's very important. Well, how does that connect?
- 1:28And then we'll get to the next step.
- 1:29How does it connect? In my opinion, the connection is
- 1:32very simple. The more a person as a reality
- 1:36I've seen, the more a person has weak character, sensitive
- 1:40character, constantly insulted, constantly very busy with his
- 1:43ego and all these things. His mind becomes a much foggier
- 1:48mind. He doesn't have the ability to
- 1:51ever have a clear day. The more arrogant you are, you
- 1:55don't see this to be the case because arrogant people seem to
- 1:57make it like they're rolling. The more arrogant the president
- 2:00is, the more their mind is extremely consumed.
- 2:04Arrogant people's minds are very consumed.
- 2:07Why? Because they have to keep this
- 2:09thing going and it's very difficult and they have to
- 2:11address 1000 things at once because they have to keep this
- 2:15narrative going. They have to keep their ego
- 2:17going. They have to keep their style
- 2:18going. That's either image existing and
- 2:21it becomes a very foggy mind. And this applies when a person
- 2:24comes to pray, when he's coming to pray or coming to do
- 2:27anything. He can't be clear.
- 2:29He just can't be clear. He's so consumed.
- 2:31I've seen this time and again, arrogant people's minds are
- 2:34consumed. That's a Riyadh so that if he
- 2:36loves one, then he tells a person after all this
- 2:41development, he's telling his son.
- 2:43The Khashoggi Hadi bull called them you should think before the
- 2:50words come out of your mouth. Sounds like the most basic, very
- 2:55low level piece of advice that a father should tell his son
- 2:58definitely shouldn't be at the end of the most classic letter
- 3:02of all time. That's that's the lesson.
- 3:04Think before you speak such a big deal.
- 3:07And then he says you should do this every day of your life.
- 3:13The whole devar of the Devar think before you do anything
- 3:16below you won't sin. Why is thinking before you speak
- 3:21such an important lesson? How could he put at this spot at
- 3:24the end of the letter? This is my question.
- 3:26It makes sense to you placed here.
- 3:28I would say this is a very, very basic point.
- 3:31Think before you speak. Why does he have to develop our
- 3:34character and develop our mind and develop us into nice people
- 3:36and kind people and humble people?
- 3:38And then tell us, think before you speak.
- 3:42Most people don't. Right.
- 3:43OK, fair. People can't tear a tree.
- 3:46People can't handle the truth. It sounds like a quote from
- 3:48somewhere, but OK. When you when you speak, it
- 3:53comes off as the kind of person that you are.
- 3:55I understand, but I would say tell me that step one, it's
- 3:59reactive before you speak, right?
- 4:00It's reactionary, but how? You don't want to ruin
- 4:02everything else that you worked on just by saying you sound like
- 4:05Ezekiel. Good.
- 4:06You're 100% right. People don't do this so much.
- 4:10People are reactionary. You can easily ruin everything
- 4:13you have with the dealt with the silly word.
- 4:15Oh, that's correct. How is that?
- 4:17And this is the key point. Why does that make sense to be
- 4:20at the end of the letter? So my humble opinion, to the
- 4:24point we said earlier, another vein, the the way people are, if
- 4:29their character is weak, if they are arrogant or if they're
- 4:34obsessed, if they're very busy with themselves, it becomes
- 4:38extremely difficult to think. Your mind is not there.
- 4:42You're not in control even of your mind.
- 4:44How do you think before you speak?
- 4:45If you have a good clear mind and your mind isn't there, you
- 4:48can be the smartest guy out there.
- 4:50You could be the greatest creative genius out there and
- 4:53your mind is not with you. If you're not in control of your
- 4:57mind, you don't even get step one of thinking before you
- 4:59speak. And how would you mind ever
- 5:01leave us? Our mind wouldn't be here if we
- 5:04have weak character. Everything is connected in this
- 5:06world, and everything is connected in people.
- 5:09People whose character are weak. There's therefore a similarity.
- 5:14And mind is consumed. When you are consumed, when
- 5:17you're thinking about yourself all day long, you will
- 5:20eventually let something slip from your mouth.
- 5:23And you shouldn't have said why, because you're just you're too
- 5:27foggy over here, you're too busy over here, you're too obsessed
- 5:31over here because of the weak character.
- 5:32It's directly related. Maybe it's a cycle like this.
- 5:35Heart, mind, mouth. If your heart, like I said, if
- 5:41you're arrogant, if you're she be sensitive, always insulted,
- 5:45your mind won't be there. Your mind won't be able to be in
- 5:48control. And if any kind of time and now
- 5:52when it comes to talk, you're going to see things he shouldn't
- 5:55have said. He's saying yourself at the
- 5:56fact. How did I say that?
- 5:58Why did I say that again? I said that silly comment.
- 6:01I couldn't just hold myself. I lost 3 hours of time because
- 6:04of that comment. Or maybe I ruin the relationship
- 6:06because of that comment or now I have to ask for Michaela
- 6:09constantly or I have to, you know, feel like I'm on my hands
- 6:12and knees and I shifted the the balance of the relationship all
- 6:16because of a silly comment that I got noted.
- 6:18How many you know, off color jokes that you've been around
- 6:21that I've been there ruined conversations or ruined even
- 6:25temporarily relationships. I've been around them so many
- 6:27times and every time I hear one of these, I say to myself, what
- 6:29was the guy's goal like God, God, how funny is he think he
- 6:32is? I really really you think
- 6:33everyone likes for sure one person in the room the the
- 6:36recipient is going to swarm. That's clear that.
- 6:40Is there ever, ever a time they used to say fish?
- 6:43I'll be. Yeah.
- 6:44Something like you're buying, you're holding it in, you're
- 6:46holding it in. Should you let?
- 6:47It out absolutely sure, but you have to figure out I I think you
- 6:51definitely shoot it and you have to figure out who you talking
- 6:54to, number one, who you talking to and also the tone how you
- 6:57present right, Exactly, which is exactly very much if you're
- 7:00talking to your wife all the time that you got to be able to
- 7:03tell us certain things on your mind or other people that are
- 7:05close to you, tell them certain things that are bother you
- 7:081000%. But but sometimes if that's
- 7:11coming from the wrong place according to this frame of mind,
- 7:14it's also going to go off the rails.
- 7:16If your mind is not in control, nothing is worth being said at
- 7:20all. And what makes your mind get
- 7:22lost? Your heart, your feelings.
- 7:25Someone insulted you, someone got you.
- 7:27Your emotions of your heart control your mind.
- 7:30It really is that psycho. It's heart, mind, mouth.
- 7:34The crazy part comes from the heart and what it causes is
- 7:38destruction all around. People say so many silly things.
- 7:41I was in a recently in the conversation when someone had
- 7:44something, it was going well and he said the wrong thing.
- 7:46I'm looking at like I'm wondering why are you saying
- 7:48this? What?
- 7:49You're ruining the conversation. You were in the meeting and I
- 7:52realized the reason he just couldn't control himself because
- 7:54he was in a weird frame line because his heart is extremely
- 7:57sensitive. It was a real frame line and he
- 7:59said something that really wasn't affected and actually
- 8:01destructed. How many times have you seen
- 8:03this? A million times and he's saying
- 8:05this up one second. These people are so smart.
- 8:08How many people out there are super talented, very gifted and
- 8:14when you get them on a good day, you're like, wow, if only I had
- 8:16this guy a lot right Put you have some employees like this.
- 8:20If I only had this person a lot this if he's always in this
- 8:23type, forget about it. Well, what what I have to give
- 8:25him to drink? What else?
- 8:26Again can't to be in the zone. He's unbelievable in the zone,
- 8:29right? I remember as a kid with certain
- 8:31friends that you have certain one of some of these guys, they
- 8:34were like so awesome at certain times.
- 8:37And he's saying to himself, he's a great addition to the crew.
- 8:41Rabbis have this in classes, as you know, all the time.
- 8:45You have the guy who comes one time and all of a sudden he's
- 8:48asking questions and he's telling you and he's quoting and
- 8:51he's great and he's saying he's a what an addition.
- 8:54Telling you. I've had this a few times and
- 8:56I've seen in other classes he's saying he's a, what an addition.
- 8:59Where'd this guy come from? And then you realize the
- 9:02reality, if he just showed up today and he came from somewhere
- 9:06else and he's 45 years old, chances are he just showed up
- 9:10somewhere else yesterday. And this is what he does.
- 9:13He has a funny mentality. This is just his life, right?
- 9:16I've learned over time, I learned over time that those
- 9:20flash in the pan, exciting individuals or exciting people,
- 9:24exciting comments, oftentimes it's because they just have that
- 9:27nature. They have unbelievable.
- 9:29They're great to be around, but they're they're so all over the
- 9:32place. And then I settled and therefore
- 9:34it's not really worth it. You're not going to get them
- 9:36grounded. You're not going to get them to
- 9:38stay. They're going to be here today,
- 9:40gone tomorrow. Just a style.
- 9:42But again, overall, there's so many people out there that are
- 9:45awesome. Why are they not awesome long
- 9:48term and not awesome because they're too completely in a
- 9:52certain sense, their heart is too crazy.
- 9:54They go all over the place and therefore denying control of
- 9:56their mind. If you could take every person,
- 9:59right, every person and put them on it, put the compare one
- 10:02person to the next. Certain people are far more
- 10:06talented than other regular people, but they're not really
- 10:09that valuable. Why they're not that valuable
- 10:12because they're part of that talent comes from a craziness
- 10:15and part of that craziness comes from a crazy heart.
- 10:18It's just a reality I've seen over and over again.
- 10:20So then I'm Bond is telling you, watch what you say, thinking for
- 10:25you speak very basic, but he's really telling you that your
- 10:29words are extremely powerful when you're thought out.
- 10:33All of us have good enough minds.
- 10:35We don't need to have the greatest minds of all time.
- 10:37We have good enough minds. We all have clarity, but what we
- 10:41end up having sometimes is these emotions.
- 10:45The emotions are our downfall. And many of us, they get us
- 10:49crazy. They drive us nuts.
- 10:51How many times have you had something on your day, something
- 10:56in the morning, right? And it got you a little off and
- 11:00the whole day you feel funny, you're not yourself, you can't
- 11:03say the right thing, you're not really able to be there.
- 11:05You just feel funny or worse. How many times you have someone
- 11:08insult you and the whole day you're just really in a bad mood
- 11:11or you're in a bad mood and even worse, how many settings have
- 11:15you had when someone is not really not treating you properly
- 11:18and you end up saying the wrong thing?
- 11:20We've been in that a million times.
- 11:21And all those, every single one of them, if we were the advisor
- 11:25in the room, I've told you as many times, you and I are the
- 11:28smartest people when it comes to giving advice to others, right?
- 11:33All of us have the capability of giving advice to other people
- 11:37and yet to ourselves, we do things and we would question,
- 11:43how does that make any sense? That's right there.
- 11:45The point, how does that make any sense?
- 11:47If I ask you advice on a certain area, forget about it, you'll be
- 11:50able to tell me, I'll tell you how do I handle raising this key
- 11:54or I do. It's a simple equation.
- 11:56Gabe. A lot of energy, doesn't really
- 11:58want to sit down. I have to sit with him.
- 12:00I'll give you a classic example. Last night, I had to sit down
- 12:03with my son to study with him for a test.
- 12:06OK, He's playing with the fidget spinner and he's doing his
- 12:10thing. And I'm saying that, and I am
- 12:13really. After a couple of minutes, he
- 12:15knows the Gemara. What's frustrating?
- 12:17He knows it. He literally knows it cold.
- 12:20The only issue is I just need to study with him one time.
- 12:23All right, I'm sitting there. I'm trying.
- 12:26Listen to your speakers. Listen to your speakers.
- 12:28Just hold on, All right? Don't get there.
- 12:30And after a while, I said to him, I said, come on.
- 12:33I said, I have time. I have.
- 12:35You know, my time is valuable. What are you doing?
- 12:38He says to me. And I'm thinking to myself as
- 12:40the words came out of my mouth, I'm thinking to myself, keep
- 12:43kidding. But the truth is, I'm sitting
- 12:45there and my art is telling me. I'm telling you real emotion.
- 12:47My art is telling me, Yeah, but it's disrespect.
- 12:50It's not proper. He's playing with his Fisher
- 12:52spinners. It's true in general.
- 12:53You shouldn't, you know, you know, get really that mad or get
- 12:56that frustrated, but it's not respectful to him, you know, a
- 12:58child not treating his parent respect.
- 13:00This is going to my mind the moment the words came out of my
- 13:03mouth when I said, come on, I have.
- 13:05I mean, my time is valuable. 2 Things came in my face, in my
- 13:09mind. 1 He hated to me. He sit down one second.
- 13:12He had a whole Shabbat. In other words, you just spoke
- 13:15four times. You spent the whole Shabbat
- 13:19talking to other people or whatever and chul, all you spend
- 13:22pretty much is fry night table with the family.
- 13:24That's pretty much what you did, right?
- 13:26So he didn't say it that way, but I understood even though he
- 13:29meant it or not. Relax.
- 13:31Part 1 and Part 2 and that last night before and after my little
- 13:35studying with my son, I was on the phone with people for hours
- 13:40for different things. So one second he can't give me
- 13:4320 minutes. And I knew this and I felt it
- 13:46and I and the second after I let it out and then get up and I
- 13:49say, you know, I'm going to walk up and down.
- 13:51I'm going to walk up and down. You just study yourself.
- 13:53I'm welcome. And dad, I'll come back.
- 13:54There's should have had a candy like from the basket and the
- 13:57bed. Exactly.
- 13:57And it worked. Eventually it worked.
- 14:00But the moment the words came out of my mouth was the moment I
- 14:03said to myself, there's too much emotion there, right?
- 14:06And it happens to US time and again.
- 14:07What's my point? If I would have came to you and
- 14:09said, Jose, give me advice, what should I do?
- 14:12I'm studying with my son, but it's frustrating because he's
- 14:15playing the what should I do? What would you tell me to do?
- 14:19Get up, come back the basics. Or you'd say, you know, let him
- 14:23study himself and then test him. You come up with an angle,
- 14:26whatever it is, you come up with an angle, clip down.
- 14:29I asked you for an angle. But I would give myself the same
- 14:32angle. But in the moment, I was out.
- 14:35In the moment, I wasn't there. And the goal of this letter and
- 14:38the goal of life is to get to a point.
- 14:42And by the way, like everything else, it's not, you know, you
- 14:44reach a plateau and you're good. It's never that when it comes to
- 14:47real character, real people, every day you face this.
- 14:50Again, the goal is to be able to tell yourself time and again, my
- 14:55mind is in control. I have a very clear mind because
- 14:59I have a good upbringing, have a good community.
- 15:01I know a lot of Torah. I have a very clear sexual, I'm
- 15:04good. I mean, my mind is in complete
- 15:07control. And then whenever these
- 15:09situations hit, you have a response to have a way of
- 15:12thinking. And you never go down this road
- 15:15because again, the reality is, and this is something I'm seeing
- 15:18over again, some great people, or at least very talented
- 15:21people, their minds are consumed.
- 15:24And the, you know, they say you're using only a couple
- 15:26percent of your mind, whatever they say.
- 15:28If you look in the brain and a couple percentage of your mind,
- 15:31these people, many people you know, are using a couple of
- 15:35percent of those couple of percent because they're so
- 15:38consumed. And what's consuming them?
- 15:40Their heart, what someone else is doing, what someone else is
- 15:43saying, what the emotion someone said to me, and they're not
- 15:45allowing themselves to think clearly.
- 15:47And because of that, they're not producing even 10% of what they
- 15:51can produce. You and I want to be 100%
- 15:55productivity. We want to be the most
- 15:56productive people around. How can you be a productive
- 15:59person when you're a person whose mind is in control?
- 16:03Has that happened? When you push the emotions aside
- 16:05a little bit and you allow your mind to be there, it doesn't
- 16:08mean you don't. Not a lot of have emotions
- 16:10doesn't mean that and you have to express them and deal with
- 16:13them and address them and all that beautiful stuff, but do not
- 16:16allow it to consume you. If it is, then we're doing
- 16:19something wrong and we have to figure out a way to switch it
- 16:22because our mind, if it's consumed, it's very weak.
- 16:25And if it's clear, it's unbelievably powerful.
- 16:29And the result is a different result than the words that we
- 16:31say and the way we deal with other people, both in our
- 16:34family, our home, with our kids, homework and every scenario that
- 16:38we have. If your mind is good because you
- 16:41have your heart at Bay, your words are going to be beautiful
- 16:45and your production words represents everything you
- 16:48produce are also going to be equally as beautiful, kind of so
- 16:51all stop. We also have to work on
- 16:52ourselves because as far as sensitivity, some people are
- 16:55extremely sensitive and a guy may say something to you, to a
- 16:59person and he didn't mean it as an insult, but you take it that
- 17:02way, so we have to. Work on that.
- 17:04It's the same heart 100%. People are extremely sensitive.
- 17:07People are very emotional. They're looking for a reason.
- 17:10By the way, if you go deeper, not to be a psychologist, if you
- 17:13go deeper, a lot of times people who are sensitive like that,
- 17:16it's because they're very insecure and because every every
- 17:19line that's coming, they take every line that's going in front
- 17:22of them. The dog are being shot over
- 17:23there and some other year like you're being shot.
- 17:25To me, that's just their insecurities and people have to
- 17:29maybe build up their conference a little bit sometimes to be
- 17:32able to handle things, to have a more healthy emotion, to then be
- 17:36able to have that clear mind that leads to a clear mouth.
- 17:39Go ahead. Bye.
- 17:39Bye. How do you deal with a personal
- 17:42people that live their life this way with emotion?
- 17:47So everybody in here, we're trying to better yourself by not
- 17:51having the emotion. You're learning to do it.
- 17:53There's other people that just don't care.
- 17:55That's how they that's what gets them going.
- 17:57Yeah, drama and the emotion keep them alive.
- 17:59That's true. And the truth is, I just tell
- 18:00you another psychology, psychological angle.
- 18:03You're hard to say, right? I think another psychological
- 18:05angle on that same point that I've seen is that these people,
- 18:09when they are emotional, when they're emotional, they're
- 18:13working at 100. I said they're 10% in a certain
- 18:17sense, there are 500%. When they're emotional, they're
- 18:22creative, they're strong, they have ideas, they're going at it.
- 18:25It's all destructive. It's all destructive.
- 18:28They don't think so. It's all destructive ideas, even
- 18:31if they think it's productive. Certain people, when they're
- 18:34emotional, it's like they had a drink.
- 18:36What does that mean? It means they're flying and then
- 18:39they saw and they get them charged up and they come up with
- 18:41creative ideas. But all these ideas are not
- 18:44coming from a genuine place. How do you deal with such
- 18:47people? In my humble opinion, people
- 18:49have been in honestly, no other really.
- 18:52While they're in that zone, you have to a little bit ignore
- 18:55them. You have to keep away from them
- 18:57that keep away as a void, but do not really will not really
- 19:01accept every anything that they say during that zone because
- 19:04it's coming from a funny place. Don't care about anything that
- 19:07they say, don't care about their obsessions, don't follow their
- 19:11own roads of craziness. Just keep away because there's a
- 19:15beautiful world out there. Life is a beautiful place for
- 19:18healthy minded people and life is such a destructive place for
- 19:22these kinds of emotional people and you can't deal with them.
- 19:25You talk to them again, it's the same thing.
- 19:27Those people oftentimes are so much fun.
- 19:30A lot of times heavily emotional people are so much fun, but it's
- 19:34destructive fun. It's not worth it.
- 19:36You have to avoid them as I mean, if they're part of your
- 19:38family, you avoid them like crazy, but you don't go down
- 19:41their roads. You don't sit there with a 2
- 19:43hour schmooze of their craziness that's going the wrong way.
- 19:47You allow them to be. You keep them on bait and
- 19:50usually they learn themselves and it's not working.
- 19:53This is a psychological approach that they do all the time.
- 19:55When someone has a little craziness, you let them bang
- 19:58themselves against the wall. Don't feed into it because you
- 20:00have health and they don't, and all they going to do if you get
- 20:04involved is take you down with them.
- 20:05That's the reality that I have seen time and again.
- 20:08So let that person who's crazy, who has an obsession, who's
- 20:11extremely emotional, let them express it, maybe even give them
- 20:15an ear, but do not. You listen, but don't hear.
- 20:18Listen to what they have to say. Don't absorb it.
- 20:21Because you finished your conversation and they sound so
- 20:24right in the sense. Then a little while later you
- 20:26say, you know, it keeps coming from the same people.
- 20:28Drama keeps coming from the same people over and over and over
- 20:31again. And he says, so why is it worth
- 20:32it? And the answer is cut away.
- 20:34Let them be them and you be you and you have a beautiful life.
- 20:37It doesn't mean a fight. It means the opposite of the
- 20:40fight. You're probably the greatest
- 20:41source of Shalom for these people, but it does mean you
- 20:43don't go down their emotional Rd.
- 20:46Why? Because it leads to no proper
- 20:49speech, at least just to destruction.
- 20:51These people start with this.