Latest / Rabbi Moshe Haber - Daily Mussar/Weekly Perasha / Rabbi Moshe Haber Iggeret Ramban:Humility: The Foundation of *Shechina* and Serenity 11.23.25
Transcript
- 0:00Doing this letter of Ramban I know it's been a lot of it
- 0:08Center vision predicator for Ramban is writing a letter to
- 0:11his son has predicated on humility and the the powers and
- 0:16the effects of humility. You see he said how do you get
- 0:20it? He get it and about exactly so
- 0:22he says that a person has that trait the way he describes this
- 0:26thing is laid for Sheshmiko Adam, which means you're in a
- 0:30certain sense you're shy in front of people.
- 0:32In other words, not displaying arrogance and then also directly
- 0:36related fearful from God. They go they go hand in hand and
- 0:40a person is humble. He has the ability to see
- 0:43people. He also has the ability to see
- 0:44Hashem. Then he says something's
- 0:46surprised, gentleman is surprised, and that is us.
- 0:54When a person carries this right and most effective character
- 0:59trait of humility, he has the spirit of the Shekinah upon him,
- 1:04the Ziv Kivoda, another very lofty word, and he has the the,
- 1:08the splendor of God's glory upon this person.
- 1:11Then he says the Khayya Olamaba and the person lives life of
- 1:17Olamaba. We're talking about the natural
- 1:18world. That's what it means.
- 1:20No, he's referring actually to this world, which means
- 1:24according to his words, and we'll try to explain, the person
- 1:27properly, gets his character under control and hits the right
- 1:32spot of humility, has a proper recognition who he is and his
- 1:39role and all that, and recognizes Hashem.
- 1:41The next three steps are all powerful, lofty steps.
- 1:45He has his Shaheena on him, he has the glory of Hashem on him,
- 1:50and he's living alive of Allahabad in this world.
- 1:54How is that possible? How old is lofty things
- 1:56possible? So very clear.
- 1:58Let's go one by one. The first one at least is
- 2:02shakina. Shakina means you have a sense
- 2:05of presence with you. The way it works very clearly is
- 2:09that if a person stands very tall, the person acts arrogant.
- 2:14The Gemini tells us arrogance, Dohera, glass, shakina,
- 2:21arrogance pushes away. We call the feet of the
- 2:24Shahrina. What that means is if I fill up
- 2:27the room, there's no room for God.
- 2:30And the opposite that we've discussed in the past, the
- 2:33opposite is if I carry myself in a lighter way, if I make myself
- 2:37a little more humble, I make myself in my mind a little
- 2:42smaller, I leave more room for Hashem.
- 2:45So what does it mean, Shahrina? How do you have Shahrina in this
- 2:47world? Shahrina, the spirit of Hashem
- 2:51with you means that you have extra blessings, that means you
- 2:56have extra Hashem support, that means you have Hashem giving you
- 3:02more happiness inside yourself. You have a certain sense that
- 3:06you're working with a certain loftiness, that you have Hashem
- 3:10with you, guiding you along. People who are living somewhat,
- 3:15I might even say we all ought to agree, living miraculous lives.
- 3:18You're living somewhat A miraculous life when you have
- 3:20that checking out with you. Where do you get that from?
- 3:22If you make yourself more humble, you have more assistance
- 3:26from the shahina. I have more presence of Hashem
- 3:28along with you and that helps you when it comes to talking to
- 3:32others. That helps you when it comes to
- 3:34having peace, having happiness, having a feeling of purpose of
- 3:38life, having success in different areas.
- 3:41All those things come with shahina.
- 3:44You're trying to figure out your children and you have a certain
- 3:47extra sense of how to deal with them.
- 3:49That's Hashem with you. That's Hashem helping you.
- 3:51That assistance comes because you have to shaken out with you.
- 3:55What's the core of that? What brings this assistance in?
- 3:59And that is it's mindset. And I'm humble.
- 4:03I recognize both. I'm not the biggest deal told
- 4:06other people. I also recognize that I'm
- 4:09definitely nothing in the eyes of, in the presence of Hashem,
- 4:12that mindset, we'll allow Hashem to come because I, in a sense,
- 4:17I'm bringing Hashem in. If I'm willing to be that
- 4:20humble, then I'm willing to recognize that God is here
- 4:23'cause he's here anyway. If I recognize he's here, then
- 4:25he'll be here. And when he's going to be here,
- 4:27because I bring him here, then he'll be here for me.
- 4:30All these different ways. And you and I know in our lives
- 4:33we need that actual assistance. When someone says I'm doing
- 4:38this, the Seattle Deshmaya with the help of Hashem, right?
- 4:43You're writing a paper wall trains, you're writing a paper,
- 4:45writing a note, you're writing the top bed summer Dalia BSD.
- 4:52This has become second nature for many, right?
- 4:57What does that mean? It means with the help of
- 4:59Hashem. The help of Hashem is like these
- 5:03little wings that get you from point A to point B.
- 5:07We don't really recognize. It's hard to notice that we're
- 5:10living different kind of lives and the people around us
- 5:13whenever you hear the news and you hear this happened in
- 5:17downtown Brooklyn and this happened over there and it's
- 5:20like you, all the crazy things that go on the news.
- 5:22This happened on the train, this happened there.
- 5:24And you say this office, I know and our community too, things
- 5:27happen. But if I'm guessing, I can't
- 5:29pretty much guarantee if you run the data, the amount of things
- 5:33that happens to the world and things that happen over there
- 5:35and these crazy things and the amount of less things that
- 5:39happens to our people, the amount of miracles that we're
- 5:43living with. And you say to yourself, where
- 5:45is that coming from? It's coming from protection.
- 5:48Where is that? I'll give you even a deeper
- 5:50example. We're all living miraculous
- 5:53lives where we support our families.
- 5:55If you go to people who learn all day and you say, how are
- 5:59they supporting their families? And you go and you dig deep and
- 6:03you find out it's coming from here or it's coming from there,
- 6:04It's coming from some other place, coming from random thing
- 6:06and their wife has a job, all those different things.
- 6:09I'll give you even personally when when I got married to my
- 6:13wife, she she had I fall in love for some reason had this thing
- 6:17that he wants his daughters to go to college to get a degree in
- 6:23therapists in one way or another and I don't really care that
- 6:28much. When I was dating her, she
- 6:29didn't do that didn't matter that much to me.
- 6:32I didn't think of it much, but my father had this thing in his
- 6:36head and he put them to college for this.
- 6:38When I got married, for many years, one of my main sources of
- 6:41support was my wife being a therapist.
- 6:45I had he not set that up. I go to Coleo.
- 6:48The Coleo that I go to pays the honest with you and $800 a
- 6:51month. OK, a month.
- 6:53How much? How far does $800 get you?
- 6:552 days, three days, maybe a week, $800 a month, right.
- 6:59So they got all this support as well.
- 7:01But if not, I'm going to college and having this degree.
- 7:04And like I said, when I got married, I dated other girls who
- 7:06did not go to college who did not have that plan.
- 7:09I don't know what would have been, and I'm just one example.
- 7:11There are 1,000,000 examples or definitely thousands of people
- 7:15who have this extra help for my sham.
- 7:17What is that? Siata Deshmaya assistance from
- 7:22God. And you've all had it in your
- 7:23way too. When you're in the business
- 7:25world, it may not be as noticeable and maybe even more
- 7:28noticeable. In a certain sense, it's less
- 7:30noticeable because you're working.
- 7:31So when you're working you, it feels like I'm working and money
- 7:34comes in. But in other sense, if you dig a
- 7:36little deeper, it's even more noticeable because the work that
- 7:39we do and then the but how the consummate a lot of times it's
- 7:42kind of surprising and that is all Siya Tadashmaya.
- 7:45That's assistance from Hashem. That is shahina right there,
- 7:48that shahina. And it's inexplicable to
- 7:51recognize how we have this siya tadashmaya.
- 7:54Well, one of the greatest sources of this is our sense of
- 7:59humility. If we have this mindset that I
- 8:03recognize that God exists and I recognize that in His presence I
- 8:07am small, so I make more room for His presence.
- 8:10When I make more room for his presence, he settles in.
- 8:14That's how it works. You know when I'm gonna settle?
- 8:16After the after matanzo, they were told to build the mishkan.
- 8:22What was the purpose of building the mishkan?
- 8:24To bring that shukina into our world.
- 8:27Hashem says Basui miktash. Build me a miktash and I rest
- 8:34among you. I want to be among you.
- 8:37So if you dig deep to that concept, you say, what does that
- 8:39mean? God is everywhere.
- 8:41What does that even mean? That I have to make a Mishkan
- 8:44for Hashem to be among us. He's with us regardless.
- 8:47Yeah. This is like, you know, among us
- 8:48either way. What exactly are these words,
- 8:52right? What does those words mean?
- 8:53The depth of those words is literally the depth of our
- 8:57constants right here. And that is when the Jewish
- 8:59people were told build a Mishkan.
- 9:01What they were told is recognize and you need to bring Hashem.
- 9:05Build a place to bring Hashem into your life.
- 9:08Make room fam. Give him a spot.
- 9:11Recognize you need him by the table, You need him in your
- 9:13room, you need him in your home, you need him in your office.
- 9:16And the way you can bring Hashem into all these places is by
- 9:19making room, fam. How do you make room?
- 9:21By being humble, By recognizing what kind of role he plays.
- 9:25If you don't see how much Hashem fits into your marriage, which
- 9:30means if you don't have the ability to see, you need God to
- 9:32be there and you're humble without him being there, He's
- 9:35not going to come in. And the same thing you should
- 9:37with the office. You think you come into the
- 9:38office, you have your secretary, you have your partner, that
- 9:42other people work for you, you have the whole structure.
- 9:45What is Hashem come in? That's troubling.
- 9:48But if you understand this whole system, it's only going to run
- 9:52with God's help. It's only going to run because I
- 9:54realized, yes, I'm trying and yes, I do my best, but
- 9:58ultimately I will not get that far without his help.
- 10:00If you make room for him, then you're building your own
- 10:03Mishkan. And if you build your own
- 10:05Mishkan, then Aban is telling his son and the Shahina will
- 10:09come in and they'll give you a Seattle Ishmael and help you.
- 10:12They'll assist you. And everything we do in our
- 10:14life, as we mentioned, needs those wings.
- 10:17Without those wings, it can't function.
- 10:20That's point I'm one that Aban is telling his son.
- 10:22The second one, he says you have the glory of God.
- 10:25I'm not sure exactly how to explain it.
- 10:27The last thing he says for today is that you have something
- 10:30called khayel or lambaba, and this is very surprising.
- 10:35What is the definition of the words khayel lambaba?
- 10:38What does it mean? You live in future, you living
- 10:41the next World. The issue is the rabbi is
- 10:44talking to his son about living in this world.
- 10:47How do you tell your son that if you have humility, you have
- 10:52shakina? And if you have that, you're
- 10:56going to have next World life talking about this world.
- 11:00What is definition of world? The words, so I think answers,
- 11:04what do they even mean? He living in the world to come.
- 11:08He living in two feet planted on this ground right here in
- 11:11Brooklyn, NY is definitely is not the world to come.
- 11:14So what do these words even mean?
- 11:16Building up a foundation. So it could mean that you're
- 11:18preparing for the world to come. But his words sound even more
- 11:22direct than that. So this is the reality, the
- 11:24world to come concept, and this is brought down to many
- 11:28Sephardiums and I'm Baha brings down the Khazanisha is his
- 11:30explanation. Every rabbi has their version.
- 11:33If you ever seen certain people who seem to be at great peace
- 11:39with themselves, they're at peace with life.
- 11:42That means they're not edgy, they're not upset all the time.
- 11:47Then I insult all the time. They can just go with the flow.
- 11:51You're not nervous to be around them.
- 11:52You're not scared where you can sing in their presence.
- 11:54You're not afraid that you might have insulted them or maybe you
- 11:57know, you're not afraid that you have to build them up.
- 12:00They're there, they're good, they're fine.
- 12:02And now because in a sense they're nobody rather because
- 12:06they seem unbelievably content, right?
- 12:09This is the road to goal. We all want, we all want to be
- 12:13content. We all want to be really, we
- 12:15think we want to be happy. Of course we want to be happy,
- 12:19but you don't want to be happy based on anything else.
- 12:20You just want to be content. Content is really is the this
- 12:26world version of Olamaba. Olamaba is serenity.
- 12:31Serenity means things just go it's smooth.
- 12:35From your point of view as human being on this earth, if I want
- 12:38to live Kayla ABBA, I want to have the exact same serenity.
- 12:42And serenity includes not getting insulted, not needing to
- 12:46be built up, not, you know, worrying about my ego.
- 12:49Serenity includes not feeling down, right?
- 12:52Not having that sense of depression, not having that
- 12:55sense of drop off. It's the same perfect balance
- 13:00and contentness, and that's the most beautiful level we can
- 13:02have. It doesn't depend on the stock
- 13:04market, it doesn't depend on the news, it doesn't depend on
- 13:07what's going on in the world. It doesn't even depend what
- 13:10people have to say to you. It simply depends on your own
- 13:13mind. That is the balance and the
- 13:15beauty of serenity. And by far it's the number one
- 13:19thing you want. Definitely the number one thing
- 13:21I want, because what it does for you is it gives me, I'm always a
- 13:25person that likes to have balance.
- 13:27I like that sense of balance. If I wake up in the morning and
- 13:30I know my day might be shaky and might be something that's going
- 13:33to be troubling today, I can't function.
- 13:35We all like that. It may be called security and we
- 13:38call it balance, equilibrium, whatever it is, but it's a
- 13:41certain piece and that piece is Kaya Lama BA.
- 13:46How do you get to that piece? He's telling you it's built on
- 13:49the legs and the foundation of this humility.
- 13:52When a person does not need himself to be a big deal, then
- 13:57he's perfectly fine with anything that goes on.
- 14:00If you need to be a big deal, then there's so many things that
- 14:02bother you, right? If you're by a family meal and
- 14:06you need to be something of relevance and they're not
- 14:10talking to you or they're not addressing you, it hurts.
- 14:12It is, is something that's a slight to you.
- 14:15It doesn't make you feel that good.
- 14:16If you're a member of this community, if you're a member of
- 14:18anything. A lot of times we need to be big
- 14:21deals. And if you do that, that that's
- 14:23on your mind. A lot of things drive you crazy.
- 14:27That's one. If you need to be perfectly
- 14:29settled in every way, you need to be very well off a very
- 14:32famous or very something. All those needs create problems.
- 14:37The more needs you have, the more problems you create.
- 14:39And those needs come from arrogance, when a person is
- 14:42humble and they're settled. And if you're settled, you have
- 14:46this shahina, and then you have haila ABBA.
- 14:49If you ever visit a great rabbi, a Godzilla door, what you saw,
- 14:55you met them. You don't know the Torah.
- 14:57I don't know the Torah. The Torah is way among us, way
- 15:00above us. I'm not going to get to the
- 15:02Torah. Right.
- 15:03They give you a blessing. Great.
- 15:05What really you're getting is that you're rubbing off on their
- 15:09shahina. That's what you're doing.
- 15:11You're rubbing off on this and they're giving over to you with
- 15:13Deborah, huh? Their presence of Hashem.
- 15:16That's what they're giving over to you.
- 15:17And when you see on their face talking about a great rabbi,
- 15:20what you see on their face is this piece.
- 15:24That's what you see. You see that serenity, you see
- 15:26that calm. He's not getting agitated, not
- 15:29getting nervous, not getting upset, not being arrogant.
- 15:32You see that on their face. And if you don't see that, then
- 15:36you're not really seeing the greatness.
- 15:38Witnessing real greatness is witnessing this beauty when the
- 15:41people around them are saying everyone's got to leave.
- 15:43The rabbi's needs his time, and the rabbi's sitting there and
- 15:46he's good. Yeah, he doesn't want everyone
- 15:48to leave, but his guys are pushing people out.
- 15:50You've seen that scene. I've seen that scene many times.
- 15:52That's because he's at peace. He's calm.
- 15:55You know, visit Hava Diaz, that's all.
- 15:57Or replying Nevsky and that scene, he's sitting there, he's
- 16:00good. People around them.
- 16:02Maybe they're trying to defend them and trying to kick people
- 16:04out, but this man himself is perfectly at ease.
- 16:08That's serenity. And that is Hail Lama Bag.
- 16:10And the reason it's called, the reason the way it works is that
- 16:14when a person hits that point, that when his time comes after
- 16:17120, he just continues. He's already in a Lama bag.
- 16:22He continues on this road. It's not a new existence.
- 16:25He continues on his moves into the next Rd.
- 16:28That's what it means when you say someone attains eternity.
- 16:31That's what it means when somebody retains Haya Alam about
- 16:34on this world, the world to come on this world.
- 16:36And that is the level we want to reach really.
- 16:39It's the pinnacle of life. Pinnacle of life is not having
- 16:43anything. I'm not talking about spiritual,
- 16:45physical. The pinnacle of life is having
- 16:48this because it makes you always the same, always balanced,
- 16:52always happy, always content. Imagine this in Kha, the joy of
- 16:58not being dependent on anything, not being dependent on what
- 17:01anyone has to say or anyone gives you.
- 17:03You could the same. That is the sign of greatness.
- 17:07Great people, they can have a bad day, they can have even a
- 17:11bad financial day and they remain the same.
- 17:14They could be insulted very severely and you cannot tell on
- 17:18the face at all. That's greatness.
- 17:20It's a very high level, but we can have level degrees of that.
- 17:23How do you get to that? The number one trait that leads
- 17:26to it is this idea of humility, because you bring more of Hashem
- 17:29into your life. And the more you bring Hashem
- 17:31into your life, the more you have the assistance of Hashem,
- 17:34as you told us, and then the more you have.
- 17:36This piece, this piece, this serenity is khaye O lamhaba, and
- 17:40it's a beautiful trait to have. There's so many stories.
- 17:43For example, let's give you an example of emotional finds and
- 17:47those stories are a man whom I just learned.
- 17:50I just found out his son said he finished Shas as I read from his
- 17:56son. So say he finished Shas 200 *
- 18:00200 times. He finished when he was 13 years
- 18:03old. No one did this.
- 18:04I don't want to say they didn't do this.
- 18:06He finished three of the main master taught when he was before
- 18:10bar mitzvah. OK, he by by he knew by heart
- 18:13before bar mitzvah, he knew everything, how Moshe finance.
- 18:18And yet the greatest stories of him are the fact that he carried
- 18:23himself in a sense, in a way, he was always the same where a
- 18:27woman, you know, the classic story, a woman would call him up
- 18:30on Friday afternoon when he's getting older, his son's
- 18:33children started to answer the phone for him and the woman
- 18:35would call up and she'd say, can I speak to the rabbi?
- 18:37Can I speak to the rabbi? I see the rabbi's not feeling so
- 18:41well, guys, I have to speak to him.
- 18:44Really. The rabbit doesn't say, what do
- 18:45you need? She said, I just want to know
- 18:48what time candle lighting is that's you going to watch your
- 18:53financing for. She says, yes, I did.
- 18:55I've been doing this for for many, many years.
- 18:57I think she said 20 years. I've been doing every single
- 18:59Friday. This is the guy's daughter.
- 19:01Daughter was every minute matters.
- 19:03Every second matters. And yet he had I'm sure he
- 19:07answered that phone. No rush, no waste.
- 19:10No, I have to prepare. No, I need this.
- 19:12No, I need to learn be tool to die.
- 19:14He never said the words be tool to die.
- 19:16Never said those words. No great man ever says to
- 19:19another person be told to. They might feel it, it might
- 19:22bother them, but they don't say another person make them feel
- 19:25bad by saying be told to. He carried himself with that
- 19:29beauty. You can recognize the beauty on
- 19:31Sarah, on people's faces. It's maybe hard to discern, but
- 19:34overtime you can tell it. It is this serenity and it's a
- 19:37level we all want to reach. It's what is it rooted on?
- 19:41It's rooted on humility. If you know the kind of humility
- 19:44that man had, if you read the kind of humility hack in
- 19:48everything he did literally, for example, I'll give you one
- 19:50example. It brings this in this book, it
- 19:52says that he and Ryakum Kamenowski, 2 with leading
- 19:56rabbis and the Jewish roads and the age and 80s, especially in
- 20:01the Asian Rd. They were leaving a party and
- 20:04they were getting into a car and somewhat offered to drive them.
- 20:07So they were getting into the car together.
- 20:09He would take one to one spot in New York, another one to another
- 20:12spot in Brooklyn, and they were debating before they got into
- 20:15the car. We'll go first.
- 20:17What's the debate? Who goes first?
- 20:19Is that it? What could be the debate?
- 20:23So one way we're say this is the the driver.
- 20:27The debate was as follows. Who's in the front?
- 20:30OK, very nice. They want to be humble.
- 20:32No, the debate was deeper. They said the debate was like
- 20:34this. Let me see if I got it right.
- 20:36They said we were debating who's going to be dropped off the
- 20:40first. Why?
- 20:41Doesn't matter. We wanted to make sure the one
- 20:44who gets dropped off 1st is it one that sits in the back.
- 20:49Why? Because if the guy who got was
- 20:52this in the front gets out the first, then the second seat look
- 20:55like the driver in the chauffeur.
- 20:57You didn't offer to be a chauffeur.
- 20:58We want to make it look like a chauffeur.
- 21:00You're a nice guy giving us a ride.
- 21:02Therefore we want to make sure that the person who's getting
- 21:04dropped off 2nd sits in the front room.
- 21:07All right, now, the depth of that mindset of people who
- 21:12easily were probably 10 times the level of Torah to this
- 21:16individual, who I'm sure this individual would have paid for
- 21:21the opportunity to drive them. That scene of driving these two
- 21:24people, who gets the opportunity?
- 21:25Yeah, they didn't think like that.
- 21:26They didn't think down that road.
- 21:28They throw it down a humble road.
- 21:30And the reality is that is the proper mindset.
- 21:32I know it's very impressive. I know it's extremely, very cool
- 21:36and incredible, and you don't expect it to people.
- 21:39That is the real mindset they were supposed to have.
- 21:41Humility is required. It's not a hridosh, it's
- 21:44required because who are we to believe anything but what God
- 21:48gave us? We should be humble.
- 21:50What's impressive about these people is that they live life
- 21:53the right way, not above the right way, the right way.
- 21:56And the result was that ease and that calm and that serenity and
- 22:00they leave the Llama Bah. So when their time came, they
- 22:03just went and they continued on the road.
- 22:05They already there. They were in the world to come
- 22:07ready. They just continue going.
- 22:08And for all of us besides, the Sham would be the same way.
- 22:10If we have this surrounding in this piece, we'll just continue
- 22:14and we'll just move into the world to come and say, OK, I'm
- 22:16here ready. I'm trying to continue going.
- 22:18That's Khayel Lamaba on this earth.
- 22:20Get what stuff it is.