The Torah's Guidance: Overcoming Struggle and Attaining Inner Peace

This podcast episode explores the themes of tolerance and inner peace, illustrating how accepting life’s discomforts, like crying infants on airplanes, can lead to true Menucha. Through the teachings of Yesachar, we learn that enduring challenges is essential for achieving serenity in an often chaotic world. 
• Exploring the discomfort of crying infants on airplanes 
• Introducing the concept of Menucha and its importance 
• Tolerance as a key to inner peace 
• Yesachar’s example of bearing burdens 
• The metaphor of the donkey as a symbol of endurance 
• The active choice of tolerance over avoidance 
• Strategies for coping with daily irritants 
• Reflection on the journey towards personal tranquility 
• Emphasis on the opportunity for growth through challenges 
• Call for listeners to embrace discomfort for peace

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Nobody likes to sit next to an infant on an airplane. Between their incessant crying, the parents crinkling of the snack bags to try to get the children to be quiet, the maybe even children's TV shows that are loud or the games whatever it is that they're doing to try to keep their kids quiet on the airplane, it becomes basically the high road to no nap for me and a rather eye-rubbing, red-eye and terribly long, uncomfortable flight to Gehenna if you sit next to an infant. So when the couple should come on the airplane and you look to the front of the plane and see the father schlepping the dunas with the two children there, you pray Hashem, hashem, please make it that the infant doesn't sit next to me, because I want to get a good night's sleep, please. But you cannot fight fate. Plop right next to you goes the infant, loud crinkling snack bags, buttery peanut, buttery fingers getting all over your stuff. Oh, that's the good life. But, ladies and gentlemen, you cannot fight fate. And if you try to run from every single one of your pet peeves and every single one of the discomforts and irritants in your life, you will fail. Because no matter how much you try, life is about being tested and pet peeves, irritants. They always seem to follow us. If you do not like when somebody chews with their mouth open, I bet my bottom dollar that you'll probably marry somebody that loves to chew like this as they're talking, because that's how life goes. So how can you find Menucha? How can you find Ne'ema? Peace, tranquility, serenity, how can you learn total inner smoothness, maybe even equanimity? It is only one, there is only one way, and it's what Jacob taught Esachar, what Yaakov told Esachar Mayar, menucha, kitov.

Speaker 1: 2:05

Esachar saw that peace was good. He wanted it and the land was pleasant. He wanted the good life. He wanted to kick it back and have total inner, peaceful mindfulness. That was a cozy inner smoothness. So what did he do? Did he book himself a first class ticket away from the children? Hardly, you cannot run from it. Did he decide to go have a pina colada on the beach? No, that only works for about a half a minute before. The Jewish soul is itching for more. What does a Jewish person do to find peace if it's the only way to find peace?

Speaker 1: 2:40

Vayet shichmo lispol oh hello Vayet Shichmol Lispol. Oh hello Vayet Shichmol Lispol. He bent his shoulder to shoulder the load. He bent down like a strong-boned wild donkey and said I can tolerate the heaviest loads. I am unshakable, not because I run from the pain, but because I can shoulder the pain like a wild donkey. Put a child next to me that's screaming. Let him run his peanut buttery fingers across my face. Let somebody else step on my kosher fig phone. Let somebody else chew with their mouth open. I ate shichmo, lisbo.

Speaker 1: 3:17

Tolerance, the ability to have endurance and stamina, that you cannot be shaken and swayed from your inner peace, no matter what goes on. Some people try to find peace by meditating, nature walks, they try to get good sleep and eat right. They all help. But until you learn to tolerate, until you learn lispal, you'll never find peace. And not lispo.

Speaker 1: 3:48

Not tolerance in regards to things that are against the Almighty's will. You should not tolerate that. But tolerance in things that are your desires and your want that. You want peace with something. When it doesn't go your way, tolerate it. Don't wish it didn't happen. Don't pray it doesn't happen. Pray it does happen, but I can tolerate it. Give me another opportunity to be okay with something.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Let me learn that, no matter what's going on in the hurricane, I'm in the eye of the hurricane and I can shoulder the load and I want to learn to bend my shoulder to see how much I can carry. And then I want to be a peasant toiling surf, because I work hard, I'm focused on a goal and I'm moving forward and no matter what goes on, I have the intestinal fortitude, the endurance to withstand the hardships and crinkling snack bags on the airplane Tolerance Lisbo A donkey like Yisachar. I can take it and keep moving forward. That's the only way to find Menucha when you learn to tolerate the discomfort in your life. If you want inner peace, do what Yesachar did Bend your shoulder to shoulder the burden and become a toiling surf, tolerating the pain as the fastest way and the tried and true way to find total inner peace real Menucha.