Overcoming the Yetzer Harah on Every Level (Chukat)

In this episode, we are learning about Parshat Chukat! Based on a poetic section of the parsha, Chazal teach us that those who rule over their yetzer harah should make an accounting of the world. Who are these people who rule over their yetzer harah? What does it mean to make "an accounting of the world"? And what if I haven’t yet overcome my yeter harah? We’ll get into the depth of how to overcome our yetzer harah on every level, and so much more, in this week’s episode!

If you want to follow along inside, it is in Nesivos Shalom on Bamidbar page kuf chaf zayin (127). You can find a pdf of the piece here.

Thank you so much to this week’s generous anonymous sponsor for consistently supporting the podcast! If you would like to sponsor an episode of the podcast, please email Rabbi Charnoff at rabbicharnoff@gmail.com.

Transcript

Rabbi Charnoff 0:08

hello everyone. This is Rabbi Robbie Chernoff and you are listening to the Hasidist for Life podcast. The podcast where we learn a deep hasidic insight every single week and explore how it can lead us to a more meaningful, vibrant, and spiritually uplifted life. In this episode, we are learning about Parsha Huka based on a poetic verse in this, parsha Al, teach us that those who rule over their yate Sahara, their evil inclination, should make an accounting of the world. Who are these people? What does that even mean? And if I haven't yet overcome my y Sahara, what am I supposed to do? We'll get into the depth of how to overcome our yt Sahara, and so much more in this week's episode. If you wanna follow along inside, you can open up Theba Bar to Page KO and the Peace entitled A, or simply go to the show notes for a link to A PDF. But feel free to just sit back, listen, and enjoy the ride. Thank you so much to this week's Generous Anonymous sponsor. Your continued support means so much. Remember, your sponsorships are what make this podcast happen. If you would like to sponsor an episode of the podcast, please email Rabbi chernoff@gmail.com or see the show notes for more details. Alright, with that, let's jump into Parsha. We are in, we are on the piece. On page. He begins, as he always has, by quoting a PA from the par. So the Post says a. So this is after the conquest of Si, towards the end of the parsha. And afterwards there's this poem that appears in the ash after the conquest of Siho. And on a shot level, the translation is regarding this. The poets would say, come to hash bone, let us build and establish it as the city of Sihon. That's the literal translation of the now. The is do what this means. So who are these? Who are these rulers? He says, these rulers are those who rule over their Y Zahara rule over their evil inclination. So what do they say? They say, what does it mean, Bo? It means come to the place of hash, but no, what does it mean? Come and let us make an accounting of the world, meaning those who make this whatever this means, accounting on behalf of the world. Those people who do that need to be the people who have ownership, who rule over their yr continuous. The Gamar says Hef mitzvah. They're able to make an accounting to weigh out a mitzvah's loss against its gain. S Iraq, and a sins gain against its loss, meaning the relative value of doing a mitzvah versus the losses of doing the Mitzvah and losing out on the physical world, and the relative value of the physical gain in the physical world of doing an Avera versus the eternal loss continues on in the S and it says T Bonnet that you will build and establish it. I, if you properly make this accounting, you'll be built up in this world. Viko name the Ola Haba, and you'll be established in Ola Haba. So that's the Gemma's take on this Suk that basically when it says Al Mo boon, it's talking about people who rule over their yate, Sahara, that they have to come and make an accounting of the world and make a proper understanding of what it means to live in this world, to succeed in this world, and to relate to the world in a proper way. that's the Ari's take on this pa that comes in the parsha on the heels of our conquest of hum. So we're two lines into the top of the next page and says the. What does this have anything to do with where we are in humash, meaning very nice. And if the OC appears here, AK who put the Suk here and Al are reflecting a Q's infinite wisdom. And that wisdom is coming out in the context of this suk here in this parsha right after the conquest of si. So what's the connection between this concept and where it appears in the hum Mad? Why is the coming and teaching this concept of having to make this SB bone on the world, this accounting for the world specifically in par and specifically after the war with Sihon. Mad also, you understand? Why is it specifically those who rule over their ihara? Why are those the ones who are going to say boon? Why are they the ones to make this grand accounting aba? The opposite says Those who rule over their Yates there, they already have a sb. Meaning if they're ruling over the zahara, they're making good decisions, they're weighing things out appropriately. there's no need to command them to weigh things out. They're doing a great job of weighing things out appropriately and making good choices. So why are we talking to those who are already Mo Shell on their Y sir? Those who are already ruling over their yah. Hara. Direct this instead to those who are constantly failing to their Sahara and cry out to them. Start making accounting, start getting your act together. It'll make way more sense to talk to them since the, and what is this language of making an accounting for the world that it seems to imply this more grand and global accounting rather than some sort of specific accounting on one's actions. What's, what's going on here in, what's the implication here? Also need understand Mitzvah said that a person in part of this accounting has to figure out the loss of a mitzvah. In contrast to what one would gain by doing the mitzvah, meaning that when a person's on the precipice of doing a mitzvah and RA is making him afraid that he's gonna lose out, have that. You need to then calculate how much are you really losing out by doing this mitzvah? Can I get the scar that you're gonna get by doing the mitzvah? Do the mh because of the scar you're gonna get. Wow, interesting. oseh mitzva. So he says that when a person is attacked by their eat, sir, they're the ones who can make the accounting of what would be lost by doing this mitzvah. The physical loss that you would, you know, you're losing out on by doing the mitzvah versus the eternal reward that you're gonna get. But The implication of that is that the person making that accounting is saying, okay, hold on a second. I know that I'm gonna lose out on being able to enjoy a little bit of Ola haze by doing this mitzvah, but it's worth it to me because I want to do it. Let shame the scar, for the tremendous reward I'm gonna get Noam Haba. It totally worth it to me for the reward. So says Vlo, but we're told by Halo Vos that when you do a mitzvah, you should dka do it not on min la kalo press. You should do it not for the scar, not for the reward. You should be like a servant who serve as master, not for the, okay, if the reward comes, great, but that's not why I'm doing it. So why would this huge HB bone be okay? If I do the mitzvah, I'll lose out a little bit. But look at all the scar I'm gonna get. Look how much I'm gonna gain from it. That's not how we're supposed to look at the world. That's not how we're supposed to look at mitzvah. So why is that the perspective of this person who's supposed to be making this great ola. in terms of what it says that we have to think about the scar that we're gonna get. We have to think about what the mafar say. Sharan shall meets vote that we don't know. Al tells, we don't know what the scar or when the scar of mitzvah is gonna come. We have no concept of the scar of a mitzvah mitzva meaning if the whole point is that the person is supposed to weigh out what they're going to lose out of Ola Haman, the mitzvah versus the tremendous scar they're gonna get. We don't actually know what the scar of mitzvah is. The scar is so tremendous, we have no concept of it. We don't know when it's gonna come. We don't know what it's gonna be. It's beyond our understanding. So how is that helpful in making that calculation of understanding whether or not to do the mitzvah of the loss of doing the mitzvah in Omaha and the gain of doing the Mitzvah in Ola Hava? Those are our questions. Let's see what he has to say. next paragraph. The. When we're fighting our yra, there's two aspects to this yra. In this war. There are those people where their yt Sahara totally rules over them, and they're given over completely. They're completely ruled over by their yt Sahara. The, and then there's the war of those who rule over their y nu. There are those who are fighting the war, who are not under the hand of the yha, not under the ruler ship of the dominion of the Ihara. But there are goes and spontaneously attacks them or tries to sway them and keeps them from being able to continue to elevate themselves. So the people who are just lost, they're drowning in their Y Zahara. That's one group of people in this war who are fighting to get out from the undercurrent of the Y Sahara, that they're constantly stuck there. And those who have a good handle on their yah. But every once in a while the Iza attacks them and tries to at least keep them at where they're at, not let them go up. And in terms of those who don't rule over their Zer, but their Zer instead rules over them. Ot, they can't fight the war with all kinds of ot, with all kinds of accountings and strategies that that's not how they're gonna be able to fight this war ra. That's not how they're going to be able to win against the Zahara, which is overcoming them again, like the B says, I believe that's another safer of He says that you can't overcome rah with intellectualism. You can't intellectually outsmart rah. It's not gonna happen because rah is something which bubbles up in our blood. It rises up inside of us. it's an instinct, it's a desire. It's a physical and emotional reality that just emerges and erupts within me. Even if you make all the accounting in the world, what is it gonna do for them if the rah is already active upon them and already alive inside of them, working inside of them? It's a very, very big thing, right? There are people at times who come again and again and again. Rabbi, I just, I keep, making the same mistake. I keep messing this up, and they keep coming back. They keep making the same mistake. They keep making the same mistake. Why? Because what they're trying to do is, is they're trying to overcome the I Sahara in the moment, every time in the moment. And that never works. Meaning, once you fallen prey to the I Sahara, in that moment consistently, the chances of you continuing to fall prey to the I Sahara in that same moment, it's inevitable almost. You're inevitably gonna lose it. It's like if you go and you try to arm wrestle somebody and then you lose, and then you come back the next day without having trained your arms or had a arm wrestle in between, you're like, lemme just take another crack at it. No, the guy's still stronger than you. you're gonna lose every time. You can come back every single day, determined and willful, and listen to all of the pump up speeches that you want. You are going to lose 100% of the time. And if you try to intellectually outsmart it, it's not gonna work either. I'm, no, he's twice your size. You're already lost. It's not gonna happen. Whatever you think you're gonna do, it's not gonna happen. Right? That's the s in the Nimal with the Zahara. If a person, you know, at the beginning of Shana Olive, a person goes out to Yehuda Street and makes bad choices on Yehuda Street and ELLs, manna, olive, and they go out one whatever nights is the night off. Monday night, Tuesday night, Wednesday night, they go out one Monday night and they mess up and they're like, oh man, I can't believe what I did. I'm trying to be better. I came to Israel, I wanna have a better year. And they go and, and then they go out the next Monday night, I'm gonna be stronger this time. What does that even mean? I'm gonna be stronger this time. You're throwing yourself out the same situation. Of course you're gonna make the same mistakes, right? A person's dating somebody who they're very serious with, and do they make a mistake in initiatives of naia? Okay. Like then the next day they go out on a date and they're like, Hey, today we're gonna do better. But like, it doesn't matter. And you could make all of the I feel committed to a kish sparkle and I'm committed to mitzvah and I've been showing my whole life, and I never wanna do this again. You can give all of the reasons that you want, all the logic that you want. If those people really have that strong of a physical attraction to each other and failed yesterday, then they're gonna fail again today. It's not the intellectualism that's gonna make you overcome it, that's not how it's gonna happen. A person needs a totally different tactic when a person is consistently making mistakes in an area, simply employing willpower, not all the time is always exceptions to the rule. Simply employing willpower is not gonna work. What happens? So he says, gives another example from the gamara that came from the South, the Amar. Says to him, what did you see to cut off your hair? I saw that was coming to attack me and pull me out of this world ati, top of the next column, Ammar. So I said to him, so my is to cut you off the, so what does this mean? the question of was what did you see? What did you see to make you cut off your hair and become a nazir and like. to totally distance yourself from having anything to do with your hair. I was in a situation where it was, there was no to make was attacking me. Oh, vacation, the, to, it was trying to take me outta this world. There was no way I was a person who was obsessed with my physicality. I was always looking at myself in the mirror. I wanted to look good and because I wanted to attract women, whatever the issue for him was. And he was like, don't give me logic. Don't give me muer, schmoozing. It wasn't gonna work. I needed to chop off my hair and make myself a naer. That's what I needed to do. I needed to make a change, an active change, not an intellectual discussion. Not change my philosophy, not change my perspective. When you're under the, you need to make a move. Charla, you can't uproot rah with intellectualism alone. You have to have a little mysterious ne give yourself over to ish. I'm cutting it all off. I'm distancing myself in order to just totally keep myself to you, because I'm not in a place where I can deal with this right now. It's a very, very big thing, In the case we talked about, If a person they're in a relationship that's, that's good and it's thriving, it should go to a good place and they make a huge mistake and they make an and and a mistake. And the issue of NAIA again, it's not about saying, next time we'll do better. How are we changing it? okay, so we're so far along and we're gonna get engaged, we're gonna get married. We can't be alone in the house together. Even if there's somebody upstairs, we can't be hanging out in a park at 11 o'clock at night in the dark. Even if every once in a while somebody passes and it might technically not be an issue of ud, it's not good enough for us. you don't go back and outsmart. The eats are hard. The eats are already won. You say, okay, so we're only gonna hang out in coffee shops. We're only gonna hang out in hotel lobbies, whatever the thing may be for you. you change it, you do something drastic and you change it. That's the only way. He's saying here that sometimes you just need to make the move and make the change in order to make it happen. And without that change, you're gonna keep falling into the trap. Falling into the trap, falling into the trap that there's, there's no other way. a a different way of framing it perhaps is an amazing concept that I heard from Dr. David Ovitz. He is not a rabbi, but he could be. He may as well be. I don't know why he didn't just take, Mika exams and just get it done. but he's a world renowned psychologist and he gave a speech at one point to a huge chunk of YU. It was an optional, lecture, but a lot, a lot of people came. Um, talking about different aspects of how to overcome the I Sahara. And he said that if you're in a situation where you're constantly falling and failing to the same, I Sahara again and again and again. He says, you need to do something called chain analysis. What's chain analysis? He says, chain analysis is where you don't just look at the thing you're doing wrong and try to come up like he's saying here in the civil. Show him how do I not do it in the moment? What does that mean? You're already there. You already lost. What's the chain of events that leads there? That's when I do the Avera, what happens That gets me to the place where I do the Avera. And what that happens five or 10 minutes right before that and What's the thing that happens right before that happens? And you start taking yourself 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 steps back before the actual Avera occurs. And then you actually figure out where's the cutoff point? Where is the actual point of no return? And what you do is, is then you make a plan to not get to the stage, which is two or three stages before the Avera. That is the point of no return. And that's not. Asserting logic to overcome the I Zahara, that's making sure that you never end up in the sphere of influence of the I Zahara itself, because you know you're gonna lose. And that is the type of you do make, that's the strategy you employ, you say it's part of me, it's in me. I'm under the ownership of the rules of I Sahara. How do I overcome that? A great, great strategy is to say, I admit I don't have the strength to overcome it in the moment. There's no way. So what are the things that lead to that moment and how far back does it go? And I'm not gonna let myself cross that threshold. It's a brilliant, brilliant strategy, which I've employed in many different ways in my life, which has been incredibly helpful in being successful at overcoming my answer.'cause you're never in the situation. There are songs you did say, you know what, this, it's, it created the ihara, which is meant to bring us down and it is meant to cause Vera. So that way we can overcome it and we can get Cardinal. But to do that requires, like he says, effort In my neish and sometimes the effort in my sir Neish is like nazir. You gotta just separate yourself and say, yes, it's three steps away from the the Avera that I'm gonna do. But that's the only way to do it, is to cut off the hair. The only way to do it is to become a naer. The only way to do it is to just stay away. From that point on, I'm not going to cross that threshold because if I do, it's too close. And when I'm inside of it, there's no way I can overcome it. It says here in the last few lines of the paragraph, the only it is Messir Neish. And I would say the Messir neish here doesn't mean that again, you're gonna have the messir neish of willpower in the moment. You lost in the moment. I think, if I'm understanding correctly, that the mysterious ne is I'm willing to give things up. I'm willing to give things up, to not end up in this situation at all, because I know that I can't succeed in this situation. that's my mysterious neish. I'm not gonna let myself even get close. I'm gonna be a nazir in this way. I'm gonna be polished this way. I'm gonna separate myself in this way because through this, you are removing the rulership of the iara for you completely, because you're not even getting close to him. He has no connection to you. You're cutting yourself off from him. And so you're cutting off from yourself, all of the co, all of the negative forces of being able to have any ownership over you. So that's one type of way. A person who's constantly falling prey to the rulership of the Sahara, they're under the tidal wave, that it's aha, the undercard is constantly pulling them in. There's no way out. Then the answer is, don't dip your toes in the water. You're not strong enough. You can't make good calculations at the time. You like to swim too much. You like the water too much. You need to just stay away from the beach. That's the answer for you right now. Just stay away from the beach.'cause it's life threatening. You're gonna risk it. You're gonna risk dipping your toes in the water. Just stay away. Stay three steps away from the thing that's becoming the problem for not such a person. That's the goal. That's the mysterious ne fish. What am I willing to admit to myself? I have an issue here where I'm totally under the rulership of the Sahara, and therefore I'm willing to have the mis nefe and give things up to stay far away because I don't even want to enter into his dominion, because that's the only way in these situations that I'm gonna be able to end and overcome. That's one type, one aspect of the war against the zahar. But those who overcome their yah. Who rule over their, yah. Those who are not in the situation where the Y is attacking them, there's no specific thing that you can identify, that you can point out that the Sahara is doing or an area where the Sahara is overcoming them, specifically ra al. So coming back to our, those are the type of people who, their struggle with the Zahara is in the realm. This more general, broad accounting of the world. What does that mean? Remo, every single one of us is an Ola Kaan. We're all a miniature world, A small reality, a small world. And my goal in this world is to shake off and remove being under the rulership of any aspect of ze, any aspect of physicality I can utilize physicality to serve God, but to remove myself from any actual intrinsic connection to physicality only cling, that's my goal. And that's going to be the nature of the struggle with the iah of those who rule over their ihara in all of these different ways. Meaning, I'm not somebody who falls prey constantly to my ihara. That's not where I'm at. I've elevated myself where I'm ruling over my iha. But I still feel connected to Alza. And the way that Zaha attacks me is that when I wanna try to make significant movements forward in deepening my relationship with the Q Bku by reducing my connectivity to physicality. Whoa. that's a big calculation. That takes a lot of thoughtfulness. that's moving to a whole new level. I have to be careful to think about it critically and what we do. I wanna do it. What's gonna be healthy for me? What's the next way to make the move? How do I close vertical? It's a whole different thing to move up like that. The et horror is always gonna try to trip me up, always gonna try to pull me down, at least to grab onto my shirt and pull me down and keep me at the level that I'm at, at the very least, so that I don't get to my ultimate and I don't fix myself completely. The. Every mitzvah that a Jew wants to go and, accomplish A Jew that's ruling over their Yates there, the Zahar is gonna come and try to attack them and try to tell them all of the losses that are gonna come from doing this. Well, Kimra. And so too, when it comes to another era, Marlo at Cole Scar era, it's gonna show'em, look, if you just do this one love era, life will be so much easier. Life will be so much better to restrain him from going forward to not let him go forward. He said, we're doing great things, but he wants to do another mitzvah. Whoa, hold on. You sure? You sure you wanna do that mitzvah? It's gonna be a little challenging. Listen you, you're not gonna get in as much sleep tonight as you wanted, and it's not gonna be great for you. You're gonna have a lot of problems the next day. Whoa. Hold on. You were trying to save up. You wanted to be able to do this with your money and that with your money. If you give Akka in this instance and you give to this campaign or whatever it is, you gotta be careful. This guy, you don't really know him. Do you even know if he's really an ani? Listen, be careful. you have things that you're trying to save up for. Look what you're gonna lose out on, right? Whether it's a horror goes and tries to stop you from taking the next step. He's not gonna draw you down, but to try to keep you from making the next move. You have a new Vera that you wanna try to overcome? No. Listen, you're doing great. You're doing a lot of Mrs As it is. You're doing wonderfully. You're a big Eva Hashem. You is telling you you're a tremendous e hashem. It's fantastic. Think of how much more difficult your life is gonna be if you start doing it, if you keep away from this thing. Also, ah, it's, you know, it's, the guitar is saying this, this is not true. The guitar is saying this, oh, listen, it's a small Deana and nobody really cares. nobody, you know, even keeps it anyway. Maybe it's not even right. Maybe there's another sheet that somewhere. Who knows? Don't worry about it. Keep life simple. Make life easy for yourself. It's okay. The guitar is trying to keep that person from making strides forward. Again, he's trying to keep the person from being able to complete his destiny and his requirements in this world as a Jew and keep him from getting to his ultimate goal. The, so these people who are overcoming their ysa, they do rule over their I Sahara for them. They can move forward in their a hashem through ot, through making an accounting, through working out the logic. They're in a place where they can do that because their I Sahara is not bubbling up inside of them and making them do crazy Veras the I Tahara is making arguments to them not to move forward. Okay? So I can make logical arguments and say, listen, you have no holder over me. I disagree with you and I'm going forward anyway. They can make a HB bone, they can move forward by making an accounting and it's their job to do this Hab bone of the world, meaning they're able to make the bigger HB bone, they're able to look at the wider scope of things, say Theara saying, no, don't do this for, you're doing fine. No, it's okay. You don't need to start keeping the Don. Don't, don't, don't get crazy. They'll say, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, hold on. I'm somebody who was over my I Sahara and I'm looking at the big picture. And the big picture is I'm here to serve a kashko. The big picture here is I'm here to get double to kashko to clean him. That's why I'm here. That's my KB bone. You can give me all of the things in the world that I'm gonna lose out on by doing this mitzvah and all the things I'm gonna lose out on by sobbing through this Vera. You can gimme all the logic you want, but I can fight you back with logic because I'm coming to you with a clear head because you have no rulership over me. I'm not in your dominion. You're making arguments that are compelling, you're making it much more difficult for me. But I can make the Kon of my Ola kaan. I can make an accounting of what is my inner world meant to be? Who do I want to be? Who do I wanna become? How do I get there? And that logic and that space, I'm able to move forward and overcome. The Iah Ola have mitzva and that's the of the world, meaning to see the loss of a mitzvah, the, that you would get for the Mitzvah. Mva when comes and tells you all the things you're gonna lose out on the mitzvah. You say, no, look at how much I'm gonna gain. I'm gonna lose half an hour of sleep here. I'm gonna lose a hundred dollars there. I'm gonna lose all of these things I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna lose. I'm gonna lose. but I really wanted to watch that show and I really wanted to read that thing. And I really wanted to just chill out for 30 minutes. but I really wanted to share that with my friend. All these things that we have. Yeah, I'm in a place because I have rulership over me, Sahara. I'm in that place where I can say no, I would gain a little bit, but it's not worth it. It's not worth it. The big picture is just not worth it. And to be able to use that to move myself forward, that the goal of a mitzvah is that a Jew should be close to a Q to enjoy the goodness of a's presence because that's the tremendous purpose for which a person was placed in this world. A Jew was placed in this world, says that the destiny and the obligation of a Jew in this world is to enjoy the presence of a Q bku and the radiance of the shina, meaning that's why I'm here. It's not saying that I'm focused on the scar per se. It's saying, ha k Bku created me and put me in this world so that I would enjoy his goodness. That is my ultimate goal. That was why I was created, and I wanna fulfill my purpose and creation. Okay? Yes. My purpose in creation was to receive scar and owning who? Great. I don't care that it's scar and onig. Bku created me. He gave me a purpose, and whatever that purpose is, that's what I'm running after, because Ak Bku wants that for me. I, it happens to be that because he's a Q Bku and he's wonderful and loving, and all he wants to do is gimme goodness that he created me to fight, to get to Scar and Onig in a Q Bku. Fantastic. But that's not my intent. That's not my kavana, that's not my focus. My focus is All I carry is, am I doing what a Q Boku wants me to do? And what a Q Burkel wants me to do is, is to earn as much goodness as possible, to earn closeness with him, to get close to him, to get Vegas with him. And I'm doing it because that's what he wants me to do. And it happens to be that I'll also gain tremendously as a byproduct. that what I'm supposed to be working toward is endless scar, infinite scar, both in its amount and in its quality, but the quality of one measure of goodness than a K is better than anything that I can get, that anything that I would lose out on by doing this mitzvah. Anything that I would lose out on by stopping to do the Avera, it is nothing compared to what I'm gonna gain by engaging in this mitzvah and keeping away from the Avera. It's so much more worth it because of what a cut wants from me, and he is promising the scar that's infinite. Top of the next page. We already said this, but he's now just spelling it out. And so too, the benefit of an Avera connected what you would lose out on by doing the Avera when a person again does the Kon. He's in a place where he can have the clarity to make this kb, yes, I'm gonna lose out a little bit. By keeping this mitzvah, by keeping away from the Vera, it would've been so much easier and simpler and smoother, and it would've saved me a ton of time and a ton of money and it would've been so much more calm in my life. And whatever it is, yes, all those things are true, but the losing outs, I'm gonna be distanced from a kaku. There's gonna be a wall between me and a K, I'm gonna be cut off from my source. It's not even a question. Once I make that hash, it's not even a question. And a person who's in that place is able to make that hash, that accounting and answer the question correctly and be able to overcome theara that way. The ha chalo, IK de again, we're not talking here about the specific scar that you're gonna get by doing the mitzvah, the scar, you're specifically not doing the Avera. We're talking about the bigger picture here, the scar and the hef of what it means to be a Jew. You're gonna lose out on your whole purpose in this world. You're gonna lose out on achieving your purpose in this world. on the opposite side. If you do the Avera, you're gonna get farther away from your purpose in this world. That's the scar and the hef state that we're talking about here. We're not talking about, I wanna do it because I wanna cut a spark to gimme candy and oola haba. It's not, we're talking about, I'm moving away from the whole purpose of my existence. Or I'm doing this at the expense of getting closer to my fulfillment of who I'm supposed to be as a human being. It's much bigger than that. We're not talking about the scar, we're talking about scar at large. Who that through Every mitzva I get closer to and I get closer to enjoying a Q who's presence shaking in my boots. How I'm gonna distance myself from a, by just giving into this stupid vera, just move along. It's nothing to talk about here. Whatever it was worth is nothing compared to saying no. And the closest to a Q that I'm gonna get by saying no and removing the, the distance that I would have accrued by having done the A, the, again, this is what it means in the past. Understand the past. We're not talking about a person who RA is constantly attacking them and overcoming them. We're talking about a person who's able to make these grand ot, see the big picture, embrace the big picture, relate to the big picture, and use that as a guiding light because they're not under the rulership of their iara. If he's able to stand clearly with his purpose in this world, order to keep away from any issues in ZA, and his whole goal is one thing. Next paragraph, bottom of the first column on the last page. So with this in mind, now we can also understand why the Torah specifically tells us this after the war against Sihon and not anywhere else mi at, because at this point has crossed the desert. Meaning a few weeks ago in par we had the raglin and we had the sardine of having to travel for 40 years in the desert and that generation needed to die out. And somehow, somewhere in the white space between last week's parsha and this week's parsha before parsha. We actually fast forwarded those 40 years, and now at the end of this parsha, we're coming to the border of Rael 40 years later and conquering Sihon on the way into Rael. We're gonna settle into the outside of Rael from this point of Bamidbar all the way for the rest of Clus, for the rest of Bamidbar, and then all of Dvar, and then go into e Sterl and say, Yeshua, this is when we come to it. We're now coming to Rael. 40 years have passed, so we've crossed the desert the four years have past and we've crossed this tremendously difficult desert. The way in Dium that the SUP describes the desert is this place of serpent and snake and scorpion, which obviously are dangerous animals, but it's speaking on a deeper level. Also, as this farm say that it's representative of all of the different types of the ko, of the ci, all the negative spiritual forces that were trying to attack us in the desert on all the kipa that was trying to keep us away from AK in the desert. We've conquered all of that and we're past all that and now we're coming to the board of ra. We're finished our crossing over the desert and now we even came and battled. Si. De these two nations of si. Top of the next column. Last column. They were the two. These were the two most difficult, the two most difficult things that were keeping us away from ak. They were momish. Like apa literally means a shell like the shell or the peel, the shell of a nut. You have to crack through it to get to the nut, the peel of a fruit, to get to the beautiful, delicious fruit inside. You need to peel away the peel to get to the fruit inside. We momish crossed the whole desert and got through all the tah and the Sahara and the, and the negative spiritual forces. We're at the border of er, Israel, and literally the cpa, the peel, the shell that's surrounding er, Israel, and keeping us out. That's ano, that's the last thing we gotta get through to get to the border of er, Israel. They were the last thing and even stronger than everything else we had faced that were trying to keep us out of ER and getting to our final tikun, the, and only now la after we'd gone through the long journey in the desert, the KU and conquered si now that we're on level of, we'd overcome the desert and we overcame si and therefore we could consider ourselves people who were we were ruling over. Then the goal is to get to the final tikon, to get to the final fixing. And it's the time to make these big s, these global Big S about our entire inner world. And on a broader level, All of ral survived the desert and overcame the desert. All of Ral came to SI and overcame si and now all of needed to do the hash of the hash that needed to be done in order to be able to go into ra. Last paragraph, and this is what the tour is teaching us at par. In this par, just like there's for all of so is for each one of us, like we've been talking out throughout this entire piece, we've been talking it out along the way. Once a person's already in the situation where the, it is attacking them, Bo, the only way to overcome it, like we talked about, is to just have my neish, no s just throw it away, step away, get away, move away. You gotta make the big moves in those moments. The strategy is get out. If Zaha is attacking you in those situations, you gotta be able to stay away. But once you've overcome that, then now it's your job to make these bigger ot, these broad-minded ot. Okay, I'm not fighting my Sahara in the moment. Every moment. Who am I? Why am I here? What do I want to become? What am I meant to be in this world? What am I meant to accomplish in this world? I'm making ot, making ola. I'm making bigger calls now. not calls about staying away from getting dragged down. I'm making calls about continuing to grow, getting closer to every single act more and more over the course of my life. Each moment, step after step, more and more and more that every action that I take should be carefully weighed out. Am I getting closer to a Q boku to this action Or am made again, farther away from a Q Boku to this action. And that is the actual heb. When a person's in that place of our kata and the person's come to a place where they're settled and they're clear and they've overcome their base, Yates, theres, and they're instinctually Ys and they're in the moment. Yates, theres, Adam says this so beautifully, it's a safer aka, but Spartan aren't afraid to mix in Hal Hashkafa it's all one tour for them in a way that sometimes for us m it's not So the way that he opens up, he has this whole long piece in the beginning, it's so could dy to see inside and he says, basically he's saying you, it's just beautiful to see it black on white. He just says, we're about to learn this whole savior of great. There's a baseline to what the savior's about, which is you need to have perspective. What's the perspective? You need to ask yourself the question every single moment of the day, will this bring me closer to a q or will this bring me farther away from a, and that's how he frames the safer. And this whole book, he doesn't say it in this way, it's a much longer drawn out and beautiful description. But I'm paraphrasing, he's saying, but whole book is a book of halakha. The you're not gonna keep if you don't get it. The big picture is this is the answer to the question. you first have to care enough to ask yourself in this moment, what can I do to get closer to a qbo? If that's your fundamental question that guides your life, this book will give you the technical answers of what to do to get closer to him. But it's premised on you understanding that the goal of your life is one question. Is this what a Q Bku wants or is this what a Q Bku doesn't want? And that is the only guiding question of life. Now you have to know what a Q Bku wants you to do. So, okay, so now read the rest of the SA and know what Al Lakas are, and even then we're gonna mix in Hal Kafa and we'll talk out the issues along the way too. Great. Fantastic. But that's the fundamental question. It's as complicated as that because it's so nuanced and there's so many different Hal Lakas to know, and there's so much I sc to know on top of that. And life is complicated and nuanced and Hal Lakas complicated nuance itself also, all of it is, but at the same time, it's just that simple. If a person is in a place where they can make klum, if a person is in a place where they've overcome the active, constant attacking I Sahara, and they're in a place of clarity, the guiding question of life is on a certain level, yes, just that simple. Does the Kash Bku want me to do this, or does the Kash Bku no want me to do this? And that's the only question in life that really matters. That's it. That's the whole thing. And that's the question of every action that a person takes. They need to think em, is this actually gonna bring me closer to bring me farther away from, that's the only question that matters, and that's the concept of making this. That the whole purpose of a Jew t, his purpose in this world is to get to a place where he is enjoying the S presence. Like the words of the, that read before AMI and accounting brings a person to this goal. This accounting we're coming into the Kufa the year of the three weeks. That's The time of the year they're walking into. Should be a time of who should bless us, we should be of, but we have to be prepared for anything. So we're walking into the three weeks. The three weeks is a time of reflection. It's a time of a recognition of just how destructive our sins can be. Our sins can lead to the breaching of the walls of y ne twice they've led to the destruction of the beam, which is really a representation of the loss of a connectivity between us and the shaina, and a breakdown of shalom bias due to our sins between us and, and a relationship that needs to be repaired. It's a good time to start thinking about the impact of our sins and who we wanna be and what we're here for and we're trying to accomplish, because as Merabi says, it, sometimes very harshly, you can make your life or you can break your life. You can make Lan or you can break Lan, you can make the base onik, you can break the base onik. That's all up to us. And so to take some time this week, this week when we, in Humes. Miraculously make it through this desert. We overcome sequin and oog and we stand on the border of Erra. We are the generation that stands on the border. We may be physically, many of us in Erra, but we don't need to make the sheds. We don't have gula yet. So we're standing on the metaphorical border of Erra and Gula. We're there, we're on the border. And so for some of us, that means taking some time to look deep and admit to ourselves, neba, and it's okay. We all start from somewhere. There are areas of my life where I am totally under the rulership of my I zahara and I've been ignoring it, and I've been tricking myself in saying, I'll just do better next time. And I wonder why I keep failing and deep down my nose,'cause I'm not actually doing anything to change anything. yeah. I'm gonna be honest with myself for a minute here. There are areas of my life where I keep making mistakes and it's time. It's time to bring on a little bit of that nazarus, a little bit of that extremism, a little bit of that. That extreme move to just cut off from the thing where I know that I can't control and I can't overcome. And in that level to reach the next step, in the next stage in my vo hashem that I can have purity and clarity that only comes from distancing myself and cutting off if I'm in that space, in those areas of my life. And it's okay if you are, we're all there in certain areas. We're all there in certain ways. And to admit to ourselves where those are, and to finally try to move past that to make Binion in your Bean and myself and for those of us who may be starting from a place where we have overcome those things but are ithas, put us in a place of status quo and stagnation and being complacent with where we are. That's a Yates Zahara being okay with where you are is a Yates Zahara being proud of what you accomplished. That's gdic. Being proud of everything you've done is important, but proud in a way that stagnates your growth. That states sahar talking to you, they states Saha, leveraging your successes to hold you back. And there you don't need to be a kana, you don't need to be an extreme person necessarily. But then it's time to be honest also. And to make the hash notes. Who am I? Why am I here? What am I supposed to be accomplishing? And all of us are going through our days. Even just looking around at the Zoom that we have right now. Everybody's running through something different. Got somebody who's in the uk, we've got somebody sitting in an apartment in RG there somebody who's mom's driving in a car. Everybody's going somewhere else very literally right now. And when we're in the midst of our life going to this and this and this and this, the status quo is the easy thing. If you're somebody who's overcome your Yates there and you're listening to this podcast and you're here with us, there's probably a good chance, at least in some areas of your life, if not all areas of your life, you're in that space that you've overcome your Yates there. Then it's time to start thinking big picture. Not just let the runaround of daily life and the nitty gritty of daily life lead us to a place of being complacent, of being okay with the status quo. What's the next step? What's the next jump? What's the next move? Why am I here? What am I doing? Where am I going? Where am I going? Big picture in my life, and this is what Kol wants for me, what a K Bku doesn't want from me. Is it bringing me closer to him or is it bringing me away from him? Stagnation is its form of yha the way that we used to say it back in the day. I mean, they, we still have escalators, so the mus still applies, but the concept that a vda hashem is a downward escalator. If you're standing still, you're moving down. You can't stand still in a sen. You have to be moving forward. And if you're in a place where things are good, fantastic. But if you're not fighting to move forward, then you're not getting close to a Q Boko and you're missing precious time to get close to a Q Boko and to bring that, being in, to build that base of ash, to bring that ula. Comes from having that clarity. Wherever we are in our journey in our KO should bless us, have the clarity to first and foremost, be honest with ourselves. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. We're all human. KO made us physically human beings with these sahara's and knew that we were gonna fail. We've made many mistakes. And so to be honest with ourselves in where we are failing and in what ways we are failing.'cause only when we admit the ways we're failing, only when we admit in what we're failing and how we're failing in those ways, can we actually understand the way to overcome and move forward. We should be zha with that clarity to have the fortitude and the personality and the ate de to move forward to overcome all levels of our zahara, to burst through all the KPAs that are keeping us out of ra. Metaphorically or literally Rin keeping us out of Ula and through that close to unite with him, bond with him. And through that embrace and enjoy the time of and thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate the podcast and hit the follow button and join us every week for a new episode. 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