Parshat Shoftim: The Judges and Officers at My Inner Gates

In this episode, we are learning the Nesivos Shalom on Parshat Shoftim!

If you want to follow along inside, it is in Nesivos Shalom on Devarim page tzadi tet (99). You can find a pdf of the piece here.

Sadly there is no sponsor for this week’s episode. I can’t stress enough that your sponsorships are what make this podcast happen! 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 Has 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 week's episode, we'll be learning the navo Shalom on Parsha Sho. Team. If you would like to follow along inside, you can go to the show notes for a link to A PDF, but please feel free to just sit back, listen, and enjoy the ride. Sadly, there is no sponsor for this week's episode. I can't stress enough that your sponsorships are what make this podcast happen. If you would like to sponsor an upcoming episode of the podcast, please email rabbi chernoff@gmail.com or see the show notes for more details. Thank you so much in advance for your support. All right. With that, let's jump into the Devo Shalom on Parsha Sho team. We are, we are on page, the first piece. The says, the opening of this speaks that you should appoint judges and officers in all of your gates who gives to you understand it says you shall place officers and judges. In all of your gates, but it says your gates singular re that it would seem as it is that the requirements to appoint judges would be on the, on everyone, not on, on an individual. It's on the. Many others say the same thing. Top of the next page. He's jumping right into the big idea that he's going to discuss today, I assume, which is de that every single Jew has many, many different, has many different gate. Sha Sha, right? Our five senses. We have the gates of seeing, of hearing, of smelling, of speaking, of feeling. These are the different gates. The five senses are the gates. These are the way that we bring things into ourselves, bring things into our bodies, bring things into our internal world, And he says, and that a person needs, every single person needs to make a judge for themselves on all of these things and open up their eyes on these things, possession. And that's what it means. That's why it says you shall place officers and judges. In all of your gates, your personal gates, all of our individual gates is talking to every single person in Ra Ado gather that we make limitations on every single one of these gates. Like said that there are seven openings in the head. What are the seven openings? Again? Very simple. Very asha, but very deep. We have to understand what it means, how to apply it. Re, re, we have two eyes, two ears, two nostrils in a mouth. We have literally five openings in our head. This is what the Torah is saying. Must put officers and judges in all of your gates. That needs to raise up to elevate all of these things to through judges, through officers for you individually, every single one of us on all of these things that you needs to place upon himself, officers and judges. It's an amazing, amazing concept that these seven openings of our head, this is how every single thing comes into us. This is how every single thing becomes a part of us. If we think about it for a second, We are comprised entirely of our perspective of reality. We're all sitting here right now. I'm sitting here in my home in, be Sheesh, right? We've got Akiva here. Who's sitting here, who's sitting there in somewhere in, I dunno, England, Europe, whatever, right? Elias sitting somewhere in, uh, in, in also. We've got people listening where you, wherever you're listening now you're listening. Somewhere in the world, we're all learning the same piece of Nvo Shalom, the Nivo, NVO Shalom is talking to every single one of us, and the words are the same black ink on the same white paper. And yeah, I'm the one who's reading them and I'm talking them out together as we learn together by Hausa. But we're all hearing the same Hausa that we're all having together, and yet every single one of us. Is relating to this differently. some of us may be sitting here until we totally locked in. Maybe some of us are sitting here in a little spaced out. Maybe one of you is listening and you're walking and you just pass by a friend of yours and you let the podcast keep playing and you missed two or three minutes. You don't know what you missed. The same thing happened, but our perspective totally changes our relationship to that moment, to what's happening. It's a wild concept. Every single thing is defined by my subjective perspective and what defines my subjective perspective is what comes in through those seven openings of the head. It's a wild concept, and my perception is everything. I strongly suspect this is the meaning of the Gamara. The Gamara says. And the simple meaning is everything is in the hands of heaven except for you, Shama, and we sort of just leave. Everything they said is soaked in meaning and a sentence like that. It has to also be meant literally. What does that mean? Ha, Shama, everything is up to a Q runs the world. What is the real only true thing that we're in control of? Whether that means fear of heaven or awe of heaven, or literally how much you are A, we translate as fear and awe, but your rah, your O to see everything is up to a QB. Everything is up to heaven except for you. My perspective, how much I see heaven on earth, how much I see shamayim in my life, that's totally in my hands. It could be that there were best of intentions and somebody wanted to do something, but a road got closed down or a tree fell in the way, or there was a car crash or, or the earth split open. Doesn't matter what it is. A cut sparkle can make a thousand ways to keep because the best of intentions, but love death gets gonna happen. It won't necessarily happen. Nothing is truly in my hands. But what's the one thing that I am always 100% in control of? Is in control of my free will, my perspective, how I see things. That's me. That's totally on me. How do I see the world? How do I experience the world and the things that forge and impact that perception is what I take in through my eyes and my ears, my nose and my mouth. That's what changes the perception. I was thinking about it the other day. One of the things I like to listen to in the background, I get to listen to Torah. I get to learn Torah, but I also like to listen to a couple of different podcasts and there's a podcast that I like to listen to, sometimes clips, sometimes long, whole thing. These, one of these like really long form interview podcasts. Um, that get into like very like practical things, how to motivate yourself, how to be successful in life, it's, it's focused on in our day and age how do we, from very successful people, how to be successful. And I think about the fact that so much of my mental energy is focused on productivity and getting things done and getting more done in a limited amount of time, and elevating how I do it. All of these things. I'm like, this is such an incredible value and I'm currently working for all of beta and a season of Alf Beta that I'm currently editing and producing is all about the importance that a Kash bur who wants to communicate that he's the God who is with us, that he's the being with you God. And the whole season revolves around this central point. That a kle is the being with you, God, and that there's a such a value to just being, just being kle. Just letting us know I, before I even do anything, before I take you outta meet, try before I take you to Mat, before I take outta yourself, just before anything else, just know I hear you. I love you. I care about you and I'm with you. I'm not even doing anything. Just the power that's encompassed within Ha being with us. And I spent a lot of time unpacking that. Other things have influenced me thinking about that over the last chunk of time and what does it mean instead of just always running to do, do I just be with a Q instead of just doing things with my wife to just be with my wife instead of just doing things with my kids, to just be with my kids? That's a massive shift for me. Being very honest with you, all of all friends here on the podcast, all the people who I, we've been learning with for the last 26 episodes, right? Like these are, these are real. It's a really big shift for me. Very, very hard. And one of the things that I reflected on was how crazy it is. Where did I get the idea that the only thing meaningful in life is to do more and be more productive and achieve more and become more instead of just being, I love this phrase, and I'll continue to lose the phrase, the idea Jews are not here to be. They're here to become, I love that phrase. Because it lives my values. But then I thought like, but wait, maybe we're also here to be, both can be true. Maybe we're also here to be. and where did I get that from? And I think about all these podcasts I listened to from these hugely successful young entrepreneurs. And then I think to myself, huh, they're all not married and they don't have kids and they don't value anything in life except for getting in the next rung on the ladder. And they're extraordinarily insightful and successful. But who says I necessarily wanna be like them? And how? Even me who I try to think carefully about what I take in, that's how careful we need to be. How much what we take in in our ears and our eyes transforms our perception. And our perception is who we are. It's such a powerful thing. And what the Torah is telling us here is. We need to have very serious judges and officers guarding those precious gates. Those gates are the most precious thing that we have. What's coming into my eyes? What's coming into my ears? Coming? There was somebody who mentioned that we learned this piece before and I had a feeling go a little bit of different direction. There's giving over the element of this, of which is this time in this par and this time of year we're in ell. EL is the time of cva. In this time of year, this is what we need to be thinking about. This is where everything starts. He's got a different beast in el. He talks about this. This is where things start. We need to think about the guards. We need to think about the judges and the guards at the gates. Yes, a hundred percent. And for when I give this over in Shana Olive. it's not fair to call it to even say it that way. Let's say this is where you're at and it's great if this is where you're at on your journey and this is where your next step and of what is good for you. I'm excited for you. It's an incredible journey. Shots my eyes. What am I taking in my eyes to purify my eyes? What do I look at? What do I see? What do I see? I, I don't know how any Jew. Male or female, doesn't even matter. Any Jew in the in 2025 can have any device. And if you listen to this on podcast, you have a device. Any device, whether it's a phone or whether it's a computer, you need to have a, you need have a filter. You need have a filter, whether it's on a lower level, to keep ka ourselves from seeing things that we DKA should not be seeing. And it's usher for us to see. Or we have the best of intentions and when we go on a website, you have an ad. You have to have an internet filter. What's coming into my eyes? What am I watching? What am I looking at? Where am I going? What cities am I going to to visit? What streets am I going to to walk down? Where am I going and how am I using them? And there's ways to elevate that. My, my rebi always isn't, if you've been with us on the podcast even this long, I've told a lot of stories about him and he always has things such incredible perspective, which is what we're talking about. Uh, my Rebi b Hashem came in for my wedding. Amazing story friend at the time, I didn't actually, I wasn't able to bring him in, but sent him and he was there for my wedding. And so we went for a walk on the day before the wedding to talk about what it means to get married And I was on the Upper West side at the time and we were walking through the Upper West side and. He s you know, you think about so many Jews who are so holy and so beautiful, and this is an amazing thing. So many guys who take off their glasses or who look at the ground when they walk, and it's a beautiful thing. They're saying, I know that I've seen so many things that are so tumay with my eyes and I don't want it to happen anymore, and that's how I'm dealing with it. And, and some people judge'em. I think they shouldn't. I think we should look up to such people that it may not actually be the right way to do it or the best way to do it, but they're trying to shift their life in a different direction and cleanse their eyes. And, and for guys, sometimes they really need that and good for them for doing that. Barbie's not gonna live in that space. Instead of looking at all of the inappropriate things in front of him, his eyes just went upwards. Literally and metaphorically. They went upwards. And the entire time we were walking through the streets of Manhattan, until we got to Central Park, we were gonna sit in schmooze. He was pointing out all of the old architecture versus the new architecture and how they used to make buildings so beautifully, and they used to actually carve things out of stone and look at the things that we can create and we can beautify, and how we don't do that anymore and we should do that just like all he did was look up. Literally and metaphorically, there's so many levels to what it means, meaning every judge will judge differently. Every officer has an understanding of the law differently, and both of them are meant to enact the law which is created and who's making that law. That's my inner law. That's my inner world that's determining those things, and there's a shot level of, I'm purifying my eyes of where I go and what I look at, and I'm purifying my ears to elevate what I listen to. If I'm still listening to secular music, should I be listening to secular music? And if the answer is yes, is there at least a line that I won't cross in terms of explicit language versus non explicit language, certain topics, not other topics. Or am I cutting out entirely in Jewish music? Am I listening toto Jewish music or actual good Holy Jewish music? And yes, I believe there's a difference. What am I listening to? How strict and how elevated are my judges in my office at the gates, That's what I always give over every year. And to take it to one level deeper, taking back to those podcasts. It's a podcast of people talking about how to better your life. There's wisdom, there's Hama, Baggo, but we have to be thoughtful. Even in that is life simply about becoming, is life simply about doing more? Or is there a value in being and is that core to what a Q Burko wants to do in this world? Somebody wrote in the chat that we're called human beings, not human doings, right? There's so many different ways to process that and, and even that concept. We're human beings, not human doings, but we're not here to be. We're here to become. Which one's true? The answer is we have to look to the tour for the answers to that and not secular podcast necessarily. And I'm not saying if everybody should stop listening to your psychopath. I'm not trying to be an extremist here. Al I'm just saying this is the time. If you were to ask myself, my whole life is defined by my perception and my perception is defined by what comes into my eyes and my ears and my mouth. How strict are my judges? And I don't mean strict in restrictive. How strict are they to guide me towards bringing holiness? And beauty and glory and Torah and Ms, and VAs and Shama into my mind and into my life, and having that de what defines my perspective. And for every one of us, it's gonna be different. But to think more deeply about that, that's what this podcast is for. That's what this is for. What's the next level here? Thinking about what's coming into our ears, that it could even change us to say we're, we're moving in life to become okay, but, but it's taking away our being. What does want, what am I listening to? What am I seeing and what am I looking at? Again, deeper side of things. Go to shul on Monday, on Thursday on Kodesh Haba, Torah, this farm. Go wild. To literally just see the holy letters of a Holy Savior Torah, the purification that brings to our eyes and our perception that through our eyes, through our visual medium, we're taking the Torah itself and it's becoming part of my inner world. I'm beautifying my mind through my eyes. What am I listening to with my ears? Who am I listening to? Music, Dre Torah, who are my friends? What do we talk about? And if they're great friends and they don't talk about the best things, how can I re change and guide that conversation? My wife and I just, we just literally sat and had lunch and talked about how the kids are getting older. How do we add Torah to every single meal on every single week Demo, not Chavez Week team, every single weekday. What are we learning at the table To elevate the meal, to both talk about our days and make sure that the kids can share, because that's part of the being and that's super important for the, for the kids to be able to be and to share, and to feel heard and to feel loved, and to process and to grow, but also to become both. And what are we learning at the table? Because there's words of Torah that, that we're all growing together as a family and united as a family to either grow in our understanding of elul or, or whatever we decide to end up using, doing at the table to elevate our ears and our eyes. Those of you who've known me for years know that there are certain contexts. I can't talk about this in certain contexts where I can't talk about, this won't go into length, but like, yeah, purify my mouth. Also to purify what we're eating. In a healthy way if somebody has an unhealthy relationship with food. So then don't go into an unhealthy place. But if you have a healthy relationship with food to think about what am I putting in my body? Am I eating for a, or am I eating for myself? Who am I eating for? What's the guard there? What's the goal? And, and, and people have taught me over time, there are, you know, I, I'm somebody who very strongly stays away from processed sugar. I think it's poison.'cause it's, um, but uh, but some people have pushed back and said, but I'm gonna do it anyway. Okay, well then I said, fine. You know what, that's fine. I'm not judging you. So when you buy your favorite cake or cookie or whatever it is, so then buy it. La Cha. How you do it is up to you. But are you elevating, are you elevating. My big weakness is, is good gooey baked goods. That's like that's how you can bribe my shati and my show dream. That's the best bribe you can possibly give them. Right? And I saw, you know, a half of a baked good sitting on the table of this chais that there was left over by the kids. And I picked it up and I was about to take up, Biden looked, I said, it's, it's gonna be roast kish l tomorrow. Do I need this? Do I want this? And this is what we're supposed to be thinking about this time. You and I put it down. And I put it down and I eat other things that I enjoy. I have a very joyous life in Food Bash. There are things I love to eat but there are things that give me strength and allow me to serve a Kash B and give me health and support the health that I wanna create for myself. How do we elevate ourselves? Because what we eat literally becomes who we are. It becomes part of our bodies. Whether I can move faster or slower, I'm healthier or sicker, literally becomes part of me. What I hear in my ears, even if it's, again, and I'm sorry I keep harping on this point, but like to say, even to this point, a podcast about how to better yourself, but it's secular. And suddenly I realize, I ha I've never stopped to be, I've never been a human being. I've been only a human doing. I've never been a human being before. And that's a scary thing, but good. It's good to be intimidated. That means you're going in the right direction if something is intimidated to you. When it comes to growth, that's what you jump at. How do I be? How do I be more, and what do I limit and how much do I limit? How do I reeducate my judges and my officers at my gates, reeducate them about what's allowed into my ears, what podcasts I'll listen to, and what podcasts? I won't even that. What music will I listen to, even if it's Jewish music, What music will I listen to and what music, even though I still won't, what things do I look at? It's totally fine, but is it really, is it completely fine? Is it what I want to be seeing? When I did this, I was teaching on Michel this summer and we talked about this piece, this concept from a different piece than vo shaah.'cause I mean, what has ever learned about vo shaah? So we were doing SIBO sha on a different piece and they brought up this concept and I said to them, I was like, understand, like this is defining who you are. You're a bunch of 16-year-old girls. Even this moment, this moment just changed your life because it's the middle of the summer. And I'm sure that your friends who didn't come on ette and your friends who didn't come on ette, there's probably a bunch of them who are sitting on the beach right now. And regardless of what you're processing, the fact that you are sitting here in this room and your eyes are on the deibel and seeing these Hebrew letters and hearing words of Torah as opposed to sitting on a beach and seeing and hearing things that are inappropriate that a Jewish should not see on a mixed beach. Even if you don't know in what way, your lives are now totally different because that becomes part of who you are and this is the time. On the deepest of levels to really sit with our judges, with our officers, say what gets hit and what doesn't get it. What do I wanna become part of my perspective, my being and what don't. I want to become part of my perspective of my being, because really all I am is my perspective. How Kbi de Shamani, how much am I looking at the ground this year at the dirt, and how much am I looking at the same world? And I see Shamaya in everything. I see godliness in everything, and I'm only looking at godliness, and I'm only hearing godliness, and I'm only smelling and tasting godliness. Now's the time to make that decision. Now's the time to make those choices. That's what he's saying here, and he himself is gonna go through each of them one by one. I'm sorry that I went on for so long. Let's see what that's saying. Inside. We're on halfway through the first paragraph on page Co. He says. Everything that a Jew looks at, we have to ask and to contemplate, to meditate on this, to really think this through. Give this time. We've got a month now. It's partially ch but it's, it's ell. We have a month now. Contemplate meditate. What does a kaj bur who want me to see. And what's not seeing things that a Kash Barco wants me to see. And the really obvious ones for sure. If you don't have a filter, put a filter. If you're looking at these inappropriate, get rid of'em. If you're going to places where people are not dressed properly, stop. Yeah, a hundred percent for sure. Everyone on your level where you're at. Next level. But even deeper than that. Even deeper than that. To gaze at beautiful things. To gaze at Tam, to gaze at beautiful ra, to gaze at Fri Torah, to gaze at s far to gaze at Q's world. To get, if you're a guy, get a bunch of guys together, you go get a bunch of girls together, go for, for a day or two world. That world, what I bring into my eyes, there's a gazing of mitzvah and there's a sea of ur of things that are not allowed. The, they're seeing things that are, and a person needs to judge everything I'm looking at. What categories has it fallen? Is it a mitzvah? Is it us or is it a mitzva? And where do I wanna stand on that? Am I willing to let issu into my life? And if so, to what extent am I not? If it's T, it's fine. Doesn't mean to mva, but if it's mother, it's fine. That's why. That's fine. If I DAF can myself only to see things that are d very mitzvah, that's already a whole lot. That's a very lofty level. But at least to move away from is there at least to think about what's part of TTR and to take advantage of the Mitzvah opportunities. By hearing and listening, mitzva, they're listening to mitzvah, listening to rah, talking to friends in a positive way, in a, in a kosher way. And there's then again, there are things that are up that are just, we need to contemplate, to meditate. What are we listening to? Mitzvah. Am I fulfilling a mitzvah through this hearing or am I over another by this listening music? People I'm talking to, Lahara things are happening on the street, podcasts, she, or whatever, whatever I'm listening to, to pick wisely. To pick carefully and to pick individually and to, again, these are it. It doesn't have to be objective. It doesn't have to be good and bad in that way. When I was in my first year of. I was looking for something. I was looking for something. I was looking for the re that I wanted. I was looking for somebody who I could be close to. It went, it's so many guys going into, it's like, I wanna go into the highest shirt I wanna go into. There's so many sort of just questionable factors though. I wish people pick even share that they go into. I was listening for something. I was listening for something intangible that I couldn't even describe to you. I was listening for something. And I went through 5, 6, 7, ro shiva, NYU, all of whom are wonderful. And I heard something that wasn't, it wasn't there for me. Something wasn't there for me. And I was listening for it, and I was listening for it, and I was listening for it. One of the r shiva said something and I just froze and it shook me to my core. And I was like, I, I can't be in a shear room with this, with this individual. And I'm sure that they're wonderful and I'm sure that I, maybe I misinterpreted and whatever it is. But I was listening for something and I knew that that was wrong, and that was the last year visit that I went to, I ended up by my bie, I went to Rev. Simon. Sheer not the highest. Sheer wasn't the i, I could have handled a, a more difficult or more intellectually challenging sheer, and he was the first one. And it wasn't. I didn't even know that that was what I was listening for, and it wasn't the only thing I was listening for. And he came over and said, welcome to the shear. All new guys have come to the shear. I wanna make sure to go to lunch with, to get to know no other. Rashish did that for me. And that was already a huge wave the way there. He said, I care. I'm not just here to teach you Torah. I'm here to be a rebi. And that to me was a whole different thing. I heard something. I'm listening. I'm listening with my ears. What do I want? Even in Torah? What? Like if I have I, if I'm gonna be sending in the morning for three hours every morning, what do I wanna come in? Even deci deciding between Kadosh and Kosh. I'm up doing Kosh. The Kish. Yeah. La Bane. This is real life. If you're listening to the podcast, it's time to ask the big questions. Even being Kodish Kish, who am I listening to and why? If I have that kadish time, what am I filling it with? What am I filling it with? My rabbi told me that he found his rebi. He said that just like, again, you have to listen for it. He had a question in a safer, I dunno if it was a Gamara or Rambam, and he went to one of the ramen in the base measures that he was in and he said. Can you please explain this to me in Hebrew study? Can you please explain to me what this means? And I, I remember the words, it has such an impact on me that this is what lit him up. The Ram replied to him and said, sit, lie, maybe together we can understand. And when he heard somebody who was soul holding in Torah and said, no, no, no, let's learn it together and see what we come to that, that was what he needed to hear. How am I elevating my hearing? Also to get rid of the schmutz and the secular music and the cursing and Thera and all of that. But even within the, what am I listening for? What's gonna become my perspective? What's gonna forge the way I see the world? What's gonna forge the way I see Shamayim in my life to really think deeply about these things, even on the elevated levels. Ah, they translate lo as a conjunction of, don't get any appropriate pleasure from your nose. Again, there's joy you can get from even smell mitzva mitzvah. There's things that you smell for a mitzvah. Those of you who have been in Liva tour with me, I mean, reveal Allen, he has 8 million different scents and he loves the beauty of smell and so he, he makes it osh and he goes around with all these different things you can smell with these little bottles of things or these, or the different flowers that he grows in his garden, but not, he knows all the, he said all and he, and he's training people in Brahas and he's having them appreciate K's world. How do you raise up even smell? Even smell? How do you raise it up? How do you raise it up to buy a beautiful beamon holder? To get rid of the old beamon where you're technically yo say, because there's still a little bit of scratch and s sniff left. If you press down those clove a little bit harder, you'll get a little bit more outta them. Buy some new clothes, buy something beautiful. Smell on ve. Be the mitzvah. Beautify the mitzvah, and uplift the smell. So two with our mouths. Mitzvah, there's things to eat. That's a mitzvah to eat. There's things that are to eat. And as we talked before, there are things that are, and to think, what am I doing? Why am I eating? Why am I eating? Who am I eating for and what does it mean to eat? What's the goal? Am I serving my tongue? Am I serving my stomach or am I serving a And there's so many ways that plays out and, and, and nutrition is so nuanced. And so complex and each person's biology and needs and all those things are a hundred percent different, a hundred percent different. Remember listening to, there was a bunch of back and forth about like this carnivore diet of only eating meat, and I think the whole conversation is ridiculous because one of the main people who started the carnivore diet was somebody who, everything else that she ate was making her sick. It was making her mom sick. So I think two things. Number one is she's healthy and it's working for her, and her blood levels are good. Fantastic. Why is anybody arguing with her? It works for her. And on the flip side, why is she preaching against everybody else that they should do it? It may not be good for somebody else. Everybody's biology and their biologics are different. But how much do we care to find out? How much do we care to find out what foods are making me slower? What foods are making me sicker? What foods are making me space out? What foods are keeping me from able to have more kavana in Tela, in Tal Torah to be present for my, for my loved ones and for my spouse and for my kids? What am I allowing them to eat? Because it's easy or it's cheaper. I don't wanna fight it and it's making them go crazy or not be able to focus and it's hurting them in school and it's hurting them in their TAL Torah and it's hurting them in their connection to abo. It's not simple, but to be able to ask these questions but have so much information now and so many things you can try and we know the different people's biology reacts differently, to different things. How do I react to dairy? How do I react to gluten? How do I react to sugar? I remember this 20, this must have been 20 years ago. I was a re bidding intern and I was spent a lot of that year talking to the senior rabbi. He was an incredible, incredible mentor. and he said to me, he said, you know what I, he said, I don't eat this anymore. I said, well, I think maybe, I think maybe it was dairy, something like that. I think it might have been dairy. I said, I don't eat this anymore. I said, I said, I said, why? I said I was getting such stomach pain And I realized that every single morning at chakras I was taking on and off my filling to go to the bathroom and I asked myself a question. This food that I'm eating, is it worth my not being able to dive in with Kavana? And I said, the answer's obvious, no. So I cut the food out again. For him, it wasn't even for a health reason, he, his do was getting interrupted. He realized it was from that food, whatever the food was. And so he said, with Shammai, I'm gonna stop eating the food. And that's so idiosyncratic to him. Well, again, we realize I'm not talking in blanket statements because our judges and our officers and our gates are super personal. What's healthy and meaningful for me to eat is personal. What's proper for me to listen to is personal. What's proper for me to see is personal. especially on the aceto side, the mitzvahs, I want to gaze at the mitzvahs that I wanna listen to. And it's not about me that I know that AK Burko wants me to listen to. That's gonna elevate mine. The Shama, my mind, my being able to see Shama in this world, we're talking about, Moshe, Shiva, and University, which rabbi's gonna really elevate my mind in the way that I need to hear. We're talking about elevated levels here, not just the So merah, let's talk about being elevated this ello this coming year. Let's talk about elevating, really lifting ourselves up. Getting real with ourselves. Beyond the simple things we've heard again and again and again and again about stopping doing things that are us or that we know are usher. Let's be osh. Let's be osh. Let's make my whole reality. We talked about the so many times that, that my whole world, my, an inner world is a ishka. What am I letting into my mishka? What do I allow through those gates? What foods do I allow on my inner, in my stomach? Which lam, which Lam are really awesome that I would allow to play in my inner base. Do I make sure no animal has a mum that comes inside? Do I make sure that the, the be most beautiful purest olive oil comes in to shine brightly into my eyes? Do I hear a Kara who's speaking through the crew? It all depends. On how strong the walls and the gates are of my base, of my inner ishka. It's all coming down to that to not just, not just remove the bad elevate, elevate, it says VA and sotu in our speech that comes out of our mouth mitzva. There's things that are mu and us and heter to speak in a way that's appropriate to speak in a way that's elevated, to be the one to bring in the devar. To be the one to, to bring it into a different way. To talk into our, to, to elevate our speech, to elevate our speech. The whole point here is, is that we need to put officers and judges in all of our gates. All of our gates. There need to be judges officers. What a judge. That's the intellectual thought. The judge sits there and weighs it out. He's the one who thinks it through. What to bring close and what to push away. That's the job of a judge. To weigh out the options, to weigh out the situation, to figure out what's going on in the moment, to think it through. He contemplation. Reflection, Aire. Shulter is an officer morale, so there's the one who thinks it through, but there's also the one who has to enact it. It's very nice. I know it's usher to look at these things. Because my show fate is very smart and knows that it's us to look at things that are inappropriate. But if I don't have officers to keep them from coming in, then I can know that now I know inappropriate stuff is coming in. And if I only have officers, well they know they're supposed to stand there and be big and burly and stand in the way and make sure that the wrong gun doesn come in. But if nobody's informing them what to keep out, then anything can go past them because they don't know what to keep in and keep out. You need both. The nu of thee, you need both the time and the reflection. The contemplation to really think through what do I want to come in and what do I want to come out? And then it needs, it can be communicated and the practical needs to be implemented. I need to implement practically that's the aire, to make sure that it enacts that which my show has decided. Said by, you can't overcome the Sahara. You can't uproot rah simply with intellectualism. No matter how great your thoughts are. It's not enough to move the rah. You have to actually remove the raw. It can't just be theoretical. It has to be practical. You can go to she after she, after sheer, after sheer and musser. You could be the, you could know all of Musser B pen, but if you don't think how to practically implement it, you'll just know all the times that you're failing and why you're failing, but you're not gonna succeed. There has to be the step of practical, personalized implementation. It has to be, As he says further, as he says, any day that a Jew is not fighting the Y Sahara, it's, it's not a day lived. The day hasn't been lived, A day only has meaning. If I'm fighting my zahara, practically, if I'm thinking of different, new strategies and coming up with ways to fight the I zahara. That he would go with a sack of stones tied to his back. Why? Meaning by having this, he would walk around with a knapsack full of stones. Why? Because if have a nap sack full of stones seed all day, slowly but surely you start to bend over. The weight just becomes heavier and heavier and heavier. And it was a way to remind himself, I need to make sure to subjugate myself, to remind him to subjugate himself before I cut a broco, to remind him not to be so stubborn and not to only see things one way, but to lower himself and to see things in a new perspective. It doesn't matter how great of a level we're on, we need officers. only by reducing our physicality, that's the only way we can subjugate and lower the Kora, the capacity for evil that's inside of us. That's what it means that we all need officers and judges, each of us individually, each of us individually, our own officers, our own judges in all of our gates, in every single one of the openings of our head, our eyes, our ears, our nose, our mouth. All of them. We need, we need judges to clarify things intellectually, and we need officers to enact that and bring it out into the world. It is a very, very deep thing. Pars par team's a tough parsh. It's one of these. Endless mitzvah and there's a way to connect to the mitzvahs, but it's sometimes hard to find the behind the mitzvahs in some of these types of parsha. And to open up the first few words of this parson to realize. It's screaming at us as we come into Roko. The first week of EL is screaming at us. No, no, no. societally speaking, you need officers, you need judges. There's em. We should all be living in RA and all of our cities should have judges that are holy judges and bringing Edwards on hashem and officers that are upholding the law of the Torah. That's what we want. That's what we're looking for. Bi. We should be able to fulfill that mitzvah that way, but on our journey to get there that we enact in this time of year. Judges and officers, the only one to decide our inner law is ourselves, and we've been riding for an entire year on the laws of the previously, on the decisions of the previous year on the limitations and the gda and the fences of the previous year. It's time. This is the time right now. This month it's time to get all your judges together. And get them into the inner chamber and to take a look at the books. Have I elevated myself to a level where these laws are now irrelevant? They're last year's laws. I'm ready for a whole new book of laws, not laws. a whole new book of clarifications of the best way to live my life. That by living within these parameters, I will live my best life of a vo Hashem. I ask myself that and rewrite that book. And then after that's done, the judges then bring in all the officers. How are we gonna enact this? How are we gonna live a life of kaa? How am I gonna make my whole inner world a Mishka this year? How am I gonna live with a Q Bur this year? In a way I never lived with him before?'cause we should be in our whole lives, Beka and Ello, to be able to have the honesty with ourselves. To bring those judges in, to have that inner monologue, inner dialogue with myself and with the, with the God, because it's a conversation with the really at its heart to talk to the godliness inside of myself and to hear him speak to me. What does he want from me? How do I get close to him? How do I rewrite the book to make sure that it's the perfect way to live together with him in this year? And then to go and to have the honesty to know what I'm truly capable of and what I'm not yet capable of. What I'm ready to take on, what I'm not ready to take on. If I'm ready to take it on, to admit to myself I am, and to go for it, and then to have the fortitude to go and to enact those structures that will allow me to play it out, not just to blindly and meaninglessly, commit myself to things, practically implement them, make them real in my life to show dream. Also, if I say, this year I'm gonna have clean eyes and I don't download a filter for my computer, then it's a meaningless taking upon myself. If I say to myself this year, I'm gonna stop listening to the ssta on, on my podcast, and I'm only gonna listen to proper good podcasts, well then you need to unsubscribe from the podcast. You don't wanna listen to, you need to unsubscribe from the YouTube channels. You don't wanna watch, you need to limit your Netflix account or lose the password, or just unsubscribe. You need to actually go through the practical implementation if you wanna look at certain things and be in certain places. How am I getting there? Am I driving? Am I walking? Which base measure, which sheer, which love, which individual, which friends, what time to practically implement them. And by having the honesty with myself and the, that's within me, to know what I could become, what I could transform myself into. how I want my gates to be guarded and to be judged with that clarity and with the to properly enact that, to change all my gates. And because of that elevates my own inner world, my whole inner world, clear judgment to great officers, to a be to beautiful proper gates and limitations and boundaries and structures. And then within that world, within that inner world of myself to truly, truly connect to a Kash'cause all of us. 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. Once again, a reminder that you, yes, you can sponsor an episode of the podcast. Please email Rabbi turnoff@gmail.com from our info or to share any thoughts, comments, or feedback on this week's episode. See you on the next one.