#51 - Addendum to Perek Gimel B - Mesilas Yesharim Explained

In two short sessions a week Rabbi Dovid Schoonmaker will elucidate and bring to life the eternal words of the Mesilas Yesharim. Rabbi Dovid Schoonmaker is the Rosh Yeshivah of Shapell's / Yeshivas Darche Noam in Yerushalaim.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

We all have to try to walk the walk a little bit, and we know that I do try, and I am sensitive to things that I speak about more strongly and less strongly, etc., depending on my uh own state. Uh you know, if I waited till I was complete in any area, I would talk about nothing. Um so and hopefully I like to think that wouldn't be good, but it's only good for me, hopefully for some other people. But I want to share something that I pushed in the last session, the idea of in the practical world of Heshman and Efish, everybody should take at least five minutes a week to try to do that, and I've been trying to do that myself. And I want to shortly bring everybody up to date about how effective I saw that I did that recently, and it put together for me a lot of thoughts I've been having which were um fleeting and flying and disparate and disparate and separate and fusum. And I suddenly realized that wow, this thing is something in my schedule. In the way I was looking at my weekly schedule, my daily schedule, my weekly schedule wasn't uh Khalila Navera or something like that that I was doing, but it was a certain lack of structure that was throwing me off from my learning in a very significant way. And Basrat Hashem, uh, hope to make a according to this thing I noticed, a strong tikkun in my schedule, which will hopefully help my learning. It's something about when I was leaving my yeshiva or whatever it was, but it was that type of thing, like someone when you get up, when you go to sleep, doesn't make a difference, really, the exact details. But um, but I saw from what I did see, and this is really the main thing I want to share with everybody, is Ms. Arm is telling us again and again how important this is, how effective this is, how dangerous it is without living with the Keshbon Nefesh, how those who learned Kheshbonushalolam made this Keshbon Nefish and did this, and always until you feel something on your high, like that's you know, in there's a Hebrew expression, incham kebal ni sayon. There's no no one is wiser than one who's been through things, and part of that, I think part of that is just practical by going through things you see the wisdom of them. But part is also you don't really appreciate ideas. It's right, great people can appreciate things even without seeing any practical napgemin in it, right? That's that's great people. Lesser people, probably all of us um included, need to see something sometimes. We can know it, but until we feel it, uh you can you can know that caste is a bad thing, but until you lose a job because of it, it's not it's not real to you until you're until you really make a rift in the family because you got angry. Now we see it, right? You learn the Gamana Dharma and you learn Mesila Sharp, you learn you should learn Kobasalavas. You heard five shim about cost, yeah. But now you see where your cost got you, you better wake up. So again, great people don't need that, right? That's the they they can live in a world of like this in a similar way. Some people they can't connect to learning unless it's alakhla mysah. Why? I mean, learning is a very great thing. Without being a lachlamaisa, it's it's great to learn alaqhamaisa. And we're not talking about that. We're talking about can I connect to no until I see the ideas, it's fine. Different minds work different, that's that's where we are. So, so just so again, I just recently did discussion about Nebush myself, and I saw that whoa, you know, I I've been concerned about this thing, about my learning in a certain way, the times I was learning, and then I realized it's really rooted over here in this minor thing, kind of the scheduling thing, really. Something about the way I'm running my schedule is really hurting my learning because I'm getting home too late, whatever, etc. So it just shows you, friends. I hope you're getting that, the power of Kashmir Navaj, the power of considering your ways. It it all the ideas are flying around my head, but until you sit significantly seriously sit down with yourself, like he says, Varyom biyom, but at least once a week, five minutes, ten minutes, maybe twice a week, five minutes, but at least five minutes. Let's let's write five minutes, quiet five minutes, like we said, no distractions, nothing else going on, and think about our ways and consider them. What does the Torah want? What does Torah want? Torah wants Torah missus, Torah wants me to learn, Torah wants me to do khes, torah wants me to be nice to my wife, Torah wants me to be nice to my husband, Torah wants me to be a good, right? And the ways we can all relate to Torah wants me to be a doctic in Halacha, Torah wants me to be into Shabs, Torah wants me to be a good father, mother, grandfather, uncle, etc. What's the Torah's view of being an uncle? What does it mean to be an uncle? I'll be the Torah, right? Doesn't mean you have to have a fancy shtikal Torah. Uh you found the Asod of uh Yud or something. No, like what's an uncle? An uncle is someone who has a certain role in a family, the children's not a father, not a not a nobody. So what does it mean to be a good uncle? What does the Torah want an uncle to do? An aunt, what does the Torah want an aunt to do? What does a Tara want assistant want to do? Think about that. We think about that picture, and then we think, well, how my actions coming up to it? That's a simple process. And then and then now how can I fix it, right? Julia, two-step process, right? What is the three process? Two steps, three steps. What does the Torah want? Am I living? How can I fix it? What does the Torah want? Am I living up to it? How can I fix it? What does the Torah want? Am I living up to it? How can I fix it? What does the Torah want? Am I living up to it? How can I fix it? And that's going to give us so so so much uh bracha and haslach and everything we do. And it's so obvious that people looking for sagulas and and and ways and giving money and high rotal and things like that. The Ronasham for sure loves those that are that are trying and working in About Hashem. The Ronasham loves those who are doing Hishmona Shalom. The Ronisham loves those who try and improve Binai Binaia and Banosali and improve themselves. And but we should keep being uh part of that. That's Lacharabba.