Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:01 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, texas. This is the Ask Away series on the Everyday Judaism podcast. To have your questions answered on future episodes, please email askaway at torchweborg. Now ask away.

00:22 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody to the Ask Away series of the Everyday Judaism podcast. Today we are going to do episode 14, Fielding your Questions. My dear friends, I am so excited. I do want to give a disclaimer I don't always know the answers, and if I don't know the answer, you're going to have to accept the answer I don't know. So I'm going to try my best here. But Miriam came armed. She came ready with questions. So, Miriam, please go ahead.

00:52 - Marilyn (Guest)
Musar teaches us silence, which means guarding our tongue, a tool to consider the potential impact of our words. In today's world, with technology and war, and we are not face-to-face with people, when is it appropriate to speak, even when it may cause harm, and what is an example, please?

01:21 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Okay, very good question. The laws of Lashon Hara are very, very specific. We're not allowed to speak negatively about another person. We're not allowed to speak negatively about another person. The Chafetz Chaim. I highly recommend this book. This is a book that, I think, is the cornerstone. It should be the cornerstone of how we talk, because it gives all of the framework of what is appropriate and inappropriate speech, when is it okay, when is it not okay to say things.

01:57
So one of the big challenges that we have in this generation is that we have something called social media. We have the internet, where people can say the craziest things about someone, verified, unverified, sourced, unsourced because they have an agenda sometimes or because they have spite towards that person or they're not from their political party, they're not from their political persuasion, and can decimate people, can destroy lives, can destroy marriages, can destroy families because someone thought it was cute to post something that was false or even true but inappropriate to be posted. So a person needs to know what the halacha says. The halacha, for example, says that if someone is a righteous person, then you can assume that even if they did something wrong, it was a mistake. So, for example, I know Gary is an upstanding man. I know him. I know him for many years already. And if, gary, someone came over to me and said, you know, I got to tell you something about Gary because Gary did this and he did that, he did this, you know that would be forbidden speech because Gary is an upstanding person. And for me to accept that would also be inappropriate because, for example, if I came to you, miriam, and I said something about your dad, what would you do? You'd be very offended, number one. But you would also defend him. You would defend him and you would say you know, that's not my dad, that's not the person I knew.

03:41
We have to look at every human being not as a judge of whom they are, but as a neutral arbiter of judgment on a person that they are a good person. Generally speaking, a person is good unless they are known to be wicked. Okay, you don't have to spear words about Khamenei. He's known to be a ruthless dictator and many, many people have been killed, murdered by him and his regime. So this is not someone you have to spear words, but only for the benefit of learning how not to act, not to just have chit-chat about other people because they're evil. It means a person has to be sensitive to. Why am I interested in saying these words? Okay, so about ordinary people? We assume that they're good and perhaps if someone tells you something that's negative about them, maybe they're seeing a perspective that's not exactly the right perspective. Maybe they just saw a. They say, well, I saw it with my own eyes, yeah, but they didn't see the rest of the picture.

04:56
You know, there's a story that's told about a king. King said he had a son who was hunchback. He was hunchback and he was a son who was hunchback. He was hunchback and he was a little crippled. So he hired different painters and he said whoever paints a nicer picture of the prince, I'll give them an enormous reward.

05:21
So one person painted a picture of the prince standing regally upright, and another person painted a picture of the prince all hunched back, hunched over a little bit of compromising, you know, but truthful. And then there was a third painter and he painted a picture of the prince from a side view, riding on a horse. So the king looked at the first one and he says you're a liar, that's not the way my son is. My son isn't able to stand up like that. The second one you're a liar. That's not the way my son is. My son isn't able to stand up like that. The second one you're cruel. That's the picture that you paint of my son, of the prince, that he's all hunched over. But the third one you get the prize. Why? You took the truth and you made it beautiful. He made a picture. How do people ride on a horse? They're hunched over. See, he took the flaw and made it beautiful. That's what we need to do when we look at other people. We have to find a way. Yeah, you know what. They may have a flaw, but how can we make it in a way that's beautiful, not to be one which is like, hey, let's call the facts he's a hunchback, or I'm going to be blind to that fact and I'm going to change the reality. That's not either truthful. We have to find a way to see the good in every person, unless they're outright evil, and the world sees that evil. No one needs to find good in Jeffrey Dahmer. No one needs to find good to mass murderers. That's fear game. If there's a benefit, something you want to teach your children, your grandchildren yourself, not to act in a certain way, that's one thing.

07:35
But also just notice that today, a lot of these things that are being said out there are unsourced. We know because we study Talmud. Right, you come to our Talmud class, our Thinking Talmudist podcast. One of the things we focus on almost obsessively is that everything written in the Talmud is sourced. We don't give anonymous sources. We don't say, well, there's no source to this, but this is what my you know, my sources tell me, my unnamed sources. This is not the Washington Post. This is not the way it works. In the real world of truth, you need to have a source, which is why so much of the Talmud focuses on who said what Critically important that we know the source for every single thing that we talk about. And just seeing it today in a paper, anybody can make up anything. Anybody can make up anything. Today, with AI, it's even more complicated Because you can see a video. It's like I saw a video of him saying that. I saw a video, yeah, but you can't believe anything anymore. It is frightening. So we have to be even more careful of our words, to not say negative about a person. It's really, really an incredible study and to see how the timeless wisdom of our Torah there are 17 different commandments about proper speech in the Torah 17. That's a lot.

09:11
I happen to be a little prejudiced about this book because it was written by my rabbi. Rabbi Yitzhak Berkowitz wrote the halacha section of this book and I asked him. I said, rabbi, when do you have time? I know he doesn't have a minute of spare time. So he said when he was traveling from Yeshiva to his home. It was an eight minute bus ride. On that bus ride, every day he wrote one halacha, one page every day. That was the only time he had to write. That's maximizing your time On the bus. He wrote a book. So that's you know the source of where these halakhahs are coming from. But it's a lesson a day. It's published by Art Scroll. I highly highly recommend it. I hope I answered your question, miriam. You have another question.

09:56 - Marilyn (Guest)
Today's war, the way I understand it, is that if a person is evil, then it is appropriate to stand up for yourself and speak out.

10:07 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Yeah. So again, we have to just be very careful and cautious that the person is indeed evil, not someone who we just don't like their politics, or not someone who we just don't like their opinion, or someone we don't like their style, or the person they married, or the background or their religious affiliation or their. You know, that's our own personal perspective that we shouldn't be throwing on our judgment. A person needs to learn. There are some excellent books about proper judgment. We also have a few episodes about this in our Jewish Inspiration podcast about judging people favorably.

10:41
It's very important to understand that we only see one dimension. We don't see the full dimension of a person, and even when you know a person, you don't know the full, full, full, full, deep truth underneath the underlying cause of things. So we have to be very, very careful when we judge people. The best thing is not to judge. We shouldn't be in the business of judging people. But if you do, the Mishnah tells us don't judge your fellow until you're standing in their place. And who's standing in someone else's place? Nobody. So basically, don't judge anyone. That's a nice way of the Mishnah saying I know you want to judge, but until you're not standing in their shoes? You can't, and because you'll never be standing in their shoes, because the dynamics are never going to be exactly the same. So therefore, you can really never judge someone. That's very, very important.

11:33 - Marilyn (Guest)
These people that are harming, physically harming Jews as hate crimes.

11:40 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Right. So, again, these things should be. These are intolerable actions and they should not be tolerated. We should leave that to the authorities to handle it and to ensure that justice, hopefully is served. Each and every one of us, you know, arbiters of the truth and we decide based on what we see, on our feeds respectively. You know, is what we buy into, and we have to be very careful. We just have to be skeptical.

12:18
There's a concept in Judaism called respect but suspect. Okay, you can respect someone, but you can still suspect them. That means you don't have to go all hook line and sinker into their opinions, into going after what it is that they sell Means. Still use caution. Still use caution. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not true. Is it authentic? Is it not authentic? These are things that each person should calculate and be very cautious of. So judging the action and not the person is also a very, very big key, because sometimes people can make a mistake. They can be a good person. Who does a bad thing doesn't make them a bad person. Sometimes you have bad people who do good things. That doesn't make them a good person. So even a broken clock is sometimes right twice a day. Again, we don't know what people's intentions are, we don't know what's really going on behind the scenes, and therefore we should try to avoid at all cost judging other people. Okay, next question.

13:16 - Bruce (Guest)
Since we're studying giving one of the things that happens to me, that gets a highly negative reaction I want your opinion on. Of course, once you've given any money to any charity, they sell your name to every other charity. So I must receive 20 requests for Sudaka every day in the mail, and certain groups thank God it's small send me a letter with money in it, or they send me something that says a check for $3. Please deposit this in your account and add $5 to it. Or we're the March of Ump. Add $5 to it, or we're the March of Ump. And here you have a bunch of umps in this letter that we just gave you. Match it with such and such Infuriates me. Yeah, I put them on a list of people I will never, ever again donate money to, because they've taken money donated to them and given it out to people instead of using it for the purpose that we asked them. What is your opinion? Am I off base with this?

14:32 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
So I think like this I think it's a very valid question because, look, when people are giving money to a charity, I can tell you one thing Torch does not share any information with anybody, with any organization. We don't with any organization. We don't share email lists, we don't share mailing lists, we don't share names, we don't share contacts because I think it's you know, we have HIPAA for health privacy and we have RIPAA for rabbinic privacy, but also organizations have no right to share donor information. I don't think it's fear to share donor information. I don't think it's fear.

15:03
I have accused, after having proof of these organizations not organizations, these companies that do the online campaigns. I had proof that they were sharing donor information. I had proof from my own experience where you can tag an email and I tagged it with regarding to a specific campaign that I gave to and later on got solicitations with that tagged email and I knew right away they gave away the information. They admitted that they had an unscrupulous employee who was sharing that information that they did admit, and then they even went on to say that oh, there was someone in India who's doing some something called scraping, where they were getting email addresses and they were sharing it. I'm like I appreciate that you've said you know. It's like you've admitted somewhat and then they said you know what, but you have no right to tell us whatever whatever. Admitted somewhat, and then they said you know what, but you have no right to tell us whatever, whatever. And when people solicit through that institution, I tell them I'm sorry, I don't give through that platform. I don't give through that platform because they're untrustworthy. And I ask because I know we do a campaign online every year and we're deeply grateful to our donors. I would be beside myself if one of our donors' information was compromised and given to other organizations. It's unfair, it's not appropriate. There's no reason that someone who gives to Torch should be solicited by 45 other organizations because they were charitable to us. It's unfair, it's inappropriate and it's probably theft. It's probably theft for them to share that information. So I don't. Again, I'm not casting judgment here and I'm not going to share who that organization, what that company is that does that online campaigning, but it's one that I do not. When people call me and sometimes my friends and they say, can you help me with my campaign, I say yes, but because you're using this platform, I cannot give through this platform and I'll give you privately, but I cannot give through the platform, and to me it's very important that there be a certain level of sincerity, certain level of sincerity, of truthfulness, when people are doing their business In general.

17:29
Just as a side note, this reminds me of a story when my father was working in a company. This is many, many, many, many years ago. It was probably 40 years ago, maybe a little bit less. He started his own company and he hired somebody to work for him a young guy, first job. After his first day at work, my father asked him Nuul, let's go, let's review your day, and he told him some of the things that he was doing. He said to my father my father's like what do you mean? What do you mean? You're saying this and doing that? What do you mean you're? He said what do you mean? It's business. For business, you can do whatever you want. He said take your bags and get out of here. Business doesn't give you a right to lie. Business doesn't give you a right to cheat. Business doesn't give you a right to steal. Take your bags and get out.

18:15
I will tell you another story of my father. My father worked for a company. Prior to that story, he worked for a company for several years. For a company. Prior to that story, he worked for a company for several years and his last day on the job he goes to his boss, knocks on the door and he says I need to ask you for forgiveness. He says okay, how much money did you steal? Now See, he says no. He says in the process of my job I may have taken a phone call from my wife while I was on the job. I may have by mistake taken a pencil from the office while I was working and it may have gone into my briefcase. I want forgiveness that if I've done anything, he says ah, that's no problem. That's no problem. I thought you stole actual money, right? Yeah, a pencil, a pen, but that's theft too. That's theft too. And a person needs to be weary and a person needs to be concerned that it is truthful, that it was earned properly and not through any type of unscrupulous activity.

19:24
All right, so the actual giving out money, giving out money again, it could be that they're seeing it from a perspective of I've gotten one of those also and they send you, send you a pre-labeled envelope, a pre-stamped envelope, so that you send back and that you feel bad, oh, they already spent the money for the pre-stamped envelope. I should send them back a donation. So some people use it as a marketing ploy. Right, that's our marketing. People spend money. Sometimes you can get a gift in the right, an actual gift. They're giving you something so like, okay, I'll pay for that, like I'll give a donation for that. Well, that's also costing them money. Is it fear for them to use that? So I would say like this as a marketing ploy. That's their prerogative. They could use charity money to raise other money.

20:10
The problem is, I think it's distasteful. Personally, I think it's distasteful and I don't want to give money to the organization. Right, look, every organization you give to spends money to some degree on marketing and advertising. Is that a good spending of money? Well, sometimes, yeah. So this organization thinks that sending you that $3 is a good spending of money as well, because you're going to look at it, you're going to say, wow, there's $3 here. At least I'll send them $3 back. Right, at least I'll do that. Okay, maybe I'll send them another $5. They're using it as a marketing ploy, so it's no different in a way.

20:53
But again, I think it's distasteful. Right, because I want people, because I'll tell you our principle here in Torch you can go to donatetorchweborg and donate to your heart's content. We will never say no. Thank you very much in advance. But I don't like when people give out of guilt. I only want people to give out of a full and complete heart. And if someone doesn't give with a passion, with a love, because they appreciate what we're doing, then they should give to another organization, to us. People give because they love. 100% of the money that people give to Torch is because they're crazy about this organization and they want to see us succeed. So then it's just, it has a different feel to it Because it's a giving of love and that's. You know, I don't like when people give out of guilt. Don't give out of guilt. There's a blessing that needs to come with money.

21:50 - Bruce (Guest)
So yeah, so if you get all this stuff in the mail all these commercial, you know these companies that send and they have little things inside cards, nickels, you know, tote bags Is it awful to throw it out, throw the whole thing out.

22:06 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Again, every person has to make their own judgment. You don't have to give to anyone. You don't have to give. That's your decision. Hashem gives you money and says you be the decider of who to give to. It's your decision. When we talk about the laws of charity, you don't have to give to anyone. It's your decision who, what, where, when and how much you give. Okay, so again, these are all things that each individual needs to make the decision of how they want to give their charity. All right, next question Eric.

22:39 - Eric (Guest)
It's a wisdom today. Shkoyach, yes, I like how you mentioned earlier about you talked about, you know humility and shame when it comes to hand-me-downs with clothing and things that people receive. I think the biggest hand-me-down that the Jewish people ever got was the Torah. We should never be ashamed of that. But my question, a quick question for you, rabbi, is regarding what's going on in Israel between obviously multi-front war between Iran and Israel and everything going on. It's hard to not pay attention to what's going on, even when you try to avoid the news. It's hard to not pay attention to what's going on even when you try to avoid the news. Every morning I say Shema and I've also been saying Psalm 23 every morning to myself. In your rabbinic opinion and your expertise, what would you say is the best Psalm to say to yourself every morning or what would you say is a good we said this morning Psalm 100, mizmol et Oda, a psalm of thanksgiving, give thanks to Hashem.

23:40 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
It's part of our psuket azim, or part of our verses of praise that we recite every morning as an introduction to our blessings prior to the Shema. Psalm 100 is very, very powerful in really connecting us with the gifts that Hashem bestows upon us every day. To give thanks, to give thanks, to give thanks as much as we can, to recognize that we live by the miracles that Hashem places in front of us every single day. Today we did this at the opening of our class. We actually recited Psalm 100. We recited a special blessing of HaTov HaMetiv, thanking Hashem for the goodness and the kindness that he has placed within us, and everything that we can do to talk to Hashem and to thank Him is unbelievable.

24:30
And, by the way, you don't need to use words of Psalms and you don't need to use words from the prayer book. Use words from your heart. Eiza hui, avodah, shebelev zoit. Words of Psalms. And you don't need to use words from the prayer book. Use words from your heart. If you want to know what prayer is, it's speaking from the heart. And if the way of conveying it through Psalms doesn't do it. Use your own words Hashem loves them, understands them and appreciates them. It's the closest. It brings us closer to the Almighty. So, eric, keep it up, keep on saying those prayers, because those prayers make a huge difference. And you're right, the hand-me-down of the Torah is the best in the world.

25:07 - Eric (Guest)
So I know that I'm supposed to concentrate, but what other insight does the rabbi have on what am I supposed to think when I say poteach et yatech?

25:18 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
Okay, so very interesting. Just last week in one of my classes not here at the Torch Center I pointed out that right before the verse in the asherah, asherah is Psalm 145, which we recite three times a day, twice in shachas, once in the beginning, once at the end of Shachar, in the morning prayer and the beginning of the afternoon prayer. So we say, right before the verse of Pateach, we're going to explain what that verse is. We say the eyes of all look to you with hope and you give them their food. The eyes of all look to you with hope, ve'atan, noten, lehemet, achlam bi'ito, and you give them their food in its proper time.

26:03
Reb Nachman says that this is the most important verse in the entire ashray. This we ono poteh et yadecha is the next verse, which is you open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. Oh, we're realizing that we don't have anything. Look, our hands are open. What can we hold? You can hold a little bit of sand in your hand. What do we have? Everything falls right through. Try to hold some water in your hand. How much are you going to keep in your hand? Very little, it'll fall right through. It'll fall right through, it'll seep right through. So really, we're not able to do anything on our own. Everything is from the hand of Hashem. That's what the second verse is. But the first verse tells us something amazing. The eyes of all look to you with hope. We look to Hashem with hope. Who's going to give us our lunch today, hashem? Who's going to give us our breakfast tomorrow, hashem? Who's going to give us our lunch today, hashem? Who's going to give us our breakfast tomorrow, hashem? Who's going to give us our dinner on Thursday night? Hashem? And you give them their food in its proper time. Our sages tell us. Why does it say? Why, in its proper time? That's the essence of bitachon, the essence of what it means to trust in Hashem. What does it mean to trust in Hashem?

27:26
Are you stressed out about what's going to be next month, next month, on Thursday for dinner? No, I worry about next month, next month. So why do people get stressed out? What's about last month for dinner? Did you? I'll worry about next month, next month? So why do people get stressed out? What's about last month for dinner? Did you know what was going to happen? No, but you ate dinner, meaning the idea that we don't have control is what bothers us? Shem says I got you covered. Be ito, in the right time, you will be fed. People are like oh, what's going to be in six years from now? What are you worried about six years from now? What are you worried about tomorrow? Be ito right now.

28:05
Hashem will take care of you, and Hashem always does. The fact that you are here today means that Hashem took care of you a million times already, that every time you needed a meal, he took care of it, and every time you needed to go someplace, he helped you with the ride you needed. He helped you with the car that was going to get you there. He helped you with all of the dimensions of your pursuit. You open your hands and you say I know I have porous hands of your pursuit. Potach et yadecha. You open your hands and you say I know I have porous hands. Look at these hands. I can't hold anything. I'm going to take pride like I did something, but that's why the Sephardic, they open their hands like this. They say potach et yadecha. God, you're opening your hands to give us, but we're opening up our hands to show that we cannot do anything. We need your help. Everything is your hands, from the hand of Hashem. Hashem, we realize we cannot do anything ourselves. And to stop and to recognize Hashem gives each and every person. And to stop and to recognize Potach et yadecha o mezbih al chol chay ratzon. Hashem gives each and every person, every living creature. He satisfies their desire. The lion has what to eat, the bird has what to eat, the little worm has what to eat, the little lice, which is teeny, teeny, teeny, microscopic, has what to eat, and even the largest of human beings has what to eat. Hashem takes care of his creations. And and a person has to let go. Every day, when we pray, we should feel confident, we should feel calm, we should feel relaxed, we should feel mindfulness, presence of mind, zen, whatever you want to call it that. You know that Hashem is taking care of you. That's what it's all about. It's letting go. And the more we're able to call it that, you know that Hashem is taking care of you. That's what it's all about. It's letting go. And the more we're able to let go, the happier we'll be.

30:27
It's impossible if someone stops and recognizes the words we recite in our beautiful prayers every day and not rush through it, not like, oh, hurry up, say each word beautifully, calmly. You know what will happen. It's impossible not to be happy, it's impossible to be stressed out and to be worried and to have anxiety. It's impossible Because I know Hashem's got me covered. I mean, look at these words and you know what. If you need to say it 10 times, say it 10 times, say it 10 times. You only you Give them their food in its proper time. What's going to be later In the proper time, you'll have it. It's such a key, such a key. We have to remember this every day, my dear friends. This concludes Ask Away number 14. Excellent question. Have a magnificent week everybody.

31:29 - Intro (Announcement)
You've been listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe on a podcast produced by TORCH, the Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. Please help sponsor an episode so we can continue to produce more quality Jewish content for our listeners around the globe. Please visit torchweb.org to donate and partner with us on this incredible endeavor.