Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Thinking Talmudist Podcast.

All right, welcome back everybody. Good afternoon. It is so wonderful to be here. Thinking Talmudist Podcast. A new piece of Talmud. Tractate Barachot 32b. A story. An amazing story. The idea of Prayer is something which is so fundamental in Judaism. The idea of prayer that we're talking to God. I actually had a long conversation last night in my Hebrew class
where we talked about, we ended up getting into the conversation of prayer and the topic of prayer and the whole conversation went into understanding the most important part of prayer Da'lefnei Me'at Ahmed. Know before whom you are standing. You're talking to God, creator of heaven and earth. You're talking to God. The only thing that should be present in your mind. That's it. I'm standing in front of the Almighty Creator of heaven and earth and I'm talking directly to God.
Don't worry about the sitter as much. Don't worry. By the way, there's a biblical commandment to pray. But rabbi, and this is what they asked me last night, but didn't the men of the Great Assembly structure the prayer? I'm like, yes, they gave us a framework through which we can pray and we can elaborate on that prayer as well. In fact, the halacha says that the most important part of prayer is the prayer that we speak from our heart.
Yes, it's important to read the words so that we don't leave out things that we have everything included in our prayers. But along with that, or even more than that, is our personal prayers. So when you're talking about health, you're talking about refuah Hashem, heal us, and then you add in your own personal prayer. I have this person and I have that person and this person is having a surgery and that person is having an issue.
This, whatever it is, and you add that personal prayer. That's the most important part of prayer. So now the Talmud begins here on the bottom of 32b in Tractate Barachot, and here we go. A story. HaMispa'on, someone who's praying and sees v'ra Anos Bacchaneg, the one who is praying and observes a ruffian coming towards him, ra Korim Bacchaneg, that he observes a wagon coming towards him, lo yehe mafsik ele mikatzer ve'ole. He should not interrupt his prayer, but rather he should shorten it and depart.
Okay, so now the Gemara said, this is a Gemara's question, because the Talmud previously said that you don't interrupt for a Jewish king, but you do interrupt for a non-Jewish king. So over here, it says that you should shorten your prayer. It's not so difficult. It's not a contradiction. Ho de'ev shel ekatzi ekatzi, where he is able and it's possible for him to shorten his prayer, he should shorten it. Ve'im lav, posek, but if he's not able to shorten it, the situation addressed by Rav Yosef,
he should interrupt his prayer and just, why? Because they're gonna kill him. So here we go. We go to our Talmud here, and we're gonna hear an amazing story. Tona Rabbonan, we learned in Ebraiso, Ma'i sebechosid echot shei mispa'ol b'derech, there was a righteous person, a pious man, who was praying while he was on the road. So he was on his donkey. He sees, oh, the sun is setting. I have to pray the mincha prayer. He pulls his horse over to the side, and
he says it's time to pray. He starts praying. Okay. Bo asar echot ve'nosan lo shalom, b'lo he yachzir lo shalom. A certain general came on that road and extended a greeting to him, but he did not return the greeting. He im'tim lo at'shasim tefilot, so the general waited for him until he completed his prayer. La'achas y'sim tefilot, so omar lo, after he completed his prayer, the general said to him, Reikah, boar, dummy, what's wrong with you? Ve'halo kosi v'sorashim raki shamo locha u'shmo nafshicha.
Does it not say in your Torah, only beware for yourself and beware for your soul? And it says, uksiv v'nishmartimot lo nafshasichim, and it says further, but you shall greatly beware for your soul. The Torah commands you to protect your life. Kishon asati lecha shalom, lama lo achzart li shalom, when I gave you a greeting, why didn't you return the greeting? You want me to kill you? The general says here, I could kill you. Oh you pious man, you're
you're just standing there ignoring me. I could kill you. Isn't that against your Torah? That your Torah says you should protect your life? And here you are not protecting your life. See he says, im hoyisi chotech roshcha b'saif, miya tevez damcha miyadi. The general says, were I to cut your head off with a sword, who would demand satisfaction for your blood for me? Meaning who would hold me accountable? I'm a general, I can do whatever I want.
Omar lo, the pious man, said to him, hamtein li at sheh fayesh kha b'dvorim, he says, before you take out your sword and you kill me, let me appease you with with my words. Meaning give me a chance to defend myself. Omar lo, continuing, the pious man said to him, ilu hoyisa omed lefnei melech basa v'dom, ubo chavei chovenosin lecha shalom, hoyisa ma achzir lo, he says, had you been standing before me had you been standing before a king of flesh and blood
and your friend walks over to you while you're talking to your king of flesh and blood, your friend walks over to you and says, hey, how you doing general? How's everything? Would you respond? Omar lo, love, I wouldn't respond. Vim hoyisa ma achzir lo, ma hayu osim lech? And if you would respond to your friend and respond, hey, how are you? And then continue speaking to the king, what would he do to you?
Omar lo, hayu chayit chim esrey shi b'saif, in a moment, in an instant, they would cut my head off with a sword, said the general. Omar lo, the man said to him, v'halo dvorim kalvach omer, this matter does not stand to reason, why? Umo ato, shahoyisa omed lefnei melech basa v'dom, shahayom kano mocha ba kever kach, he says, you, what do you say regarding, if you were standing in front of a king of flesh and blood, who today is alive, tomorrow he's in the grave,
that what would he do to you if you were speaking to him and you interrupted to say hello to somebody else? He would kill you. He says, Ani, shahayisi omed lefnei melech malchei hamlochim ha'kodesh barochu, sheh chayom, shehu chay v'chayim la'adu la'omei olom ha'achas v'kama v'kama, he says, I, who I was standing before the king of kings, the Holy One, blessed is He, who lives and endures forever and ever, how much more so? Miyad nispayis oso asar v'niftar oso chasid lebey salo shalom.
Immediately the general was appeased and the pious man departed to his home in peace. This is the story. So I ask you, my dear friend, there's a couple of things. Number one, did this pious man even notice that there was a general there? Did he even notice? Number two, why doesn't it say who this man was? It says the pious, it was a pious man. It doesn't say who. It doesn't say who. We know in our Talmud study, everything is source, right?
We know everything exactly who it was, where it was, when it was. We have all the different opinions of who it might have been. Here it says a pious man. So it's something which we need to consider. The first part, okay, about whether or not he did see or didn't see, we have to understand here the Talmud begins. The idea of prayer is one that we need to recognize. We mentioned this before we went live online. We need to recognize that we're talking to God.
We're talking to God. And when we're talking to God, there's no interruptions. I'll give you an example. Yesterday, I arrived at synagogue. I came a little bit late, and I see everyone's walking out. So I'm like, I'm puzzled. I'm like, what's going on? Like, are they finished already? I usually get, you know, at least if I'm late, I'll get the last few minutes. I'll get, you know, I'll come in the middle. Sometimes they're still waiting for a tenth man, so I'm there at the beginning.
But here they're walking out. I asked them, what's going on? They said, oh, we didn't have a minion. I said, what number would I have been? They said, you would have been number nine. But it's already too late, so, you know, okay. So I go inside, and there's nobody there. There's nobody there. Everyone had left. So I pray my mincha prayer. I pray my mincha prayer, and it's silent in the synagogue. And I'm like, there's no rush. There's no rush.
And I pray slowly every word, thinking about each word, having intention, having focus. And it was a very, very refreshing, pleasant prayer. Why? Yeah, it was solitude with Hashem. It was just me and Hashem talking. Conversation. And there's no interruption. And what I realized was that this level of concentration that I was able to have when nobody was there is the concentration that we should learn, at least myself, should train myself to have when there is people there. You know, there's some thought.
I'll tell you an interesting thing. So I was once at a conference, and there was a rabbi there who was speaking at the conference. It was a weekend. It was a rabbi there. When he was speaking, he said, please, before I speak, because it was a big, big room filled with people. On Shabbos, we're not using microphones. So they had the podium for the speaker was right in the middle of the room. It was a big auditorium.
And like this, he has to project his voice and talk in all directions. So he asked if all children can leave. Take all the children out of the room. Right? Babies. That way they shouldn't cry while he's speaking. And then it's going to interrupt because you're not going to be able to hear. It's going to be a... So he asked. He says, I'm waiting if everyone can take their kids out. A little odd. OK.
Later on that afternoon, later on that afternoon, there was another speaker. And he made a big announcement when he started his class, his lecture, also Shabbos afternoon, no microphone. And he's going to have to project his voice. He said, anybody who has any babies, please bring them in. It was like it was to show the previous speaker. He said, we're here talking about the future of the Jewish people. And we're kicking the future out of the room? What are we doing? We're talking about the future.
We're talking about Jewish education. We're talking about Jewish community. We're talking about the future. And we're going to kick the future out of the room? It doesn't make any sense. He's bringing the future back in. And then he set an example. He says, you're in synagogue. And sometimes kids run around in synagogue. They're running up and down the aisles. And sometimes some of the older people lose their patience. Like, shh, shh. They quiet them. Get them out of the room. Go.
You can play outside. Don't play inside. He says, never kick the children out of the synagogue. They're the future. It's a matter of time when we're not going to be here and they'll be here. You're going to kick them out now? You're going to kick out the future? Don't kick the children out. But what I'm trying to get to is like this. Is that sometimes you're in a synagogue and there's noise. The noise can be from the repetition of the chazan.
The noise can be from the person sitting next to you saying out the words all loud. And it's like you're losing your concentration. It can be many things. Or they're singing the tune of the congregation. You're trying to concentrate on the words. A person needs to create a little bubble. A little bubble. You and God. You're talking together with the minion. Together with the quorum of adults who are praying together. But you have to create your bubble.
Your bubble of conversation with God which is uninterrupted. Uninterrupted. Okay. So now. To be at the level where you don't even realize that there's a general standing there with a sword who's ready to kill you. That's a level of conversation. Almost like the Talmud previously here in Brachot said that one of the sages, you would put him in one corner of the room and he would end up in the other corner of the room.
By the time he was finished the Amidah, he'd be on the other side of the room. He was so immersed in his conversation. He didn't even realize he was in a spiritual trance that he lost the physical command. He didn't even realize. I'll tell you. My great uncle. And my sandik. And the, I guess they call it a godfather. The one who held me by my bris. My great uncle. Actually it's my grandmother's yahrzeit today.
So we're going to dedicate today's class to her memory. And Hashem should have an aliyah. So her name is Rivka Bas Avrom Hashem Yinkum Domo. Hashem should avenge his blood. My great grandfather was murdered by the Nazis. And actually he was taken. He was in the covenant ghetto. He was the rabbi of the community. He was the head of the yeshiva. And he was also handicapped. He couldn't walk. So they said, oh, the merciful Germans, right?
Said, oh, you're not, come, we're going to take you to the hospital. And then they quickly burnt the hospital down. So he doesn't have a burial place that we can go visit. He was burnt to a crisp. So there's very sad, tragic. But he left, he had 11 children, of which I think four survived. Four survived the Holocaust. One boy and three girls. And my grandmother was one of them. A very, very, very special lady. And she actually wrote a book.
It's possible that you can find it online. It's called Faith in the Night. And it's about the Holocaust. And when she heard that there were people who were denying the Holocaust, she sat down and started writing her book. She wrote it in Hebrew. It was later translated to English. It was published by, I think, maybe Israel Press, Israel Bookshop, or maybe it was Feldheim. I'm not exactly sure who published it in English. But really, really remarkable story of love and dedication to Hashem
in the most extreme circumstances. So my sandik was a very, very special man, a very, very holy man. And he would daven, he would pray with such intensity that he would forget about time. I'm not kidding you. So Shabbos afternoon, you would come to shul with him. And we'd pray the mincha prayer. And then we'd go home and eat the third meal, suda shlishit, the third meal on Shabbat. And you'd come back from Ma'arev and he was still standing there
praying the mincha, having the most animated conversation with God. Imagine, I imagine when I think of this story, I imagine him standing there, just like conversing with Hashem, talking with Hashem. It's the most delightful thing. My grandfather says that he would always, my grandfather would always pray mincha at the earliest possible time. He wouldn't pray. As many people wait to the end of the day and they daven mincha, then you have sunset and you daven Ma'arev. He would daven mincha.
Mincha you can start from a half hour after midday. That's when you can start mincha. That's when it's called mincha gdola. That's the prime time to pray mincha. My grandfather would pray mincha. Why? He says, I can't wait so long to talk to God. I'm going to wait until the nighttime. In the summer it could be seven hours later. I'm going to wait another seven hours to talk to God. I can't wait. I can't wait. I need to have that conversation with God.
The concept of having such conversation with God should not be limited to the time of prayers. It should not be limited to synagogue. You can do that when you're running your errands. You can do that when you're standing on line at the bank. You can do that when you're in the car. You can do that when you are traveling. You're on a plane. You can do that wherever. Oh, thank you very much. Eliana is sharing here online that you can find the book on Amazon.
Okay, so Faith in the Night by Rivka Walby, my grandmother. She was a person of amazing imuna. I want to share with you a few little things. First is her mother passed away when she was a young child, and she helped raise the rest of the children. She said that her father said they should always have fresh bread in the house. When the Germans were coming, people got word the Germans were coming. He said leave fresh bread on the table for them. Why?
Because they'll see the fresh bread, they're going to sit down and eat, and they'll forget about looking for you, searching the house. Indeed, my grandmother hid in the pantry. On the top shelf they hid there, and they saw the German soldiers sitting at their kitchen table eating bread. Then they finished their bread and they left. It saved her life. She also said, I asked her, what was the atmosphere in the house? My great-grandfather focused a great deal. This was my great-grandfather's book.
His name was Avraham. This is the Torah of Avraham, and this was his book. This was one of many, many books, but there's only two books that were actually found. They found the manuscript after the war. Most of them were gone. I'm sure if we go to Slabotka or to Kovno and we dig up the soil, we'll find the manuscripts. But here he dedicates the whole book to the greatness of man, how great a human being is.
Most of us don't even realize how great our potential is. A doctor does this all the time with his patients, right? People give up on themselves. They don't realize how special they are. They don't realize how capable they are. They don't realize their uniqueness, their talents, their skills. Their abilities, the gifts that God has given, has bestowed within them. If someone was just empowered by their parents, I think primarily the parents are the ones who need to empower their children
and to tell them how great they are. I listened yesterday to a podcast where a person who is high-level autistic, he wrote a book about his experience. And he said that his father made him a great, he became an author, and he speaks beautifully. And his father, he says his father loved him so much and cared about him so much, and his father was able to find a way to get him to overcome his challenge. It doesn't mean that he doesn't have it.
He said there were times that people talked to him, and he's completely in a different, he's so focused on something, he would totally lose sight of anybody who was around, and he would only later realize, one second, someone was talking to me, and I was completely not there. But he said his father taught him and gave him the skills and abilities, and his father believed in him, that he was capable of doing great things.
If we believe in ourselves and how great we can be and how great we are, the sky is the limit. The sky is the limit. And it's sometimes, you know, sometimes the challenge of children is that their parents don't believe in them. I met an individual, I know an individual, I asked him about his children, and he said, ah, they're a bunch of losers. You know what? They are. Because that's what you told him, they are.
Imagine he had flipped the script, and he would have said, you're great. You're so capable. You're so talented. You know what would have happened? They would have been so great, and they would have been so talented, and they would have been so capable. The things that we say, the things that we hear, are reaffirmed in our psyche. Doctor, you want to talk about this a little bit? One second, let's get the microphone here. Alice Lokahana has a daughter who is compromised, Down syndrome.
But she only referred to her as my beautiful Rena. That was like her name, my beautiful. It wasn't separate from her. And that gave her a certain sense of purpose, and she has gone on to live her life after Alice has passed away, and she has that sense of presence. And just another part of the story, when she was younger with this intellectual compromise at that time, somebody who was a professional said, she will never learn to read.
My wife took her on, my wife's a PhD in that area, took her on as a MISRA project, and I want you to know, she learned to read, and that, again, enhanced her internalized self-image. And it was just a beautiful result from people doing what you were saying to imbue a certain kind of mental image. You can do it, and you will do it, and we're here to help you. So what's the, you're a world-renowned psychiatrist.
You've argued cases in front of the Supreme Court, I believe, right? Not the Supreme Court. So which court? We've had federal court, civil court, criminal. All right, so big stuff. Yes. Big stuff. What is really going on when someone is being told that they are great, that they are capable? When they hear that from a reliable source, someone they trust, they love, they believe in, it enhances their self-image. It gives them more motivation to do more and to achieve more,
and actually to reach out to others. It improves their entire category of socialization. Amazing. You heard it here from the source. So I'll just tell you that I've seen this with parenting, both with my children. I've seen it with other parents who I've talked to about issues like this that they were having with their children, one type of challenge or another type of challenge. And I said, even if they do something wrong, find something right that you can. Don't hit them on what they did wrong.
Compliment them on what they did right because everybody loves positivity. And when they hear the positivity, they want to do more so that they get more positive. They did this challenge on animals. They took a group of animals and they told them bad dog, bad dog, or they told them good dog. And the good dogs continued to repeat the good actions, and the bad dog continued to repeat the bad actions. When we infuse ourselves and our children with the positivity,
don't say, oh, I'm getting so fat. People knock themselves. I go to the gym and it doesn't help. So you keep on depressing your motivation. But you say, you know what? Today was a great day. It's going to be better tomorrow. You give a hopeful message to yourself. It's transformative and it changes you. So my grandmother said that in her house, their only focus was greatness. There was nothing small in their life. You're so great. I'll give you an example.
She said sometimes, you know, children, they have these little small fights. You know, you took my brush. You took my this. Why do you have my headband? Why do you have my this? She said there was no such thing in their house. You're so great. You're so much greater than just, like, sometimes people become very small. And I see this in marriages. I see this. I was dealing recently with a couple. And the small things that cause the fight.
It's like you almost say, like, why don't you guys just, like, stop fighting for a few minutes so you can work this out? Like, you know, it's like, no, no, no. We have to. Everyone's so right and everyone is so, you know. There is a great quote that I need to quote from Rabbi Notta Greenblatt. Rabbi Notta Greenblatt was a master scholar, master Talmud Chacham. He was also one of the few people who really knew the laws of Gitten, of divorce documents,
Jewish divorce documents, in the most accurate, most perfect way. So there was once a couple that were getting divorced. And they're sitting in front of him and they're fighting. See, he says, if you guys want to continue fighting, just stay married. You know, like that. But the truth is, it's tragic. It's tragic. Why? Because, like, I was talking to someone called me this week. And they said they're looking for a divorce attorney. Do I have anyone that I can recommend?
So it was someone, a family member of theirs. I said, look, I'll make a few phone calls and I'll find someone who's reliable, who's reputable. Okay. So I called a friend of mine. And I said, do you have someone that you can recommend? See, he said, you know, why don't you just tell them, tell the people who are getting divorced, it's not worth hiring an attorney. They should just put their fight aside. And they should just negotiate and work things through.
And come up with an amicable solution of dividing the property and dividing the this. I said, if they can be peaceful, they'd stay married. You know, the idea here, and I'm a firm believer in this, you can make the relationship work. It's going to take a lot of hard work. You can make the relationship work. Now, there are certain times where the Torah says that you should get divorced. Okay. So there are times.
But today, I find that today we're a lazy generation because everything is fast food. Everything is quick. Everything is on our schedule. And I find that many young people, instead of investing in their relationship and having a magical marriage, they are looking for a quick fix. And they don't find a quick fix because in everything else in life, they find a quick fix. I have a problem with my car, trade it in, buy a new one. Right? Everything is fast food.
You know what fast food is? Everything is disposable. You buy plates, everything's disposable. You buy tablecloths, disposable. Everything's disposable. If my wife looks at me the wrong way, disposable. Right? Start it all over again. Get someone else a fresh face. Get a new hair and makeup. No. This is not. We can work on it and make it a magical relationship. And the problem is that we're not talking about, you know, that divorce is always, you know, a terrible thing.
Sometimes it's inevitable. There's nothing you can do. There was an interview that I saw recently where someone was praising. He grew up in a divorced home and he was praising that his parents were at such peace with one another and they didn't fight and they didn't, you know. Like, so why didn't they stay married? You know, make it work. If you're so committed for your children not to have divorced parents, then don't be divorced. Right? Okay.
Now, again, this is not, I hear a criticism because I'm going to have 50% of the United States yelling at me. What's wrong with you? Right? Okay. No. But the idea is that if we realize our greatness and if we realize the greatness of others around us, including our spouse, including our children, mainly ourselves, we realize, you know what? I can do better. I can be on a greater level. I can elevate this relationship.
And I told this young man I was talking to yesterday, I said to him, okay, so you guys get into an argument. And, you know, I'm not going to give the details, but he said, what would it hurt you if you didn't give that response and you didn't give that snarky remark and if you didn't give that jab? Because I find that the words, the words are so hurtful. The name calling is irreparable. And then how do you fix this? You called me those names, but you didn't mean it.
And you said these things, but you didn't mean it. A person has to think so carefully. Relationship is fragile unless we invest in the greatness of the relationship. Just because you get married doesn't mean you should stop dating your wife. Date your wife. Continue dating and continue having the romance of dating, you know, and you buy special things and you treat each other right. That shouldn't stop once you get married. Keep it fresh. I'll share with you one piece here.
Again, this is in memory of my grandmother who was just an angel of a woman. She was like a true Eshes Chayil. She was a true, a special woman. I remember, to me, when I walked into my grandparents' home, I would hear my grandmother's voice always. She was always praying. She was holding a tehillim. She was holding a psalms. She was holding a prayer book, praying shachras, praying mincha, whatever it was. You would hear she would be sitting in the kitchen and she would be davening.
She wouldn't know that you walked in. She was focused. She was completely consumed in her conversation with God. It was an amazing thing. So, I firmly believe that there is no woman in the world, and I'm saying this as if I'm the originator of this thought. I'm not. Our sages tell us this. A woman wants to please her husband. Every woman who's married wants to please her husband. That's her ultimate goal. She wants to please her husband.
So, a woman will do things so that her husband will be happy. And the biggest challenge that men have is they are self-consumed and they don't notice the things. They don't pay attention. They don't open their eyes. They don't see that there's a new plant. There's a new picture that she... They don't even notice she's wearing a beautiful dress. Don't pay attention. The number one, my grandfather writes this in his guide to young married men, to grooms. Pay attention. Pay attention.
Notice she did something different with her hair. She did something different with her clothes. She's wearing different shoes. She's wearing different shoes. Notice it. I've seen this numerous times. I'm not going to say that I was guilty of this. My wife comes over. She says, what's different? I'm like, I have no idea what's different. I have no idea. Is this a, you know... You don't notice? You don't see what's different? I'm like, it's like, you don't see the earrings are different?
I'm like, I wouldn't know what you wore. Notice. Pay attention. Pay attention. She's doing... Now, so what happens when I have a couple come here and sit and say, after 20 years, after 30 years, we're two singles living under the same roof? So I grab the husband, pull him aside, and I say to him, do you notice what your wife does for you? I mean, what? Everything is good. Like what?
It's like the couple who goes for therapy, and the wife says, he doesn't love me anymore. So he's like, what do you mean he doesn't love you? Yeah, he doesn't tell me he loves me. So the therapist turns to the husband and says, is that true that you don't say that you love me? When we got married 15 years ago, I told her I love her, and if anything changes, I'll let her know. Right? That doesn't work like that.
You have to constantly renew and refresh and re-energize the relationship every day. Every day. We have to say a hundred blessings a day so that we don't become stale in the gifts that Hashem gives us. If we recite a hundred blessings a day, that would be equivalent to giving thanks to Hashem every seven minutes. Because it takes that much time to forget how blessed you are. Another blessing. And another blessing. And to re-instill within ourselves every single day. In marriage, women forget.
They don't forget anything you say except for what you say, I love you. That they forget. You have to remind them. I love you. I love you. I love you. Nonstop. Now you can enhance that I love you with many other things. And it's important. I have two great books, two fabulous books that I recommend to all couples, young and old. Number one is Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus.
Exceptional book teaching and guiding men particularly and women the different languages that we speak. We speak different languages. We use the same words, different language. And really an amazing book written by John Gray. The second book written by Gary Chapman is The Five Love Languages. And it is a fabulous book. I believe that every single home should have these two books in the bathroom. Read it. Study it. Learn it. It is a gift to a marriage, to a relationship to have these books.
Because we all speak different languages but then we also communicate with different things. What conveys love? Gary Chapman in his book brilliantly delineates five different languages, primary languages. One is some people like to get gifts. When they receive a gift they feel like they're loved. One person likes to get words of affirmation. You're so good. You're so special. Thank you for cleaning the dishes so nicely. That's to me. I do the dishes, right? So words of affirmation. Thank you for delicious dinner.
Thank you for buying me this beautiful jacket. Whatever it is. Words of affirmation. You look so good today. Now, another one is acts of service. Another one is physical touch. Was I missing the fifth one? I don't remember the fifth one. But either way, there are... What? Time. The other one is time. Right? And every person needs to know. It doesn't mean they're 100% of any of those languages. But they'll be the majority. There's one that's dominating.
There are some people who need to have... If you don't spend time with them, you don't love them. That's the way they interpret love. It's by spending time. Now, you can go to the doctor to figure out why a person has a specific need or specific tendency. But you can say, what do you mean? But I took the kids to carpool. I had a guy tell me this. I don't understand what she wants from me. I took the kids to carpool. I prepared their lunch.
I picked them up. I bathed them. I did this. And you're still not happy. What do you want from me? I said, you're just doing acts of service. But maybe that's not her language. Maybe she needs something else. And I hate when guys tell me that I go and earn a living for the family. I'm the one who provides for the family. I mean, it's a very poor argument. Very poor argument. Yes? You know, you just reminded me of something.
Part of something. A man came to me one time and he said, you know, my wife, she just really doesn't care really about me. I said, what do you mean? He says, well, if she goes to bed first, she makes a little pouch there and she crawls in there, you know. When I go to bed first, I open the covers and I open her side as well. I said, well, let me see if I understand this.
When you go to bed, I guess you just grab the whole covers, you pull it hard, the whole bed opens up. Is that what you're telling me? He said, yeah. I said, well, now when you married your wife, were you marrying a very feminine woman or some kind of a bull trainer, you know? I like a very feminine, delicate woman. I said, well, do you understand what you're seeing? When your wife goes to bed first, that's normal feminine behavior. That's a nesting type of behavior.
That's the wife you wanted. He said, I never looked that way. I thought she was selfish. She didn't open my side of the bed. I said, well, maybe you better rethink this perspective a little bit. And with that, we had progress and we went. But he had to reconsider what he was seeing and reinterpret what happened. It's all about perspective, right? Just looking at it with the right lens to see things in the proper perspective.
And I don't believe that there's any evil person out there in any relationship. If they're just a bad person and they're a bad husband or a bad wife, I don't believe that that's the case. Plus, you look at these couples and you say, one second, you guys once fell in love? How did that happen? You guys are ready to kill each other, right? You know, they're sitting here. If they only had guns, they would shoot each other, right? It's like if they had knives, they'd stab each other.
Like, what's going on? It's like this is crazy. And these people once fell in love. How is it possible? So I think also a big part of the challenge in many marriages is that people stop looking at what they can give and what they can be there for the other. They start looking at what I can take from the relationship. And now it's a self, what can I receive? What's in it for me? How can I benefit?
And if you continue to be the giver in the relationship, it will flourish. If you're looking at how you can take, the relationship is on its way down. And I think every person needs to ask that. So we were talking about my grandmother. She said in her home, it was all about focusing on the greatness. Focus on being great, not petty little things, not petty little arguments. I think this translates between children. It also translates with the adults. It also translates with the parents.
How many siblings don't talk to each other because of inheritance arguments, because of fights? And at the end of the day, who makes all that money? Lawyers, right? It's so silly. Just, okay, so you're giving over here a little bit. You're giving over there. Oh, but they're going to get more. It's like it becomes like this whole petty. Are you saying money is petty? Yes, sometimes it is. Sometimes it is. Is it worth losing a sibling over it?
Is it worth losing a child over it? We have to think about it for a second. Is this really what I'm ready to let go of everything? To be petty. That a small little thing didn't go my way. They were snarky. They didn't give my child a bar mitzvah gift. Come on. It's silly stuff. It's small things. We have to think big. We have to be great. Hashem should bless us all.
We should merit to incorporate prayer, true prayer, into our daily lives. To talk to Hashem vividly in an animated, our own way, in our own world. Open up understanding that we're talking to Hashem. The most important part. Hashem, open my lips so that I can speak your praise. So I can speak your praise. How do I open my lips? I have to remove everything else. Remove the distractions. Remove all of the other things. It says the early sages, what would they do?
They would prepare themselves for an hour before prayer. To elevate themselves, to get into a space, a head space, a frame of mind. That they were able to now talk to G-d. And then after prayer, it would take them an hour to get back to the terra firma. To get back to the earth. They were on such a high level. To get to a point where we're in a relationship with Hashem that's uninterrupted by anything. Even children crying in the synagogue. Even children making noise.
Even this guy, that guy. No shushing anybody. Just be in your world talking to G-d. Hashem should bless us all with an amazing Shabbos. Thank you so much. They took a group of people. And one group, they just tested and followed them a long time. And the other group, they're all the same intellectually by testing. The other group, they said, you really have superior intellect. You're really a cut above. They were all the same. Later on, they tested them.
The group that they praised and told them they were beyond the average, actually scored objectively much higher on all kinds of testing. It was an amazing change in how they performed for their future. Just by telling them that they... Yeah, they encouraged them like that. And, I mean, they showed it on paper. That it goes along with what you said. If you are in a family where everybody is part of greatness, it really does change their entire life and future. Interesting. Wow.
Yeah, interesting study. Just by saying that. Yeah. And they followed them over some years. It was an interesting study. So all teachers should know this. They're supposed to know this. I'm saying. Look, teachers today, I think, are a lot better than they were 50 years ago or 30 years ago. I see my children now. The teachers are so trained. They're so educated in the realm of education. They're educators. Even the young teachers, they go through a rigorous training. It's not the way it used to be. Definitely not the way it used to be.

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