Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of Torch in Houston, Texas. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast.

Welcome back everybody. Good evening. Welcome to the Mussar Masterclass. We are in middle of the gate of repentance, page 903 in the Treasure for Life edition of the Orchestr Sadikim. We are in the middle of talking about repentance and the author here has given us so much to think about, so much to contemplate. When we think about repentance, it's not just about a specific incident that I may have had with an
interaction that I may have had with a person, but rather it's far greater than that. Many, many details that we've talked about till now. And now we're towards the end of this chapter. Who knows, maybe even tonight we'll finish this chapter. Right, Lauren? And we will continue here in the middle of page 903. If a person gets into the habit of going to synagogue, but what does he do in synagogue? He meets with his friends, he
schmoozes with them, they have a few good jokes, they drink a few gin and tonics, a few lachayims, and that's not appropriate behavior for a synagogue. I've mentioned this before. One of my dearest friends, Rabbi Avraham Jacobian, has a congregation called Congregation Torba Chesed right here on South Bracewood. And one of the remarkable things that he does in his congregation is that he really reads their vibes. What they're up to, he knows
and he's able to adapt his congregation. So I was once by him for Shabbos and Friday night, right before they begin the services of Kabbalat Shabbat, where we sing and we dance, he says, okay, everybody out. Everybody go outside, we're making kiddush now. And they make a kiddush, and everyone drinks a few shots, and everyone has a little bit something to eat. And about 15-20 minutes later, he says, okay, everybody back in. And then the place was on fire. People were
davening, people were singing, everybody was just like, it was electric. So I asked him, after we were walking home, I asked him, why did you make that kiddush before Kabbalat Shabbat, before the introduction to Shabbos? He said, it's so odd. Most synagogues don't do that. He said, you have to understand, my guys, they work so hard all week. They're so excited to meet their friends Friday night. They come to shul, and you want them to daven now? They're not going to daven,
they want to schmooze with their friends. So I have a choice. Either I can fight with them, telling them to be quiet, or I can just make kiddush now. They go out, they drink, they, I'm not talking about getting drunk, but we just like, they schmooze with their friends, they catch up on how their week was. And now that they finished with that, they can come into synagogue and pray like a bench. But what happens when someone does teshuvah, they have to realize that synagogue is a
place of absolute connection with God. And a person needs to be very careful not to talk anything that is mundane conversation, just idle chatter should be left outside of the synagogue. Even not at the time of prayer, a person needs to be cautious and careful that they maintain the proper decorum, dignity that is required in the synagogue. A person should sit with awe in front of the Almighty. A person should pray with humility, and a person should pray with focus and intention.
See, he talks about other things that a person can do to elevate his experience as a person who wants to pray and talk to God. I will just tell you, I remember, I never heard this from my grandfather himself. But I heard it from one of his students. And one of his students was giving us a lecture based on my grandfather's teaching about prayer. And he said that my grandfather would say that when you say the Shema, you have to sit up, you're talking to God, and you're declaring God is the
king of the universe. You sit up, your feet are planted firmly on the ground, and you're not leaning on your chair, and you're not like, you know, leaning on your table, you're sitting straight. And when you recite the Shema, you're reciting the Shema with all of your like, like, many times when people talk about yoga, what is yoga, it's being grounded, and feeling the energy go from top to bottom, up, up, down, down, up, right, you're trying to be centered. Prayer is, is the foundation of it
all. When we pray, we need to not have our feet crossed and not sitting like we're, you know, you know, reading a paper, the the, the, the Daily News, or the Wall Street Journal, or New York Times, it we're talking to God, we're declaring that Hashem is the king of the universe, we still sit upright, like we're sitting in front of a king. G-d forbid, if someone was a thief, or if he was he was someone who took interest, which is prohibited in the Torah to charge
interest, from taking a loan from when someone takes a loan from you, yoshiv v'yivakesh v'menah mechilah, so you have to return the money, you steal, got to return it. Very simple. I have had numerous situations where, you know, small things, I'm very, very, I try to be very, very careful with money that's not mine. But even things like, I was once with my children at the restaurant at a
And, you know, sometimes people love the little candies that they give the favors that they give, or those little toothpicks, you know, so I told my children, I said, I don't think it's right to take more than one toothpick. Because if everybody takes 30 toothpicks to stock in their, in their car pocket, or in their, in their little purse, right, they're not gonna have any more toothpicks. I felt it wasn't right. I told my
children, one and only one, you take more than one, please go bring it back. But the idea that if you take something, you know, I have a very dear friend, who is, he was in prison for stealing, for stealing from the federal government. And I asked him, very recently, I said to him, did you ever get a chance to pay back your theft? So he said it's built into his annual income, is how much money goes back to the federal
government for his theft. But the Torah tells us, you steal, you return it. Fine, you were tempted, you made a mistake, there's a way to fix it. Fix it by returning it. And then you have to ask forgiveness. You have to ask forgiveness from the person that you may have stolen. He says it is appropriate for one to fast for 40 days and to ask for forgiveness and confess your sins each of those 40 days that you fast. A person should be
very careful not to take pledges. Not to borrow from your friend, not to borrow money, not to borrow anything from your fellow man. Because someone who has a tendency towards theft may come to just rationalize how they're doing a justice to the world by, you know, the big thieves out there. They were asked by psychologists, they were asked by interrogators, like, what were you thinking, holding up the bank? They said, what do you
mean? I was doing people a favor. Instead of the money just sitting there, I was going to actually do something with it. Like, you know, it's like an act of kindness here, big bal chesed, right? But your money is just sitting, I'm going to actually do something with it. I'll do good things. I'll be able to feed my family and, you know, et cetera. Either way, but people get these ideas in their mind. A person who's trying to recover from being a thief should, of course, we
said, return the money, ask forgiveness, fast, confess, don't borrow because you might be tempted to steal it. He says, but also do acts of kindness, both with your body, physically volunteering, and with your money, donating money to public causes. He says, and give to righteous scholars who are studying Hashem's Torah. And the one who takes interest, which is a biblical prohibition, if a person can ensure that in the
future, he's able to loan money, but without any interest, that would be excellent for him to do a tikkun, for him to do a repair. The idea that we have to understand here is that in Judaism, we don't hide from our flaws, from our shortcomings. We embrace those shortcomings and try to adjust them to become repaired shortcomings. So don't just say, look, I have a bad temper.
That's it. No, no, no, no. Use your bad temper for good things, to go out against evil. There's, there's things you could use it for. Don't run away from who you are. Hashem made you exactly, Mark, you hear this? Hashem made you exactly who you are, perfect. You got to take it all, the entire package, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and use it all to bring yourself closer to the Almighty.
Someone who informs, an informer, against his fellow men, and there were sadly those who did that in Nazi Germany, who informed on other Jews, and you put these people into, into disfavor with the ruling authority.
He said, so such a person who spreads a libel or something like that, and now they seize his wealth, and they virtually kill him and his wife and his children, who are dependent on him, right? So they're also, so now he wants to do teshuvah. What does he do? He says, you have to restore the man. You have to mean to restore his name, even though he wasn't killed, but he was sidelined, lost.
There's a job, you can do that. There's a reputation, hurting someone's reputation in the business world can do a tremendous amount of damage. You have to fix that reputation that you've, right? So doing teshuvah means we are taking accountability and responsibility for the things that we have done wrongly. He says, such a person, it should be a fast more than every, more than 40 days, and a person, this person should confess his sins daily for the rest of his life.
He says, such a person who informed the authorities, and now this person was taken by the FBI. Imagine that embarrassment. The FBI comes there. I know, I've said the story here. I have a friend of mine who is a banker. He worked for Wells Fargo, and one day the FBI comes in there, into the bank, arrests him. He walks out in handcuffs.
I get a phone call from his wife, and his wife says to me, you have to help him out. He's downtown in the county jail, and I went down there, and eventually, it was like two years, he was fighting this allegation, and it turned out it was the wrong guy. It turned out they just got the wrong guy.
He had a Russian name. They were looking for a Russian guy who was involved with Wells Fargo Bank, and a Russian name. It seems like this is the guy, and that was it. His reputation was gone. He's lively. He can never work in a bank again. Now that he was acquitted, and all of that, but still, who wants to hire him? Oh, the FBI was after him once. By mistake, the wrong guy. Imagine that.
So what do you do? What should the FBI do for such a case if they were a person? They have to restore this person's name in the community. They have to restore his livelihood, restore his family. How much embarrassment the wife must have experienced that her husband was taken like that from his office?
You think about that. It's devastating. Someone who has children, how are the children going to go to school the next day after the FBI knocked down their door? These are things that need to be—a lot of teshuva must be done for someone who reports on his fellow in such a way. Al kein yishborucha, a person needs to be brokenhearted for the mistake that he has performed.
Ve'im ein lo ma'a l'shalim, and if a person doesn't have what to pay back, I don't have money. I don't have a way to get your job back. I'm sorry. I beg forgiveness. I'm sorry that I did this. It was wrong. I was jealous, whatever it is. Yar be'ol avreim ve'ivakesh mimenu mechilo. He says, bring a lot of people together and ask him forgiveness publicly. Ve'itsamtzim ve'yifalo o le'yorshov, he says, and live as frugally as you can so that you can repay him and his ears if he has already passed.
Ho le'ech ro'achil, someone who speaks lashon hara'a about other people, k'yot ze'bo. Ve'eim lo refu'o ele'im ken yivakesh mimenu mechilo. He says, you go around saying negative things about other people. There's no way to heal this unless you go and ask forgiveness. Ve'yis'ane arbarim yom oyoseh. Either such a person should, he says also, fast for 40 days or even more. Ve'yilke borchol yom, ve'yis'vade kolimei chayav. And the person should confess every day of his sins.
It means, just because, you know, this is an important thing, just because you apologize and the person says, I forgive you, it doesn't mean that you have to stop apologizing. You still did damage. You still hurt them. You still caused them pain. So it could be the next Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, and you ask them again forgiveness. And the next year, Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, ask them again forgiveness. Because again, also the way in which we live our lives, the level in which we feel that regret will also grow.
And since that will grow and that will change, and we suddenly, especially if we think about what we've done, I can't believe I did that to him. I can't believe I hurt somebody like that. I can't believe I spoke about them in such a way. It's devastating. It can do terrible, terrible damage.
The person has to always continue asking forgiveness. It's, by the way, it works the other way as well. When you have appreciation for someone, you should say, I said thank you. That's enough, right? No, they helped you get your job. Thank them every time you see them.
I want to thank you. I want you to know I don't forget, right? Because how many people do we help out, and they don't remember your name when you're like, by the time you walk down the street, you got them their job, you help them meet their wife, right? You introduce them to their career, to everything. And suddenly they're like, you're Bruce who? What? Right? I don't know who you are. Right? And they forget. And appreciation has no expiration date.
I shared this before, but I reach out to my predecessor who hired me here at Torch over 20 years ago on the anniversary of my first day. Thank him every year for trusting me and believing in me, even though I don't think he did at the time. I don't think he trusted. I think he thought he made a terrible mistake. Maybe he did. I don't know.
But either way, I am deeply grateful because I think this has been the greatest journey in the world. And I love every single day of learning Torah and sharing Torah with all y'all beautiful people. So, and by the way, so after the first couple of years, he's like, why do you keep calling me? I'm like, I keep calling you because I don't think that appreciation has an expiration date. I don't think gratitude has an expiration date. You know, I feel grateful. I'm thankful. And I want to show my appreciation every year anew.
This person who went around speaking negatively about someone else has to now invest his time in bringing peace between people, bringing peace between a husband and wife. In our prayer every morning, we have, we say, it's one of the mishnas that we learn every morning, right in the opening prayers of our day. It says, to bring peace between man and his fellow. And in Nussach Sfar, they add,
and between man and his wife. The most important relationship that needs to be a solid, firm, loving, friendly, enjoyable, peaceful relationship is not between me and my neighbor. But between me and my spouse in my home. I'm sure we've all heard the phrase, kindness begins at home. That's not a phrase. That's a fact, right? Kindness, we shouldn't be busy helping out the whole world. Oh, I'm going to help out everybody.
But then my children are neglected, or then my spouse is neglected. That's irresponsible. And that's not an act of kindness. That's an act of brutality. I actually, I remember, I was once meeting with my rabbi by phone. And he said to me, so tell me about kindness. This is many years ago. He says, where should we, as good, God-fearing Jews, where should we be putting our focus on in our life, in being kind with our community?
Like, where should our number one focus be? So I said, well, I think it should be at home. I think the number one place, he says, oh, you're so lucky you gave that answer. He says, I was ready to kill you. He says, I was ready to, like, he says, if you would say your community and your synagogue and your, and your, he says, no, no, no, it always begins at home. And if you're not doing acts of kindness at home, with your wife and with your children, you have no business being Mr. Righteous out there in the world.
Okay. Ha'mak echaveiro v'tziero. Someone who hurts his friend physically, gives him, gives him a punch, you strike your fellow. Or tziero, you cause him pain, which we have learned here in this book, where he brings a verse in the Torah. Remember, remember, remember that verse? Not to cause pain to your fellow.
Lo sonu ish es amisecha. Do not cause pain. Let me ask you a question. You have a nice jab to give to your friend. Nice jab. A bunch of friends are sitting around. You have a really good zinger. You can just like, boom, give it to him. Torah says, lo sonu ish es amisecha. Don't cause your, your fellow pain, any kind of pain, any kind of pain. You're going to give them, yeah, it stings a little bit. No, no, no, no, no. You got to be so careful.
You got to be so careful not to cause pain to your friend. Bein b'mamon, bein b'manos varm. Whether it be with words, verbal abuse, or with money. Definitely not a man and his spouse and his wife, or a wife and her husband. Right? We say everything that we're talking about in the community is first, that home. A man, a husband's job is to protect his wife, not only from others.
From himself too. Not to say things that are harmful. Not to say things that are, that he'll later regret. I have been, unfortunately, I've been involved in many situations of marriages. They've come, want to talk, this and that. And I see that everything went downhill from words. From words, the things they say to each other, what in the world are people thinking? They call each other names. Why? What's going on? It's like, it does so much damage.
Ein lo kaparro, when you are verbally abusive, there's no kaparro, there's no im lo yirtzes havero, if you don't appease your friend. There's no repair, there's no tshuva. You can't go to God and say on Yom Kippur, Hashem, please forgive me. That's not going to help. If you insulted your neighbor, if you insulted your spouse, that's not going to heal when you talk to Hashem. You have to seek forgiveness from them first. And even Yom Kippur does not atone for such sins.
Only sins between man and God are forgiven on Yom Kippur. But sins between man and man, that you have to go speak to man first. You have to go speak to that other human being that you hurt. Someone raises their hand, even if they don't hit them. They just go like that. You're ready. The Talmud says such a person is considered a wicked person, a rasha. Why? Because you even considered doing such a thing. You made believe you would do such a thing. Terrible.
This is a very dangerous one. Someone who embarrasses their friend in public. Such a person has to fast, he says, 40 days or more. Such a person has to confess every day of his life. Someone who calls his friend by a nickname. Hey shorty, what's going on? You call him a nickname. Why? Talmud says that calling a nickname can have devastating effects. Devastating effects. Such a person, such a situation, someone who does call his friend by a nickname needs to ask forgiveness.
He has to ask them forgiveness publicly. And such a person, he says, you should try to find a way to confess in private because you don't want to embarrass your friend again. You know, I'm so sorry that I called you shorty, right? That wouldn't be nice either. So that you do privately. Okay. Someone who afflicts a convert. He brings here different examples of things that a person may not have realized are terrible sins. Someone who causes pain to a convert, to a widow, to an orphan, or someone who
offends their fellow. These are all things that the Torah says. Such a thing, he talks very seriously about how to attain forgiveness because it's so severe. He said he should take three rows of three people and stand in front of them and declare what your mistake was. And they will say, and you need to ask forgiveness three times. So you have three people, three rows of three. And you go to the individual and say, listen, I sinned. I did this
in front, I did this to you. I hurt you. I insulted you. I shamed you. Whatever it may be. And now, the person, if after three times of asking, the person says, I still don't forgive, then you're not required to seek their forgiveness anymore. Take 10 people to their grave and ask for forgiveness. He says, I've sinned in front of G-d, the G-d of Israel, and I insulted this person wrongfully.
He says, the first stage is you go to the person that you hurt, and you talk to them, and you tell them, I did this terrible thing to you. The person says, listen, I'm not forgiving you. Then you bring three people in front of them, and you ask in front of those three people for forgiveness. So you embarrass someone publicly. In the middle of the street, you yell and scream at the person,
the person is so embarrassed. In front of a whole bus, in front of the train, wherever you are. All right? You're in front of the, in the stadium. You punch the guy, and his beer goes flying, and everything, and his girlfriend runs away from him. You know those, you know, you've seen those videos, right? So now what do you do? This guy's, this guy's so embarrassed. What are you going to do to ask forgiveness? I'm going to ask him privately for forgiveness. You have to ask it
publicly. You embarrass them publicly. You have to ask them publicly for forgiveness. Very serious thing. Because when someone is embarrassed, you're spilling their blood, the Torah says. Because they get, their face turns white. They don't know what, they don't know what corner to hide themselves in. It's like you spill their blood. You've murdered them. This is something which is very, very serious. He says, the person who needs to forgive, the person who was offended, has to not be cruel either.
See, he says that the person who forgives shouldn't be cruel. Don't make the guy run through a hoop in order to attain that forgiveness. Be loving. Be kind. Be forgiving. I will tell you an amazing story to close out day number 171. So many of you may know that my grandfather was the founder of a very, very big yeshiva back in the early 50s. And he ran that yeshiva for decades. He went to the chazanish, and the chazanish had recommended
the Rosh Hashiva that should be serving in the yeshiva. My grandfather was the spiritual leader, the mashgiach ruchani, or the banal ruchani. He was the spiritual leader of the yeshiva. But you also have to have a Rosh Hashiva, the head of the yeshiva. And they found the perfect head of yeshiva. Many years later, it's not relevant exactly the details, but many, many years later, my grandfather left the yeshiva on his own, at least 30 or 40 years after founding the yeshiva.
And it was not on the best of terms that he left. Something happened, someone did something, not the Rosh Hashiva, but someone did something, and my grandfather said, I don't want to be part of this, I'm out. My grandfather, the yeshiva that he started, he left. Okay, many years later, at least a decade and a half later, I was sitting in my grandfather's house. I used to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner with my grandfather for years. And my grandfather came home, I believe it was
right after Yom Kippur, breaking the fast. And my grandmother asks my grandfather, no, so did you forgive everybody? You know, it's like, it was almost like a funny question, like, how many people did my, you know, hurt my grandfather? You know, it's like, he was a very holy, righteous man. He wasn't like someone who's like walking in the streets that has many targets, you know, that's like, so my grandfather said, yeah, I forgave everyone except for these
two people. I heard that. And I called my aunt, may she live and be well. And I said to her, this is what happened. I was at Saban Safta's house. And this is what transpired. She said, you're serious? I said, yes. She said, I'm going to take care of it. I'm going to take care of it. So she called those individuals. And not more than a day later, those individuals were sitting in my grandfather's dining room, begging for forgiveness. And they got it. They got forgiveness
for whatever it was that they did. And I thought that it was, I actually thought it was a very, very beautiful thing, because imagine I wasn't there. I would have never heard it. I would have never been able to tell my aunt, who would later call them and have this thing settled. Just because someone says I don't forgive them doesn't mean that you shouldn't ask for forgiveness. Sometimes seeking forgiveness is much easier than we can imagine. Sometimes, particularly between
husbands and wives. I've seen so many times I've talked to guys and like, no, no, no, she's never going to forgive me. She'll never let me live this one down. She'll never, whatever. Did you ask? Were you sincere about your apology? If you are, you'll be surprised. You'll be surprised. Hashem has a way of bringing rachamim, mercy into the heart of another person. And even when they were so severely harmed or wronged by you, if you ask with a genuine,
authentic sorrow for what you did, it's very difficult to say no. All right, so this concludes day number 171.

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