Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe Podcast Collection

00:03 - Intro (Announcement)
You're listening to Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe of TORCH in Houston, Texas. This is the Parsha Review Podcast.

00:12 - Rabbi Aryeh Wolbe (Host)
All right, welcome back everybody. It is so wonderful to be back here with everyone. We have some catch-up to do, so we're going to go two weeks back, so let's begin with the beginning of the book of Deuteronomy. The beginning of the book of Deuteronomy is really, as we mentioned previously, is a summary of everything we learned. It's like the closing remarks and, as we've spoken, as we've said, and it's a review of everything. According to Chazal, they refer to our sages, refer to the book of Deuteronomy as Mishneh Torah, which is the review of the Torah. It's fascinating the things we learn. Every portion in the book of Deuteronomy is chock full of richness of inspiration. It's really magnificent. Hashem doesn't need my approval, but I give one anyway. It really is. It's fascinating. It really is fascinating. So let's look for one moment at the first verse in the book of Deuteronomy. These areel that Moshe spoke to all of Israel Be'evar ha'yarden, on the other side of the Jordan, ba'midbar, concerning the wilderness. Ba'arava, concerning the Arava. Morsuf, opposite the Sea of Reeds. Be'in paran, u'bein tofel, v'lavan, between paran and between tofel and lavan. V'chatseros, v'chatseros and Dizahav and Dizahav. Now, I know that we're all very, very intelligent people and we know that every word in the Torah is calculated, and it seems, if you look at these words in this week's in the Parsha of Devarim, it seems like there's a lot of words here in this first verse that don't make any sense and don't really belong here. Okay, so what's really going on here? Our sages tell us, rashi says something really amazing. It's really really amazing what what's going on here is.

02:19
Moshe is giving criticism to the jew people. He's critiquing them. If you look at the words every time it says Daber is harsh. What does Moshe say? Eilehad, divarim, which is the root word of Daber, asher, diber, moshe, that Moshe spoke to the Jewish people. He's speaking harsh words here, but he masks everything that he's saying in that he's not giving a direct jab, he's not giving a direct criticism, but rather, very gently, he's reminding them of their mistakes. What is it referring to? Moshe says, oh, bamidbar. What is it referring to? Moshe says, oh, bamidbar.

03:04
When you complained after Egypt, ba'arava, when you were seduced by the Midianite women, mulsuf, which means opposite the Sea of Reeds. When you complained, oh, are there no graves in Egypt, ben Paran or Ben Tov of Elavan? You remember the spies. And then you complained about the manna, vachatzeros, that's the rebellion of korach. And then d zahav. Zahav is gold, that's the golden calf.

03:31
Moshe's masking all of his criticism in a way that's palatable to the jewish people. And it leads us to something which we've discussed so many times the power of gentle. Proper critique, proper critique. So there's a couple of points here. First is we have to know we are now in the days that are introducing the month of Elul. The month of Elul, which is coming upon us in less than two weeks, are the most powerful days of the year and it's a day. These are 30 days before Rosh Hashanah, the month of Elul, 30 days before Rosh Hashanah, and if you count those 30 days and the 10 days of repentance, it's 40 days before Yom Kippur. That's it. It's not many days. Guess what? In like about 45 days or less, we'll be already Rosh Hashanah, celebrating with our briskets.

04:36
You know what I'm saying? It's a really exciting time. It's a really exciting time asking for a sweet new year. It's a time for introspection. It's a time for self-critique, but a very careful, cautious, gentle self-critique.

04:55
I'll just tell you as a side note, my grandfather said that a young man after he gets married okay, young men, you're all young men here Young men after they gets married. Okay, young men, you're all young men here. Young men after they get married should not critique their wives at least for three years. Three years, no critique. You know why Critique?

05:20
Every person takes critique differently, but a wife who looks up to her husband, who admires her husband, who respects her husband, takes critique very, very seriously and it can hurt, it can be painful, it can affect, it can damage the relationship in a very severe way. Where, oh, he doesn't believe me, he doesn't love me, he doesn't care about me, he just always has negative to say and things like that. My grandfather warns young guys getting married don't critique your wife. You're not in the business of making her perfect. That's not your business. It's her job to make you perfect, not your job to make her perfect. She's perfect, exactly as is okay. And then this is part of understanding this. Now, there as is Okay. And then this is part of understanding this.

06:07
Now there's a piece of Talmud because we are in our Talmud time slot that I want to share with you. But I want to. We talked about this Talmud many, many times and this is the famous Talmud in Yivamot 65b, which talks about critique. What is that critique. We know there's a mitzvah in the Torah. The Torah says you shall critique Critique. You shall critique your fellow.

06:34
You have a reprimand for your friend. Your friend does something wrong, you're obligated to say something. You're obligated. Do you hear this, mark? You're obligated to say something. You see your friend doing something wrong? You're obligated. Do you hear this Mark? You're obligated to say something. You see your friend doing something wrong? You're obligated to say something.

06:47
But listen what the Talmud says, the most amazing words Omer, rebbe Eloy Mishum, rebbe Lazar. Rebbe Eloy said, in the name of Rebbe Lazar, the son of Rebbe Shimon Kishem she mitzvah la'odom lomer davar ha-nishma k. Just as there's a mitzvah to critique someone when they will listen, torah tells us you're obligated to. The same way there is that mitzvah in the Torah, says the Talmud here there is also a mitzvah not to critique someone if they're not going to listen, meaning if you know the person you're about to critique is going to get upset and not going to listen to your critique. You have a mitzvah to refrain from saying one single word. They're not going to listen. Don't say it.

07:50
So what's the question that everyone asks? Well, how will I know? How do I know if they're going to accept or not. How do I know if what I'm going to say is going to resonate with them? So the first thing is, if you don't know the person well enough to know if it's going to resonate, you probably have no business critiquing them. That means you have to know the person. You have to know in what way you can say something that will be impactful.

08:18
Because here's the challenge with critique. The problem is that most people think critique is me, getting it off my shoulder. It's me. No, it's not about you. It's about the recipient, the fact that they did something that bothers you. Grow up and live with it.

08:38
But if they did something that is not consistent with their abilities For example, your child, your child does something that's annoying, okay, so grow up, you're an adult, they're a child and don't let it bother you. But if the critique is because I believe in my child and I need them to learn something, so then I need to find the right way to say something. It's not about me, it doesn't bother me, it's just that I'm their parent and I'm their eyes and ears to guide them in life. So in such a situation, I'm obligated to say something, but only if I know it's going to be accepted. If they're not going to accept it, then I have a mitzvah not to say a word. It's such a fascinating Talmud. There's a mitzvah not to say a word if you know that they're not going to a word. It's such a fascinating Talmud. It is a mitzvah not to say a word if you know that they're not going to accept it. This is our obligation, our obligation of proper critique. You go online and you see everybody is calling each other names and everyone is. That doesn't create a good environment. It doesn't create a good environment. It doesn't create a good, a good culture. It's just everyone spouting things that they see that are flaws, which, by the way, the Talmud says that when you find the flaw in another person, it's a mirror of yourself. That floor is really a flaw within you. So be be careful when you critique.

10:15
But I want to share with you an amazing story. Story goes as follows it's a true story Reb Yaakov Galinsky, who my family knew well he was actually at my brother's bar mitzvah. He was a great, great maged. He was a great, great storyteller and he would influence people and encourage them to go in the ways of the Torah with his beautiful stories and I found the gem of a book that has many of his things. I read this. It's fascinating.

10:43
He went to the Shiva house of Rabbi Hetzkel Levenstein. Rabbi Hetzkel Levenstein was the great spiritual leader in Bnei Brak in the Pentecost Imagine, and he was a world-class scholar. He was a world-famous sage. Everybody knew of Hatzkel Levenstein and he's sitting Shiva. His wife passed away. He's mourning. So you can imagine that Shiva house was jam-packed with every sage, every scholar, every, every torah leader, every teacher, every principal, every you name it every everybody who was something would come to you know, pay a shiva call and comfort the mourner.

11:31
So so Rabbi Yaakov Galinsky, of course, went as well and he comes in to pay a shiva kol and Rabbi Cheska Levitstein tells him. He says you see, I have no friends. What are you talking about? No friends? It can take an hour for me to get in here. There are so many people. Everybody who is anything Comes here, is there for you comforting you in your time of morning. What are you talking about? You have no friends, he says.

12:05
The talmud says and this is a talmud that we studied in our thinking talmudist podcast the talmud says an amazing story. I'll read it to you. The Talmud says that Revhuna, if you remember, revhuna, had 400 bottles of wine that soured and became spoiled. Here, rev Huna, his wine, fermented and turned into vinegar, causing him great financial damage, great financial loss. He was so upset, oh my God, rev Yehuda, achua, rav Salah, chassidu and Rabbanon. So Rav Yehuda, the brother of Rav Salah, the pious, along with the sages and some say that Rav Adabar Ava also came along with the sages they entered to visit him. They came, they saw Reb Huna was so sad that his wine got spoiled. 400 barrels of wine, not 400 bottles, 400 barrels of wine. It's an enormous, an enormous loss.

13:29
So they came to visit him, ve'amri lei, and they said to him Did you inspect your ways? Did you have an introspection? Why did God do this to you? That's a little shocking, right? What do you mean? Are you suspecting that I did something wrong? Ravuna asks omar, lay me hush, it could, he says. He says am I suspicious in your eyes? You're suspecting me of doing something wrong? What do you mean? You guys come in here and you suspect that I did something wrong, and that's why this is a punishment. So they responded back Amri lei, mi chashit kut sha bricho do avi, dina, b'lai dina, are you suspecting that the Almighty punished you for no reason?

14:31
Caesar of Hatzka Levenstein. He says, look, look, because they loved him. They came and just brought a little bit of perspective to him. They brought a little bit of perspective and they asked him investigate within yourself. Why did God do this? Rabbi Hatzko Levenstein said, terbianko Legolinsky, of blessed memory, he said not one person walked in here and told me did you inspect in yourself why God caused you this pain of the passing of your wife? And we all think like, well, look, her time came. Her time came finished. Right, yeah, but it says that nobody, nobody, has caused any pain if God didn't instruct it from heaven. Not a blade of grass grows without God saying that it grows. Not a person is affected. You imagine this. That's why our sages tell us, in preparation for Rosh Hashanah you want a guarantee for a good new year.

15:53
Get yourself involved with a lot of people. Get yourself involved with the community. Get yourself involved with a lot of people. Get yourself involved with the community. Get yourself involved with your congregation, with your synagogue. Why? Because then people will become dependent on you, people will need you. And then what will happen? In order for you to be taken away from this world, all of those people will need to be judged that they deserve the punishment of losing you. So you're making, you're sort of locking God into giving you another year.

16:29
But you understand the importance of proper criticism. Proper criticism doesn't mean I let it off my chest, that's it. I had to tell them once and for all. That's for me, that's not for them. So lock yourself in a room and yell and scream. Say how could they do that? Is it about them or about me? If it's about me, so then lock yourself in the room. But if it's about them, then I want to find the best way possible to relate the message that will be beneficial for them. This is so. It's so incredible. It's so incredible.

17:17
It's like imagine road rage today. Road rage, it's a big thing. Who's the road rage? I'm getting angry at them. Why am I honking my horn? Because I have an anger issue. Imagine if I really cared about how they were driving, I would gently knock on their window and say you know, maybe you can find a way, with quiet, gentle words, to encourage them to drive a little safer, because it's for the safety of their children, not yell hey, what do you think you're doing? How are you driving? You know it's like people do crazy things, people do violent things and I don't encourage any of that. I don't either encourage us going out and just reprimanding people out there.

18:05
Don't be the educator of the world. We need to educate ourselves and we need to look inward. We need to look at ourselves and find what are the things that I'm overlooking. And if you have a really, really good friend, like Rivhuna had, ask them for some feedback, ask them to give you some critique, say you know, because King Solomon tells us critique a wise man and he'll love you for it. Critique a wise man and he'll love you for it. Because you just gave him free consultation in how to become a better person. You gave him free therapy, doctor, can you imagine that Free therapy? You gave him a perspective and let me just give you my understanding of what it is. We've discussed this previously, so if this is a review, I apologize.

19:07
We know that there's a blind spot where, when we're driving and if you have one of those fancy, schmancy cars like ed so he has special notifications on his mirror he probably has some other fancy stuff, some cameras that'll show him his blind spot so that when you can't see it, it shows it to you. But we all have blind spots nonetheless. We discussed right now. With my peripheral vision of what I can see, I see about 150 degrees. With my peripheral vision of what I can see, I see about 150 degrees, but of the 360 degrees around me, 210 of them. I don't see 210 degrees, but all of you see it. You're facing me and if there was a board that was going to fall on my head, you can warn me like ah, watch it Now.

19:58
In our character we're also blind. We also have a blind spot. We only see what we see. But we can have a flaw. We can have a temper. We can be callous about other people's feelings, we can say things that can hurt other people, we can be miserly, we can be jealous, and sometimes we don't see it in ourselves because we're blind to it. It's in our blind spot, but someone else can point it out. Someone else can flicker that light and say there's something in your blind spot that you may not have noticed. I want to bring it to your attention Because it's so important for us to have a trusted friend, someone who cares about us Someone who loves us, someone who looks out for us and says you're a great person.

20:57
And everybody has to know the right way to give criticism, and it's only by knowing the person properly. But to say you know you're a good person, you mean well. But you may have overlooked this one little thing. I know you would never do this. I know you'd never go out to harm somebody. You're such a kind, gentle person. You're always giving, you're always loving, you're always so magnanimous with others.

21:29
You may have overlooked this one thing and you can ask are you interested in me telling you that's also something that someone can do. You can say look, I noticed something. It's not my business, it's your life, it's your world, it's your character trait, it's your midot. If you want me to share with you, I'll be happy to, but it's only if you know first that I really love you and I really care about you and I don't want you to take this as God forbid being a critique of you. It's not a critique of you, it's a critique of a flaw that you have. It's why, as a parent, parents need to be very careful to never tell their children you're a bad child, what you did perhaps wasn't good. You're a great child and it's when you love someone, it's when you love someone, that you want to critique them Because you want to see their perfection. You know, it's an interesting thing.

22:35
If a child runs into the street, all the cars screech to a halt. One person gets out of the car. Many people be like hey, kid, watch out. One person gets out of the car, slams his door shut, starts running after that kid. Who's that? That's the father, because he really cares about the, the kid. The other people don't want the headache of hitting a child. They don't want the headache of an accident. They don't want a headache of God forbid, something terrible happening. But the father, he cares about the safety of the child. He'll run after him. Because you care Someone you don't care about.

23:23
You know, there's a person, let me tell you. There's a person in Mexico who's not being nice to his spouse. Anybody here care? I mean, it's humanity. We care, but we're not going out to make a phone call to him. You know there's a person in Canada who didn't tip their waiter. Anybody here care to go there? No, we don't care, it's not. But if it's my spouse, if it's my child, I care.

23:50
So I want to say something, but there's a caveat. It has to be that they're willing to hear. It has to be that they're willing to accept. It has to be that they're willing to accept Because that's the qualification the Talmud gives us. The Talmud says that if they will accept it, there's a mitzvah to tell them, and if they won't, there's a mitzvah not to. This is what Moshe was doing.

24:21
Moshe was very gently hinting to the Jewish people. He knows the Jewish people are very sensitive, they're very delicate people. They're traveling in the desert now for 40 years and now he's reviewing what's going on. He says, guys, you remember wink, wink, nod, nod. You remember we were in the Jordan. You remember when we were in the wilderness? You remember when we were in the Arava and you remember in the sea opposite, the Sea of Reeds, and we were here, we were there. Why was he saying these things? Not just randomly? If you introspect and you notice, you'll hear my critique, and if you don't, it'll go right over your head. The Torah is so cautious not to embarrass us. Moshe was so cautious not to embarrass us To ensure that, very gently, very, very gently, I want to remind them of their mistakes. And that's because we became callous as a people and as a nature of humanity.

25:36
This is one of the challenges that we face on a regular basis is that we are creatures of habit and we have this tendency of forgetting very, very quickly, very, very quickly. We forget all of the goodness, we forget all of the kindness, we forget all of the blessings. We forget all of the blessings, we forget all of our gifts. You know, we say, oh, I'm never gonna forget that. And two weeks later someone asks you like I don't remember all the details, I don't remember all of this. A month later, a year later, forget it. We all thought the world will never be the same after october, after october 7th or after September 11th. These big tragedies will never be the same. Give it a few months, everything's.

26:27
But the politics in Israel is right back to where it was, because we're creatures of habit and we have to get rid of our old habits and put in new habits in their place, new good habits. So, my dear friends, rid of our old habits and put in new habits in their place, new good habits. So, my dear friends, never give harsh criticism, only give love. When you love the person, it's no longer a criticism. Hashem should bless us all that we should merit not to be the ones giving the criticism. Hashem should bless us all that we should merit not to be the ones giving the criticism. Hashem should bless us all to be among those who are the recipients of the criticism. That we should love it, because the Mishnah in Ethics of Our Fathers tells us in the sixth chapter, in the sixth Mishnah I think it's way number 38.

27:24
I might be wrong. Ehov es hatachachos Love the criticism. Love criticism Because it's a free ride to becoming a better person. You might not be. You might not like the messenger. You might not like the delivery. You might not be. You might not like the messenger. You might not like the delivery. You might not like the words that were used. There's something that triggers me when you say that right, but underlying all of that is the essence of the message, correct.

27:57
So let me investigate this. Let me see if I can apply this. Let me see if it can help make me a better person. Love the criticism. Love the critique Because it only helps you become a better person. Who doesn't strive to become a better person. I'll tell you who Someone who's arrogant, because someone who's arrogant feels I've got it all, I know it all, I'm everything. And who are you to tell me what to do? But someone who's humble, someone who realizes. You know what I strive for perfection. I'm not perfect, I want to be perfect. And therefore they will embrace every opportunity, every opportunity, every opportunity to attain perfection, and they'll appreciate and they'll love not only the criticism, but the person who criticized them, the person who gave them the critique, the messenger, the delivery man or woman. My dear friends have a magnificent Shabbos.

29:06 - Intro (Announcement)
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