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 to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast. We are in the 22nd gate of the Orchos Tzaddikim, Ways of the Righteous, in the Treasure for Life edition on page 683. We are talking about the gate of falsehood. What is falsehood? We know falsehood is when someone doesn't speak the truth. The Torah tells us, midvar sheker tirchak, from something which is false,
stay away from it. Distance yourself from falsehood. Now, we're gonna learn a whole chapter by the Orchad Tzaddikim about this topic. What does he say? Ha'sheker da, know about falsehood. Ki ka'asher yishkol ha'adam kesev izov b'muznayim u'mavchin beyn kal le'kaved, when a, just as a person weighs silver and gold on the scales and distinguishes between the light and the heavy, ka'asher yishkol ha'adam ha'chokham b'muznayim le'havin sheker ver'emes, so too must a wise
person always weigh the scales to understand truth and falsehood. It's an important tool for today. If we knew that, we'd be a little bit less anxious when we watch the news. You have to know what's falsehood, what's fake, and what's real, and what's truth. V'yesh chiluk b'sheker le'sheker, there's different types of falsehoods. Kei tzadd, how does a person do this? Ha'omer al etz shehu zahav o'so sheker yedohu. So if someone says an obvious falsehood, which is that this tree is gold,
it's a golden tree, so everybody knows that that's not true. There's things that everybody knows, everybody is aware of that falsehood. Ha'omer al nechoshes kol al shehu zahav, someone who points at something which is copper or brass and says that it is gold, o'so sheker tzarech avchonah, well that I need to look, I need to just ensure, I need to investigate a little bit, just to ensure that, you know, it requires distinction. Because sometimes they can look similar in appearance. O'so sheker tzarech avchonah,
ki yesh l'shneim d'mus achas, because they have this metal look, so it might look, you might be confused whether it is or is not the gold or the copper. So vi yesh zayfanim, ha'osim d'mus hanachoshes ki d'mus azav. Why? Because there's things that people can do that can forge gold, they can make the copper look like gold. So that a person needs to be a little bit more careful about, more scrupulous. Ve'oz afilo habikim, einam yecholum la'havchin ki'im b'koshi godel.
And even that some professionals can't just look and say, oh, this is brass, maybe it's gold. They don't know, they have to, sometimes they can be tricked as well. Kach inina machshava, yesh mefulpol, ve'oz hesvoros l'kayim ha'sheker at'shinir'shu ha'mes. There are those who are very sophisticated people and they can manufacture formalizations to bolster falsehoods until it appears to be truth. It appears to be truth. It looks like it's true and really it's not. Aval ha'chacham, but the wise person mevin kol echod la'havdil b'na'sheker b'na'emes.
A wise person is able to distinguish between what is true and what is false. And we, we need to be, we need to be cautious and we need to take the time to distinguish between what is real and what is fake. Ve'zeh davir yadu alakol, and this is something that we all know, shehashekar ve'emesh tzfufim b'leiva adam, that truth and falsehood need to be discerned in one's heart. The person needs to be careful and cautious. Sometimes they're a little bit attached and we're confused.
It's hard to tell the right from the wrong. Yesh odam mezuyaf, there are some people who are fake. They come across as being, they're con men. They're a con. They say, oh, I got this great investment for you. I got this great idea for you. And they're cons, they're fake. They're fraudulent. Aphilu sheh yodea bevaday shehadov ha'sheka hu nimshach acharav. And there are times that you know that it's false. You know that it's fake and you still get drawn to it.
Kol sheh kayn, keshe yesh ra'ayos ve'tztodim ha'shakenos. And many times, you'll have proofs to know that this is false. And still you get drawn in. Shedoma liyos emes. It has, we think that it's true or we want to believe in it. We want to believe that it's true. Bevaday yimashach acharay shekro. And there are times that we will be drawn to this falsehood. Avayay shehadov ha'miti ve'lo yas ha'sheker. But then there is a truthful person who will not be drawn after falsehood whatsoever.
Unless he can find some rationalizations. Ela keshe yesh lo svoros le'shaker, ot zunimshach acharasheker. But the wise man, in his wisdom, will deny these rationalizations. I'll give you an example. There are some times where we see things in the world. And you wonder how do people think like that? Like who thought that communism, for example, in the Soviet Union. Who thought that was a good idea? Who voted for that? And then you see there are people today who say,
we need communism in New York City. We need communism coming out of our universities, etc. Because even though they're intellectual people usually going into university, but they slip in some rationalization that this would be equality. And in a way it almost like draws the heart. It's like, wow, we'll be able to make sure that there are no poor people. We'll be able to make sure that everyone has the same thing and no one's gonna be better than the other.
No one's gonna be more privileged than the other. We have this rationalization. And then capitalism gone, freedom gone. We're ready to give away everything because of this rationalization. Which, by the way, Korach was a communist too. What did Korach say? Everybody's holy. We don't need a leader. We don't need you, Moses. We don't need you, Aaron. We don't need anybody to guide us. We're all holy. We're all equal. This idea, this flawed notion that there's something called equality.
There is no equality. And this is the challenge that people have such a hard time with. We have so many wonderful people here on the broadcast. None of you are equal. You're all unique and special. And different. And that's the beauty. If we all looked exactly the same, if we all, there would be no specialty. We wouldn't be able to feel proud. Look at me. I'm different. I'm special. But we have this false rationalization where we're saying to ourselves,
No, no, no, no. It'll be good. And people can be, even sometimes intelligent people, can be drawn to such falsehood. By the way, we say that Korach was a communist. That's why, by the way, Moshe prayed. You see in this week's parasha, last week, and so many of the portions of the Torah where the Jewish people or groups of the Jewish people sinned. And we see that Moshe prayed to Hashem saying, Hashem, please forgive them. Hashem, please restore them.
Hashem, let's find a way to get atonement. The Jewish people sinned with the golden calf and they complained about the food. They complained about the manna. They complained about this. They fought about this. They cried about the spies in the report. It was constant issues. Moshe prayed for all of them except for one. Korach. What happened to Korach? Why didn't Moshe pray for Korach? Hashem, please forgive him. He didn't. Because that's the danger of communism.
You need to have nothing to do with it. It's pure evil. But it's packaged in this rationalization that it's going to be good for all mankind. So I know this broadcast is going to go on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and all these. I might get some hate. But you know what? We're in the chapter where we're talking about falsehood. We have to identify a falsehood. Right? We can't take the shades and just block ourselves from it.
You should know that the rationalization of all people are drawn by their traits. So people rationalize their behavior. Someone who's lazy rationalizes laziness. Someone who has a bad temper rationalizes his anger. No. He's wrong. And he has to learn. And I have to teach him. And I have to write. In their anger, they rationalize their negative traits. Someone who has arrogance and is haughty rationalizes his haughtiness and his arrogance. In all of the traits that we talked about before,
there's a way for a person to rationalize and justify what it is that he's doing even though it's wrong. I rationalized it. It's okay. Based on the traits that one has, they rationalize. He says everyone draws their own rationalization to what they're doing. The rationalization of the extravagant is drawn by his extravagance. You know why I should buy this yacht? And they justify it with whatever. And you know why I should drive this car? Because, again, we have to talk about
each trait on its own merits or lack thereof. But the miserly man rationalizes his miserliness. The lover by his love. The hater by his hate. Therefore, anyone who wishes to be a true man of G-d needs to remove from himself the traits of arrogance. The first thing, if you want to be a godly person, you need to rid yourself of all your defective traits. You need to cleanse yourself of your bad traits. So that you don't draw to the direction of your flawed traits.
And only when you remove that trait will you be able to attain pure truth. So if we can just bring this to our own lives, we have to understand that we all have our own prejudices. We have things that we want, things that we are drawn to, and we can rationalize it in every way possible. Unless we identify that this is... Imagine someone who's having a challenge in their relationship. So they go to a therapist. And the therapist says, You know something?
Perhaps you should improve in this and this way. Perhaps this will help your relationship. No, I'm right. And I'm doing it because I'm right. Everyone has their rationalizations of why they do certain things. So they're not willing to hear. They're not willing to change. They're not willing to accept. So we have to become a little bit vulnerable to correct that trait. And then we'll see that it was just a rationalization. How many times when we admit that perhaps I was wrong,
we say, You know what? I was rationalizing. I was trying to just avoid feeling guilty. And this is a problem. There are nine categories of liars. The first type of falsehood or lying that exists is one who denies his fellow man's depositor alone, or who testifies falsely, or many other similar cases like this. What is it? So someone takes out a loan. He says, I never borrowed from you. He doesn't say, I returned it. I never borrowed to begin with.
Many such types of examples. There are two different punishments for such type of First is because he lied, because of the falsehood. And then the second So he brings a verse here from Proverbs that these six Hashem hates and the seventh is an abomination of his soul, haughty eyes, a lying tongue, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And then a false witness spouting lies and one who sows discord among brothers. So the first thing is we need to know
that there is the falsehood itself doesn't sit well with God. The fact that someone is able to say something which is false, which is not true. That is a complete separation from Hashem. A complete distance. Hashem is truth. By the way, we know we talk about truth. We've talked about this previously in the chapter in the gate of truth, truthfulness. We mentioned that the first, the letters of the word emet, which is truth are all letters with two legs
because truth stands forever. But also the first letter of the Aleph Beth is Aleph. The middle is Mem and the last is Tuf because it's stability. It will last from the beginning of time till the end of time. Truth, you don't have to make up anything. Just the truth. It is the truth because you don't have to remember what I said last time. If you just are committed to the truth, then everything works out. Falsehood, you always have to find a way
to keep it standing. Sheker, the Shin, the Kuf and the Resh are all the end of the Aleph Beth, of the alphabet. But they also only have one leg because eventually it will fall. Falsehood eventually collapses. It will collapse at the end. God being the creator of heaven and earth who exists before time and after time can only exist because He is truth. What's the name of Hashem? Hashem Elokechem Emet. What is the name of Hashem? Truth.
Hashem only survives because of His truth. That's what Hashem, that's His essence. When we depart from that, we're departing from Hashem. We're departing from Hashem. And this is the challenge. It's like when someone lies, what they're doing is they're just distancing and pushing themselves away from God. And what does God say? I hate the mouth that is deceptive. Also from Proverbs. What's the second? Punishment. The second is the damage that incurred to His fellow men by His lie.
So it means there's two things. First is because you distance yourself from God. You sort of contradicted the existence of God. God being the God of truth. Hashem Elokechem Emet. Hashem is truth. And now a person speaks falsehood. So that's number one. Second is that you cause somebody else damage. When you say a lie, whether it be bearing false witness, whether it be saying something that isn't true about someone else that now caused a fight, caused a separation,
caused a disagreement, caused someone sorrow, caused someone pain, all because of a lie. That's the second punishment that one will have from speaking falsehood. So this concludes day number 119.

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