How To Make Yourself A Holy Vessel

0:41A person who desires this Keter Torah must become a vessel, must become a vessel. What is a vessel? All of you have heard me say, and I'm sure many other teachers have said, that Avraham, Yitzchak, Yaakov, and David HaMelech were the ones who upheld the chariot, the chariot of the Torah. But Torah is not anything physical. It is not physical. Akedushah to the world, to deliver the Shekhinah. I'm sorry, the Shekhinah to the world. It means that Hashem doesn't need anyone's help per se, but someone who purified themselves, who made themselves so holy, became a true eved Hashem, a true servant of Hashem, a true slave of Hashem.

2:11You are the vessel I want to bring myself to the world through. You're the delivery system. You're the tube. Why? Because you are like the Torah. A person that wants to inherit this Keter Torah needs to do things that make them into a kosher vessel. So when the Torah from Shamayim wants to enter your neshama, wants to enter your body, it's not being rejected by bad middot. Because if you have bad middot, the Torah cannot enter. You may learn a few things, and you may know a few things by heart. But this Torah that he has, that he's teaching, is full of ga'ava, full of pride, and full of all types of things that are against the Torah. It's not from Shamayim. He just learned it like a history book. He learned it like a scholar from Oxford University, not a scholar from the Beit Midrash.

3:30So, a person that wants to bring the Shekhinah to his house, bring the Shekhinah to the Beit Midrash, and bring the Shekhinah to his life has to make themselves into a vessel. One of the main things that Hashem requires from us is to stay away from things that He hates. One thing that Hashem hates is ga'ava, pride. Hashem considers anyone who is arrogant to be disgusting. Just as when we see a dead animal in the middle of the street, splattered everywhere, as disgusting, that's what Hashem thinks of arrogance. He also finds it revolting, akin to a person who is not familiar with farm life encountering the smell of manure for the first time and finding it repugnant. Hashem perceives pride as even more repulsive.

4:33So when a person wants to become a pure vessel, not only is he not going to have honor, he's going to run away from it. Even if somebody wants to give it to him, he feels uncomfortable. He feels this is weird. "Yeah, but you know a lot of Torah. I know a lot of Torah. What Torah? What are you talking about? Well, he just gave a 20-hour shiur." So, do you know how much Torah there is? He begins to realize, where do I actually belong in the grand scheme of things? A real Torah scholar understands how distant he is from perfection. A person who is striving to become a kosher vessel, capable of carrying the Shekhinah, recognizes that they are still very far from reaching perfection. The Holy Torah that can accept the Shekhinah realizes that they are far, far, far away from perfection. Not far away that they should be depressed and let the Yetzer Hara run their life. No. But far away in a perspective where they realize they have so much more to do. What they have done, they're expected to do.

5:59What they haven't done, they're also expected to do. You know, many people take pride in telling you the truth, like they say to you, "To tell you the truth, such and such." Like they make it a look, it's a statement, it's a figure of speech, it's become part of people's language. "No, no, tell me the truth, what do you think?" Do you ever tell people to lie? Or somebody told me recently something I didn't really want to hear. I didn't really want to hear it, but at least I told you the truth. And I'm thinking to myself the rest of the day, I forgot about what I didn't want to hear, and I'm thinking about this thing the whole time. I'm thinking to myself, wait, he's saying to me, "Well, at least I told you the truth." So what, he thinks that it's like he deserves a reward for telling the truth? Like, so what, you're gonna get a cookie for saying the truth? It's expected for you to say the truth, for heaven's sake. That's supposed to be the default. The default is the truth. You're not supposed to get a cookie for it. You're not supposed to take pride in telling the truth. The same thing is you're not supposed to take pride in doing what you're supposed to do. Like you can't say, "Oh yeah, I studied two hours yesterday. Give me a party." You're supposed to.

7:27Oh, honey, I brought groceries. Oh, thank you. Why just thank you? That's it. Just thank you. Would you want me to throw a party? Honey, I put the kids to sleep. Oh, thank you. Why just thank you? That's it. Wait, it's easy. What do we do? Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate, fine, but the point is that people overestimate what they're entitled to when, in reality, It's the things that we do many times that we are supposed to do. And yes, you're supposed to show appreciation for everything. We've talked about how gratitude is the foundation of good character. However, that appreciation is meant for others, not for yourself. You should appreciate and be grateful for what others do or have, without expecting others to be grateful for you. If they are, that's fine, but don't expect it. That's the proper approach. He's going to eat that pizza without saying a simple beracha. He said the beracha. What about me? I bought the pizza. We know how hard I work to make this money for the pizza. They have a separate account at the bank for me. No. Sometimes people's pride gets out of control. They believe you're supposed to pray for them, and this is considered disgusting.

8:55A person who realizes how far they are from perfection and how far they are from where they're supposed to be not only analyzes themselves and their flaws and tries to fix them, but also understands the inherent risk in accepting kavod — the risk in accepting honor from people. Because once you accept honor, you may actually start believing it. Once you start believing in it, you've already ruined yourself as a vessel of truth.