How To PURIFY Your SOUL

1:06And in particular, with the Midrash of Avot de-Rabbi Natan, as well as Masechet Derech Eretz, for our sages tell us that Derech Eretz, which means proper conduct, like we learned today, precedes the Torah. Yesterday, in essence, he said, without proper conduct, there's no way that the Torah is going to penetrate your veins. There's no way that the Torah is going to reach your heart. How do you learn proper conduct? By learning what the consequences are. The Chida, Rabbi Chaim David Azulay, writes in his book, Birkei Yosef, that it is proper to set a fixed time for Musar study due to the greatness of a man's evil inclination. Rabbi Yaakov Nisan, author of Chavot Da'at, advises similarly. He says, "I adjure you today to set a fixed time every day for Mussar study, for in a multitude of our sins, our hearts have become stone, and only through Mussar is the heart softened. Only through Mussar." Now, the one that shook me the most is these next—it's actually two that shook me the most—these next two. Rabbi Chaim Volozhiner

2:28lived in the late 1700s, and he writes in his famous work, Nefesh HaChaim. He says before engaging in Torah study, before you start learning your Torah, it's critical to get yourself in a ready fashion, meaning mentally ready to study Torah. How do you get it? with a pure heart and fear of heaven, let him ponder his Creator for a moment. By doing so, he will be moved and repent for his transgressions and become purified. A person may briefly stop his Torah studies for this purpose so that the fear of God that he accepted at the beginning of his study will not be extinguished from his heart. In that interlude, in that break, let them contemplate a new fear of heaven. For all of these rabbis that say, no, no, you shouldn't be scared of God, you shouldn't be scared of God, the Torah is teaching us quite the opposite, and the sages even more so. They say it's a prerequisite to learning Torah. It's a prerequisite to Judaism. Shlomo HaMelech says, the beginning of wisdom is fear of God.

3:51Rav Alexander Siskin in Yesod V'Shoresh Ha'Avodah says that studying Mussar on a continual basis will help implant wondrous pleasures of heavenly fear within a person's heart. And the fear of Hashem will thereby be increased. So here he's telling us, actually having fear of G-d is a pleasure, because it's a reality. It's a real connection, a real connection with Hashem; it's the greatest thing you could possibly have. So, he says, it's clear that man has an obligation to investigate and comprehend the judgment and punishment of the upper world. And all of this is found in the works of yirat shamayim and mussar. Meaning you have to every day think about what happens in Shamayim when someone sins. He says it's an obligation to think about that. It's not something that's far away, not allowed, not for you, not something you're not ready for. No, no. He says you actually have to do it. That's the way you purify your soul. That's the way you build a good foundation with real roots. Where if some kofer comes to you and asks you a question or throws some argument at you, you don't just leave the religion because you don't have the answer.

5:11Like some people do, they don't get an answer, so they leave Judaism because of that. Or they see some guy with a beard going against Hashem and say, oh, so the whole thing is fake. The reality of it is, the people that fall off, it's because they never had a good foundation. They had no roots. The Arizal strongly adjured every person to study books of Yirat Shamayim and Musar on a daily basis. And he stressed that you are not allowed to skip it even for a single day. The Chatam Sofer would start every single one of his shiurim with Mussar. Every single shiur he ever did, he would start it with Mussar. He specifically focused on Chovot HaLevavot. And the one that really shook me up, was what Avraham Danzig said. He lived also in the late 1700s. He was a major posek, meaning he decreed laws. He elucidated our Gemara, our Rambams, our Shulchan Aruch, and applied it to our lives. He was a posek who looked at certain halachot, and so on. The Kitzur Shulchan Aruch,

6:22by Rav Shlomo Ganzfried, is based on his rulings. Just to explain to you how much of a giant he was. He was one of the three biggest poskim in that generation, or in several generations, and the Kitzur Shulchan Aruch was based on his rulings. He was one of the main poskim that the rulings are based on. And he writes in a halacha book, this is not a Mussar book. In a book about the laws of Judaism, specifically discussing Yom Kippur, he states that it's elementary, meaning obvious, that each and every person has an absolute obligation to study the works of fear of Heaven daily. Whether a little or a lot, this imperative is greater than all of the other obligations to study Torah. Even if such daily study is going to take time away from other studying, he's not allowed to skip Mussar. Even if it gets to a point where he doesn't study Gemara, he doesn't study Chumash, he doesn't study other parts of the Torah, but he studies Mussar, you did good. But if you're studying Gemara, Chumash, everything else, and you're not studying Mussar, it's not good. It's a halacha book.

7:46He says, if there's no fear, there's no Torah. And last but not least, Rabbi Yosef Karo. Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote the Shulchan Aruch. In Maggid Meisharim, it's written by him, the Beit Yosef, and he says in the book that his Chavruta was an angel. An angel would come from Shamayim. and learn with him. We can't even draw an angel. He had an angel study with him, chavruta. You understand what we're dealing with here? An angel, an angel from Shamayim, stopped what he was doing, came to Rabbi Yosef Karo, who only thought about Torah day and night, and studied with him as a chavruta. Like we're studying right now, he studied with him as a chavruta, every day. So, he writes in his journal everything that happens to him every day—what the angel teaches him, what he says, what he does. And he writes in his journal, "The angel rebuked me today." He says, "Why didn't you study mussar today?" The angel from Shamayim came to him and rebuked Rabbi Yosef Karo, rebuking him, "Why didn't you study enough mussar today?"

9:10You understand? So anytime you hear different places that tell you, no, no, we don't do rebuke, we don't do Mussar, we don't do that, you just tell them you don't do Torah either then. Because Mussar is Torah. Because that's the part that builds you the roots. That's where you have the roots. Because the kofar is going to come to you. The kofar is going to come to you at some point in your life. He'll tell you, "Why you're not driving on Shabbat? Show me in the Torah where it says don't drive on Shabbat. Show me. Where does it say 'car' in the Torah?" Where does it say you have to grow a beard in the Torah? Where does it say you have to lay tefillin that are black in the Torah? Where does it say this, where does it say that? If you're not a Talmid Chacham, you're not going to know all the answers. As a matter of fact, there's a situation right now that was brought to my attention. A guy started doing teshuva recently, I don't know, a year, two years, three years, whatever he did. And some koffer came to him and said, listen, he started throwing some questions at him and the guy didn’t know the answers. he's like, don't worry about it. I'm going to bring my rabbi with me. We're going to meet, and you can ask him questions. He's going to know. The rabbi's going to know. So, he goes to this guy's office with the rabbi. But the guy is a professional kofer, meaning...

10:23It's a problem. It's a serious problem. So unless you're trained to know how to deal with these people, unless you train in specific subjects, not just Gemara, not just basic Mishnah, not just basic Halacha, you need to know serious, serious stuff to know how to deal with a kofer. As a matter of fact, the Rambam says you must learn enough to deal with a kofer, to deal with a heretic. Why? If the heretic comes, you're responsible. Now this rabbi and this young student go to this guy's office, which is like entering the lion's den. They underestimated him. I know who the guy is. Unfortunately, he used to be a kiruv rabbi, who decided, after a bunch of people embarrassed him and his ego was hurt, to go against the Torah. It's not because of the Torah; it's because of his ego. Anyway, now what he tries to do is make others leave the Torah. He poses questions that only someone trained can answer. So the guy is sitting in his office, asking them questions, which are serious, serious questions, and they don't have answers. And the rabbi says, I didn't study this stuff. So now the student, who doesn't know that most people look at rabbis as Moshe Rabbeinu.

11:36Young guys and young girls often look at every rabbi as if they know everything. However, you might not know what they actually know. They might not know what Torah is. They might not know what Gemara is. They might not know what Tosafot is. They might not even know Rashi. In fact, they might not know anything substantial. You might just think, "Well, the person is a rabbi, so he must know everything." But that’s not the case. The Torah is an endless ocean of wisdom and knowledge, and not every rabbi knows everything contained within it. Additionally, not every rabbi knows the same things in the same way. In this instance, the rabbi was not adequately trained to deal with a situation involving a kefirah (heretical thought). And he looks foolish. And it becomes a situation where they both leave empty-handed. And now the kid is in trouble because now he's thinking, maybe this, maybe that. Now he's got these doubts in his mind. Why does he have them in the first place? Why is he even in this position to question anything? It's not because of the kuffer. It's not because of the kofer. Don't let that go into your mind for a moment that he has questions about Judaism because of the kofer. It's not because of the kofer. It's because of the rabbi. Why? Because the rabbi did not train him well. If he trained him well, he would train him with yirat shamayim. If you have yirat shamayim, you don't go to the office of a kofer.

12:53The fact that the Rabbi went with him to the office of the kofer means they both have problems, not just the kofer. Because when you have a good foundation of Yirat Shamayim, you know that one of the most important obligations in the Torah is not to put yourself in jeopardy. Who do you think you are, going in front of the kofer, unless you're specifically trained. Unless you're specifically trained in it, who do you think you are to put yourself in danger? Are you putting Am Yisrael in danger? Putting yourself in danger? Who do you think you are? Are you going to deal with a kofer? Do you know what it is? Who do you think you are? Are you going to talk to a missionary and think that you can debate him? Everybody wants to debate now. Everybody wants to be a famous debater. No, let's debate. They send me letters. They send me comments: 'I want to debate you.' Debate me about what? Do you know one plus one? Good. At least you know something. The rest of what you say is shtuyot. Everyone wants to be a famous debater. You can't just put yourself in danger for no reason. Everybody wants to debate Christians now all of a sudden. Do Am Yisrael a favor. Don't debate anyone. Debate the Gemara. Debate the Torah. Debate your Yetzer Hara. Don't debate anyone unless you're a serious, serious professional. You know the whole book by heart. You know the entire Torah by heart. You know the entire Gemara by heart. You know our Torah, not theirs. Not their garbage. Our Torah.

14:17because then you have Yirat Shamayim.