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Knowing yourself is not something you can learn. A person needs to understand that this is something he's going to have to require his own intelligence for. There is no guidance that a person can get in order to understand this experience of becoming a self-aware person. Some of us are under the impression, That somebody who knows a bit about his good midos, a bit about his bad midos, he's self-aware. Revolbi has a very strong Lashon here. Eino yodea atzmoklal. He knows nothing about himself. Very often the case, I was talking to somebody yesterday, he was telling me that he had a difficult time at some point this year. He was going through the process of becoming more self-aware. And he expressed the feeling that he thought he knew who he was. And then he opened it up and it was like all of a sudden like, whoa, knowing yourself is much bigger than, I know I've got some good midos, I know I've got some bad midos. That's not knowing yourself.
What does it mean when a person opens his eyes and he stands on the precipice of seeing all of the possibilities of what, lie inside of us, right? What are all the deep things? And he looks inside and he sees all of his netiyas and all of his negiyas. What does that mean? All of his inclinations and all of his biases. So he doesn't just know his good midos and he doesn't just know his bad midos, but he knows his biases. He knows which way he leans towards in things. He knows his ups, he knows his downs. He knows the things that impact him positively, he knows the things that impact him negatively. But here's my favorite part of it. And he has not found Makom Miklat. Do you know what a Miklat is, guys? A shelter. He has no shelter. He has no place where he says, I don't want to go in there. We all have a place where we say, I don't want to go. Poison box is correct. We all have a poison box. Right? And what's the poison box? The poison box is where we shove all the things I don't want to think about.
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Right? Let's take that poison box. I don't want to think about this. Well, there it goes in that poison box. Right? Unwanted feelings. What was that. Unwanted feelings. Yeah. A person who knows himself has no such place. That's true. You said it very well. You're a real Talmud. A person who knows himself, he has no safe space in terms of, he says, I'm not going there. People always have that. I'm not going there. Don't make me go there. Right? I know somebody was telling me about an experience they had with a therapist. He said, I hated the therapist. I said, why? So he said, the therapist kept trying to get me to talk about my parents. I don't talk about my parents. He says, I hear you. You know what they say in psychology, if it's not one thing, it's your mother. At some point, you have to talk about these things. The fact, I get it. I don't mean to blame parents. I'm part of the parents club. I'm not blaming parents. My daughter turned 16 today, so I am squarely in the parents club. I'm not blaming the parents. I'm saying that if you don't want to go there, that's a sin. A person who knows himself, there's nowhere he can't go. And one philosopher called this going down to Gehenna while you're still alive. Yeah, that's what he says.
You're going down to Gehenna while you're still alive. Meaning, the process of saying, of feeling those hard feelings, the process of saying, there is no place here that I'm not willing to go. Everything is open for conversation. It could be that I've been fooling myself the entire time. Every preconceived notion I had was built on one bias, and that bias was totally built on a negative event that happened that I was unwilling to look at. What happens is, if you're willing to go there, most people are going to go down that path and they're going to shelter up. They're going to walk into that Miklat because they don't want to deal with it. The first homework for this week, for this Ben Azmanim, is what's the place you don't want to go? Some of those who are laughing... It's because they're participating in multiple shiurim. What's that makom meklat? What's the place I don't want to go?
What are my negiyas? What are my biases? I just need to know about them, right? And then I have to check them, right? In other words, you know, there are people that in their life, they don't want to talk about their anger issues. Let's just say, right? They don't want to really examine where they came from. They don't really want to do it, right? But because they're unaware of their, let's say, a bias towards a particular person because they had a negative event. Let's say somebody had a negative event in elementary school, you know, and they got in big trouble. So now they're always sensitive to any time a Rebbe says something to them, right? And then they have that anger issue and they have that bias. What happens when you have an anger issue and you have a bias? Somebody comes to you and says something, right, in an innocent way, and all of a sudden, what just happened? You understand what I'm saying? What just happened? There is no. that does not have a little bit of a.
a little bit of an ambition for for for ego. A person is, a person holds himself. If you're not a a person, at the very least I'm a in the world of Tanya is like an exceptionally high level, right? But here he's not I don't know if he's using it the way that Tanya used it but he says, okay maybe I'm not a tzadik, but I'm a pretty good guy. I mean like I do it, I come out of everything, right? That's mostly the way we speak about ourselves. So what's he saying, Hevra? He's saying that a person opens his eyes and he becomes aware, that even all of the things he has, every action, every pula, every action that he has, on some level comes from where? A little bit of me, right? A little bit of ego, right? And all of my milas, all the milas that I have are built on a certain hashchasa of ego. Hashchasa. Like the hullabaloo, the brokenness of the world, right? A mila is an advantage that I have. Like a positive mida.
Yeah. Meaning, at the start of the journey, when I'm first becoming aware, right? Imagine a Rashiva who's leading thousands of Talmidim. And it turns out that it's all built on his own narcissistic need for people to say that's the Rosh Yeshiva. Did he do amazing things? Is he teaching tons of Torah? For sure. But the whole thing is tainted, right? What will happen when you become self-aware? The ground will open up beneath you. And you will see, Gehenem underneath you. And from this fear, remember we said, Rabbi, that the fear is what drives you to change, right? From that fear, from that shaking that he has of, oh my gosh, I've been living a lie, that is what motivates him to start seeing the derech hachayim that's more true. So when you're doing the homework and you're thinking to yourself, what are my biases? What are my inclinations? What are the places I don't want to go? It will bring you to a level of self-awareness.
that might be very scary. Embrace the fear, right? If you feel like, oh my God, everything that I knew, right? I was being told this the whole time, but I refused to believe it, and I've come to the awareness that it's all built on this ego-driven lie of my own biases, and now I have to start again. And I'm rewriting the playbook. And there's something exceptionally awesome about that, because now I'm going to lead my life more authentically. Samuel? You're asking such a great question, Sammy. Remember that when we're working with our parts, and I'm using that law shown specifically of working with our parts, we're not looking to lose the positive impact. So the question might be, okay, I'd like to do this differently. The positive impact of my narcissism is that I've built a yeshiva with thousands of talmidim and b'mar b'tz toireh in a way that perhaps Kal Yisrael never had before. The negative impact is I'm dying inside, right?
Because when a person is ego-driven, right, they're only going to hear the barbs and they're not going to hear the compliments, right? And it's going to drive them crazy. Let's say such a case. I don't know if you know this. Some talmidim, bar chasham, not in our yeshiva, but some talmidim complain, yeah? And I'm saying it from the snickers. I see that you guys are shocked about this, but it's true. Not every yeshiva is as perfect as ours. And sometimes a talmid in such a yeshiva. will come to his menahel, or rosh yeshiva, but let's say menahel, right? And say, you know... Everyone's got dayas, everyone's got shitas, and if the Talmidim are doing it, and the Rebbeim are doing it, and the Rosh Shemot are just doing it, I'm not saying anything specific, you understand what I'm saying? I'm not saying, I'm just saying, if you know what I'm saying. I'm saying, let's say. So if it's gebaicht on the Menachal's ego, I almost said my, if it's built on my ego, so then I'm going to hear all of the negativity,
and I'm going to want to kill myself, because the whole reason that I'm here to begin with is ego, right? It could be I'm doing a great thing because of my ego, but it might as well be I'm dying inside. And the compliments won't be enough, because how could the compliments possibly be enough, right? When you're ego-driven, there's not enough that could ever fill that bank, right? So the question is, how do you work with that part so that it can continue to do the awesome things that it's doing, but at the same time be more authentic and integrity-driven? It's a big avodah. Each person would need to work with their part individually. Maybe. On the topic of working with your part, you said that if somebody has some, if he leans towards one thing, like let's say he wants people to give him a kavod, he should use some of that. Maybe that helps him become what he wants to become. Not only that, it shouldn't be that that's the main point, but you think that you could use that, oh, I like this too, but it's also really good to have a kavod and stuff.
The problem is, as Hazal said, like these things destroy. No, I'll tell you why. Because what happens is that... He probably fooled, not you, but this Rebbe, this theoretical Rebbe, he's probably fooling himself. It's probably more driven by ego than he probably realizes. Again, there's such a thing as a healthy ego. Whenever a person gets up to speak, there's got to be ego involved. The first time I ever spoke, the first time I ever gave a shiur in Landers, so I prepared for weeks, it was chaburu to the entire kol, I was so nervous, and I prepared for weeks, and the first thing I said when I got up there was, okay, I'm saying over this shtickl Torah and this idea, I worked very hard on it, but it could be there are mistakes, and if I made a mistake, please, it's me, and it's not the Rebbe, and if I quote somebody and I get it wrong, it's me, right? And I spent like three minutes apologizing before I started the shiur. Afterwards, Rishma Levis came over to me and he said to me, Rishma is the manal of Landers, he said, never do that again.
I said, what? He goes, don't start a sheer by apologizing. Whenever you get up in front of a room, you have to believe I have something exceptional to teach these people that they've never heard before. Now, you've got to have a healthy ego to do that, right? But that boundary between healthy ego and narcissism is thin, thin. Right? And what happens is that when we're looking for accolades, it'll never be enough. Yeah? Answered? Okay. This is like something you see in Hollywood, like in the extreme. Yeah, for sure. That's why these people kill themselves. Yeah, and it's an amazing thing. I once heard, I think it was Jerry Seinfeld was talking about how stupid. Okay. He said that too. He was talking about what's the deal with awards. And he's basically saying, like, awards are like a ridiculous thing. It's like the most self-congratulatory thing. Like, here are these people, like the biggest narcissists in the world. And what do they do? They get up in front of everyone and they go, aren't we the greatest? Shouldn't there be a show about how great we are handing us little statues? Right? And the truth is, what does an actor do already?
Right? He just stands there and says the line that somebody else wrote for him in the set that somebody else built for him, and I'm wearing the costume that somebody else made for him. Right? So what did he do? He just said the words. Those are the people that should get our awards. Again, it's a great bit, but the point is, it's all self-congratulatory. You're 100% right. Adarabadi, I think, not I think, I know. I read that by Rav Aaron Leib Steinman, his tzavah was that he wanted a minion of people to come to his lavaya. He said, there should be a minion. There's over 100,000 people at his lavaya. what was the shot, the person who authentically didn't care if there were only 10 people there will have 100,000 people there. You understand the difference? And you're not looking for any covets, so a covet will chase after you. The people that are chasing after a covet, they'll never have enough. They'll never have enough.
Could you want it. I think we're all human. I think we all want it, right? But the question is, how much do you want it? Are you willing to really look that covet in the face and say, again, this is just one example, but are you willing to look that covet in the face and say, no, I'm going to choose not that way, right? I'm not going to lie to you. There was more covet involved when I was giving the top shot of that share in Mevaseret than when I'm giving Ali Shor. But my covet said to me, keep giving share. The Rabbeinu Shalom, I believe, wanted me to stop giving shiur. because there were other people that were capable of doing it. Yeah. How is a Rebbe, let's say, supposed to get the respect he deserves, when, let's say, the Talmudim don't respect him at the level? And if you demand respect, you're going to be like, oh, he just wants a couple.
I had a Rebbe in 10th grade that walked in, and he was trying to teach us a lesson. And it was a very meaningful lesson. He walked in, nobody stood up. So he went like this, no. Right. So he was 100% right, and we all burst out laughing, because it was the strangest thing in the world. Now, Maisha Rabbeinu wrote that he was an of Mikol Adom. So it could be that there's tremendous humility to walking in a room and saying no. It could be. In this case, it didn't come off that way. You know, whenever there's a lack of kavod, It's an awesome opportunity for the Rebbe to have a conversation with the Talmud. Now, the Talmud may not be able to hear it. That's the truth. The Talmud may not be able to hear it. It's very uncomfortable. Sometimes, I have a Rebbe that comes to me, and he says to me, Plony did something in Shir, and I felt it was very inappropriate. And there are times that he'll ask me to have that conversation with the Talmud, because it's simply just too hard for him.
I hear it. It's hard to come in and say to a person, I really didn't appreciate that. I hear it. On the other hand, sometimes there's a lot of integrity in doing exactly that. So, I don't know that I would necessarily get into that battle in public, but afterwards, it's an awesome opportunity to build a relationship. You know what I mean? And by the way, sometimes the Rebbe misunderstood what the Talmud said, too. What is often perceived to be a lack of respect, Might just be the Rebbe's own bias And he's seeing it through that lens But if a Rebbe is respectable. Chances are he will get the respect that he deserves And if he's not And it's really a din in the Talmud So then that's a chinach opportunity that the Rebbe has Make sense? Yeah. I'm hesitant to give any examples Because I don't want to give one example and not another But I think everybody in this room agrees That our Rosh Yeshiva is a person of tremendous dignity And he holds himself with tremendous dignity.
He also holds himself with tremendous humility. I don't know how many Rashi Yeshiva you know that go on to Ulim with their guys, that will play basketball with the guys, that will sit and schmooze with guys, and give a great shir, and run an entire Yeshiva. And I think that even a guy who maybe is not perhaps the most well-behaved Talmud in this Yeshiva has a certain respect for the Rosh because he lives in a very authentic way and he's very in touch with his own inner dignity. I think the more you live in that authentic way, again, if you're not looking for Kavod, people will chase after you with Kavod. You know what I mean? The Rosh is not looking for any Kavod. I always say about Rav Isaacson, he's the most reluctant Rashi Yeshiva I've ever met in my entire life. He never wanted this. He was Bemakam Shein Anashim. When the Rashi Yeshiva retired, he was there. But he wasn't looking for this. And he tells me all the time, he goes, can't wait to go back to just being a Rebbe. I'll retire, I'll just go back to being a Rebbe. I'm like... You're going to take a big pay cut. I can't afford to pay you like Rosh Hashanah when you're just giving shiur.
He goes, I don't care. I'll go back. He's not interested. But, you know what I'm saying? I think that when you're running away from covet, it chases after you. Sammy. You were speaking about the five-mile between the ego and the sycamore. Yeah. I wonder about how it, is there anything you can say that is one-sided line versus the other. Many years ago, Gav Friedman came to give a shiur here in Mivasara. And, you know, we go back a long way. We grew up, you know, together. And he brought his guitar in. He's a great guitarist. He's a tremendous guitarist. I mean, that's what he did all day. He was a kid. He just sat and he played. So he got up and he just, like, rocked out for the first, like, three, four minutes of the shiur. He was just playing, like, awesome guitar, like, moving really fast. And it was incredible to watch.
And then he just looked at the chavra and he goes, I am awesome at guitar. Like, I'm really, really, really good at this. And if you know Rav Gav, you understand how he said it, right? And he's like, honestly, there's probably nobody better in the room. Isn't that arrogant? So the point of his shir was that it wasn't arrogance. Why? Because he said, I recognize that this is not a talent that I earned. This is godly talent. The difference between narcissism and ego is attribution. Is it yours? I always think it's funny when, like, NFL players catch a touchdown and they do their dance, but first they do the, right? Like, it's all from the avishti. They're so through. Then they proceed to make a series of gestures and moves that are anything but godly, right? But that initial, like, you know, I point it up above. Yeah.
Can I just, what you're saying, I used to have in high school. Right, so it's just the opposite. A true person would get up and say, I really deserve this. I really worked very hard for this, and I'm really very blessed that I was given these talents. Now, Levi's having a little bit of a heart attack over here because it's like, that's crazy, right? Yeah, but an honor doesn't mean that you're not aware. Now, the truth is, I'm being facetious. You understand that a person should not get up at an awards ceremony and go, everything they said about me is true. You say, Reverick taught me true humility is, it's all from God, but Lomisa, I got a lot of it. It's like I read he was in the court, and he was sitting down, he was like a witness, and they're like, so you're like the biggest expert on this, right? And he's like, yeah.
Yes, I am. Why are you saying that? Because I'm under oath. Yeah. Right. So you're the biggest rub of your generation? Is it? Yeah. You're the biggest rub of your generation? Yeah. How could you say that, aren't you? I'm under oath, I have to say. The truth is, we don't walk around bragging and saying we're awesome and calling that humility. Yeah. Can I just say, like, with the Farmers' Field, this was a thing that I worked on, and my ego was huge in high school about this, and it was all about me. And that was what made me cool. And it was a big thing, because confidence was a big thing for me to be like, yeah, I can do this. And that was really hard to do, because it was a lot of things to do. And one of the things I tried to do this year is, we had a conversation about it a while ago. I remember. I tried to switch my, like, route of it. Hard switch, right. It was a hard switch, but I think I did it pretty well, and that text I sent out, and I tried to just make it more about other people as much as possible, I think. Taking the credit away from yourself, exactly what you're saying, taking the credit away from yourself, putting it on to other people, because you really...
It's a tremendous thing, we're so ego-driven, we're so ego-driven, and we... I also think, I just wanted to add, because we're talking a lot about diminishing SNAP, I also think a lot of people are really incompetent, and I think that with social media and all this stuff, it's like, you tend to think that you suck a lot... People in today's world, you're saying they think they're less than they are. It's a big importance to not be so big in this sometimes, and be like, yeah, I am really good at this. But that's not Gaiva. Saying I am really good at this is actually self-aware. I felt like there was so much of that, that it felt like you could never be proud of it. Right. I seriously disagree. I think that knowing your talents obligates you, and the more you know your talents, the, more obligated you are to use them, and that's a responsibility that all of us share. We have to really say to ourselves, okay, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu gave me this talent, what do I do with it? Who are you to just stand on the side and go, no, I don't...
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