Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
This week's question is, to what extent should a person rely on themselves to deal with problems in their lives? Is it wrong to try to work on yourself on your own if you don't feel connected to any particular Rav or Rebbe? Perhaps it is even better to because then anything you do really comes from yourself and you come out of a difficult situation even stronger There's a couple of categories here that need to be clarified The first is called information deficit. The second is called challenge and the third is called the work When we have information deficit, there's nothing wrong with going to somebody and asking them for help. If I don't know directions to a particular destination, then it's not wise for me to try to figure it out on my own. It makes more sense to ask someone else if they know where the destination is and how to get there, could you please tell me the directions?
That's called information deficit. The second category is called challenged. Sometimes in our lives we need to be challenged. We need someone to see us from the outside and for someone to let us know that we can do better, or perhaps this is an area that we can improve upon. And then the third category is actually doing the work. So what exactly is the role of a Rebbe? Sometimes a Rebbe is there to share with us information deficit. Perhaps we don't know the halacha. Perhaps we don't know The second role of a Rebbe or a Rebbetzin is to challenge us. So when it comes to our own personal avodah, it's important to have people, again with a Torah worldview, that can challenge us to say, perhaps this is an area that needs to be worked on. And in telling us that this is an area that needs to be worked upon, they may also have information that would help us.
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But at the end of the day, a Rebbe or a Rebbetzin cannot do the work for you. So even if a Rebbe tells you or a Rebbetzin tells you, this is an area where I've seen that you struggle. Perhaps when it comes to G'yva or when it comes to K'as, it's important for HAB people in our lives who have a Torah worldview who can share with us, this is an avodas hamidos that needs to be worked upon. But at the end of the day, just because they told us that, doesn't mean that they're going to do the heavy lifting. It's incumbent upon all of us to actually do the work. Chazal are quite clear, asayleh ch'araf, we need to make for ourselves, Rabbanim and Rebbeitzens, people who can guide us. And Chazal also say, ein chavish mater atzma mubei tzassurim, a person who's in jail cannot break himself out of jail, they need help from the outside.
And that is the role of a Rebbe or a Rebbetzin. Having a Rebbe or a Rebbetzin who gives sage advice doesn't mean that you are going to be built just from having that advice. Ultimately, we come at a difficult situation stronger because we did the actual work. Just because the Rebbe or the Rebbetzin provided information deficit or challenged us in particular areas doesn't mean that they do the work for us. Having said all of that, I think it's very important that we not lose our own minds in the process of talking to our role models. Every Rebbe and every Rebbetzin ought to know that they are not prophets. We do not know the answers to all of life's questions. Just because someone knows how to learn very well doesn't mean that their insight is always correct. And at the end of the day, a person must also think for themselves.
And while a Rebbe or a Rebbeiten may suggest something, it doesn't mean that we're supposed to lose our own minds, forget about all the thinking that we've done in our lives, and simply just follow exactly what they say. We don't follow blindly. We have to think. And that's why the word that we used before was challenge. The job of the Rebbe may be to challenge us. In the end of the day, the person that knows you the best is you. It's helpful to have someone see you from the outside and share with you their experience of you. But ultimately it's incumbent upon all of us to actually think for ourselves. And so, asayleh kharav means make for yourself a rebbe. But perhaps asayleh kharav also means make yourself into your own Rebbe And that's the balance of this type of work.
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