In פרק אלף הלכות דעות the Rambam is talking about the mitzvah of vehalachta bidrachav which requires that a person cultivate character traits such as רחום וחנון ארך אפים et cetera. So the Rambam then gives us the following guidance, the following directive: כיצד ירגיל אדם עצמו בדעות אלו עד שיקבעו בו. How does a person habituate himself to these character traits until they become implanted within him, until he internalizes them? How does he reach that point? יעשה וישנה וישלש במעשים שעושה על פי הדעות הממוצעות ויחזור בהן תמיד.
So let's say for instance I look in the mirror and looking back at me I see someone who's stingy. And I realize that I have to cultivate the character trait of generosity. So how do I do it? So the Rambam says it doesn't come at this point because I'm stingy, it doesn't come naturally to me to give tzedakah. So I have to force myself. I'm going to have to push myself and and push myself. But the Rambam says the way Hakadosh Baruch Hu designed the human personality is that if a person time and time again will act charitably he'll become a charitable person. Even though when I'm initially doing it it doesn't come naturally. I'm not a charitable person, I'm not a generous person. But I force myself, it kills me, but I do it anyway, I write the check to tzedakah. And I do it a second time and I do it a third time and I do it again and again. So ultimately that transforms me and I'm not I'm no longer a stingy person who has to force himself to act charitably, I become a charitable person. Right? כיצד ירגיל אדם עצמו בדעות אלו עד שיקבעו בו, יעשה וישנה וישלש במעשים שעושה על פי הדעות הממוצעות ויחזור בהן תמיד.
Now listen to these next, this next line of what he says. This is going to be the point of departure אם ירצה השם בלי נדר for our our conversation: עד שיהיו מעשיהם קלים עליו ולא יהיה בהן טורח. Ultimately the Rambam says the person will reach a point where it's not difficult for him, it's not onerous for him, it's not killing him to give the tzedakah, on the contrary it comes easily and comes naturally and it doesn't it no longer represents something that requires an exertion. It no longer represents something that to a degree is experienced as a burden. Clearly, clearly the implication is that initially that is how we experience it. Initially when we set out to improve ourselves by changing ourselves, so the transition period is something that involves difficulty. It's not it's not easy. Ultimately it becomes easy and natural. But the transition period, the way a person works his way up to that level, it does involve effort. It does involve coping with and dealing with and not being deterred by difficulty and adversity. But when you reflect on this, as much as we are spoiled by western ideals of comfort and leisure and indulgence, as much as we don't like this and don't like to hear it, it's very intuitive. Anyone here planning on becoming a doctor, say, for instance? Anyone on such a track? Anyone know someone on such a track? So what's the track? College, four years of medical school. College... you're majoring in sociology? I don't know yet. Something science. Science? Pre-med? You're going to take all the pre-med classes? Chemistry, bio, physics, organic chemistry? Okay. And then? Four years of medical school, three years of residency. So you work nine to five and then you close the books? No, all day. All day. And then? Three years of residency. Residency? And the hours of residency are? I think all day also, I don't know, figuring that out. Seven in the morning till seven at night? Or seven at night till seven in the morning? So what's the point? What are they tortured for? Why is that the track? Why do they why do they why are they torturing all would-be physicians? To weed out the guys that are really want to do it for the right reason. To weed out the people that don't want it enough. That's one answer. And a second answer? That's correct. What's a second answer? The whole point of being a doctor is that you help people. So you have to give up a lot of your time. That's also true. Third answer? Very good. Be good at it. If something is a substantive discipline, there's no such thing as oh I'll read a textbook for a few hours, I'll Google heart attacks, and then I'll be I'll open up a practice as a cardiologist. If something is a real substantive discipline, if a person is looking for a real substantive accomplishment, such as becoming a doctor, it's intuitive to us that you have to work hard. If you go to a doctor and the doctor tells you that in college and in medical school he spent more time on the golf course than he did cracking the books, so get out of there as fast as you can and find a different doctor. So it's intuitive that any real accomplishment in life, and we know this in every other context, that any real accomplishment in life comes with hard work and usually at some point one element of hard work means overcoming difficulty, overcoming adversity. So it's intuitive that why should religious attainment, religious accomplishment, why should spiritual goals, they're not less significant, they're not less real, so why should they be less demanding than what we're familiar with from our daily mundane experience? That's sort of the natural perspective. And again, what this Rambam says is יצא מן הכלל ללמד על הכלל כולו. It's not only in the area of tikkun hammiddos that a person has to initially deal with difficulty as part of his hard work. It's in developing the sitzfleisch, the patience to sit and to learn and to try to develop oneself in learning, it's in trying to work on one's focus and concentration during tefillah. None of it comes easily, because if it came easily, it wouldn't be real. The same way a doctor who opens up a practice and didn't work hard and it came easily, so his expertise isn't real, his competence isn't going to be real. That's the natural perspective. The religious, the metaphysical perspective is the following: that there is a Yerushalmi in Orla that the sefarim quote, where the Yerushalmi has a phrase nahama d'kisufa. So nahama in Aramaic is bread and kisufa is shame. Nahama d'kisufa, bread of shame. And what the Yerushalmi says, which is much-quoted and much-discussed in sefarim, is that HaKadosh Baruch Hu could have just created us and put us on an express train to Olam HaBa. He could have done that. But then what we would have experienced there was nahama d'kisufa. Again, literally, bread of shame. Because if a person doesn't do anything to earn it, so then he feels the same shame rachmana litzlan that a person who has to go begging and asking for something feels. It's a humiliating thing to ask, to beg, to not be able to be self-supporting, not to be able to be independent, is a source of shame. So HaKadosh Baruch Hu designed the world that when He bestows the sachar, there shouldn't be this element of nahama d'kisufa. So the whole point of Olam HaZeh is not to coast. The whole point of Olam HaZeh is to avoid the Olam HaBa being nahama d'kisufa. So by definition, Olam HaZeh means it has to be challenging. It means that a person encounters and overcomes formidable challenges and formidable difficulties. This reality was always, I would imagine, was always a challenge, was always a nisayon. It's certainly a bigger challenge and a bigger nisayon for us living in the world in which we do that idolizes leisure and comfort and indulgence, because it's mamash the antithesis of that Western worldview. Baruch Hashem, through your, I'm not sure how many of you are holding by Shana Aleph, some by Shana Bet, but whether we're talking about seven, eight months or 17, 18 months, so Baruch Hashem there have been and im yirtzeh Hashem will continue to be real accomplishments, real attainments because of hard work. So how does a person hold onto it? How does a person sort of consolidate and cement those accomplishments that they don't gradually evaporate rachmana litzlan, especially when a person will be outside the Especially when a person will be outside the walls of the Yeshiva without that support system that the Yeshiva provides. So it's crucial, really, really crucial that while you're here, you need to identify, both by looking back as well as looking forward, what challenges await you. A lot of them, so think you know about from by looking back from previous life experience. The challenges of technology have not diminished while you've been here in Yeshiva. The objective challenges and others as well. So knowing what the challenges are, so a person has to have in place a strategy for how he's going to deal with them. So there is a profound vort of the Shem MiShmuel, the Sochatchover Rebbe, that it's worth coming back to again and again. He comments on the Maamar Chazal in Parshas Naso, so the Parsha of Nazir comes on the heels of the Parsha of Sotah. Sotah the adulteress, rachmana litzlan. So Chazal comment that the Torah is hinting at that haroeh sotah bekilkula, a person who sees what happens to the sotah because assuming in a typological sense due to intoxication, so she lost all her healthy inhibitions and was became guilty of adultery. So haroeh sotah bekilkula, a person if he sees the degradation of the sotah, he sees what happens to her when she drinks the mayim hamorim, the horrible consequences, so יזיר עצמו מן היין. He should take a neder not to drink wine, not to get intoxicated. So the Shem MiShmuel says no, what's pshat? He says a person who's had that experience, so he'll have that memory to guide him and keep him on the straight and narrow. He doesn't need the nezer neziros, maybe the rest of us need that nezer neziros, he doesn't need that. Why does he need that nezer neziros? So the Shem MiShmuel says something profound, listen to this Rabbosai, listen, it's wisdom for life from the Sochatchover Rebbe. He says no matter how powerful an experience a person has, in the case of the Gemara it's a person who witnesses the sotah bekilkula. In our lives it may be the time that we spend in Eretz Yisrael. No matter how powerful an experience a person has, no matter how much clarity he attains at that point, memories and experiences recede and gradually they become less and less powerful, less and less gripping until ultimately they wear off entirely. Unless while a person is still in the midst of that experience, he consolidates it by making kabbalos, bli neder, by making kabbalos as to what he's going to do, what he's going to incorporate into his schedule to reflect and preserve those, that clarity and those accomplishments. So while you're here and you have a sense for the chashivos of Talmud Torah. And mesikos, the sweetness of Torah, person has to think realistically about his commitment to kevius itim at all stages of life. While you're here and you have a sense of proportion and perspective on the place within a person's life that that work should hold, a person has to again consolidate that by identifying a career path for himself that will allow him to live with a proper dignity, not necessarily the gratuitous indulgence, but the proper dignity, and have the time to focus on what we're really here for in life. So before you leave, whether it's for Bein Hazmanim or על אחת כמה וכמה if it's after your entire stay in Yeshiva, you have to leave with a blueprint, and on that blueprint are a series of bli neder kabbalos, resolutions you have for how you're going to consolidate all the gains and all the progress you've made. If a person does that, so then he holds onto it. In the ma'amar Chazal that the Shem Mishmuel talks about, when the person has this clarity, he takes the Neder Nezirus, so then that lets him hold onto that clarity that he achieved. So we don't, we don't take nedarim, it's not a good idea, but bli neder kabbalos are our analogue to that. Again, how I'm going to realistically consolidate this. What am I doing given the chashivus and mesikos haTorah that I've experienced? Okay, what's my, what's my kabbala to to hold onto that? What am I incorporating into my schedule to make sure I hold onto that? And that applies in every every area of of religious life. Any questions we've already sent?