📋 Shiur Overview
The Entire Argument-Plus of This Lecture: Chesed, Truth, and Objective Good
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A. Introduction: Two Types of People — The “Terach-Person” and the “Avraham-Person”
There is a fundamental distinction between two types of people:
– Type A — The “Terach-Person”: He first figures out what the other person wants to hear, and then he says it. This is the “politician” — he has a sense for detecting what the other person needs.
– Type B — The “Avraham-Person”: He says what he holds, regardless of whether people want to hear it or not. “Kol ha’olam kulo me’ever echad vehu me’ever echad.”
Usually, one praises the second type — the “truth-person,” the courageous one. The first is considered a flatterer, a follower.
> ⟦Side note⟧ Most of the “super-wise” people who speak in praise of the second type don’t actually live it themselves.
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B. The Innovation: A Contradiction in the Conventional View
The praise gets flipped:
– If the first type = “ish hachesed” (he takes the other person into account, he cares, he doesn’t want to cause pain),
– Then the second type = “ish hagevurah” — but perhaps also somewhat inhuman, because he disturbs other people. Most people like to hear what they already know — to tell them otherwise is literally “plain hurting.”
The contradiction: One praises the second as a “truth-person,” but at the same time it turns out he is anti-social — he doesn’t take another person into account, which is actually a wickedness.
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C. The Resolution-Approach: “Feels Himself” vs. “Doesn’t Feel Himself” — Yeshut as the True Factor
The paradox is resolved through a new distinction:
– People who don’t feel themselves: They don’t know themselves, they don’t have a strong inner yeshut. They only know what “the mother-in-law says.”
– People who feel themselves very strongly: They have a strong “I,” a bold yeshut. In them “it boils” what they understand — it screams loudly within them.
The main innovation: The distinction between type A and type B is not courage vs. fear, and not good vs. bad. The distinction is how strongly the person feels himself. The “truth-teller” cares just as much about the other person — but his own yeshut is so high, so “loud,” that it screams over the consideration of the other’s feelings. This can be for good (a person who “is” more does have more self), but it can also be simply egoism.
The principle: Whoever screams (hears himself strongly), usually doesn’t hear anyone else. And conversely — whoever hears the other person, often doesn’t want to say what he himself holds.
> ⟦Small digression⟧ Here we’re not talking about wisdom, but about a “basic” psychological dynamic — though wisdom will come soon.
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D. Avraham Avinu — A **Third Type** of Person
The difficulty:
Usually a person stands in a dilemma:
– If he cares about himself → he screams his opinion, doesn’t hear the other.
– If he cares about the other → he hears the other out, but doesn’t say his own truth.
The wondrous innovation:
Avraham Avinu was a third type: He didn’t hear himself so strongly (his “I” wasn’t loud — “my personality is not so real to me, not so important to me”), but he heard the other person very strongly. And precisely because he loved the other person, he wanted to enlighten him — not from his own pride, but from love.
Formulation: The more Avraham loved another person, the more he held him by enlightening him.
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E. Proof from Midrash: Chesed + Arguments = One Thing
– Verse: Avraham was a hachnasat orchim practitioner — chesed.
– Midrash (Ramban): Avraham conducted arguments with Nimrod.
– Question: How does chesed fit with arguments?
– Answer: By Avraham, the arguing itself was an act of chesed — he engaged with people because he loved them, not because he wanted to “win.”
> ⟦Side point⟧ There are wise people who never conduct any arguments — not because they’re better, but because they “don’t hear themselves so strongly” — their personality is quieter. This is not the same as Avraham’s way.
> ⟦Another side point⟧ The claim “one can never achieve this” is rejected — these are “ideologies of despair.” One can always repent.
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F. Why Did Avraham’s Project Work? — The Loser-Problem
The problem:
Usually when one conducts an argument, everyone wants to “win.” No one wants to be the loser — even intellectually. Therefore — when you come to “teach out” the other person with force, with your strength — he opposes, even if he’s not right.
Avraham’s innovation:
Avraham could agree to be the loser — he conducted arguments in such a way that the other person remained right, not him. (This is “just a Socratic trick” — but the main principle remains.)
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G. Kugel Against Argument — Why Does “Kugel” Help Better?
The simple answer (which is rejected):
People are materialistic — they understand kugel better than intellect. This is rejected — this means you’re looking down on the other person.
The better explanation:
When I give kugel — “a potato has gone out of my account, arrived at your account.” The other person feels: you have done something for me. Therefore he opens up.
But with an argument — one takes away from the other person: “You thought you knew, now it turns out you don’t know.”
The true problem with kugel:
– Many people give kugel because they don’t care about the other person — they don’t consider him a bar-da’at.
– Bribery and truth are two opposites — from kugel one doesn’t learn any truth, one only becomes bribed.
The conclusion-principle:
To speak to a person with his intellect — that means to speak to a person. This means: I hold that you are a bar-da’at, a bar-seichel, a person. I don’t want to remain right — I want you to remain right. This is the true chesed — not kugel, but speaking with the other’s intellect.
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H. The Paradox of Speaking to the Intellect vs. Speaking to the Belly
When one speaks to a person through his intellect, one treats him as an intelligent creature — this is honor. When one speaks to his belly (manipulates through feelings/desires), one looks down on him.
But the paradox: In practice, when we speak to the intellect, it feels like we take away from the other person (because we show that he’s not right), and when we speak to the belly, it feels like we give him something. This is “ifcha mistabra.” The problem: we transform intellect-speaking into a power-game — “I’m right, you’re not right.”
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I. Avraham Avinu’s Model: Torah-Learning Like Kugel-Giving
A midrash: Avraham Avinu gave food to guests, and the inner meaning is that he taught them Torah. This is not “love bombing” (manipulation through kindness). The deeper meaning: Avraham gave Torah with the same intention as one gives kugel — for the other person, not for himself. When one gives kugel, it’s clear that it’s for the other. Avraham did Torah-learning “in the manner of kugel” — with the same selfless motivation.
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J. The Great Paradox: People Hate Being Taught, But Love Their Rebbes
Side A:
Most people (adults) hate when one shows them they don’t understand. They come to lectures where they’re told what they already know. New things are uncomfortable.
Side B:
Nevertheless, students greatly love their rebbes! Chassidim are moser nefesh for their rebbes! People actually want to learn — a Jew goes to the rebbe and says “teach me!”
Proof with examples:
Bobover chassidim vs. Breslover chassidim vs. Lubavitcher chassidim — the more the rebbe teaches, the stronger the hiskashrus. The Breslover rebbe teaches one thing more than the Bobover, the Lubavitcher even more — and proportionally the mesiras nefesh grows. “Baduk umenusah” — rebbes who teach have stronger chassidim.
The key question:
If this is so, why when I argue with a person and teach him even ten things (more than a rebbe), does he not become my chassid, but rather hates me?
The answer:
When I argue, I usually do it for myself — I want to win, I feel strongly. When I think of the other person, I stop arguing because I feel I’m pursuing him. Avraham Avinu however could think of the other person and still argue — because his arguing came from true concern.
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K. “Being Nice” vs. “Caring”
– Being nice is usually so that I shouldn’t feel uncomfortable.
– Caring (truly caring for the other person) is much harder than being nice.
– Caring can sometimes mean being strict — but it must come not from wanting to win, but from believing in the other person, hearing the other person.
– The Lubavitcher Rebbe is brought as an example: his success came from a flame of ahavas Yisrael — he loved Jews because a Jew is a Jew. Therefore he “caught” even people who weren’t drawn to him.
> ⟦Side digression⟧ The same person who says he wants to teach people, gets upset when a “nudnik” asks more than three times. If you really want to teach, why aren’t you happy that the other person wants to learn from you? “It turns out I don’t want to — I want something else.”
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L. Side Digression: Rebbes Who Daven/Sing Before the Congregation
> ⟦Side digression⟧ Chassidic rebbes who daven, sing, or dance before the congregation: they try to feel what they’re saying — e.g., by “menucha vesimcha” feel menucha vesimcha.
> A humorous critique: Why does one sing “menucha vesimcha” with a sad face? The words don’t match the tune! (He compares it to leil selichos where everything sounds equally sad.)
> The main point: When the rebbe cooks himself in his own feelings, this is a problem — because if he were thinking of the congregation, it would be different.
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M. The “Authentic” Rebbe Is Actually the Greatest Egoist
The rebbe who “cooks himself” in his own feelings at the tisch, and thinks this is “authentic” because he’s not thinking of the congregation — is actually the greatest egoist. He thinks only of himself, not of the people who come to him. This is “ifcha mistabra” — not thinking of the other person is not righteousness, it’s “chaya ra’ah.”
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N. The Parable of Ba’al Tefillah Against Chazan
A new parable is introduced — the distinction between a ba’al tefillah and a chazan:
– Ba’al tefillah: Feels the words, lives into “Baruch Atah Hashem” — he senses what he’s saying.
– Chazan: Doesn’t think of the content, but of how the voice comes out — he’s occupied with the art/technique of the presentation.
The Maggid of Mezeritch’s interpretation: “Vayehi kinagen hamenagen”
When the singer becomes like the instrument being played — like a shofar — he is batel to the ohr Hashem that comes through him, then “vatehi alav ruach Hashem.”
The provocative question: Who is more a “shofar” — the chazan or the ba’al tefillah? The chazan is literally a shofar — he says: I’m not here for my feelings, but to produce the melody.
But — a complication: It could be that the chazan’s melody is nothing — just showing off. The ideal would be both — one who understands both sides.
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O. The Main Argument: The Rebbe Must Think of the Congregation, Not of Himself
The rebbe’s “job” is to awaken the congregation. He must “put himself aside” — set back his own personality — and think: what does the other person need to hear?
“Devarim hayotzim min halev” is sharply reinterpreted: when it remains in your heart, it’s your thing, not the other’s. You must speak to the other person — through kugel, derasha, nigun — whatever fits.
> ⟦Side digression: Chassidic story⟧ A maggid asks a rebbe: why do I only get pennies and you get a lot of money? The rebbe answers: You spoke in such a way that they saw how important money is to you — so they kept it. By me they saw that money is worth nothing — so they gave it away. Nimshal: When the rebbe feels himself too much, it stays with him; when he is batel, it goes over to the congregation.
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P. The Philosophical Foundation: “Good for You” vs. “What You Want”
The core of the entire lecture:
– Modern subjectivism/emotivism means: “good for you” = what you think you want. Therefore one cannot do the other person a “favor” that he himself doesn’t understand as a favor.
– The Torah standpoint: There is an objective “good” for you, even when you don’t know it. Your desires don’t tell you what is truly good — not objectively and not subjectively.
– To care about you means to care about what you truly need, not what you think you want.
– Only on this foundation can one philosophically answer: how can I be “good” to you against your will? — because there is a truth that is good for you, even when you are “in desires.”
– Without this — if one is a subjectivist — it is impossible to teach the other person what is good, because “good” is only what he himself feels.
All the confusions described until now — the “authentic” rebbe, the ba’al tefillah vs. chazan, the egoism of “I’m right” — stem from the same deep heresy: that “what I want” = “what is good”, and therefore when one cooks himself in “truth,” he’s actually cooking himself in himself.
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Q. The Practical Parable — A Person Wants to Divorce
A Jew comes and says he’s unhappy with his wife, he fights every day, he feels it’s the wrong match, and he wants to divorce. But the person is making a mistake — he’s not truly suffering, he *imagines* he’s suffering.
The question: Can I tell him: “You’re wrong, you’re not truly suffering, it’s better for you to stay”? Even when he cries every night? Even when I have no plan how he should stop crying — even for twenty years?
The resistance of the modern mentality:
Most people who have internalized today’s zeitgeist hold that such an answer is impossible. They can only say “reluctant” answers (work on it for two years, try therapy), but not the fundamental answer: “You’re making a mistake about your own condition.”
The accusation of “obnoxious”: Students react that such an answer is obnoxious — one doesn’t validate the person.
The counter-argument: Validating is not a mitzvah
“Since when has validating a person become a mitzvah?” With small children one can make someone feel good, but with a life question (divorce or not) one must say the truth, even when the person won’t feel validated.
> ⟦Side digression: the religious test-case⟧ When a person wants to become a non-Jew — and you truly believe that Judaism is the truth — can you tell him “stay, this is better for you,” even if he feels otherwise. People treat religion like a “joker card” — they let it through only because it’s religion, but the principle is the same in worldly matters too.
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R. The Parable of the Infrared Glasses (Train-Parable)
A dramatic parable: I have special glasses that let me see that a train is coming right where you’re standing. No one else sees it. I give you a shove — you land in the hospital, but you’re alive. Was I right to do it?
A student answers: “Yes, but you don’t have glasses” (i.e., in life questions you don’t have such clarity). The answer: You agree that the principle exists — that someone who sees something others don’t see, has a right (and an obligation) to act.
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S. The Prophet-Parallel
This is exactly what a prophet is: one who sees clearly that the train is coming, no one else sees it. Yirmiyahu Hanavi wanted to stop being a prophet — “ve’amarti lo ezkerenu velo adaber od bishmo” — but “vayehi belibi ke’esh bo’eres atzur be’atzmosai,” he couldn’t stop. Kovesh nevuato (one who holds back his prophecy) is chayav misah — because he sees the truth and is silent.
The philosophical main point:
Why do people think this is crazy? Because we have internalized that all life-answers are only subjective. There is no true, objective answer to the question “should a person divorce or not.” This is precisely the foundation of the entire confusion — we have thrown away the concept that there is an objective “good” for a person, and therefore every such answer seems “obnoxious” or “crazy.”
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T. The Fundamental Problem: We Don’t Believe in Objective Good — and the Consequences
We are all convinced that there is no true answer to big life questions. We believe that the person himself is the final judge — if he says he’s suffering, he’s suffering; if he says he’s happy, he’s happy. No one has any “right” to say that another is wrong.
This is built on a false belief (which has good reasons, but is still false) — that there is no such thing as “objective good”, nothing that is truly good for a person independent of his own feeling.
The consequences — goodness collapses into flattery:
If there is no objective good, then:
– “Helping” becomes only flattering — making the other person feel good, or doing what he asks.
– “Being a good person” is impossible — one is either an egoist, or a flatterer.
– Being a good person collapses into flattering other people — literally no other possibility.
This is the paradox from the beginning: when I think of myself, I disturb the other; when I think of the other, I don’t help him. The paradox exists only because we’ve stopped believing in objective good.
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U. Divine Command Theory — and Why It Doesn’t Help
> ⟦Side discussion⟧ A student asks: whoever says “because the Almighty commanded” — doesn’t he mean objective good?
No. Divine command theory is another way to say there is no real good — it’s only what God decides. A person can answer: “The Almighty has a deal? Let Him heat Gehinnom himself!” — and this would be legitimate according to this system. We follow the Almighty because it’s good for us — not only because He’s stronger.
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V. Avraham Avinu — Chesed and Chochmah Are One Thing
Avraham Avinu’s discovery of religion and his chesed are the same thing:
– He discovered that there is such a thing called “tov” — truly good.
– Only when one believes in truly good, can one do a favor for another.
– Chochmah and chesed are not a contradiction — they are the same thing: chesed doesn’t mean giving the other person what he thinks he wants, but what is truly good for him. Chochmah says what is good.
> ⟦Side discussion⟧ The objection: “You love to learn — well, that’s your taste, why should I?” Answer: I’m not claiming it’s good because I love it. I claim that it’s good for people as people. I love it because I’m a person — and you need to love it too because you’re a person. If the belief is that the only good is what people love, then one can say nothing to another person — there is no language of connection.
> ⟦Side discussion: the objection of “arrogance”⟧ A student asks: isn’t it arrogant to say for others what is good for them? Answer: In particulars (details) it’s very difficult — even the Almighty must “go down” (vayered Hashem lir’os) to know specifics. This is the meaning of “hevu mesunim badin” — one must be careful with practical halachic rulings because one must know everything that happened in the person’s life. But in general terms — to say general derashos what is good for people — this is something completely different, and this is what Avraham Avinu did.
> ⟦Interesting theological side note⟧ The Rambam’s interpretation of “vayered Hashem” is that God’s “job” is to think of the entire world (klalus), and going down to particulars is “difficult” (kiveyachol, not befitting His honor) — it requires calculating a billion details.
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W. Chesed vs. Rachmanus — A New Distinction
Rachmanus as a way of helping — but a limited one:
Rachmanus means: “You’re such a nebach, I’ll help you.” This is true in a certain sense — even by Hakadosh Baruch Hu, as we say “vayered Hashem” and “midas harachamim” — that in order to speak with a person one must speak according to what he thinks he wants, not from where I stand. One can call this a “tactic,” but it’s more than a tactic — it’s a real necessity. The example: Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes to Adam Harishon and asks “ayeka” — He already knows, but He speaks from the person’s perspective.
The problem with rachmanus — jumping levels:
There is something wrong with speaking to a person from 20 levels away from where he stands. From one or two levels one can try, but not from 20. This is not “bad” in the sense that it’s actually evil, but it doesn’t work — because the person can’t receive it.
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X. Reward and Punishment — Both Are Coercion
[A major innovation]
People think that in today’s world we’ve exchanged the “bad” old method (threatening with Gehinnom) with a “nice” new method (love, acceptance, validation, candy). “I have news for you — both are coercion.”
The Rambam and the Zohar say that reward and punishment are for small children, for women, and for us — and this means not only punishment, but also reward. Both mean that one doesn’t say the true reason. The example: a child wants to go into the street, one gives him candy so he won’t go — he’s still not doing what he wants, he’s being manipulated.
No distinction between reward and punishment in respect for the person:
Both — reward and punishment — don’t speak to the person “as he is a ba’al da’as.” Both say: “You don’t understand what is good, let’s convince you according to your level.” The example: one shows “the beauty of Judaism” through good kugel — but this is not Judaism, this is “the falsehood of Judaism.” The true beauty must be that the person understands himself what is good for him.
Reward/punishment is good only as a means, not in itself:
Reward is good in the sense that it leads to the good — but not good in itself. Like candy for a child — one must do it, but it’s not the purpose.
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Y. Back to the Foundation: Chesed Against Rachmanus in Helping Another
The main point:
One can only truly help another person if one knows what is truly good. The one who says there is only rachmanus — only speaking to you according to what you think — never does any favor for another, he only makes the other feel good.
The distinction is:
– Chesed/emes: One wants to make the other person truly good — because it is good. This is not a tactic, this is the foundation.
– Tactics (being nice, debating, being mekarev): These are means how to achieve the goal, but not the goal itself.
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Z. Critique of “Kiruv” Without a True Foundation
People who use only the “nice tactic” — always being mekarev, always being nice — but inside they think: “There’s no such thing as good, good means when a person feels good.” They make the other person feel good, make him have pleasure from Shabbos, but — if the person would never start having pleasure from Shabbos, the mekarev might do nothing. This proves that he doesn’t believe it’s truly good — he only believes in making people feel good.
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AA. The Circular Problem of “Making People’s Lives Better”
When someone says “I just want to make people’s lives better,” this actually only means — making them think their life is better. But if there’s no objective good behind it, everything remains circular — it’s only about what people feel, not what actually is.
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BB. The “Ba’al Teshuvah-Maker” — A Provocative Question
Imagine that the person being mekarev will never have a good day in his life afterward — he would have been better off as a non-Jew. Would the kiruv-doer still do it?
Most kiruv people are actually motivated by an olam hazeh assumption: OTD people look sad, frum Jews look happy — so let’s make them frum. The whole thing is built on ta’avos olam hazeh (worldly desires/feelings), not on true objective good.
The “sweet” approach to kiruv: “You don’t need any kippah, you can come without a yarmulke” — everything soft, never strict.
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CC. The Indicator-Test: If One Truly Believes in Objective Good
If the kiruv-doer truly believed there is a true objective good, he would at least sometimes speak strictly — “devarim kashim kegidim.” The fact that he never speaks strictly, shows he doesn’t truly believe in objective good.
> ⟦Side digression: the “individual” excuse⟧ The claim “every person is an individual” is questioned sarcastically: has there never been one individual who works better when one hits him (rebukes him)? It is claimed that there are many such people.
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DD. Side Digression: Observation About “Good” and “Bad” People
> ⟦Side digression⟧ A sociological observation:
> – Most people who are strict with others — are also bad to themselves.
> – Most people who are nice to others — are also bad when it comes to their own matters.
> – The greatest ba’alei chesed, rescue people — when something touches them, they can kill a person. Something doesn’t fit.
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EE. Moshe Rabbeinu as a Counter-Example to the “Nice Tzaddik”
Moshe Rabbeinu is an example of a tzaddik who was not “nice”:
– By Korach — he didn’t say “no problem.” He said “let’s see who’s right” — and Korach was burned.
– By Yisro’s daughters — strict.
– “Hochichan Moshe shiv’ah” — he always gave mussar.
– Moshe was anav mikol ha’adam, but not nice. He was a great tzaddik without the “niceness” mask.
Contrast with Aharon:
Aharon was the “nice one” — he helped the Jews, said “I know you mean well, let’s make a calf.” (Implicitly critical — Aharon’s niceness led to the calf.)
> ⟦Side digression⟧ There is a “whole derasha against niceness” — a person can train himself only to make people happy, but this is a personality problem, not true good. But it’s left as “a whole other derasha.”
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FF. The Main Thesis Stated Clearly: Without Objective Good, Helping Is Metaphysically Impossible
> “It’s very difficult to truly help another person if one doesn’t believe there is such a thing as truly good. Perhaps it’s literally impossible — metaphysically impossible.”
Because: if there is no objective good for the other person, one can only convince the other person that he’s doing well — not actually help.
It is admitted that some kiruv people mean it truly honestly — it’s not all egoism. But if there is no “truly good” for the other person, one cannot help him.
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GG. The Example of Punishment — Shows Our Twisted Language
A long example about punishment/imprisonment to prove how our language is twisted:
– Our normal language: We put a thief in prison in order to protect other people.
– The question: Why not say that it’s good for the thief himself that he shouldn’t be able to steal? It’s worse to be the thief than to be the stolen-from — all religious people say this, but they don’t truly believe it.
It is pointed out that:
– One always says “we can’t do anything to him because his wife…” — but for the wife it’s also good that he shouldn’t be an angry thief.
– “It doesn’t feel good, but it is good” — this is the distinction between subjective feeling and objective good.
The point: Our entire language about punishment/imprisonment shows that we don’t think in terms of objective good for the person himself — but only in terms of subjective harm to others.
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HH. The True Answer to the Paradox — We Don’t Know What “Good” Truly Means
The true answer to the paradox that began the entire lecture — that one cannot help the other person in a way that hurts him — is based on the fact that we don’t have a true understanding of what “good for the person” means. We simply don’t know what “good” is.
– Even when one tells the other person a “difficult truth” — even something that is objectively true — it’s very difficult for people to accept, because people want to be “nice,” want it to feel good.
– We don’t even have the language to say “good for you” without it meaning “good that I feel is good.” People understand “good for you” as “it feels good.” But in truth, “feeling good” is only one sign of good — and many times the sign doesn’t work. Something can be better than feeling good, even when it doesn’t feel good.
– “Good for him” — not “good for the Almighty” (good for the Almighty let the Almighty Himself take care). We’re talking here about what is truly good for the person himself, but he doesn’t know about it.
> ⟦Side digression⟧ People have fear of taking risks — the greatest fear is “what if I’m not right?” In learning Gemara one takes risks (one says a sevara even if one isn’t sure), but in life a person runs away from risks a whole life. This is “a whole other derasha.”
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II. The Example of Smoking — and Its Limits
> ⟦Example⟧ A “zombie”-example: One tells a smoker “don’t smoke.” But even this is not so clear that we have the right to say it. Modern people don’t actually say it — the government writes it on cigarette packs, but what is their calculation?
– If the smoker doesn’t want to die — one can show him a contradiction: “You smoke, but you don’t want to die — this doesn’t fit together.”
– But
– But if he does want to die? — you can’t tell him anything. This shows how difficult it is to define “good for you” without an objective basis.
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JJ. The Main Conclusion: Liberalism Makes You a Worse Person, Not a Better One
This is the climax of the entire lecture:
– People often say that liberalism / pluralism (the belief that there is no objective truth) helps one to be a good person.
– On the contrary: it makes you a worse person. Because without an objective “good” you cannot truly help anyone — you don’t know what helping means.
– The only way to be a truly good person — in the sense of nihul hachaim (conducting life, helping others) — is to have an objective good: what is truly good (true good), not only what seems good (what seems to be good).
– A correction: not “objective truth” but “true good” — what is truly good, as opposed to what seems to be good.
– Only then can one truly help a society — not because one wants to have a “foundation” or for children — but plainly, simply to elevate life.
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The Entire Argument-Plus at a Glance:
Two types of people (flatterer vs. truth-teller) → contradiction (truth-teller = anti-social) → new distinction (yeshut/self-feeling as factor) → Avraham = third type (hears the other, speaks truth from love) → chesed + argument = one → loser-problem: Avraham agrees to “lose” → kugel vs. argument: kugel = bribery, argument from love = honor for the other’s intellect → Torah-learning like kugel-giving (selfless) → paradox: people hate being taught but love rebbes → being nice vs. caring → the “authentic” rebbe = egoist → ba’al tefillah vs. chazan → the philosophical foundation: “good for you” vs. “what you want” → parable of divorce, infrared glasses, prophet → there is no objective good = goodness collapses into flattery → Divine command theory doesn’t help → chochmah and chesed = one thing → chesed vs. rachmanus → reward and punishment = both coercion → critique of kiruv without foundation → Moshe Rabbeinu = strict but truthful → punishment-example → conclusion: without “true good” helping is impossible — liberalism makes you worse, not better.
📝 Full Transcript
Two Types of People: The Distinction Between Chesed and Gevurah
Introduction: The Fundamental Distinction Between Two Types of People
Speaker:
Okay, rabbosai (gentlemen), I want to say a Torah teaching like this:
Everyone knows that there are two types of people. Such people who divide everything into two, and other people, yes? No, everyone knows that there are two types of people.
The First Type: The Terach-Person
And there are people who when they speak, first they try to figure out what one wants to hear, then they say it. Yes? These people are called, what? Politicians. Let’s say both. He figures out what you want, he’s usually a good rebbe. Yes? When someone comes in to him, he tries to sense it out. That’s his chush (sense/intuition). Many people aren’t smart enough, they don’t have the chush. It’s hard to grasp what the other person wants to hear, memilah (therefore) they’re not a good rebbe.
So, they hear what the other person wants to say, he understands what the other person wants to say, he tells him. That’s one type of person, yes? Everyone knows: Terach people.
The Second Type: The Avraham Avinu-Person
Then one says, that there’s a second type of person, an Avraham Avinu (Abraham our forefather) person, yes? He is kol ha’olam kulo me’ever echad vehu me’ever acher (the entire world on one side and he on the other). He says what he holds. It doesn’t matter to him whether you want to hear it or whether you don’t want to hear it. True?
There are two types of people, yes? People who only say what… true? Wait a minute. One type of person who only says what one wants to hear, always tries to make sure that before he says something that there shouldn’t be anyone who is machlokes (in disagreement), and a second one, who says, as they say, he’s a truthful person, he says ke’libo ken piv (as his heart so his mouth), he says what he wants to say.
The Common Praise: The Truth-Person
I want to say a chiddush (novel insight). Everyone thinks, usually one praises the second person. It’s a topic of courage, one thinks about this. One says that the one who just says what one wants to hear, he’s not a normal person, not a serious person, he’s just a… he doesn’t mean it seriously, he gets drawn along (nimshach), he just says what one wants to hear. The one who says the truth, he’s an ish emes (man of truth), he’s for real, yes? He’s like Avraham Avinu. Right?
Yes, it’s agreed (ets maskim), so usually in our kehillos (communities) one praises the second person. Not that one is the second person, yes, to be clear. Most of the chachamim (wise men/scholars) that I know aren’t actually a second person, but they still say, one speaks about this, one praises, one looks up to it. Okay.
The Chiddush: A Contradiction in the Common View
Chesed and Gevurah: A New Understanding
I think like this, I want to say an external chiddush. According to this it comes out, I want to say, learning the parshah (Torah portion) of Avraham Avinu, I should say it this way. According to this it comes out that the first one is an ish hachesed (man of kindness), and the second is an ish hagevurah (man of strength/severity), right?
Okay, it’s a small chesed (kindness) and gevurah (strength/severity), it’s just a drush (homiletic interpretation). What I mean to say is, the honest Jew, the Jew who speaks for the other person, we were trying last night to figure out what the other person wants to hear, he wants to make him feel good, he wants to make him… actually he also wants to make himself feel good, which okay, both. He wants… he wants to say what the other person wants to hear. He’s a normal person, he’s a good person, true? He takes into account… he takes into account what the other person wants to hear, right? He cares for you. That’s the reality.
The Reality: The Truth-Teller as Inhuman
The reality is those people usually, when you go in the street, we say about the second person he’s a bit inhuman, he… he’s a bit inhuman. We don’t grasp this, we as people who love to say what we hold or say the truth, we don’t grasp this. But the reality is that usually when there’s someone who goes to the, I don’t know, to the shalom zachor (celebration for newborn boy), and he says what he truly holds, and the whole shul holds the opposite, he’s a bit inhuman. Why are you disturbing other people? Most people are disturbed to hear something different from what they think. It’s plain hurting a Jew.
In a nice way… wait, how does one say this. Yes, in a nice way, every time, this is a sensitive topic, it’s disturbing.
What are you doing with… why are you pursuing (rodef) just a Jew? Ah, as everyone knows, that a nice guy doesn’t talk with another person about politics and religion, yes? Why? Because everyone has important shitos (opinions/approaches) about this, and you’re just disturbing him. Why disturb another Jew? Be a good person, leave him alone, tell him what the other person wants to hear, that’s… reality, yes?
The Contradiction: The Truth-Teller as Bad
Mah she’ein ken (in contrast) the second person, many times one says, the second one, the one who says, he’s a bad person, he doesn’t care about the other person, and he doesn’t care about the other person, memilah he says the truth, yes, right? That’s what one says? That’s how it comes out? A very strange thing, isn’t it?
So there’s a stirah (contradiction) between the two.
Is this a contradiction?
The two peshutim (interpretations) about the two people are a contradiction. If one holds that it’s so good to say what the truth is, it should actually be exactly the opposite: the first one is a chanef (flatterer), he says chanifah (flattery), and the second is nice, the second one is a bad person.
Two Types of Truth-Tellers
And the reality is that there are two types, two types of further types of people. There are two types of people who say differently than the other people want to hear. Two types of people. One is like this. The first is an ish chesed and the second is an ish, what? Ish, let’s drop the drush. The gevurah, just a bad person, he doesn’t care about the other person. But the gevurah, like the Kotzker Rebbe (Rabbi Menachem Mendel of Kotzk), is a gevurah person. So it comes out le’chorah (apparently). Right?
So that’s the opposite, here comes out a kushya (question/difficulty), that one strongly praises the one who says the truth, it turns out he is just an anti-social, he’s not, I mean to say he doesn’t take into account another Jew. Which is a rishus (wickedness) just not taking into account another Jew. Is there a toeles (benefit) in this? Just saying to the other person, soon we’ll talk about the teirutz (answer/resolution), do you understand the problem? What? And no chiluk (distinction) in which way, do you want to pursue just another Jew?
Most people love to hear what they already know. Interesting thing. Most people love to hear what they already know. Why is it pursuing? Just that I want to lead the other person with something. I hold that it will work. Ah, so let’s say like this, right. Let’s say like this, one must make an important chiluk, a tremendous chiluk.
The Teirutz: A New Chiluk — “Feels Himself” Versus “Doesn’t Feel Himself”
The Fundamental Chiluk: Egoism or Selfhood
One must know that this is a fire of wickedness. Now, if one thinks into it one sees that there are two types, two other ways how to be the disturber, the one who is different from another person. What are the two ways? One is truly pure wickedness. What do I mean to say? Not pure wickedness, it’s an exaggeration, but this is truly built on the fact that he’s more of an egoist. What do I mean to say more of an egoist?
Another Chiluk: People Who Know Themselves and People Who Don’t Know Themselves
There are still two types of people in the world. Another third type of two, fourth people, okay? Yes, now already three types of two people, one must already make a cheshbon (accounting). There are two types of people. One are people who don’t know themselves, they don’t understand themselves, they don’t love themselves, they don’t have a chavrusah (study partnership/intimate relationship) with themselves. They know more or less only what the other person, what the mother-in-law says. That’s most people.
Then there are people who know themselves, they feel themselves very strongly. The first type of person doesn’t feel himself, he feels the other person, he feels what someone will say about this, he doesn’t feel himself. The second type of person feels himself very strongly. That means when he has some opinion or he has some feeling, he feels himself. He feels very strongly that he’s some person, he has something to say, he has some, he has some feeling, he has some tainah (claim/argument). He’s such a type of person. I know many two types of people, a very simple thing to see. There are people who don’t feel themselves too strongly, people who feel themselves very strongly.
The Main Chiddush: Selfhood, Not Egoism
And many times, the second person who says what he has to say, it’s not because he doesn’t care about the other person, he cares exactly as much about the other person as the second one. But there’s besides this another thing, that he knows himself, he cares, he also cares about himself. He feels his yeshus (selfhood/being), his ani (I/self), yes ‘my yeshus’ is a Chassidic word, his identity, his ani, is very strong to him, it’s a very bold thing to him, he knows it, he cares about it very strongly.
So by him what he cares about, is terribly strong, that screams very loudly. So, it screams over what the other person, what he actually understands that he’s hurting the other person, but he has something that pushes him here, there’s some drive, because he is also some person, he also needs to express himself, he also needs to say what he has.
That’s one type of person. Very many people that I know, lefi daati (in my opinion), who say what they have to say is mostly, because it’s more themselves. One can say letovah (for the good), because a person who is more, he actually has more of himself. I’m not saying it’s lera’ah (for the bad). I’m only explaining (mesbir) that it seems to me le’chorah that the difference is not the difference that he’s less caring, he’s not less caring. Also not the difference is that he’s less good, not less good. Be’ikar (primarily) the chiluk is that he feels himself more. Do you grasp what I’m talking about? Yes, I love myself. Yes, usually the person, usually…
The Chiluk in Practice
It’s to him, it’s mine, I understand, what I understand something, it boils in me. Others… I know, I know the person, both can understand exactly the same. He understands it, he also holds like me, but it doesn’t boil in him, he doesn’t care. It’s that I hold so! He’s so comfortable with that. He’s sure about that. He doesn’t even need to…
Questions and Discussion
Student:
Why did you say it’s not so?
Speaker:
Do you understand what something superficial is? A person who seems something so superficial. Yes. Simple thing. What someone says and he doesn’t know what it means. I have no yediah (knowledge) about this. Are you serious to yourself? Why don’t I mean so?
Student:
Because that sounds like one of the things that people say that are not real.
Speaker:
Not real?
Student:
Yes.
Speaker:
Actually things.
But I actually described well. I described well. Who can… isn’t he… it goes… one gets used to it.
I once had a conversation. I would have said it, I can’t speak against the other person, you know what I mean? I can’t now speak about people, everyone here. I can speak about everyone external. I can only speak backwards.
The Chiluk in Practice: What Moves a Person
Like everything. A person, a thing that moves a person, makes him do things. There’s someone where the thing that moves him the most is the other person, what the other person will feel. He feels that the strongest. There are people who have themselves with the other person equal, it becomes a question. There are people who have themselves much more. He knows himself very strongly, he cares about himself very strongly, he’s very much himself by himself. It makes a big chiluk by him what he feels or what he thinks or what he holds that one must do, what one may not do, whatever it is. It’s very high. It’s very loud. What he is, is very loud. Hear a basic thing. I’m not now talking about chochmah (wisdom) and other things. This is very simple. We’re still talking about chochmah.
Student:
Yes, yes, I grasp. I grasp what everyone says. I’ve already said three other types of things. I’ve already said four, five, six. I’ve said, I wouldn’t be able to keep my head. Okay.
Beginning of the Application to Avraham Avinu
Speaker:
Now I’ll say a chiddush. A chiddush nifla (wondrous).
Avraham Avinu is very difficult. I look at it that it’s very difficult. It’s undeniably difficult. Usually when a person, if he cares, he says: okay, see, I think so. You know what? One of the ways of saying is: I think so and I don’t care what you say.
Avraham Avinu’s Way: Arguments from Love
Two Types of People: Who Hears Himself Louder?
Rabbi:
There are people who have themselves with the other person equal, it becomes a question. There are people who have themselves much more. He knows himself very strongly, he cares about himself very strongly, he’s very much himself by himself, it makes a big chiluk by him what he feels or what he thinks or what he holds that one must do or what one may not do, whatever it is. It’s very high, it’s very loud, his what he is is very loud.
Very… hear a basic thing, I’m not now talking about chochmah, just such a thing that’s very simple. We’re still talking about chochmah. Yes, yes, I grasp, I grasp what everyone says. I’ve already said three other types of things, you’ve already said another four, five, six. I had pity on my head, I wouldn’t have been able to keep my head.
The Wondrous Chiddush: Avraham Avinu is a Third Type of Person
Okay, now I want to say a chiddush. A chiddush nifla. Avraham Avinu is very difficult, I look at it that it’s very difficult. It’s a strange difficulty.
Usually, when a person if he cares, he says, “Okay, so I think so,” you know what, one of the ways of saying is, “I think so and I don’t care what you say.” It would be, I don’t know, I’m so strong that I don’t care. I’m not sure, I’m not convinced that this is the reason why people say things they’re not sure about themselves, I mean that this is such a phony psychology that one is accustomed to saying, it’s a psychological phony. But in any case, or so people are usually in a bit, in a bit of a dilemma, there’s a dilemma.
If I’m in the mood of being a good person, I care about the other person, I hear the other person. Let’s now say my third way of saying this. There are people who hear, what is the highest volume? Is the other person’s desires, the other person’s needs, the other person, the other person’s opinions. He hears very well. He hears the other person very well, perhaps he wants to hear out the other person, but certainly he doesn’t want to hear… There are people who hear themselves very well. He hears what he has to say, he hears what he holds, he hears what he needs, he hears what he wants, he hears what he loves. He screams… that comes out stronger, that’s usually what it is. One will see generally by that person who screams usually he doesn’t hear out anyone, right?
Avraham Avinu’s Arguments with Nimrod
The person like Avraham Avinu… Ramban (Nachmanides) says that Avraham Avinu conducted arguments with Nimrod, do you think he listened for one second to Nimrod what he had to say? How do you imagine it? I don’t know. Did he say, “Perhaps Nimrod has a point, one minute, I need to listen”? No, because you care about the truth, not… you care about your truth, no, it’s something else.
I’m not now coming to take a side between Avraham and Nimrod, no problem. I’m not coming now to take a side between Avraham and Nimrod, I just used a mashal (parable). Perhaps Avraham Avinu is not a halakha (practical law).
Learning with Concern for Others: Abraham Our Forefather’s Model of Torah Study
The Paradoxes of Teaching
What? But there are people, listen, there are people who never engage in debates, we need to go back. We are the argumentative people, the table is already a bit over… I know very many people, just as smart as us, or you know what? 90% as smart as us — such a baal gaavah (arrogant person) — but they never engage in debates. You have to pull it out of them with chains what they hold.
Why? Why not? Because exactly, because he’s not as bad as us, that’s all. No, he feels the same thing, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t hear himself so strongly. It’s not just, it’s not just by, it’s not just by, one can never create that.
Student:
One minute, one minute.
Rebbe:
These are all excuses, more excuses. It’s not true. One can always do it. This is sheker v’khazav (falsehood and lies), one can always do it. The world is, one can always do it. There are ideologies of ye’ush (despair). The world is, one can always do it.
What yes? Certainly one can. Now, but that’s a different conversation.
The Point: It’s Not Just Intellectual Arguments
So to understand the point, that it’s not just intellectual arguments, it’s also when, when, how the air condition should be cold or hot. There are also two types of people. People who feel less whether they are cold or hot, people who feel more. It’s not the same idea.
Okay, so usually, if I listen to you, I don’t want to tell you what I hold. And if I listen to myself, listen, I mean listen, I don’t mean shome’a u’mekabel (listening and accepting), I mean listening literally, it’s, the noise is high, I don’t want to hear what you’re saying, I want to tell you what I’m saying.
The Innovation: Abraham Our Forefather Was a Third Type of Person
Abraham our forefather was a third type of person. This I want to be mechadesh (innovate). Not be mechadesh. It’s true, but it’s something to try to do. Abraham our forefather was a third type of person. He, when he listened to himself, he thought: okay, I think this way. When he listened to the other person, he thought: I need to explain something to you. Do you understand?
How do you know this? I don’t know. Soon we’ll learn the parsha (Torah portion), we’ll find a drasha (homiletical interpretation) about Abraham our forefather. That’s not the point.
Student:
No, Abraham our forefather means a good person who teaches the other person, okay?
Rebbe:
To Abraham Mr. Abraham from Aram Naharaim, was he like that? A proof, it doesn’t say anything in the verse about Abraham our forefather’s arguments, so it can’t be a verse. I say Midrash, the Midrash, Rabbi Yitzchak says: everyone knows that Abraham our forefather was chesed (kindness).
The Proof: Abraham Our Forefather’s Chesed and Arguments
The point, the proof is this, this is my derush (homiletical teaching) that I wanted to say, it’s still my derush. He says, all Jews know that Abraham our forefather, what was he? He was a makhnis ore’ach (one who welcomes guests). This is stated in the verse. He went out with chesed, he went out helping other people. And everyone who learns Midrash knows that Abraham our forefather went out to fight with people.
So which one is it? The answer is that Abraham our forefather was the type of person that the more he loved another person, the more he held him by clarifying. He didn’t care about himself, he says to him another chutzpah (audacity) further, I’m not a great thing, I don’t hold myself as something of substance, I don’t hear myself so strongly, my personality is not so real to me, not so important to me, but you are important to me. And if you are important to me, I want to talk to you, I want to talk with you.
Imagine such a type of person, I think that if there were such a type of person, he would probably convince the whole world. Yes, Abraham our forefather convinced the whole world.
Questions and Answers: Did Abraham Our Forefather Really Convince the Whole World?
Student:
One minute, how many people in the world are there still who don’t hold by the way from Abraham our forefather?
Rebbe:
About him? Most of the world does hold from Abraham our forefather, but not about him, in the world, in India, I know what, among the gentiles behind…
Student:
Does it mean not about him or about him? When he died, everything that he accomplished became nullified.
Rebbe:
Thank you tzaddik (righteous one). But what does it mean, behold! Standing is not a proof, we’re not going by what stands. Yes, certainly, the reality is that Abraham our forefather accomplished. Not in one minute, not in one generation and not in two generations, but he accomplished. That’s the story that I spoke about.
The Stronger Innovation: The More He Thought About the Other Person, He Spoke the Truth
You should understand what I just said here, an innovation, I said, when I already said this, I just said a stronger thing. Abraham our forefather, the more he thought about the other person, with that he spoke the truth. Not with thinking about his, my truth.
This one needs to figure out how to do, because we don’t know how to do. We are not successful because we shout. Not for himself, because he hears himself, because he cares about himself. Cares about what he understands. Abraham our forefather cared for the other person. Yes. No difference which type of way. No difference at all. Both. Certainly kugel.
Student:
No, certainly debating is better than a kugel, debating you speak true…
Rebbe:
Listen, listen, listen. I’ll tell you, this is something I already know. I’ve now begun to say such a thing that I don’t know, one needs to truly think about this, whether it can be at all such a thing, that when I feel egoistic, then I think for myself, when I feel I care for the other person, then I fight with him, then I clarify him.
What you’re saying about… this is something that one needs to think about, it’s certain that this was the proof from Abraham our forefather, and it’s certain that because of this it helped.
Why Does a Person Get Angry with You?
Why does a person… usually, why does a person get angry with you? Because ah, you are you? You are the yud? How can you?
There’s a certain person with whom I have many arguments. Until one day he says “Yitzchak, I’m not arguing with you anymore, you win all the arguments. I don’t want to talk with you anymore.”
What does that mean? If I win, then I’m right.
“I don’t want you to be right.”
Okay, it could also be false, because I am simply many times I win not in the way of truth, yes? It means, someone who can win an argument doesn’t yet mean that he’s right, but you understand the point, why doesn’t a person want to conduct an argument with someone who always wins? Because he’s always the loser. Yes? Who wants to be a loser? No one wants to be a loser, even intellectually no one wants to be a loser. One of the main things of a person…
Student:
What? Could be.
Abraham Our Forefather Could Stand to Be a Loser
Rebbe:
Abraham our forefather could stand to be a loser, he conducted arguments where the other person remained right, not he remained right.
Student:
No, that’s just a Socratic trick.
Rebbe:
Because the point is, that… the first thing I said is, that one needs to argue with the other person, be me’ever ha’acher (on the other side), not because of sin’at olam (hatred of the world), but because of ahavat olam (love of the world). Because one hears the other person more.
I’ll say simply, this is the reason also why Abraham our forefather’s project worked, and most of our projects don’t work. Why? Because you come to teach the other person like this, in the name, with power, how strong you are. Then there will always be an argument, either I’m right or the other person is right. The other person wants to be right, the other person wants to be a… doesn’t want to be a loser, so he’ll try to win, whether he’s right or not right, he won’t want to hear.
Why Does Kugel Work Better Than Argument?
And when you come… therefore people say, why does it work better when you give kugel than when you argue with a person? Why indeed?
Student:
‘Cause you’re nice, people open up.
Rebbe:
Ah, ah, very good. Very good. Okay, I thought you were going to say a cynical thing, because people are materialistic, they love kugel more than intellect. No. I want to say a better explanation.
Why does it work better to share kugel than to give lectures? Because when I share kugel, somehow a potato went out from my account, came to your account. He won, I lost. Not lost… in practice, I did something for you. The other person feels I did something for you. Huh?
Student:
Yes but the next step at least I’m not even talking about the manipulation, now he’ll listen to you, that itself I hold I gave him something.
Rebbe:
Usually when people make an argument, one takes something away from him. You thought that you knew, now it turns out that you don’t know.
Student:
No, no, the now. Woe I don’t know.
Rebbe:
Don’t know. Good question. Good question. But the point is that when one gives kugel, there are many people who give kugel because they don’t care about you. Now, I want to tell you, it follows that it’s like this, that if the reason one gives kugel is because people are fools, and understand, everyone understands kugel, not everyone understands Torah, that means that you despise the other person. That you look down on him like this, you think: “Talk Torah with you? Kugel! No problem. Tov lo v’tov la’olam (good for him and good for the world).”
That person won’t teach anyone the truth. Because from kugel one doesn’t teach the truth, one becomes meshuchad (bribed). Shochad (bribery), shochad and truth are two hafakhim (opposites), right? Two opposites, they’re not the same thing.
The Conclusion: Speaking to a Person with His Intellect
The person who speaks to you, who wants to convince you, this means like this: that I hold that I want that you should understand that you are a mevin (one who understands), yes? That you are a bar da’at (a person of understanding), you are a bar sekhel (a person of intellect), you are a person. An idea of a person is to be a bar da’at. At least one, the idea of a person is that he is a bar sekhel.
And I don’t want to remain right, I want that you should remain right, yes? I want that your intellect should understand. To speak to a person with his intellect, that means to speak to a person. Not just a good kugel.
Learning with Concern for Others: Abraham Our Forefather’s Model of Torah Study
The Paradoxes of Teaching
The Difference Between Speaking to the Intellect and Speaking to the Stomach (Continuation)
Maggid Shiur (Lecturer):
And I don’t want to remain right, I want that you should remain right, yes, I want that your intellect should understand. To speak to a person with his intellect, that means to speak to a person, you haven’t looked down on a person. To speak to a person through his stomach, you’ve looked down, it means you spoke to him with his stomach, you took him as a stomach. If you speak to him with his intellect, you look at him as intellect, yes.
And there, somehow, now we have a problem. When we speak with the other person’s stomach, somehow we give him something, and when we speak to his intellect we take away from him, exactly the opposite of what seems logical, yes. We speak with his stomach, then I look down on you, I speak to his intellect I look up at you, yes. But we are not successful in doing this because we, when we speak intellect, that is to say, I look, I do it with the fact that I am right and the other person is not right.
Abraham Our Forefather’s Model: Torah Study Like Giving Kugel
Maggid Shiur:
So one needs to figure out a way to do what it says, and this now I say a deep thing. What it says in the Torah that Abraham our forefather gave guests to eat, and the Midrash says that the inner meaning of this is that he taught them things, yes. So what does this mean? There’s no connection between these two things. Maybe the person did a manipulation, he did love bombing, right? No, it’s not a way, love bombing is shameful, it’s not a, it’s not a, it’s not a nice thing to do to a person.
What the Midrash means to say is that Abraham our forefather taught people Torah with the same feeling as when one gives a person a kugel.
When one gives a person a kugel, it’s simple, I give you a kugel for you, not for me. The same thing, he gave Torah for him, not for himself.
So because he gave it because he did it with kugel.
He did it in the manner of kugel.
Could be, I gave you an example.
The Great Paradox: People Hate Being Taught, But Love Their Rebbes
Maggid Shiur:
Let’s argue, very good. So it seems to me I don’t know how to do this, okay. By the list that I’m also already convinced of one thing. I’m only talking about what one needs to do. The thing is like this, arguing is just a very weird way of teaching. Not a weird way, it’s a good way of teaching, but one needs to understand why. Right? That is, you know that most students love their rebbe (teacher)? It’s a davar peleh (wondrous thing), right? We just said, that most people hate it when one shows them that they are fools and one teaches them something. People don’t like to be taught something. People most love, which shiur (class) do most people come to? The shiur that tells them everything that’s said they already knew. True? There where one says new things, even if it’s not so against what they said, most adults don’t like it very much, right?
On the other hand, true? Not the special people here, I’m talking about the normal, normal, the world. One also needs to flatter oneself somewhat. So, most of them, this is true, it is true. We’re talking here about a problem. On the other hand, you look around, you’ll see. Can you talk about what? You can talk about small children. You can talk about the rebbes who say yes something, about the Hasidim (followers of a Hasidic rebbe) who bought something from them, they really love them. Right? And he asks the rebbe, “teach me more,” okay, not too much more, after an hour one bursts, but a little more. He loves him very much, he loves him very much. True?
How can it be that I try to teach adults, people things, I corner him in shul, I tell them, “Reb Leib, you didn’t understand the Hebrew of the parsha (weekly Torah portion). I can show you what the Rambam (Maimonides) says here,” whatever. And he hates me. And all rebbes, they love their, their students love them. But what is no but, it’s a question, right? Why? Well, when I argue with him, that shows him that something is lacking in you, you don’t understand. Now he should, he should say, “Wow, teach me.” Huh? Why doesn’t he do that? Because people don’t care to know. Don’t care to know? People care very much to know! The small one, so to speak, what does it mean, you know how many people care to know? The little rebbe taught him a quarter of a thing, he serves him until the king. Just to tell him which name to give to his boy, a stupid, a stupid thing that’s not even so hard to know. For that he already loves him. Here he said something, yes. Let’s still have the Bobover Rebbe, yes, why do his Hasidim love him? Because he said something? What does it mean, he taught. I don’t know, you’re talking about the wrong kind of rebbes, they’re not rebbes, but certainly thousands of people, what is the thing, I don’t understand what you’re saying. Any rebbe teaches something, I don’t know, rebbes is a borrowed term for people who lead people on other topics. When there’s a teacher, anyone who teaches anything, okay, the smallest foolish mashpia (spiritual mentor) or the smartest popular speaker, whatever it is, everyone loves him very much, why? He teaches them something. And the more something is taught, the more they love him.
Proving with Examples: Bobover, Breslov, and Lubavitcher Hasidim
Maggid Shiur:
It’s not comparable how much self-sacrifice the Bobover Hasidim have for their rebbe compared to what the Breslov Hasidim have for their rebbe, you know why? The Breslov rebbe teaches one more thing than the Bobover, not much more. Okay, one more thing. True? And the Lubavitcher Rebbe even more, why? He teaches something! People are very happy to be taught. He comes to the rebbe and says: Rebbe, I know nothing, teach me! Right?
Student:
Do you think that regarding the Rebbe’s teaching out for others, not for himself?
Maggid Shiur:
And tested and tried that the Rebbes who teach out have stronger chassidim than the Rebbes who don’t teach out.
Look around! But what’s the question? Why? I don’t know, but I’m asking a different question: why the people that I argue with, everyone, seemingly I teach out much better, right, I even say not just one thing that you don’t know, ten things, many things that you don’t know, why isn’t he even more of a chassid? Huh?
So my proposal is that usually when I do that it’s just because I’m more in the mode of thinking about myself. When I think about the other person, usually I stop arguing because I feel like I’m just chasing him. But Avraham Avinu was such a type of person that when he can think about the other person, and about that he will argue with him.
Questions and Discussion: How Do You Know This Exists?
Student:
How do you know such a thing exists at all?
Maggid Shiur:
I mean that it exists.
Sounds simple, it’s written in kugel. Yes, go. A midrash with a kugel. No, no, it’s certain, you see that there are people who do this, there are people who succeed in doing this.
Student:
I mean that they have other tricks too, not plain learning.
Maggid Shiur:
Not plain learning, but there are other tricks too. No, no, they already knew the other tricks.
Student:
Okay, that’s my point though. I was thinking even more basic than a Lubavitcher Rebbe dressed in a lot. You forget about his personality, but it is that he had a flame that he loved Jews, because a Jew is a Jew and to him it was a deep thing. It makes sense that he caught people, that he really annoyed people who really didn’t pull toward him. If you care about somebody…
“Being Nice” vs. “Caring”
Maggid Shiur:
I think that you don’t have to be nice. I think that you have to care about another Jew. I think that’s a lot harder than being nice. A lot harder.
Being nice is usually, I can’t bring this, being nice is usually making sure that I don’t feel uncomfortable.
Student:
Ah, being good can sometimes be bad for the other person, can lie strictly or the like. But it must come not from the fact that I, I need to win the argument, or I feel very strong. It must come from the fact that I want, that I believe in the other person, I want the other person, I hear the other person, I don’t have a good word to say it, I hear the other person. It must come from the other person. Ah, then one will succeed. What is the redemption? Enough, that’s enough shalosh seudos Torah.
Student:
Is it a good answer to his question?
Maggid Shiur:
Which question?
Student:
That it’s good advice for the sleep, for that sleep?
Maggid Shiur:
No, no, no.
Student:
Not sure.
The Self-Deception of “Learners”
Maggid Shiur:
No, that thing is one of the funny things that people like me, that usually when they teach is because they feel themself, is… And then… It’s very funny, because the same person, there’s some pest who asks him about three times everything and he starts to hate him. Don’t understand, the other person really wants to learn from you, truly? Why aren’t you happy?
Student:
You only learn alone, why?
Maggid Shiur:
Come to me.
That is, my whole thing is I want to learn, teach out to people. Eh, it turns out I don’t want to, I want something else. Enough with the complicated…
Student:
What? I mean it’s very important, because I want to say, I want to say deeper, I want to say again what I said in another language, I have an example to understand, and I want to say a shiur on the Shmuel and one continues. But what I want to say is that we look like this, let’s talk like this, I’ll say another example, okay?
Side Digression: Rebbes Who Daven Before the Amud
Student:
There’s such a thing called umm… what else do Rebbes do besides learning? There are Rebbes who daven before the amud, did you know? It’s a custom of certain Rebbes. And or whatever, not necessarily Rebbes, yes? Singers, I don’t know, mashpi’im. And there’s a very interesting thing in America that by us, by the chassidic serving Rebbes, what does the Rebbe do when he dances before or sings before or davens before? What does he do?
what it seems to me he is doing, I’m not an expert and no one should think what I know, what it seems to me he is doing, is that he is trying his hardest to feel – if the word feel is probably correct – to feel the things that he says. When he sings menuchah v’simchah he really feels menuchah v’simchah. Eh it doesn’t sound like, why is he crying? don’t ask me, but in any case, menuchah v’simchah one should be happy and calm, I don’t know. He has some other interpretation in the word menuchah v’simchah, but in any case… That’s my question from the night of selichos, everyone sings with the same sad face, I don’t know why. Menuchah v’simchah one can sing menuchah v’simchah, no? Menuchah v’simchah… What’s there? It’s very funny, the words don’t match with the melody. but anyways,
Let’s plain… Let’s not say that he has another interpretation, by him menuchah v’simchah one should mourn, I don’t know why. Yes he has some interpretation, he has some interpretation that here one should mourn, it’s no difference, that’s another critique I have on him. But what he does is he cooks himself, yes? He goes into the… He feels it very strongly and he says… He says it so much that the more, if he would have thought about the congregation, it would have been
The Rebbe’s Job: To Think About the Congregation, Not About Himself
Critique of the “Authentic” Rebbe – Continued
Let’s say he has another interpretation, that by him in a cup of joy one should mourn, I don’t know why. Yes he has some interpretation, he has some interpretation that there one should mourn, what’s the difference? That’s another complaint I have on him.
But what he does is, how he cooks himself, yes? He goes into the… He feels very strongly, and one says… He even says so, that the more, if he would have thought about the congregation, it wouldn’t have been authentic, right? It would have been as if he’s playing for the congregation, right?
The Rebbe who looks in the mirror, or who… Yes he practices in front of the mirror, or he asks the gabbai here, did the congregation catch when I made the groan at that? He’s a low life, right?
But the Rebbe who doesn’t think about anyone, he’s a tzaddik. I catch it’s ipkha mistabra! You don’t think about anyone you’re a wild animal! You’re the biggest egoist! People come to your table and you don’t think about them, you only think about yourself, and that’s your whole thing, thinking about yourself. Very funny! Think a bit about the other person. He wants to teach out how one thinks… with his own table.
The Parable of Baal Tefillah vs. Chazzan
Okay, now on the other hand you’ll see, there is for example umm it seems to me that if you look learn someone who is for example, umm the baalei tefillah for example are divided with the chazzanim about this. I’m not sure who’s right.
Baalei tefillah say, yes, you know that there’s a baal tefillah and a chazzan? Baalei tefillah say that when he davens, he feels the words, he says “baruch” – blessed, atah – You, Hashem – the Almighty, okay, he says a bit of Rashi too, no problem.
And the chazzan, he doesn’t think about that, he thinks about how it will come out of his mouth, from his nose, from his belly, from his head, I don’t know from where, the… whatever. Yes?
The Mezericher Maggid’s Interpretation: “Vayehi K’nagen HaMenagen”
And it could be, so I jump a bit here, it could be that both aren’t right, yes? That’s what I need to go say. It could be that the Rebbe is much more of a yesh than the… that the baal tefillah is much more of a yesh than the chazzan.
Because you know, the Mezericher Maggid said, “vayehi k’nagen,” one of the words, yes? “Vayehi k’nagen hamenagen vatehi alav ruach Hashem,” yes?
The Mezericher Maggid said, what does vayehi k’nagen hamenagen mean? That when a Jew sings or whatever he does, and he is like the instrument that is being played. Is k’nagen hamenagen. The menagen is like the nagen, something like that he interpreted. Yes? Something like that? Yes, yes, but this is written in the other books too.
That when the singer sings as if he is only a shofar, that means, he is batel before the or Hashem that comes into him, that’s then vatehi alav ruach Hashem, such an interpretation from the Mezericher Maggid. Yes?
I ask you, who is more like a shofar, the chazzan or the baal tefillah?
The Chazzan Is Literally a Shofar
Because the chazzan is literally a shofar, that’s what he’s doing. He says, I’m not here to give out my feelings, but here good to give out the melody or the whatever he is trying to do, right?
Now of course it could be that, I’ll explain you what the problem is. The problem is, it could be that the chazzan’s melody is nothing, it’s just to show that he’s a great chazzan, and it’s not to say anything, no problem.
If it would have been someone who can be mekayem both, that means, he doesn’t understand mekayem both, how the art of the melody works, that’s like a different side question. I don’t mean that, I only mean the idea.
The Rebbe’s Job: To Think About the Congregation
He thinks that he’s not here to say the, how does one say there by Rosh Hashanah, I don’t know what, he’s not here to say hamelech, and feel very strongly that the Almighty is the King.
What does it matter what he feels? The Almighty is a King, one knows that the Almighty is a King even when one doesn’t cry on Rosh Hashanah either, it doesn’t make any difference.
Whoever thinks one must feel, he’s an apikores.
The Almighty is exactly such a King when you make Shema Yisrael, the Almighty is Hashem echad even when you don’t close your eyes either. Yes, yes, that’s a good excuse.
The Almighty has a nation, by the way, He has a nation even when He doesn’t ask you. The nation He has too. Have yourself in three… As if, that doesn’t make any difference, not up and not down. Right?
Student: Stop, stop, what’s going on here? I tried to put something… I tried to record.
Instructor: And, so what did I want to say?
The Rebbe Must “Put Himself Aside”
So you catch what I’m saying, that it could be that this is a very funny thing, that he catches himself in what he is, and that means authentic. It could be that authentic means, if the Rebbe’s job is to be me’orer the congregation, it would have been exactly the opposite.
That his intention is, he understands, he cares about the other person, and he puts, he is, he puts himself aside kivyakhol. That which he puts himself aside, his job is to make him, to make the other person cry.
Now, what does he do? It could be that he needs to do great things, it could be he needs to show his own emotions about it too. I’m not saying he must be a cold, a cold chazzan about it, but do you put yourself together? Do you catch the point?
Not that one must be, not that I’m saying that the… Avraham Avinu, the person who speaks to the other person, is not one who is devarim hayotz’im min halev, that I, devarim hayotz’im min halev should actually come out from your heart! It remains, it doesn’t come out from your heart at all, it remained in your heart!
“Devarim Hayotz’im Min Halev” – A New Understanding
Words that a person says just like that, one says, he cooks himself, who cares? Why should another person care about that? That’s your thing. People are very impressed, okay, very nice, but they’re just impressed by you.
If you want to teach them something, you have to talk to the other guy, you must talk to him. You can talk to him by way of giving kugel, you can talk to him by way of saying a drashah, you can talk to him by way of singing a melody, whatever you must talk to him.
You’ll stop feeling yourself so much. And through you feeling him you’ll sing the melody that he wants to hear or the way that he needs to hear it. That is, that’s my other way of saying the same thing already.
Okay, perhaps these are fantasies. That’s what I always think.
The Parable of the Maggid and the Rebbe
Student: It’s a very good point. I mean though that there’s something, something a point that, I don’t know if one leaves it out or not, I mean there’s the chassidic… One of the chassidic stories that some maggid met some Rebbe, I don’t remember who, the maggid asked: why when I go around does everyone give me pennies, and when you speak, speak, does everyone give you a lot of money?
The Rebbe told him: They both spoke like this against money, both spoke… He says, you spoke like this, everyone saw how you want their… You spoke, you spoke so about everything that everyone saw you want money very strongly. So they see how important money is to you, they want to keep it. They catch that money is an important thing, they keep it.
I speak, they catch by me money is worth nothing, they’re also disgusted by money. He says, they don’t know what they need it anymore, they give it to me.
And the same by the baal tefillah… Ultimately the Rebbe, perhaps the Rebbe’s good job, when he’s a successful Rebbe, he must think about the congregation.
The Rebbe Must Think Less About Himself
One thing is certain, he must think less about himself, because if you listen to somebody and what you say… It could be the Rebbe’s job is to think about the congregation, but in order, if he thinks about the congregation, he must think that the congregation won’t, won’t hear what he wants to say. That he wants to say something that he wants to sound smart, it’s just not going to work.
It means he can’t be, he can… The closeness of Rebbe Reb Ber is that he shouldn’t, not that he shouldn’t have any awakening, that he… it’s not him. If he has an awakening the congregation must have the awakening.
Instructor: Yes. I’m saying it’s not, it’s certainly that he that he shouldn’t think that he is thinking of himself, but certainly that when a person goes and he thinks abdika from a book, whatever it is, he must know that it’s not a tree, I feel that, yes, I mean that the concern, the same thing that you’re saying, but one catches oneself down to a lower level. That the concern is already not that, the concern is already not to be to think so, how can I make the people happy.
Student: Right, it’s how to make them good.
Instructor: How can I make the truth come out revealed, and it’s not about myself.
Student: Of course, cause in other words there could be a.
Instructor: The people come here, the Rebbe shouldn’t think about them? He comes to a person who thinks about him.
Philosophical Foundation: “Good For You” vs. “What You Want”
Student: Right, of course, he doesn’t think about them the answer is always not about them what they cry that they want, but about them what they truly need, right? He thinks about you not about what you want, but about what you need, what that is the true you.
If you think, where everything really boils down to is really this, what from this will remind us of many other shiurim that have already been said, that
Instructor: Yes, he always has to have something killed.
Student: That what it all boils down to is, to this thing that by us everyone is convinced that what you want and what is good for you is the same thing, and therefore to think about yourself means to think what you want, which can be all ta’avos (desires), and you don’t want what’s truly right, and it’s not good for you, not objectively and not subjectively.
The Core: “Good” Is Not “What You Want”
And to care about yourself means to care about what you truly want, not about what you make yourself desire through ta’avos, right? That’s the real like philosophical underpinning behind what makes this possible. Right? You have to think that.
This is why, for us today, if you’re like a pluralist, not a pluralist, if you’re like a subjectivist, that’s what it’s called today, emotivist, then there is no way for you to teach another person about being good. This is really where it goes back to, right?
The Subjectivist Cannot Teach Another
Do you understand what I’m saying? If doing a favor for another Jew means by definition what that other Jew thinks is a favor, that’s how many people think today, because they can’t, cannot think that there is such a thing called a favor for someone else, but he doesn’t yet know that it’s a favor or he will never know, you shouldn’t do what you think, you should do what is truly right.
Then, by definition what is good? Good is I should let you do what you understand, or help you do what you think you want.
If there is such a thing as good for you, not good according to truth (al pi ha’emes), good for you, but you are in ta’avos (b’ta’avos), you think that this is good, but truly I know what is good for you.
Who told me? Because I’m such a ba’al ga’avah (arrogant person)? No, not because I’m a ba’al ga’avah, you see? Then it’s again a dispute (makhlokes) between me and you. Because, because it’s actually so.
Then I could be good to you in a real way. Without, understand? It could be I could help you, I could argue with you because I’m good to you, because I care about your good. That’s the real only way it could work philosophically. Because it’s already Torah, one must certainly do it.
Back to the General Confusion
Right? It was simple I think. Okay, to our matter (le’inyaneinu). Is it right? Is it not right? Simple, true? I can say it three more times, it will be able to become simple. Very simple.
There is such a very deep heresy (kefirah) that the world knows this way, everyone thinks that the other person, everyone understands, you realize that everything, all the confusion that I started to talk about, is all based on this same confusion.
What is the confusion? That there is a confusion, I said that when someone has the truth boiling within him, it’s because he himself is boiling within him, and about this when he fights with another person, and he says, “I am right and you are not right,” but the “I am right and you are not right,” right?
Now, the whole confusion is built on the idea that someone asks such a question, people ask this question, yes? Let’s go back to this. People ask the question, let’s say, I will say, that I will say, I hold that for you it will be good to, well, what do I hold that it will be good for you?
Can One Know What Is Good for a Person? — The Question of Objective Answers in Life Questions
The Example of a Man Who Wants to Divorce
Instructor: What, now, the whole confusion is built on the idea, because someone asks such a question. People ask this question, yes? Let’s go back to this. People ask the question. Let’s say I will say, that I will say I hold, that for you it will be good to… well, what do I hold that it will be good for you? Go on a diet. What do you have to go on a diet? Stop smoking.
A young man comes to me. I’ll tell you a story that’s just about a Jew. A Jew comes, and he says, that he is very unhappy with his wife, he fights every day, he feels really that it’s the wrong match. He holds he should divorce.
Okay? That’s what he holds. But what he’s afraid of, one doesn’t know.
Discussion: What Should I Tell Him?
Instructor: What should I tell him? No, let’s say. People actually come, but let’s say, this story has already happened, but now today someone else told that someone came to him and I had this argument with him. What is there a difference?
What do you hold? What is the difference what the reason is? What do you hold? What should I be able to know about the story? Yes, we are both here. If it’s practical, no one would tell it, well, what’s the difference?
Student: Okay, again, a side note, right, you’re speaking treacherously, you’re speaking a bit treacherously.
Instructor: I just want to tell you a point.
Someone comes to me, he tells exactly the story… he says exactly the story, this and that thing bothers him very strongly. I hold that a thing where the wife is not a normal person, can’t live with her. That doesn’t mean he had a wedding, he didn’t have a wedding. Whatever, the whole thing is nonsense, it’s fantasies, he can’t live. What will I tell him?
Not what I will tell him. It could be that I have to tell him that I can’t tell him anything, it could be right that way. I’m asking you how can I tell him something, huh? What will I tell him? What will I tell him?
That is, the question makes no sense. What kind of things can I tell him, not what will I tell him. If it’s really so, it’s very terrible, perhaps he must do it, I’m not speaking about the details of this exact situation. But is there a person who can say an answer to such a question? Is there a way how to say the answer to this question?
On a level, so down, I can push it to do more seventy percent of the way. again, yes, every time there are details. Do you understand what I’m asking? Is there a way to answer the question, without understanding him and feeling what he truly feels and him and should that one do?
Is there a way how I can tell him, you actually hold, you feel one hundred percent that you hate your wife, you want to divorce, but you are wrong, you love her, and you don’t want to divorce, it will be bad for you. Is there a way to say such a thing?
Or conversely, someone wants to divorce, and the wife, I can say the same the other way around, doesn’t make a difference. Is there such a thing? Does it make sense that I should say such a thing?
He comes and he says, I cannot in any way. What I feel, don’t explain anything to me. That’s how I feel. I tell him, very good, very cute that you feel that way. You are wrong, you should stop feeling that way.
He asks how? I don’t know, it could be it’s going to take twenty years from now until you’ll stop feeling that way, that’s a second secondary concern. I hold that you are wrong, I hold you’re making a mistake, it’s not good for you to divorce. I can say there is such a, is it possible I should have such an answer?
Student: What do you mean? Yes.
Instructor: Why not?
Student: Because I said that, someone else told me, what do you mean, you’re saying that he, that it doesn’t bother him? But it does bother him, he says that he stands and he cries, he cries every night.
Instructor: Not only, he says okay, can, do you have in six months a plan that he should stop crying? No, I don’t have. It could be twenty years he’ll go crying, but I’m going to remain still right. Is it possible?
Don’t put it into the question, we can fix it. It takes a few years until it gets fixed. It can’t be fixed. He’s a fool, he’ll always think he’s suffering. But it’s still good for him. Is it possible that I tell him such a thing? Is it possible in reality that there should be such an answer? Not that I’m right in this case, there is no case. I’m presenting you with an example.
Student: No, not because it’s going to be worse the other way, because this is good.
Instructor: He’s making a mistake. He says he’s suffering, he’s not suffering. He imagines that he’s suffering. Can I enlighten him from his imagination? I don’t know. Perhaps yes, perhaps not. Is it possible that such an answer should be, should exist in the world?
The Reaction: “Obnoxious”
Instructor: I need someone that’s a little more… aha, look, he wants to fight with me already.
Before we bring this out, what I mean to bring out is, most people who have internalized today’s religion, say that it’s not possible in reality that there should be such an answer, all forced answers they can say: you say it’s a shame to divorce now, work for two years. Okay, whatever, all these kinds of things they hear. But you should come say: it’s very cute that you’re suffering, that you say you’re suffering, I tell you that you’re not truly suffering.
Student: Obnoxious, a good match.
Instructor: Exactly, it’s obnoxious, right? Yes, well. Not a winner. It’s obnoxious, right? Yes. And what else is it? And what does it mean to say essentially, why is it obnoxious? Because I know. Let’s say I know, I don’t know. I do know.
Student: You make him feel and you don’t validate him.
Instructor: I don’t validate him, not only I don’t validate him, I mirror myself in him, right in his face. I tell him: you are a fool and you are wrong. What does validating have to do with it? Since when has validating a person become a mitzvah? What mitzvah is it? People are wrong all the time, I’m wrong all the time, validate me the whole day?
What does validating have to do with it, validating with encouragement. With small children one can make a person feel good is a nice thing, but now we’re talking about a serious question, a question about his whole life, should he divorce his wife or not. What does validating have to do with it?
He is wrong, he convinces himself that he’s suffering. It could be that I can enlighten him from this, it could be I cannot, but even if not, I hold that even when he goes convincing himself his whole life that he’s suffering it’s still, he’s going to have a better life this way than if he divorces, that’s what I hold. Let’s say, let’s again take the case out of the question, by every case there are things that one needs to know, but I mean that such a thing is possible.
The Religious Test Case
Instructor: Is such a thing possible?
Student: You say such a thing, when a person comes to tell you, let’s say calls you and says one must be a Jew. A person will come tell you: listen to me, I don’t want, I can’t live like a religious Jew, I want to become a non-Jew, I want to eat pork, eat pizza, whatever, and I know I have now a person who will support me, he’ll adopt me, I know I’ll become now a non-Jew in Georgia, and you believe this is the ultimate truth that one must be a Jew, you can’t live that one is at the shiurim for crack, you tell him: listen to me, no, stay here, because this is better for you. What does it mean it’s better, he could be he gets sick, no this is better. You could believe that something is better, even if the person doesn’t feel that it’s better.
Instructor: Alright, when you say religion, religion is a joker card, and about this one may not speak about it, because people don’t have a—
Student: But it doesn’t mean truly good, it doesn’t mean truly good.
Instructor: I don’t know what people mean not and mean yes, truly good. I’m talking about this world, okay? Not only the World to Come, the World to Come is who knows. You’re talking about opinions.
Look, I know people, I’ve studied people enough, I know that I understand in your situation, it’s good for you to remain married. That you don’t know about it, is not, teach you, don’t teach you, you have the advice for a new. You ask me for my advice, right? If you come to me, if you don’t come to me, you know yourself, you don’t ask yourself, right? Why do you come to me? Well, I tell you my opinion. You don’t have to follow, I can’t force you, I don’t have, I don’t run the court system and nothing, I can’t force you. I can tell you that’s what I hold. Do I hold from the later authorities, but generally to think one should say such a thing, true? It’s crazy, right?
Student: Yes, it is crazy.
Instructor: It’s crazy, obviously the only thing that follows from the belief that there’s such a thing as something that’s good for a person.
Student: The fact that you know it, this is the chutzpah of it.
Instructor: It’s chutzpah that I know? What should I do that I know it? Like I once said to someone, “Yitzchak, you win all arguments.” Well what should I do that I’m right? I should stop being right? What am I, I’m not guilty. It’s nothing, I would… I would be more happy to be wrong. Ah unfortunately I’m right, it has nothing to do with me. What do I have to do with this picture?
The Example of the Infrared Glasses
Instructor: I see the reality, yes? Imagine that I can you I’ll be shy for a second. Imagine that I have special glasses, I have AI, I don’t know what it’s called, they’re talking here… infrared glasses, and I see from… around the bend that a train is coming, a train has derailed from the tracks, it’s going to crash right where you’re standing. And you’re in the middle of a very pleasant conversation. And I take you, I give you such a push, you go to the hospital from the push, because I didn’t have any other way. I give you such a push, I throw you out. And the train didn’t come in the end, but it could have come. But I was right, on such a risk one really had to do this.
But it’s… I’m the only one who saw it, I have the glasses, no one else has it. Was I right to do it, or not?
Student: Yes, but you don’t have glasses.
Instructor: One minute, so you agree that there is such a thing?
Student: Yes, physically, yes, it could be.
Instructor: One minute, there is such a thing when a person sees something, no one else sees it, that person certainly cannot see it, and I have a right to hit that person because of it, for his benefit, not for his benefit, not because I’m smarter. Right?
It’s not obnoxious, if I won’t do this, by the way, such a thing most… so many people won’t do it, because they won’t be able to justify themselves, the glasses were afterwards burned, there’s no more way to get the glasses, I have no way to bring proof, let that person stand. That’s called suppressing one’s prophecy (kovesh nevuato), one is liable to death (chayav mitah).
The Prophet Parallel
Instructor: What then is a prophet (navi)? A prophet is one who sees clearly how the train is coming. By the way it doesn’t have to come, one can do repentance (teshuvah) and it won’t come. But he sees clearly how it’s coming. No one else sees this, he’s a prophet, he sees better, and what does he think? Should I be crazy? “And I said, I will not mention Him, nor speak any more in His name” (va’amarti lo azkireinu v’lo adaber od), yes, but Jeremiah the Prophet (Yirmiyahu HaNavi) said, you’re going to have a test to transgress this prohibition. “And I said, I will not mention Him, nor speak any more in His name.” Why should I have all this trouble? And the Almighty forced him, “But it was in my heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones” (v’hayah b’libi k’esh bo’eret atzur b’atzmotai), I can’t stop, I have no choice.
But Jeremiah was certain that on his part he stops, crazy. Why should he say this? Not for himself, not because he’s boiling, because the other person needs to hear this, right?
The Philosophical Principle: Subjectivism Against Objective Truth
The Paradox of Helping Others and the Necessity of Objective Good
The Fundamental Problem: We Don’t Believe in Objective Good
So I don’t have to say that I’m obnoxious. I can rely on the fact that the sages say so and people will believe it. But we’re very used to, basically – we don’t say it, we always find other excuses to not admit this – but we are very accustomed to the idea that there is no true answer to the question of whether a person should get divorced.
Again, in specific cases, of course, there is a true answer, and sometimes it really depends on very small things, where in something like the general case, we are very – we are all convinced, there’s no such thing as an answer. If that person says he’s suffering, it means he’s suffering. If he says he’s happy, he’s happy. What can I tell him? Who has the right to tell him?
What does “who has the right” mean? People obviously have the right to say that other people are wrong, right? When he – when he doesn’t take his pills, you put in his pills and you don’t ask him, right? Usually. But when he – when he does something that ruins his whole life, mi anochi [who am I]! What does mi anochi mean?
The answer is like this, I mean, because we have convinced ourselves of a foolish belief – it’s not a foolish belief, there are good reasons for this belief, it’s built on many difficulties – a belief that there’s no such thing as objective good, there’s no such thing as what is truly good for a person.
Therefore the only thing that can be good is, I can convince him, I can manipulate him, I can tell him he should feel that it’s good, I can say that it’s worth it that tomorrow he’ll feel – all these things I can say, but he is the last judge, the last judge on what is good for him, must be that person’s own feeling. Can’t be something else.
This is what – yes, you believe that? Listen, stop believing that. Just stop it, everything else will make sense. That what we believe – we I mean half the minyan of us – and that’s really why we’re so uncomfortable with helping other people, and that’s why the only people that help other people are bad people.
Because he cares more when he hears himself, or he hears that he needs to be a tzaddik who helps that person, or he hears that he’s really boiling inside that he needs to give it out, whatever it is. And that’s why we never – we don’t manage to help any other people. Do you understand what I’m saying?
This is the paradox that I started with – I’m talking somewhat about Jews, this is the point – I’m saying that the paradox I started with, that when I think of myself then I disturb the other person, when I think of the other person I don’t help him. This is built – the paradox exists – because we’ve stopped believing in the idea that there can be something that is good for the other person, but not that he is the one who decides what is good for him, that there is such a thing as what is truly good for him.
The Answer Through “Divine Command Theory” – And Why It Doesn’t Help
And not because God commanded – that’s another way of stopping to think this. Because it’s good for him.
Student: No, if God commanded, maybe God has some deal, He just wants to pursue certain people, who knows?
Instructor: Doesn’t help me, right? There must be that that person is truly good. So the only way to be a good person, to help another Jew, is to believe that there is such a thing as truly good.
Otherwise, being a good person collapses into flattering other people. There’s no other, literally can’t be. People that say: I don’t have to believe in objective good, at least I’m a good person. You’re not a good person, you’re a bad person, or you’re an egotist, or you’re just a flattering cook, and that means to you life, you don’t help the other person, it makes it so there shouldn’t be any conflict between them, yes?
Student: But what do you say with the religious example? Anybody who says because God – he means an objective good.
Instructor: Not sure.
Student: What?
Instructor: I’m not sure, like I think, cause I think that divine command theory is another way of saying that there’s no real good, it’s just whatever God decides. Now there is an objective truth. So it’s objective good, objective truth, it’s a hodgepodge, frankly. Because it’s truth, but only turns around for whom. That person can say, so God has some deal that this is good for Him, let Him heat himself in Gehinnom, what does He want from me? And it would be justified in my opinion.
And we don’t follow God because God says the truth, we follow God because it’s good for us.
Student: That’s not the same thing?
Instructor: No. Well in some ways it’s the same thing, it’s different in the sense that one can say I have to follow God because He’s stronger, but otherwise, I’ll make it so that’s still to be done, and that’s the only way out. Now only what is good for me.
Abraham Our Forefather – Chesed and Chochmah Are One Thing
Now, let me come back to how we arrived, right? Up to here, now does everything make sense? This is the reason why the same Abraham our forefather who was a good person – he was also the one who discovered religion. What religion means is not that God should go, it means that there is a God. Do you get it?
What was Abraham our forefather? He was a good person, he went around doing chesed (kindness, lovingkindness), he discovered that there is such a thing called “tov” (good). It’s the same thing, do you understand? One cannot do a tovah (a good deed, a favor) for another person, if one doesn’t believe that there is such a thing called tovah. And you end up just doing whatever he asks you to do. It’s not good. Right?
To discover that there’s something good, that’s really, the real way to be good to other people is to discover that there’s something that’s called real good. And then once it’s good for me, it’s also good for him. It’s the same, we’re both people, in some broad sense at least, right?
The Argument Against Subjectivism: “What You Like” Is Not an Argument
You can’t ask “who told you?”, “maybe…”, you know what people say? Yitzchak, you go around telling people what you like? It occurs to you, why would you do what I like? Since when is that a thing? I like to do what I like, but I don’t think that’s a good thing. I don’t think good about that. I like a lot of shtusim (nonsense, foolishness) also, I’m pretty sure.
This is the only thing that can connect two people. You know what I’m saying? A person says, Abraham our forefather discovered that it’s good to – I don’t know, to learn Gemara (Talmud), okay? He made an eruv tavshilin (a rabbinic procedure allowing cooking on a festival for Shabbos). He says, people say, people say this, literally, this is what happened to him. I go tell someone, I have that the best thing is to think, to understand. Okay, that’s what you like. That doesn’t make you owe anyone anything. Why is this an argument?
It could be that I like it, it could be that I don’t like it. I’m not talking about that. I claim that this is good for people, insofar as they are human beings. I’m a person just as you are a person. Certainly, I like it because I’m a person, and you should also like it because you’re a person. If you don’t know yet, figure out the same process that I figured out, I could try to make you figure it out. If you see it, you’ll figure it out.
Because if the whole belief is, it’s a basic belief, that the only thing that is good for a person is what they like, as if it starts there and ends there. Then you don’t have any way to talk to another person. In the end, you tell me what you like. Okay, I tell you. Right?
Chochmah (wisdom) with chesed is not a contradiction, not only is it not a contradiction, it’s the same thing.
Not that chochmah says a person must stand alone, and he knows the truth and he goes further. And chesed says one must hear what the other person thinks.
There’s no such thing as what the other person thinks, chesed doesn’t mean that the other person should have what the other person thinks. Chesed means that he should have what is good for him. What is good? Chochmah is good. It’s the same thing.
Or the chochmah says what is good. Whichever way you want to say it.
The Objection of “Arrogance” – And the Distinction Between Generality and Specificity
Student: Many people, it’s quite arrogant, that he tells you what is good for you, like eat now like this, go now do that, what does he know? Have you thought? You don’t know what he’s talking about. There are people who tell other people things, where there’s a machlokes (dispute, disagreement), and usually it’s but not a thoughtful person, it’s quite arrogant, to think they know what somebody else, no? Do I know?
Instructor: Okay. I think that in detail, in detail is a big question. And I don’t know to what extent Abraham our forefather teaches detail, I don’t know to what extent you could, I mean you could teach detail to that, but that requires more.
What do I mean? In detail, that means that someone says you need to get divorced, there are certainly people who need to get divorced, at least as long if you’re not a, even if you’re a Catholic, they hold people who don’t need to get divorced, they need to annul the marriage retroactively, it’s the same thing in practice.
And, and, and how does it go? So then it’s very presumptuous because it’s very hard to know all the – that means havu mesunim badin (be deliberate in judgment – Pirkei Avos 1:1), that’s the first mishnah in Pirkei Avos (Ethics of the Fathers), one must be mesunin badin (deliberate in judgment). It’s very hard for a person, even God has to make vayered Hashem lir’os (and God descended to see – Genesis 11:5, 18:21), yes? It’s very hard to know the specifics, that means a yeridah (descent), to go down, to go down from the generality to the specifics, to say: “you need to learn now Masechta Bava Basra (Talmudic tractate)”, for that you have to know a lot of detail, and it’s even for God it’s hard to know so many details, because God likes to know the generalities as is known. Yes.
Student: Huh?
Instructor: Kivyachol (so to speak, as it were).
The Theological Side Note: “Vayered Hashem” and the Rambam’s Interpretation
What is God’s job? God’s job is to think of the whole world, thinking of one thing is very hard for Him. He can, but it’s very hard for Him. It’s a mashal (parable, metaphor) that it’s hard. It’s not befitting His honor, that means it’s to crawl in and have to calculate a billion details. On this stands vayered Hashem, that’s the Rambam’s (Maimonides) interpretation. Vayered Hashem in, in Sodom, and earlier in, ah, what is it called, by dor hapalagah (the generation of the dispersion – Tower of Babel), etc.
Student: No.
Instructor: No. It’s a great chiddush (novel insight). It can be so, it’s then always a yeridah, there’s no difference. But I want to bring out, apart aside for the theology, yes? That’s something that is very hard, even God, even for God it’s hard, and the simple meaning is that kal vachomer (a fortiori argument) for a person this is hard. Yes? Because you have to know everything that has gone on in that person’s life until now, to be able to have a psak halachah lema’aseh (practical halachic ruling) on this, at that level of detail.
But in a general way, if someone says general sermons/teachings, Abraham our forefather didn’t say any detailed sermons, maybe in some he did some, I don’t know. But in a general way, if you tell a person that this is generally good, that’s something that’s, that’s very different.
Beginning of New Point: Chesed vs. Rachamim
I can speak to this, to this Tosefta (early rabbinic work) question, is there such a thing, is there something good that is, that is relevant whether the person likes it or not? Is there, I ask actually, actually simply what you’re saying, I ask: is there something good that the other person likes?
Student: I want for a kid likes it.
Instructor: Yes, I can’t go. Is there something good that is, that has some connection with, if people like it, does that mean good? I mean some connection to good.
I think, no, I don’t think there’s, all, I don’t think there’s anything that becomes good because of that. I think, and this has, we have to talk about this, this will be everything I’m saying is, how I arrive at my shiur, I’m just saying it, I’m saying it from another side. I mean that there is such a thing called rachamim (mercy, compassion). Okay? Him, chesed and rachamim are not the same thing. Rachamim means that I have rachamim I have rachmanus (pity, compassion) on him. Now, rachmanus is a not nice way of helping people. And rachmanus is sympathetic. Whatever you, I don’t know the English.
Student: Yes.
Instructor: Rachmanus means that you’re such a pity, I’ll help you, yes?
Now, rachmanus is, what comes out of rachmanus is that you have to, and this is true, in other words, there’s still a certain, I don’t know if we want to call it presumptuousness, I don’t, I’m thinking in this, in this category, that I still, there’s
Chesed and Rachmanus: The Distinction Between True Help and Manipulation
Rachmanus as a Limited Way of Helping
Instructor:
But rachmanus is a not nice way of helping people. What if you, I don’t know if there is, yes, rachmanus means that you’re such a pity I’ll help you, yes?
Now, rachmanus is, what comes out of rachmanus is that you must, and this is true. In other words, there’s still a certain, I don’t know if you want to call it presumptuousness, I’m not thinking in this in this category. There’s still a truth that one says “vayered Hashem” (and God descended), there’s still such a thing “vayered Hashem b’vanav” (God descended to His children) that one says “midas rachamim” (the attribute of mercy), yes?
There’s still such a thing that, what says that in order to speak with you I have to speak according to what you think that you want. I can’t start from where I am, or most times, or most of the time.
You can call it a tactic. I think it’s more than a tactic. Tactic sounds bad, tactic sounds like it’s a tactic, “rachmana liba ba’i” (the Merciful One desires the heart), what does it say?
Right. But, but it must be in other words, this makes it true in a certain sense. In other words, this makes it something that must be taken into account in an actual way.
The Problem with Jumping Levels
Instructor:
That means I can’t always go say, “You know, the Almighty comes to Abraham, to Adam HaRishon to talk, ‘Ayeka’ [where are you?], right? But I know anyway, I have to talk according to the way you think that I don’t know. I can talk with you according to what you know, understand?
So, He actually asks you a question. He’s not lying. He actually speaks k’ilu [as if] from a perspective where He doesn’t know, right? And according to where a person is at, He’s going to tell him, He’ll be able to say in all cases that, yes?
The Problem with Jumping Levels
Instructor:
So, and the same thing is when they talk about “apparent good.” Things that are only according to the person to be good and it’s not truly good. When the Almighty Himself, when He says commandments for people, He says along with it s’char v’onesh [reward and punishment], yes?
The Almighty says, “Be a good person, I’ll give you a candy.” Now, candies aren’t actually good. Being a good person is actually good. So it’s actually upside down, backwards, doesn’t make any sense.
But you can call it a tactic, what’s called “mitoch she’lo lishma” [from doing not for its own sake] and the whole discussion. But there’s a meaning, when you say tactic, you don’t seem to take into account that I’m actually talking to you in a way that, in a way that what you think is good is good. Do you understand something here?
And the pity, just to be clear, the pity taken from your perspective is there, I don’t know if you would call it evil, I think it’s something that doesn’t work, perhaps. Perhaps there’s something, perhaps this is evil in a certain sense.
Is there something wrong with jumping levels? Is there something wrong with this? It’s really a difficult thing. Is there something wrong with talking to a person, doing bad things to him according to what he thinks is bad? Do you understand what I’m saying?
There’s something wrong with that.
Not because it’s actually bad, but because if he thinks it’s bad, and because he can’t talk to someone from 20 levels away from where he is.
From one or two you can try, but not from 20.
Reward and Punishment: Both Are Coercion
Instructor:
Naturally, we don’t usually do that. We try to actually convince you. We try to bribe you first, right? Before the k’fiya [coercion], you bribe him, yes?
Don’t start with hitting. It’s also a certain coercion, from the perspective of what it actually is, it’s coercion, because he doesn’t do it, he doesn’t do it for what it actually is, right?
Anyway, I, just to be clear, yes? I just want people to understand something. We’re talking about, they’re talking now about reward and punishment, yes?
S’char [reward], right? Very important. I spoke about this Friday in my shiur in Batei Goren, you’re not here for the Friday shiur. This is a way of me doing punishment, it doesn’t help.
People think that in today’s world they say like this: there’s with goodness, and there’s with badness, yes? In the old days people would go and threaten and scare with gehinnom [hell], that’s not a good way. Today we say with candies, and we say with love, we can have, whatever, acceptance, validation, and that’s the nice way.
I have news for you, both are coercion.
Both of these things are coercion, right? Do you understand what I’m saying?
When we say reward and punishment, and the Zohar says, and the Rambam [Maimonides] says that reward and punishment is for small children, and for women, and for us, yes? He doesn’t say only the punishment is for the small children, but also the reward.
There is no difference.
Because reward and punishment both mean when I have to punish you, yes? You have to punish a baby for not touching the stove, for not going into the street, right?
Or you have to promise him a candy for not going into the street, or give a candy. Right?
It always means I’m not telling you the true reason. Right? You don’t understand, you’re not doing it for what it is. You don’t really want to. You don’t want to do it. The boy does want to go down to the street. But he wants even more a candy or something like that, so therefore he doesn’t go into the street because he gets the candy. Right?
But he’s still being forced, right? You’re forcing him to do something he doesn’t want. You’re manipulating him. Or forcing him, manipulating him, the same thing.
Forcing means he’s not doing something he wants. He will overcome himself to do something he doesn’t want, because he wants something else. Right?
No Difference Between Reward and Punishment in Respect for the Person
Instructor:
So anyway, if you promise a prize on his level, on his level of what he thinks is good, you’re still forcing him. There’s no difference in prizes and punishments in the sense of not respecting the person, as we call this in our discussions: to speak to a person, to a free person, and da’as is an adam acher [another/independent person]. Right?
A person who is independent means speaking to him, respecting him, there’s no difference in this sense between punishments and prizes.
Both don’t speak to the person ba’asher hu ba’al da’as [insofar as he is a possessor of knowledge/reason]. Both say: You don’t understand what is good and what is bad? Let me talk to you according to your level as if it’s good.
No problem. People say: We’ll show them the beauty of Judaism. The beauty of Judaism that we give good kugel. What’s the point of that? That’s not Judaism. I mean, it’s a part of Judaism. Don’t say. It’s the falsehood of Judaism, right?
The beauty must be that it’s somehow good in itself, and they can understand this through the capacity through which a person has some ability to understand on his own what is good for him.
And as long as he doesn’t understand, I’ll give him reward and punishment. Now, it could be that part of the reward is, that we tell him: I feel with you very strongly. What do you care, what has… Is it good for him that I want to empathize with him? I don’t know. It’s as good as it is good for a child to get candies. I have to do it. But I don’t know if it’s actually…
It’s good in the sense… ah, that we need to get to something else? It’s good in the sense that it leads you to the good. So actually part of it is good. But not good in itself. Does that make sense?
Is that correct?
Back to the Foundation: You Can Only Help When You Know What Is Truly Good
Instructor:
If it’s correct.
It comes back to our discussion.
To which discussion?
Right? That I was a vessel, that when transmitting, so that’s one very important how do you call it, yes there is… yes there is a thing, right like that.
Earlier I said the true explanation of giving a kugel. Earlier I said the true explanation al pi kabala [according to Kabbalah], al pi derech ha’emes [according to the way of truth] of giving kugel. That the kugel means that he has learned the intellect and the same feeling of giving kugel.
But now I’m saying that sometimes you do give kugel, and it is a manipulation, k’ilu it’s not the truth, but that’s with the compassion, not with the chesed. Right?
And I can take it further from this if you really want, but I don’t know if it’s appropriate. I mean it’s appropriate, but it’s already too far. Does that make sense?
That I’m saying that I want the reason to show the true… let’s say very clearly. The way how you can help another person is only if you know what is truly good. If not, you can’t be good with another person.
The one who says there’s only compassion, only speaking to you according to what you think, he never does any favor for another person, he only does a favor for himself, or… I don’t know if the criticism is not for himself, he doesn’t do any favor! He makes the other person feel good.
I can’t here, I don’t know whether to use the word tactic. So what we hear here is like this: doing what is, saying making a person do something that is good for that person, which is because it’s good, that’s not chesed, that’s not greed, that’s the truth, that’s saying that’s certain, and there can’t be it.
It could be that there are two tactics how to do it. One tactic is with being very good to the other person, and a second is like chesed, like there is reward and punishment. In reward and punishment there is the tactic, but not in the foundation that the person should be.
So that’s what we started all things from the beginning. If we had started what you feel toward people who say for another what they do, if everything they do is tactical, it could be tactically one screams more for other people, one serves more for other people, one tries to be nicer and be well, well with all people, that’s a tactic.
The question to the person who wants to change the other person, he wants to change the other person, is he really not, does he want to make the other person good. Does he want to make the other person good, and now, he wants to make the other person good, sometimes he’ll go with, tactically he’ll be very nice about it, sometimes he’ll debate the whole day with the other person, there are different wisdoms, tactics.
But yesodo shel davar [the fundamental principle of the matter], the person who doesn’t do this, it’s not because he does a different tactic, the person who doesn’t do it is he doesn’t care further.
Critique of “Kiruv” Without a True Foundation
Instructor:
Just to be clear, it’s the same thing. There’s something very strange, the people who you can call with the nice tactic, what you call the nice tactic, yes? He’s always mekarev everyone, and he always has some matter, some goal in this, right?
He’s not mekarev just because of the mitzvah of ahavas chaveirim, he’s mekarev for some reason. And this is also in the end even when he does it with a tactic, many times in the end why does he do this? Because he thinks like this: there’s no such thing as good. Good means when a person enjoys himself, when he thinks it’s good, how he feels good.
Now, I think the person doesn’t feel good now, okay, make him feel good. And perhaps that’s still not enough, the kumzitz, the farbrengen isn’t enough, he needs to start with Shabbos too, then he’ll feel even better.
So he’s going to see that he likes it too. Understand? You can be like, imagine if the person you’re mekarev would never start liking keeping Shabbos, perhaps he wouldn’t do it. I really don’t know. I wonder.
It seems to me that the people, I’m talking to be the, was it good then what you’re saying now, where? A person that if he thinks the tactic won’t work, he wouldn’t do it.
The Impossibility of Helping Without Objective Good
The Circular Problem of “Making People’s Lives Better”
Instructor: If he’s not, if he’s not using it only as a tactic, because he actually… he actually thinks that’s what’s good? Then he’s not, then he’s not a good person at all, he’s only try— he’s only trying to like, to like, I don’t know why he does it. He does it for himself, I don’t know if for himself. And it’s for some sort of like, everything becomes circular. Do you catch what I’m saying? I’m only about making people’s lives better. What does that mean? Making them think their life is better, right? Exactly, I think the person who keeps Shabbos thinks more that their life is better. Okay, could be. But in the end, it’s still circular, right? It’s still about what people think. Still, it’s still nothing, nothing behind the whole thing. Is what I’m saying correct? Do you understand my problem?
I need to talk about a certain person, so one should understand well what’s being criticized. I don’t yet know exactly who, I feel something like that.
The Baal Teshuva Maker: A Thought Experiment
Instructor: And I think the reason, this is what sort of, you have truth, imagine, I don’t know, you never, people never ask themselves the question, but imagine that after he goes, he goes every week to come to the farbrengen, I don’t know what, and after that he goes to catch that Judaism is I don’t know, he’ll be convinced somehow, and the rest of his life, he won’t have a good day of his life. He would have been better off being a non-Jew. Does he still do it? The baal teshuva maker?
Somehow I think not, somehow I feel like most of the people who are mekarev like all kinds of broken people and they feel, at the end of the day they’re motivated by being good, but the reason they’re motivated by being good is they feel that in practice to be OTD is quite sad, whatever, I don’t know what it’s called today, and the frum Jews look happy, I don’t know if they’re actually happy, they look, they feel, they convince themselves.
So I’ll make them like now, you can’t say to a person, I could have told him this by the way, this wouldn’t have been nice, to tell you: come here, your life is a lot messed up, put on a shtreimel you’ll be happy. But that’s already too harsh, so we say it ourselves in such a sweet way: you don’t need any kippas, you can come without a kippah even, you can come without a kippah. In the end he’ll catch that it’s more tasty to go with a kippah than without a kippah. No problem, but the whole thing is built on, on, on ta’avos olam hazeh [worldly desires]. Whatever, you catch what we mean to say, yes? I don’t know.
The “Niceness” Test: If One Believed in Objective Good, One Would Sometimes Speak Harshly
Instructor: Because I sort of think, this is what I think, I sort of think that if you really believed that it’s good, although sometimes you would say it in a not nice way. Perhaps that’s only my evil bias speaking. Does that make sense? Why the tzaddik who is everything in kiruv, engaged in kiruv, why, he holds that the end goal of this is to be truly good, right? There’s no person to whom you can speak a, how do you say, devorim kashim kegidim [harsh words like sinews]? Never happened yet?
Student: Oh, you know the, it’s all everyone, you’ve sometimes heard the Torah [teaching]: there are all sorts of people, each one is an individual, you can’t compare.
Instructor: Okay, there’s never been one strange individual who likes to be hit? Who works better? Never happened yet? Not such individuals are we, there’s something one thing that everyone is the same. Perhaps yes, I don’t know, I don’t know who I’m talking about, fine. I mean exactly that there are many individuals who like to be hit. Not hit, I don’t mean that. Rebuked.
Student: It’s a strange thing that generally, generally on a very simple level, most people who say to other people in a harsh way, in the harsh way things, are usually bad to themselves, and most people who say in a good way to people things for another, they’re also bad when they come to themselves. That’s most people. There are yechidim [exceptions] who in a peaceful life, but here they’re yelling at people something, but generally it’s like that, generally it’s like that, that’s a plain fact, I don’t know why.
That most people who are the good, not good people, people who are very nice, somehow it’s a funny thing, a person spends his whole life being nice and I mean truly, I mean the greatest ba’alei chesed [doers of kindness], people who do the whole day in Hatzalah [Jewish emergency service]. But when it comes to something that concerns them or something, they’re crazy, they can kill a person at home. It shows there’s something, something isn’t right.
The True Answer to the Paradox: Liberalism and the Necessity of an Objective Good
The Main Answer: We Don’t Know What “Good” Really Means
Instructor:
The truth is we don’t know what we’re saying, what truth is. In simple language, we don’t know what good is. But we know, we know that every time it’s difficult, even to tell a person that I have to stop him from doing something now because later it won’t be good, for example, because in the end it will be good, is also very difficult for us.
Telling somebody the hard truth, I don’t know what. People want to be very nice, you know. Of course it’s hard even if you say something objectively true. Objectively truth is just further away down the line, right.
Digression: People Are Afraid of Risks
Yeah yeah, it could be, because we don’t have guts also. People are afraid of taking risks. For them the greatest fear is: what if I’m not right?
Okay, I’m not right, what about speaking in Gemara in studies and pesukim? For them it’s take the risks, sometimes one must do things, a person can’t, a person runs away from risks a whole life.
That’s a whole different drasha that I have, as if I take risks in everything, whatever.
Back to the Main Point: The Language of “Good for You” Is Missing for Us
But I’m saying now this thing, I’m saying that the teiretz, the real teiretz to my paradox that I started the shiur with, that one can’t help another in a way that hurts him, hurts him for the time being or whatever, is based in this thing that we don’t really have a good idea of what it would mean to really something that is good for the person.
Just to be clear, good for the person, not good for the Almighty. Good for the Almighty let the Almighty take care. Good for him, but he doesn’t know about it.
We don’t even have the language to say “good for you” that doesn’t translate into “good that I feel it’s good”, you understand? People think if you say it’s good for you it means it feels good.
It doesn’t feel good, but it’s good anyway, it’s even better than feeling good. Feeling good is only one of the signs that something is as if good, many times the sign isn’t there, doesn’t work.
Example: The Smoker – And the Limits of This Example
You tell a smoker, “don’t smoke”. My zombies. That’s like an example, and by the way, even that like it’s not sure it’s not clear to us that we have this clearly, that is, one judges why one may, one can say this.
Modern people don’t say it, by the way. The problem why they write it out on the on the packages with cigarettes, the government, I don’t know what their cheshbon is.
He loves it, what do I want to do? “But you’ll die right away. So you don’t want to actually die, or they’re like to die?”
“Oh, you don’t actually like to die? Okay, so it’s actually a stirah.”
But let’s say he does want to? You can’t tell him anything, right?
In short, this is the nekudah that one must think about.
The Main Conclusion: Liberalism Makes You a Worse Person
So it turns out, very interesting, people often say that liberalism, in other words, pluralism, believing believing there’s no objective truth, helps to at least be a good person.
I say the opposite: It makes you a worse person.
The only way to actually be a good person, in the sense of nihul hachaim is to help, is to have an objective, objective good.
Objective truth is nothing, I don’t like that word. Like true good, what is really good, as opposed to what seems to be good.
And then one can actually help a society improve and not, yes? Not because I want to have a foundation, not for kids, plain improve.
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Until here his holy words.