Contrasting two theories s of Lo Sachmod – Transcript

Adar, Astrology, and the Mediation of Higher Influences: A Shiur on Lo Tachmod

Opening: The Connection Between Chodesh Adar and Lo Tachmod

Instructor: Bye, I’m just gonna put this back. Welcome to the second or third shiur. If you don’t know, I’m Ahmed. I’m going to teach you today. So today I’m going to teach Ahmed, or Amos, or something. What’s the Chodesh Adar [the month of Adar] got to it, Lashzach [Lo Tachmod: the prohibition against coveting], Ma’ad [very much]? Everything. Why? That’s where you get the share.

So first I want to answer a little question about the Mazal [astrological sign] of Adar.

The Mazal of Chodesh Adar: Pisces and the Problem of the Thirteenth Month

The Basic Identification: Adar as Degim (Pisces)

Instructor: It says in the Sfarim Hakedoshim [the holy books] that the Mazal of Chodesh Adar is Dugim [Pisces, fish], and that’s not true, because Dugim, and the Krapiscus, in Latin, fish, Pisces, Pisces, I think that’s how you pronounce it, is a fish, Pisces, Pisces, so the fish, everyone who learned about the mazalos [astrological signs], including in our two days ago, learned the mazalos have to do with the sun, right?

What Mazal means is that the sun travels within that constellation. That’s literally what it means, right? And therefore it’s got nothing to do with the moon or with Rosh Chodesh [the new month]. And therefore there’s a Torah from—I read that it says in the Chizkuni [medieval Torah commentary], I didn’t look it up, it says in the Yerushalmi [Jerusalem Talmud]—that they found people whose mazal works well on that day.

Astrology and Lucky Days

Instructor: People say because it’s their birthday, I’m not sure if that’s what it says, but people, everyone knows that every mazal, every, how do you call it in English? Every person who has a connection with one of the stars, yeah, like his horoscope or his, there’s different words I’m looking for. Here’s his sign, right? Everyone belongs to a sign. And every sign has a certain day in a certain year, in a certain month, in a certain part of time, where they are successful. So if you do start something or do something in that time, that’s when you’re lucky day. That’s a theory of astrology.

And therefore, if you’re very smart at making war, then you will get the people to fight for you to be the ones who are in their lucky day. That’s why.

Amalek’s Astrological Strategy

Student: Why is it that you’re lucky? Why the day is lucky?

Instructor: Usually because you were born in that star or because the way in that, I don’t know the Hilchos [laws of] astrology very well, but there’s a thought. The thing is that your nature is built for that day.

Student: Something like that, yeah.

Instructor: There is part of time which works well, better for you. These things that there’s natural causes for that also, I mean natural, not that astrology is not supposed to be natural, but everyone, these things are true regardless. Some people are night people, some people are morning people, some people are beginning of the week people, some people are end of the week people, things like that are observational things. They’re not things that astrology is made up. Astrology is just a theory. Of course, the world has every day what you are, right? Astrology is just a theory to say that if you were born on this time, then you belong to this and this sign, and therefore you’re going to be successful on this and this date and so on.

So anyways, I have some tzaddik [righteous person] thought of a theory like this: that’s how Amalek, he got people who are in a lucky day to fight, and that’s why they were winning. So Moshe [Moses] told the Shia [Yehoshua/Joshua] that you have to find someone that’s doing even better. How can you find someone that’s doing even better? Right?

The Thirteenth Month Solution

Instructor: So Kareva Pekhli Gid [approximately: “it’s like this”]. We have something called the 13th month. Now what’s the sign of the 13th month?

Student: N.

Instructor: There isn’t. If you have no sign, then you could be successful any day. So he found people that were all born in the second Adar. Of course, don’t ask me like a lot of questions that Ibur [intercalation/leap year] Chodesh [month] was invented later, so it couldn’t have been, but anyways, he found people that were born in the second Adar. And then when the Amaleki [Amalekite] comes and is like, “I’m going to get one person whose sign is stronger than your sign,” he’s like, “There’s a null error. There’s nobody to talk to.” He’s from Chodesh Adar Bet [the second month of Adar].

First Objection: Shouldn’t No Mazal Be Worse?

Student: Well, shouldn’t it be the opposite, that we have a new mazal and it should be even worse?

Instructor: Another good kasha [question]. No, no, I think these type of things are really going against astrology. That’s not my point. I can’t say that I don’t have astrology. According to astrology it would be worse, but our point is that…

Student: I think sometimes these things are said that way.

Instructor: Sometimes, but now…

Student: It’s a non-starter.

Instructor: Zishtaya [the matter] is finished. Because I say there’s a 13th month, it doesn’t mean that there’s a 13th month.

The Fundamental Problem: The Stars Don’t Follow Our Calendar

Instructor: Oh, I get it. Now you have a kasha. This is the same kasha as the loser was asking before. That this doesn’t make any sense if you know anything about astrology, or anything about how this is supposed to work, it doesn’t make any sense. Because the fact that your business has a problem with the lunar and the solar months not adding up, and therefore you figured out a chachma [clever solution] to make a 13th month in 7 out of 19 years, that doesn’t tell the stars that the stars don’t listen to you. There anyways always have 12 months or 12 signs of the Zodiac each year, each solar year.

That is the Givaldige Kasha [tremendous question]. And now I’m going to tell you the Teretz [answer] of this Kasha. You want to know the Teretz?

The Answer: How Higher Causes Influence Humans

Stars Are Ontologically Superior to Humans

Instructor: Teretz is like this: that nobody was ever dumb enough to think that the stars influence people by which I mean the stars are very high, very far. They have a level in reality that is much higher than our level. You know how I know, right? How do I know that the stars are better morally than us? Because they never burn out. People have burnout. And stars don’t burn out. People sometimes come in time, sometimes come late. Stars always come in time. So stars are perfect. The stars are perfect. You wish you could be a star. It’s called you’re a star. That’s why it says, whenever we try to make, say, a human being is really amazing, we say he’s a star.

This is in the Bible. This is in every cultural reference that we know. Stars are something amazing to me. The Rambam [Maimonides] says that when someone knows about the stars, as it says in Tehillim [Psalms], “Ki ereh shamecha… mah enosh ki tizkerenu” [When I see Your heavens… what is man that You remember him]. Then I think, in other words, when I see the stars are so great, I look down at the people and I say, these people, they don’t stand up to the stars. They don’t compare. They’re very bad relative to the stars.

Stars Don’t Directly Control Human Affairs

Instructor: So now, therefore, it’s very weird. Nobody ever thought, since this is the basic thought, nobody ever thought that the stars care about you when they control your life. They’re so much beyond you, so much higher. They have better things to do with their time than worry about who’s going to win a battle. Of course, they don’t worry, but therefore, we have a basic understanding that, on the other hand, stars make light for us and they tell us where to go when we’re in the desert or in the sea and so on.

The Mediation Principle: Stars Work Through Human Understanding

Instructor: But you have to understand that that is not directly. Stars don’t directly do anything for us, only through the intermediary, through the mediation of humans, or we could say of human souls or human understanding. In other words, since I can look at the star and understand where I am relative to the star, the star does that through my looking. If I wouldn’t be looking, the star wouldn’t be able to tell me where to go. This is why nobody ever goes outside and hears the stars talking to him. You look at them first and then they talk to you. Then they control their life.

Student: Doesn’t everything really work that way?

Instructor: Everything works that way, yes.

Student: Not everything.

Distinguishing Higher Causes from Same-Level Causes

Instructor: In other words, things on your level don’t work like that. Your friend pushes you without you asking him, looking at him, so it doesn’t work through you. Or when you slip on a banana peel, the banana peel doesn’t work through your soul. It’s a lower thing in some sense working on you or something in your level of your body that’s working on you, but higher things always work like that or most higher things.

Therefore, so I’m not talking about pushing so much but let’s say when you want help from someone, right? It’s always that you want that, not always, yeah, but you want to go to the doctor, yes?

Student: Yeah, but the doctor is not helping you through your mind, right? It’s your mind that came to him, but he’s not helping you through your mind.

Instructor: The stars can only help you through your mind, unless…

Student: Unless the doctor tells you to follow certain instructions and you need to use your mind to follow the instructions.

Instructor: That’s true. But usually he would just give you a shot or something and then he’s not helping you through your mind.

Trees, Stars, and Human Mediation

Student: The trees are the same way though. Trees cannot follow the stars. They follow the stars.

Instructor: But humans can follow trees the way they follow stars. If the trees would be telling you something. The problem is they don’t tell us as many things as the stars tell us.

Student: David Deutsch uses it as an argument, I think, for the importance of humans in the sense that they don’t know they can affect their mind, could be affected by everything.

Instructor: Okay, maybe. The point is that when humans are affected through higher causes or through the stars, then it works through the human soul, not there doesn’t jump another another way of saying it is…

Student: Yeah, but that’s not what we’re thinking about thinking like you and human and interactions or human influence…

Instructor: Oh, in…

Clarifying the Scope: Astrology vs. Physical Causation

Student: No, in the sense that the stars, just to be clear, in the sense that the stars cause the sun, causes sunset and sunrise, that’s not what I’m talking about. We don’t need astrology for that.

Instructor: No, no, that doesn’t work in that sense.

Student: Okay, this is a whole tiftoida [big discussion].

Instructor: But yeah, the astrology was not, there was machlokes [dispute] about this in ancient people, but astrology was generally not said to work in that way. At least the Jews don’t believe that works now.

Student: In what sense are you talking about?

Instructor: Wait, wait, wait, everyone has so many questions and I can’t even finish like one paragraph of thought. So my point is that so the way to say this is that things like…

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The Mechanism of Celestial Influence: How Human Mediation Channels Astrological Forces

The Mechanics of Channeling Celestial Influence (Continued)

The Fundamental Question: What Makes Days Into Days?

As you have to understand, what does it even mean to say that on a certain day is your lucky day? What makes days into days, and weeks into weeks, weeks and months into the months, and years into years?

Rabbi Akiva’s Discovery: “Asher Tikre’u Osam”

So, Rabbi Akiva discovered something very interesting. Rabbi Akiva discovered that it says in the Pasuk [verse], and he says, oh, wait, it’s we that call them Adam [appointed times], right? Of course, we call them based on something we know. He’s not saying that it’s arbitrary that the people that are calling it can just do whatever they want. They have to be channeling the stars. They have to be channeling what is going on in heaven, but they have to be channeling it.

And that means that if those people tell you and you believe them—as long as you believe; if you don’t believe them that doesn’t work—but if those people tell you that today is Tuesday, then it’s Tuesday. Because Tuesday never touched you without going through people.

The Radical Implication: Days Can Shift

So in other words, the Tuesday that was before on Tuesday is now on Thursday. Tuesday could be chal on [fall on] Thursday, if the Beis Din [rabbinical court] says so. There’s no problem. And this is all real, but nothing has to be subjective for any of this to work.

Astrological Signs as Positions Within Cycles

So now we understand that when we say that we split up time in a different way, right? So for example, there’s some person—like we can understand it—there are some people that like the beginning of every period of time. That’s when they’re successful. Some people that are successful at the end of them. Some people that are successful precisely in the middle of them, and so on.

That’s basically what all these astrological sign belongings boil down to, right? When you cut up the year into 12 parts, or the sun’s cycle between the stars into 12 parts, then some people enjoy the beginning, some people the end, some people are successful at this stage of the process and people at that stage of the process and so on.

Human Control of Time Redefines the Cycle

But now when this comes down to people, what processes mean for us has to do with how we control our time, how we set up our time. So if you set up your time slightly off-center from how the stars set up their time, that’s going to channel the stars through that way.

So if you said that the Rosh Chodesh [new month] is on Sunday and really it’s on Monday, then the Monday moved to Sunday. The Monday Elyon [upper/heavenly Monday] moved to the Sunday Tachton [lower/earthly Sunday]. And now it’s Sunday or Monday, whichever one you want it to be. And now all the influences that there are—people, some people like Sunday, some people like Mondays—is going to happen when the Rav [rabbi] said that it’s something, not when the so-called real Sunday is in heaven. Very simple.

Addressing the Core Paradox

Student Question: The Cycle Dependency Problem

Student: And if you don’t understand, you should achieve it. You need to have the cycle to be able to channel the stars, but then when if you’re like off, then the stars are also off.

Instructor: Yeah.

Student: So then you don’t have to have the cycle in the first place. What exactly—that confusion is my confusion.

The Electricity Analogy: Fixed Source, Flexible Channeling

Instructor: And this—but this does—this is not—it’s so basic that it’s past niche that you should even have that. Because if there’s a big—if there’s a big—if there’s like an electric current, like I’m going to use the stupid mashal [analogy] that everyone uses, but just so you should see that the framework is not—there’s nothing wrong with the framework.

If there’s a big electric current that has two ends, that has a positive side and a negative side, and that’s fixed, you can’t change the positive into negative. But for me to get it, I need to connect a wire and bring it all the way down to me and do a transformer that makes it come small enough so I could have the end use of it, and then I bring it to me.

Now the place where the negative is right and positive is left or so on—that’s how it is in the source. But when I connect it to me, I could put it all the way around if I want, and it’s going to be the real positive from there and the real negative from there. But when they come to me, they’re going to be—they’re going to be opposite. They’re going to be the opposite side. There’s no problem with that. It’s very—all of this is very real.

The Dual Reality: Need and Freedom

Both you need me and both I am actually channeling the thing. I’m not creating it fresh. I’m channeling that thing. And I have some degree of freedom to put it wherever I want.

Channel just means that you make the thing that you’re getting work through your way, whatever it does. The stars say today is the first day of the year. Some people like the first day of the year. The stars—now, yeah, there’s a cycle and the stars are real. It’s a real cycle. Don’t say it isn’t.

The Pipes Analogy: Mediation Through Human Souls

And then I said, now this first doesn’t directly touch me. It only touches me through this whole series of pipes—humans, souls. But they will call them pipes so you should understand, because you don’t understand when I say it more. So let’s call it pipes.

And now the last plumber in the pipe could move it over two days or three days or ten days—I don’t know how many. There’s a limit to how many days you can move it over, but it can move it over a little bit. And then you’re going to have the first. And if I tell you today is the first because this is when the year started, let’s dial the stars in this whole picture, I can still do the same thing.

Student Challenge: Do You Even Need the Source?

Student: I don’t understand again. So maybe you—it makes sense. I need electricity to move into my wall. I don’t need the power station at all. That’s what you’re saying.

Instructor: Thank you very much. You don’t need it. You don’t need it. It makes sense. Maybe I don’t understand it either, so I don’t know. I’m just venturing it makes sense.

Student: You just give a mashal. I have to be mischievous to this mashal.

Instructor: The mashal is supposed to explain you why the structure is very normal.

The Day-Length Analogy: Delayed Awareness

Days get shorter and longer during the year, right?

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: But you don’t have to notice them exactly when they do. If you notice it by delay, then that’s when they got shorter.

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: The real shortening of the days happened for you in the time when you noticed it or in the time when someone told you to notice, right? I’m saying it’s by—say it’s the day when the sun—the change in the sun—it’s five days after the change in the sun, right?

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: That’s when exactly the sun started to grow. It’s the sun’s influence on you that’s actually how it is, right?

Physical vs. Psychic Mediation

I think there’s always the reality is different because the sun even physically takes time and takes some processes to get through to us and so on. So everything is like this. But what I’m saying is that the psychic—psychic power is not the word—soul powers, once the things go through humans, they become—they gain many degrees of freedom more than they had.

Student: When you’re talking about like the sun takes 8 minutes to get to us and the star that you’re seeing was dead 5 years and so on?

Instructor: Yeah, and that’s all part—that’s interesting, right? You’re talking about soul kind of, or human kind of, but that’s a different question. I’m just—that assuming it works, I’m answering a question within a system.

Student: Yeah.

Instructor: And then come here to explain the whole system. I’m just saying what do you mean it makes you fight better?

The Morning/Afternoon Fighter Analogy

Some people fight—some people fight better in the morning, some people afternoon. Now that if that thing is real, that’s the sun that causes them with morning and afternoon. It’s not a human invention. But if I shut off the lights and I tell them to sleep for two hours later, then the morning is then. And then the morning people are happy then. As simple as that. Just like I could make the morning night and the night morning, you could—to an extent, to an extent you could, yes, to an extent.

Application to Rosh Chodesh

And therefore the people that live according to the Rosh Chodesh [new month], that’s when the month starts. And if it started in the day that’s wrong for the moon, who cares?

The Principle of Channeling

Student Summary: Making Your Own Luck?

Student: So in a sense, you make your own luck?

The Lecturer’s Refinement: Channeling, Not Creating

Instructor: You control it, you channel it. That’s what I like the word channel. People use it, probably overuse it, but it’s just a little explanation of what it is. You channel it, of course. Now, it’s not your own, that’s what I’m saying.

We talk about, for example, cultures and like this Beis Din—

The Beis Din’s Control of Celestial Influence and Two Readings of Lo Tachmod

The Thirteenth Month as “Free Time”

Instructor: Not the source, but you’re the channel. Yeah, and also not only you. Things are hard to do yourself, most significant things. That’s why we have a Beis Din [Jewish court], and that channels it.

And when they—if we assume that somehow when they make a Rosh Chodesh [the new month], then they’re deciding that it’s the 12th of this solar year or so—then the few times when they make a 13th month, they’re saying, this one is empty, we’re going to do whatever we want with it. And then it’s really like that because they pushed all the shefa [divine flow/influence], all the energies, whatever you want to call them, of all the 12 stars into the 12 months prior. And then they’re left over with time to do what they want. That’s the whole trick.

Just like anything. If you finish your work, you know there’s some people that have salaries every bi-weekly. Some months they have three of them, right? How could it be? Some have five weeks. So you’re the first a week, third in the month, and fifth. Very good. So those months are longer?

Student: No.

Instructor: They are longer. They have more money in them. They actually help, depending on how you’re triangulating between different schedules.

Student Challenge: The Scope of the Explanation

Student: The attributions that they do with this don’t really match up. It goes well beyond what you’re saying. That’s the point.

Instructor: The?

Student: What they attribute to that gets affected by these things is so much more than what your explanation offers.

Instructor: I don’t understand. This is a question?

Student: Yeah, yeah.

Instructor: Okay. You have an explanation of how it works. The problem is they’re saying it works for things that don’t.

Student: Who is they?

Instructor: The first thing we started with, fighting on birthdays.

Student: No, nobody does what I say. Nobody ever thought that it works without going through souls. So how does that explain that you fight on a birthday or someone born…

Instructor: I didn’t explain. I explained what I came to explain, exactly. Because the person whose soul his star goes through decided that this month belongs to him and not to some star. And that works. And therefore it belongs to him, and therefore you fight better according to what he said you should.

Can One Claim Multiple Months?

Student: Can I have more than one or just one month?

Instructor: What do you mean more than one?

Student: Can I have all the months or all them except one?

Instructor: Sure. I mean you can’t have more than one—not sure what’s the question. I didn’t get there, okay. I don’t try—depends how many calendars you observe. You can try to observe more calendars. Like some Jews have written twice a year because they observe both the secular new year and the regular new year. For most people it’s very hard. Like you take one seriously and the other one is not real. But you’re good if you take both seriously in some way, then you’re good.

I think that’s very hard because the logic of a new year is that there’s some times that are not the new year. It’s very hard to like—wait, no, it’s not the middle of the year, it’s the new year. It’s Chinese New Year. Everyone feels it, people that are in retail and those things.

Student: Okay, because you’re working with different people, those people have that shefa [divine flow], have that thing.

Instructor: Okay, you don’t understand what I’m saying, so I’m not going to say other things. So the story’s like this. I don’t know what’s so hard to understand, but I guess not like this.

Returning to Lo Tachmod: Recap and Introduction to the Controversy

Instructor: We discussed last week—the conclusion of the shiur [lesson] was that Lo Tachmod [the prohibition “do not covet”] is the internal counterpart, so to speak, of all the mitzvos [commandments] before it, or specifically the four mitzvos before it. That’s what we discussed. Is that correct?

Students: Correct.

Instructor: Now, we have to talk something a little bit about the fact that this is not actually accepted. There’s a big controversy about this, and the way in which people read this has very much to do with the way in which they understand all the things we’re talking about, which is the discussion of how to be a good person and what it means to be a good person, as opposed to being a person who does good things, right? Just having good actions.

Two Contrary Readings

So there’s two contrary readings of this Lo Tachmod, corresponding to the wrong shita [approach/opinion] and the correct one.

In other words, the wrong one is what we discussed in the beginning of last shiur, which is a kind of interiority or internality—for some reason I like, it sounds better the second way—which is entirely self-focused, entirely about me feeling the correct feelings or having the correct internal emotions, dispositions, things like that.

And the second one, which understands all of internality as directed towards the outside. It’s just, you’re the kind of person who could be relied on, or who will always, from his inside will flow the outside actions, but that’s still directed towards the person. Those are the two readings.

Attempting to Give the First Reading Charitable Treatment

I should probably try to do some more justice or some more for the first reading, because I guess that there’s some logic to it, some way in which it makes sense. Should I? But I don’t know how to do that. I should probably give it some more kindness somehow.

The “Wrong” Reading: Philo and the War Against Desire

Identifying the Proponents

Instructor: What I can say is like this. You’ve read some of this stuff, right? So certain mussarim [ethicists/moralists]—I’m not sure what Rav Luzzatto [Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, author of Mesillas Yesharim] says about this. He talks about it. I just don’t remember how his response is entirely.

Another person who seems to be on this side is Rav Avraham Ibn Ezra [Rabbeinu Avraham Ibn Ezra, medieval biblical commentator]. And the third person before that who seems to be on the wrong side is a Yid [Jew] named Philo [Philo of Alexandria, first-century Jewish philosopher].

Philo’s Treatise on the Ten Commandments

So Philo wrote this book on the Aseres HaDibros [the Ten Commandments], as we discussed. And when it gets to Lo Tachmod, he gets into a whole huge, long, drusha [discourse] bashing desire. Or in Greek, I forgot the word. The word is for passion and desire. That’s what he gets into.

And he explains that desire is the worst thing. Desire causes all the problems in the world. Both the kind of problems of eating too much and drinking too much and stealing feeling, and hurting yourself and hurting others, and not dedicating your life to the right things. All of these kinds of problems start with desire.

Philo’s Core Argument: Attack Wanting at Its Root

And he seems to say something very weird, which is something like, since all the bad things that people do, they do because they want, if we want to attack this thing at its root, we should attack the wanting instead of the bad things.

And we have this framework, which is a framework which we find in many mussarim [ethicists], like, so it somehow has a source, has sources like Plato and some, maybe some parts of Chazal [the Sages], where you say things like, the problem is wanting, or we could specifically say unrestrained by reason wanting, right, maybe not wanting as such, but it’s not always—yes wanting as such, but not saying that there’s no good wantings, but wanting when you let yourself do what you want.

That we hear people saying this, right? Let yourself do what you want, you’ll turn out to be the worst person. So therefore the basic way of not being a bad, worst person is to not just do what you want, to not follow their desires.

The General Ethical Framework

So there’s like this general statement that says that ethics boils down to, or like in one very significant sense is, do not follow your desires. And this gets read into do not desire, or do not follow your desires, do not be a desirous person. Do not live with your desires. Because people that do that, today they want this, tomorrow they want that, and all evils in the world come from people following their desires.

That’s a theory promoted by Philo and by who else? Maybe questionable—I may think maybe the Ibn Ezra seems to understand Lo Tachmod in this way or explicitly understand Lo Tachmod this way. I’ll show you if you want, but I’m not sure if he understands it in this way. I’ll tell you the third way of understanding it. So that might be the real reason of Ibn Ezra. But Philo for sure understands it this way.

And that’s a way of understanding life that I think makes sense somehow to many people. Like the main thing is to stop doing what you want. Is that what I was saying? Stop doing what you want? Or to try to not want those things? Not want so much. Want less. Stop wanting so much. It’s like a fight against the wanting. Wanting. Wanting is not a very good translation. Something like desire or what we call ta’avah [desire/craving] in our language is a better translation.

Student Questions: Why Does Wanting Matter If You Don’t Act?

Student: Why does he care if you want as long as you don’t do that?

Instructor: Interestingly, people usually end up doing what they want. Not only that, because then what you’re doing is not everything you want. And the thing is that wanting, that desire is something uncontrolled, right? Something like, okay, today I want to kill you, tomorrow I want to sleep with that guy’s wife, the third day I want to be a billionaire, the fourth day I want to travel somewhere. Wanting is something uncontrolled. So if that becomes your criteria in life, then that’s very messed up. That’s something like, I think that’s something like the theory.

Student: Why is it automatically a quit to doing?

Instructor: Wanting means wanting to do. There isn’t any wanting that isn’t wanting to do. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that. The point is that they understand the evilness as the being a wanting too much…

The Two Readings of Lo Tachmod: Desire as the Root of Evil vs. Specific Prohibitions

The Alternative Reading — Desire as the Fundamental Problem

The Kinder Reading: Two Kinds of People

This is a slightly, as I said, a slightly kinder reading. You can understand it this way. There’s two kinds of people. There are people that do what they want. There are people that do what they think is right. In a violent world. Well, this is a reasonable way of describing humans. It’s not crazy. I think that it doesn’t do enough justice to the kind of desire that exists, but…

There’s not external things, let’s say, holding him back from doing what he wants. Sometimes, okay, sometimes. So that he can be a person that wants, but doesn’t do further or whatever. But mostly not, mostly not, right?

Student: Where we have this, I’m not sure why, like… I don’t know, let’s say he’s scared of getting caught or I don’t know, whatever. You know, he just doesn’t want to deal with the ramifications of everything.

Instructor: But you know the truth that we don’t—you don’t usually get caught. What? You don’t usually get caught. I don’t know if you know—you hear about the ones that got caught. I’m not being the exit out of here.

In other words, you’re asking something like why would people think that desire—I complain but this is not the problem. Talk about things that you could do—they could be—you could stress the whole ice cream. You don’t get caught for that. But for example, you could eat all of the chazer [חזיר: pig/non-kosher food] in the world, okay? That’s another example. You’re not going to get caught.

In other words, there’s many, many ways to destroy yourself without destroying other people from desire, right? And usually people—it’s in your power. It’s not—it’s not the question is not if it’s going to happen. But of course desire means I’m going to do it or not going to do everything I desire, because usually you can—you desire more things than you want—then you manage to do or you could do. But you will, and it is something uncontrolled. That’s what I’m trying to get at.

The Truth in This Reading: Desire as Unlimited Criterion

This reasoning is saying something, and I think if you want to make sense of this—and this is the way in which it’s true—I would be critical of it in a different way, but the way in which it’s true is that the criteria—their thing that is good—can’t be the answer to what is good, at what you do, what your base, your decisions of what to do in life is, can’t be what you want, can be what you desire. Because that’s something unlimited. That’s something like anything. It’s possible point that happens, but that’s not what you’re drawing, what happens.

Student: That the right thing is something that you want?

Instructor: Well, that’s what being godly means. A sakhemet nik [שחמת’ניק: a person driven by desire] means—sakhemet nik is a kind of guy who does what he what he what he likes, but not what he wants or what he desires. That’s a weird kind of guy. Those kind of guys are usually the worst. And therefore train yourself to not be that kind of guy.

The Chassidic Story: Training Against Desire

Whenever you desire something—you know the story of some story that goes like—it goes on many different rabbis—like he’s okay then it’s like I don’t know he’s hungry or thirsty or something like that and the guy’s okay so why don’t you eat? Because my father taught me that you don’t do what you want, right? You don’t drink when you’re thirsty. You drink when you need to drink.

That’s that’s the kind of training that’s behind this. You could see that makes sense—not because it’s bad to do what you want, but because one thing is not a good enough reason to do things, or it’s not—shouldn’t be the primary reason to do things.

If you want, we could say pleasure, right? Physical pleasure, because usually when people talk about this they talk about physical pleasure, right? Don’t make pleasure your god, right? Don’t make it the thing that sets right from wrong to you. Because that’s something very unlimited, very wild, very unrestrained.

Desire as the Source of All Evil

And we could say a story where all the evils in the world have their source in this. That’s the story that Pharaoh says. Plato sometimes says it. Maybe in Chazal [חז”ל: our Sages, of blessed memory] sometimes they talk about the Yetzer Hara [יצר הרע: evil inclination] as the source of all evils, and sometimes what they mean is just desire is the source of all evils.

Because otherwise Yetzer Hara has no meaningful content, right? Yetzer Hara is the will to do evil, thank you very much. Many times when the Chazal talk about Yetzer Hara as the source, like they have this idea of Yetzer Hara as the source of evil, what they mean to say is desire is what causes most bad things. Or another way, following Yetzer Hara, right? In other words, following what you think will be pleasurable to you.

So that’s a reasonable making sense of this kind of reading, of this kind of understanding.

The Lecturer’s Critique (Previewed)

What’s Missing from This View

Why do I think there’s something weird with this? Why don’t I like it?

Student: But then everything you do is never a desired thing that you’re doing.

Instructor: Well, like I said, when I—didn’t say that. You could add desire to things that you’re doing, but that shouldn’t be the reason you’re doing them. You’ve heard of such trainings, of such people talking this way about, like Mussar [מוסר: Jewish ethical/character development literature]. Mussar is all about not doing what you want, not following your desires.

It sort of misses the point. Which point does it miss? I don’t know if this is the right way—maybe that you could be a person who wants the right things, and then you should love your desire, basically.

Student: It’s only speaking for, like, a bad person, essentially.

Instructor: Well, again, but I’m going to give you my answer again. It’s speaking about someone—when we speak against desires, we speak against making desires your criteria of the good. Well, that makes sense.

So what should your criteria be? Oh, something like—that’s why desires is usually set against reason, or restraint, or limit.

The Dichotomy: Desire vs. Reason

Student: Met oh that’s what it means, right? It’s always there’s always a the car me whenever someone says don’t be a lot don’t be a homemade, right? Louis I don’t be a hum hum the neck but I mean say but be a reason Nick or something like that.

Instructor: So don’t be a reasonable person but fear how do we—I don’t know how the people do.

Student: I was to say this very good.

Instructor: That’s exactly. So this theory says—this theory—in other words we did—we discuss this last time.

Reinterpreting the Structure of the Pasuk [פסוק: Biblical verse]

The Long List After Lo Tachmod: Two Opposite Readings

There’s this question like why is—there’s a long list after the sakhemet [שחמת: coveting], and there’s two opposite readings of it. My reading is that the sakhemet is of those things. But this reading would be the opposite—that the source of all these things is something more amorphous and more basic called sakhemet.

If you will be a khaymet [חמד’ניק: one who covets], you will end up with—but the problem is the way they frame the problem is the one thing is the problem. It’s the opposite. And therefore they would say the sakhemet is a new mitzvah [מצוה: commandment]. It’s adding information—not like I said last week, not like Mahab Shat [possibly מהר”ש: a rabbinic authority], which says it doesn’t really add anything. All it adds is don’t be the kind of person who wants all these things and does all these things.

Lo Tachmod as a New Category: Mitzvot HaLev [מצוות הלב: commandments of the heart]

What they’re saying is it adds—no, it’s adding a general—we could say call it a general way of working on yourself, right? A general way of being a good person, which is a total new thing. The mitzvah seems to think things like this, right? There’s a new area called mitzvah, which means something like—instead of just like people would say like the householders would say—if you’re just going to be working on liking the right things or like not eating something that’s not yours, or things that are not kosher, or things like that, then you will still have the desire, which is the source of the problem, which is what causes all these people.

So I have a simpler way for you to live. Just stop being a desirous person, and then you will have solved all issues in life at once, in some sense. That seems to be the argument for this way of thinking.

The Inverse Argument

And they say the opposite. If you don’t solve desire, then you’re going to have one desire, and you’re going to eat chazer.

Student: That would be the same thing. It’s not a pill. It’s some kind of work.

Instructor: Same thing as well according to this thing. Not a pill. No, pill is not a good example because pill is—you’re thinking of like solving the physical sense, like cutting off your like—be misogynist yourself or something like that. That’s not the exact response here. It’s saying become a different kind of person, right? It’s saying become a person who is controlled by his reason, not by his et cetera.

Becoming a Different Kind of Person — Yetzer Tov [יצר טוב: good inclination] vs. Yetzer Hara

Rebbe Yochanan’s Statement

Become a person who is controlled by—like Rebbechim [רבנים: rabbis] said—there’s many reasons of this. One reason of this would be to say I have a solution for all your problems in life. What does that mean? He doesn’t say, well, this spells out to do all the good things and not do all the bad things. He’s saying no, I have a simpler way for you to work, or a more inner way for you to work. Become a kind of person who follows his Yetzer Hara, which means his good drive—in other words, his reasonable drive—or you could say follow the Torah, obey the law if you want, and don’t obey the Yetzer Hara, don’t obey your tithers.

It’s not such a crazy—it’s not so crazy like I presented it to me. That’s the whole point.

The Strip Club vs. Chiddush [חידוש: novel Torah insight] Example

Student: No, no, no, no, no. I don’t mean even right thing. Let’s say a person, right? You could either go to—you have a chesik [חשק: desire] right now to do two things. Either go to a strip club or go and be the Chad Shtayin [learning Torah]. Yeah? Literally—wait, wait, I’m going to tell you something. It lives within me. Yeah? I’m saying, within the same person.

Instructor: Yes, yes, yes. You go and now sit for the next six hours and—

Student: So again, the Yid [Jew] that says this will tell you, you have another problem besides for the—you don’t—your problem—I mean right now you have the problem of choosing between these desires or deciding which one is good. I have a solution for you that will solve the whole thing. My akuta [עקותא: solution]—don’t—when you decide where to go tonight, don’t decide it based on where you desire to go. Decide on what is correct or on what Iraq [possibly יראה: fear/reverence] says or something like that. And therefore you will automatically not have this question anymore. You will just go to the show [shul: synagogue] because that’s what the correct thing to do is.

Instructor: No, no, no. What I’m saying is we all know what the good desire is here, right? Versus what the bad desire is.

Student: No, desire is bad. There’s no good desires in this.

Instructor: That’s what I’m asking. Is it possible just to have a good desire?

Clarifying “Desire” as Criterion vs. Liking

Student: No, because when I say desire, I don’t mean to like something. Just to be clear, the word desire means something different here. The word desire means the desire as a source of the good, as a criteria of good, it as a criteria of action. That’s what we mean, really.

Instructor: Yes, yes, that’s what it means.

Student: Not change definition. That’s what it means. Whenever anyone gives you this trisha [תירוץ: answer/resolution] against being about Tyler [possibly בעל תאוה: master of desire], that’s what they mean.

Desire as Criterion vs. Desire as Middah: Clarifying the Two Approaches to Lo Tachmod

Defining “Desire” in the Anti-Desire Reading

Desire as Source and Criterion of Action, Not Mere Liking

Student: There’s no good desires in this. That’s what I’m asking. Is it possible just to have a good desire?

Instructor: No, because when I say desire, I don’t mean to like something. Just to be clear, the word desire means something different. The word desire means the desire as a source of the good. As a criteria of good. As a criterion of action. That’s what we mean, really.

Student: But now you’re just changing the definition.

Instructor: Yes, that’s what it means. Not changing the definition, that’s what it means. Whenever anyone gives you this *drasha* [דרשה: homiletical interpretation] against being a *Ba’al Taivah* [בעל תאווה: master of desire/appetites], that’s what they mean. Obviously it’s about this, right? And the other person is disagreeing with this, just to be clear, this is what the *machlokes* [מחלוקת: dispute] is about.

If wanting something should be the reason why you do things. Desiring, one thing is a little bit more, too broad, but yeah, desiring. As in thinking that it will bring you pleasure, or something like that, or honor, or maybe just different desires but so you shouldn’t irrational desires you shouldn’t do anything based on that yes even if they’re good things the point is that desire is not a good thing there isn’t good desires.

“Good Desire” as Contradiction in Terms

Good desire—when I say desire I mean uncontrolled desire, right? That’s what I mean. When you say the desire that the expert is masking, when you’re talking about something else you’re talking about some kind of—by the way, another way if you want to spell it out like this, you could spell it out like someone that has some kind of crazy *Taivah* [תאווה: desire/craving] to learn—that’s a bad thing too. Yeah, you should have a reasonable *Taivah* to learn, but that’s not a *Taivah*. Then you’re not following a *Taivah*. You enjoy it. It’s not against enjoying good things. It’s against the enjoyment, which is by nature an uncontrolled thing, being the guide of your actions.

The Two Shittos Restated: Combat vs. Channel

So the two *shittos* [שיטות: approaches/opinions] says, one is just combat the notion of desire, or channel the notion of desire. Well, the other *shittah* says that this is not a very good way of framing things. It’s mostly a question of how to frame the thing on the—let’s say the action itself which is bad, they’re focusing on where—where is the—which is always bad. Again, this person says that *Lo Tachmod* [לא תחמוד: the prohibition “do not covet”] is a thing that—no, that’s why he disagrees with you. He says that *Lo Tachmod* means don’t be a desirous person, which will—being a desire—yes.

The other *shittah* says, now we could go back to think what the other *shittah* says, because now you at least understand what this guy is saying. He’s not just saying random things, don’t do things that you like. He’s saying that liking is not a reason to do things.

The Counter-Argument—The Anti-Desire Framework Is Underspecified

Agreement on Principles, Disagreement on Framework

Now, the other person says, well, the problem with your theory is that it’s underspecified. You think that you’re solving—you’re going to make me into a less desirous person and it sounds correct. It sounds correct that a less desirous person will have a better life and will have less desirousness, as you would say. Right? You will have less issues to solve. But, this person will tell you, and if you mean that, it’s somewhat correct even. We agree that desire shouldn’t be the criteria. Or another way to say something like, if you say, there’s a life of pleasure, or a life of desire versus a life of reason, or a life of restraint, or a life of some other way of saying the good, I 100% agree with you. There’s no debate about this. There’s no debate.

The Descriptive Objection: This Isn’t How Moral Life Actually Works

The debate is if this is a very good way to spell out how to work. Why? Because the other person says that you are assuming that the way people actually work most of the time is by deciding if desire is their criteria. This is like how decisions are made or how fights happen or how internal fights happen. But I think that this is not really happening.

So there’s a few things but let’s—this is the first thing that is the main thing that he would say. He would say something that no, desire is in the greater sense, precisely in the greater sense that you’re saying—if you’re talking about an uncontrolled desire, nobody disagrees that that’s a bad thing in itself. It’s like a bad *middah* [מידה: character trait]. There’s a specific bad thing and that might be one of the bad *middos* that I will be against when I get into my detailed account of bad *middos*. One of them is to chase uncontrolled desires or uncontrolled pleasures. No problem with that.

But what I disagree with is that this is a good *klal* [כלל: general principle], this is a good generalization of becoming a good person. And why? Because I tell you that look around life, think about your life, think about the times in which you had some kind of moral progress or regress or debates or conflicts, internal conflicts and so on. And find me one that can be well described by this story. And I can think that there isn’t any.

Describe a story of desiring something. Of deciding if desire is the criteria. Meaning like on the good sense of things. Like when you want to do good.

Extended Digression—The Modern Praise of Passion

Student’s Challenge: Passion as Driver of Creation

Student: I think desire is a very good criteria for a lot of good things. I think in business, it’s like, yeah, sometimes you have this passion, this desire to create the internet.

Instructor: Ah, nobody disagrees that that’s bad, what you’re describing. That’s a description of the *Yetzer Hara* [יצר הרע: evil inclination]. Right, but it brings good results.

Student: No, it brings bad results.

Instructor: Really?

Student: Yeah, of course.

Instructor: Which bad results?

Student: Everyone, nobody, that’s like—and if it does something with a passion, I think it’s creating—

The Lecturer’s Rebuttal: Passion Cannot Be the Criterion of Good

Instructor: Yeah, very good. That’s a very modern and extreme inversion of ethics. Passion doesn’t make things good. The results are not good. What are you talking about? If the results are good, they’re good after being controlled. They’re not good. What are you talking about? The results are not good. The results of following your passions are by definition bad because bad just means under no guidance, under no reason, under no idea of how it’s good.

No, no, no, no. This is absolutely the opposite. Absolutely the opposite. This is the example in any *inyan* [ענין: matter/topic]. Just to be clear, any like *inyan* next would use all these examples that you’re using as the example of a life gone extremely wrong because he had a bad life. He’s chasing money all his life and girls. What kind of life is that?

Student: Yeah, absolutely.

Instructor: Oh, money, ambition, its power—that’s what it is, right? What’s so good about that? Your role models are evil.

Student: Unless it’s not my ambition now.

Instructor: Yeah, based on—based on—based on—based on—based on what I want, not based on any idea of anything else. People doing easier, people doing a lot of—the *Ma’ari* [unclear reference] actually did it. Then what? What do you mean then what? So what was their passion after that? They still had the passion, right?

Student: Passion for what?

Instructor: They didn’t innovate any new things. He just came up with a car. And then he rode off that. That’s a bad thing. I don’t get why you think that’s a good thing. I have no idea.

The Indistinguishability Problem: Passion Cannot Distinguish Good from Evil

If it’s a good thing, then you don’t need passion to explain why it’s a good thing. When you make the passion into a good thing, that is the exact problem. In other words, there’s nothing to distinguish that that you’re for some reason praising from the guy whose passion was to kill as many prostitutes as possible and he ended up killing 102. I don’t know, some serial killer. It’s a great passion, don’t ask me. And he planned it and he created a whole system, how to work with it, and then didn’t get caught yet or did get caught or whatever, and that was part of the plan. Who knows? I mean, passion can’t be a reason to do things.

Student: Did I say that, I know what you’re talking about, but this is not—I have to get to the other side now. I think passion is a great driver for creation.

Instructor: Again, if we’re talking about a reason for things being good, a way of living your life based on that is almost the definition of evil, specifically in the examples that you’re giving. That’s what the *Yetzer* [יצר: inclination] means. That’s what means you’re living your whole life in the worship of the *Yetzer* and fulfilling your desires, or we could call them your—specifically your unreasoned desires.

The Correct Causal Order: Good Leading Desire, Not Vice Versa

If someone says the opposite, if someone says, I think this is so good now, and since it’s so good, I desire it, then it’s not desire that’s leading you, it’s the good that’s leading you. That’s a very different story. But if you say the story as the passion being the driving, the reason, then that’s a very weird story to think that it’s good. It sounds very weird. Like a *Achashverosh* [אחשורוש: the Persian king in the Book of Esther, paradigm of desire-driven life].

The Doctor Analogy: Healing People vs. Healing Sicknesses

I think a lot of people who are like—I think a lot of times people describe bad doctors as people who almost want people to be sick in order to heal them. Because they have such a desire to heal people, right? And it’s not even a desire to heal people, it’s a desire to be the one responsible for their healing, right? It’s a desire for *kavod* [כבוד: honor], that’s a desire for *kavod*.

Student: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that would be different from a doctor who thinks that cancer is so terrible that he wants to do it. Actually, the guy that has the patches to the thing.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy that holds the book back.

Student: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. He’s the doctor who loves health so much, or thinks that health is such a good thing that he has a passion for it. But he’s actually very good at what he does. You need the surgery.

Instructor: Yeah, yeah, but no, no. I’m arguing that the bad doctor is the one who tries to heal people and the good doctor is the one who tries to heal sicknesses.

Student: Don’t forget to take your fifth book.

Instructor: Anyway, I’m not going to get into this.

Historical Observation: The Modern Inversion of Ethics

You should notice that there’s a modern ideal of praising passion, which is precisely the thing described as monstrous evil in every book prior to like 1600. You should notice this at least. This is one of my things. Just notice. Is there’s something really weird going on.

Okay, now let’s move on. I’m not asking, I’m just telling you. See, that’s great—not great in the sense of big. Yeah, nobody disagrees with that. That’s the problem. Worse, you mean. You mean worse. It’s a really bad thing. I’m really against it. You should come here on Shabbos and hear me explain why cars are—

[Chunk ends mid-sentence]

Technology, Passion, and the Problem of Expanded Ability: A Critique of Modern Civilization

The Expansion of Ability as the Expansion of Desire

Technology and the Problem of “Allowing”

Instructor: But that’s the worst thing. Or not the worst thing, that’s traditionally seen as the worst thing. I’m here to argue with this simplification here, but you have to understand what it is. Being able to do what you want, that’s what the sultan said. Why would being able to do all kinds of things be a good thing? That’s a bad thing.

Student: In my mouth—

Instructor: No, no, I’m not putting it in my mouth. I’m saying the mashal [parable/analogy] is—let’s say like I said, I want to come to this shiur [Torah lesson] so much, so much. It could have taken me either 17 minutes or it could have been 3 hours.

Student: No, no, that’s just—oh my god, oh my god, no, no, that’s not true. Firstly it’s not true, no, no, it’s not a good mashal because like, just to like, you should think before you speak. Like what are you even saying? Like what, this is solving a problem. That’s really why cars—

Instructor: Of Vendancy should come to this shiur? I could know it’s not a time we show it. I can’t even get into this because if you should think about this, like you should try to take it apart and realize what is behind thinking that this is good. Because it’s not good. I don’t think it’s good. I don’t even think that it’s good. You should talk to my sheet in 70 minutes. I think it’s really evil. I think it makes the sheet worse, makes you worse, makes the whole world worse. But that’s just me giving a positive argument for why it would be like that.

Student: I’m not watching you right now online—

Instructor: That makes it better? Worse, of course. Makes the world worse. The fact that you could watch me online without coming here is making the world worse. Of course it is. Now, since we live in the evil world, should you watch me instead of some other nonsense? That’s a different discussion. But of course the ability, the expansion of ability, is like the expansion of desire. And therefore the more a person is a kind of person who could do what he wants, and all of this technology when it’s praised, it’s praised precisely in this way—it expands humans’ freedom. Now you can do what you want. In other words, it makes us worse people. The kind of praise is the praising of the evil.

Student: Well, do you need great ability to do great good things too?

Instructor: Yes, but the good doesn’t consist of the ability. The good consists precisely of putting a limit on the ability and saying you only do it in this way. Now that’s not a praise of the inventor. That’s a praise of me that’s using it in only the good way. But therefore I don’t owe anything to the guy that invented the internet, because he only gave me the yetzer [hara] [evil inclination]. Just like I don’t owe anything to my body or to whatever that is the base of the things that we act in life, the things that want. The thing that gets praised or deserves praise is what puts limits on that, not what creates the ability. Right? Creating abilities is always bad. It’s the definition of bad.

The Mythological Confirmation

Instructor: So we should go back to this bad here is not so bad, just to be clear. Bad is the base of good, always. So the inventor of the wheel is also extremely mad guy. You read the story? Did you read the story of that Sadassah ever? That’s what it says there. Did you read the myth of Prometheus? Like this base fundamental units that all say this expansion of abilities is bad. Nothing new here. And again, does that mean that there’s nothing to do after that? No. But the praising of precisely what is seen as the problem as the solution—that is a real inversion. That’s really weird.

Like, you allow me to come to the sheet? Allowing is a bad thing. You may—if there would be some of them that would invent the machine that makes you come because she didn’t 17 minutes, that would be a good invention. But allowing is a bad invention. And unfortunately, cars don’t make you come to the Sharia [shiur]. They allow you.

Student: New line of cars.

Instructor: What?

Student: That would be a good line of cars.

Instructor: The problem is that cars as a material invention can’t be that. Because that’s what matter is—potential. It can’t be that. The only kind of invention that is that is things that invent religions or that invent cultures or that invent some kind of social human soul-like systems that work on human souls to limit them, to teach them what is good.

The Nature of Religious Founders

Instructor: And does that happen with great ambition or great passion? You could describe it that way, but I’ve never heard anyone describing Moshe Rabbeinu [Moses our teacher] or even any other founder of religion as a guy of great passion. They have different ways of describing them. Why? Not because they didn’t work with great passion—it takes a great, like we call emotional energy to be that. But the reason they’re not described [that way], because that’s not the primary thing that makes them interesting. The primary thing that makes them interesting is their limitations that they have, right? Ideas of what is good and what is bad. Moshe was the one that came up with 365 ways of being bad and 248 ways of being good. That was his whole thing.

Against the Romanticization of Passionate Devotion

The Chassidic Misreading of Ahavas Hashem

Student: What does ahavah azah [fierce/intense love] mean when we’re talking about ahavas Hashem [love of God], like as the tav of Mishku [?]? What does that mean?

Instructor: Means nothing. You shouldn’t read those books that say those things.

Student: They’re still Ram [Rambam/Maimonides] says those things. Ram says—

Instructor: Ram says, but ahavas Hashem should be like—

Student: Okay, you didn’t read it.

Instructor: You didn’t read it well. I know this is a Chassidish [Chassidic] misreading of the Ram, 100%. Ram didn’t say it and it’s like that. Now I’m going to tell you about the Chassidim. Yes. The Chassidim are—I know, but you went to Chassidim and they gave you these glasses and now you see this weird, evil praise of unrestrained passion as a good thing, even in pursuit of the good. And because they lived after, you know, a certain period of time. And this is weird. Like, this romanticization of great passion for God. It’s nonsense. Great passion for God only causes problems.

The Breaking of the Vessels

Instructor: Did you ever hear the story of the Olam HaTohu [World of Chaos] of Kabbalah? You heard it? You know why the vessels broke? Because they wanted God too much. It’s a bad thing. God’s answer was, please don’t. They read the story. All the stories are the opposite. They’re creating limits. They’re not creating gehava [?]. The Havod Ram [?], of course, doesn’t say that. He says the opposite.

Student: Shem [?] was happy with that.

Instructor: Shem was very happy. Of course there’s a Gemara [Talmudic passage] that says the opposite, but what?

Student: No, no, no, no, because like there’s so much—

Instructor: He’s not just trying to point at the point. Like what I’m doing right now is not really teaching because I’m just doing the thing. But you should realize that there’s something really weird with this praise of passion, even in the sense, precisely in this sense, of an unrestrained desire. Precisely in that sense.

The Problem with Meshalim

Student: Say well, and if it’s good that sometimes it causes good things—

Instructor: No, that is what the evil means. He literally gives the mashal with the girl. Sadiq [?], I know exactly what they mean. And you read it upside down. And you have to know how the Rambam thinks about these things. And understand what he’s trying to say. Whenever someone uses a mashal, you always put in your own conceptions of that mashal into the mashal, and you think that he’s imagining things. That’s why meshalim [parables] are evil. Anyways, should have not done the mashal. It would have been better without it. Because at least people wouldn’t invent random things. You know why there’s—you know what’s the cause of the yetzer [hara]? You know why there’s still yetzer [hara]? Because the nevi’im [prophets] use meshalim. That’s why. And then you’re like, wait, they said it’s a good thing. Shirah Shina [?] was written about that.

The Criterion Problem Revisited

Instructor: Okay, now—anyways, now this is a serious thought about Chaim Shin K’ev [?]. It’s a good thing in the right place.

Student: No, that’s what I’m saying. It’s not a good thing. If that is the criteria, then it’s not a good thing. At least this theory says it’s not a good thing. Good things are restrained things. Precisely the opposite. The more yakar [precious/restrained] someone is, the more better they are. That’s also a weird mashal that’s going to make you bad now. But that’s my point. Restraint is good. And wildness is bad.

Civilization as Restraint

The Fundamental Principle

Instructor: I mean, civilization is good, and whatever the opposite of civilization is, is bad. Isn’t that obvious? Now people come, oh no, civilization is based on these great passions that are really destructive. No, it’s not. That’s the background of civilization, yes. But it’s based on restraining that.

Marriage, Civilization, and the Critique of the Anti-Desire School

Civilization Is Based on Restraint, Not Passion

The Foundation of Civilization and Marriage

Instructor: Well, yes, but it’s in some sense, in the sense of it, that being the base. Like, but marriage is based on the restraint of desire, or the organization of it, right? The submission of it, the giving it the correct limits. That’s what it’s based on. In a more real sense, then it’s based on that. Where did I get into this? But anyways…

If you would build your worldview off of your sexual instinct, I think you probably wouldn’t end up with marriage.

Student: It’s bad for sex.

Instructor: No, it’s not bad for sex, but to say it’s bad for… No, I was saying it’s the background of it, but it’s not the basis of it. And if you think that people have felt that right all the… Just to be clear, all the *ba’alei hashkafa* [בעלי השקפה: religious teachers/speakers on worldview] that say you should get married because there’s better sex, their kids end up gay. That’s not… You got what I’m saying?

Student: Very simple, yeah.

Instructor: What was the connection?

Student: As simple as that.

The Problem with Pleasure-Based Arguments for Marriage

Instructor: Ah, because like the number… gay in the real sense, right? Not… I don’t care who you’re doing it with, in the sense of pursuing the pleasure instead of pursuing the kind of things that limit the pleasure in some way or give it a form, right? Limit it—not in the way of having less of it, in the way of giving it a structure, right? Those people are upset about the old structure of making marriage and then starting to pretend that… Because then this like hedonism is the correct result. So if everything is based on pleasure, then why shouldn’t we just be wild hedonists? Turns out you don’t have much pleasure doing that either, but that’s a different problem.

Student: Wild what?

Instructor: Hedonism. That’s the conclusion. Like, why even struggle? Like, how it says, why do you have to buy a cow if you only need milk? So that’s the conclusion if you think that it’s based on that. If you understand that it’s based on that in the sense of that being the prior situation that it starts with—if it wouldn’t be that, of course we wouldn’t need it or it wouldn’t exist—but based on the precise opposite of that, based on the… how we call it… this discipline of that, right? Then you’re going to end up with the discipline of it.

Okay, now keep it in the drama. You’re not gonna solve what you’re looking for, right, by doing that. Not gonna help you.

Where am I here? That’s the… all description of the ways in which claiming that the… is the problem makes some kind of sense, and that’s the way in which it does make sense. I think it does make sense. Do you agree with me?

The Anti-Desire School’s Core Claim

The Fundamental Principle: Desire Should Not Motivate Action

Instructor: This school is motivated by the right idea that desire definitely… It definitely shouldn’t be a motivation or action. Or we could say something like, you should not live the life of desire. That shouldn’t be your life. Right. Or that shouldn’t be your reason. Therefore, the suppression of desire is a good thing.

Oh, so now… I’m saying that’s the first rule.

Student: Right, right, right.

Instructor: Therefore, the thing you should talk about, instead of talking about desiring the right things or doing the right things and so on, you should start by talking… like you should give *drashos* [דרשות: sermons/lectures] against desire. That’s the point. Describe how evil it is and how horrible it is, how stupid it is, and then you’ll get people weaned of desire and they’ll automatically basically go to… people… or you should train them, you should give them exercises for that, right?

I mean, meanwhile, just telling you that…

Practices Explained by the Anti-Desire Framework

Instructor: Yeah, there’s also… I could tell you something like there’s also certain practices that would be explained precisely by that. Just to be clear, what?

Yeah, or like the Rambam [רמב”ם: Maimonides] and author of *Rav Sa’adya* [Gaon] explain all the *issurei achilah* [איסורי אכילה: forbidden foods] based in this way, right? So there is something true in this, right?

So that… *Rav Sa’adya* wrote this poem putting the… says the all the time it’s nice… there is the *Aseres HaDibros* [עשרת הדברות: Ten Commandments] and he follows… follow and putting all the things in… not allowed to eat into *Lo Tachmod* [לא תחמוד: You shall not covet]. Because you understand *Lo Tachmod* has this base idea of desire, and eating *chazer* [חזיר: pig/non-kosher food] or eating *basar b’chalav* [בשר בחלב: meat and milk together] or *gid hanasheh* [גיד הנשה: sciatic nerve] are in any case, no matter what their original reason is, they’re still instances of suppressing your desire.

And the Rambam would say this explicitly when he talks about… in *Mitzvos* [מצוות: commandments] he gives this even as a *klal* [כלל: general principle]. He says, in some sense one goal, one objective of all the *Mitzvos* is he calls it *perishus* [פרישות: abstinence/separation], right? Of course this makes it more complicated, but suppression of desire. And therefore would say something like the main reason or one of the reasons why there’s all these things we don’t eat is just to teach us that we don’t do what we want, like that kid said, and training you to be less a less desirous person.

The *Chachamim’s* [חכמים: Sages] Opposition to the Anti-Desire Reading

The *Chachamim* Understood *Lo Tachmod* as an Action, Not a *Middah* [מידה: Character Trait]

Instructor: Now what do I have against this? I don’t have anything against this now that I’m thinking about it. But the theory, the opinion of the *Chachamim* was not like this, right? You remember that the *Chachamim* was… had for various reasons, and it’s not clear why, but the *Chachamim* assumed that there’s something that you do, not something that you want. It’s not a *middah*. They’re almost explicitly opposed to *mitzvos shebalev* [מצוות שבלב: commandments of the heart] in this way—not because they didn’t believe in things in your heart, but because they didn’t understand the best way of training a human being to be to tell them to be a less desirous person.

The Solipsistic Loop Problem

Instructor: And I think that this is because one thing we could see that happens when we do this, and we could see the people that focus in this way, is that they end up in the solipsistic loops that we discussed last time, that you end up focusing so much on not being a desirous person, I forget to be a good person.

The Core Asymmetry: Suppressing Desire Doesn’t Make You Good

Instructor: And it seems to me not correct, although it’s true that this is a… being a desirous person is very, very easy way to be to become horrible. That’s true. But not being a desirous person is not a quick way to become good. That’s what I think. It’s just not enough. This theory is like being like… I mean, this is everything. And they would say, well, this has this place. This theory is even true in some very broad sense, but it’s not practical enough, it’s not true enough. It doesn’t actually make you a good person. Being less of a *ba’al taivah* [בעל תאוה: person of desire] doesn’t often make you a good person.

The *Chazon Ish’s* [חזון איש] Position (*Emunah U’Bitachon* [אמונה וביטחון: Faith and Trust], *Perek Gimmel* [פרק ג׳: Chapter 3])

The *Chazon Ish* as an Ally

Instructor: I’ll explain to you why. I think that the *Chazon Ish* in *Emunah U’Bitachon* gets this pretty well, although he turned it so many times that it’s weird. But I was thinking about this, *perek gimmel*. It turns out the *Chazon Ish* is saying my *shita* [שיטה: approach/method]. No, because the *Chazon Ish* often is like inherited this ancient way of thinking and has no good way of expressing it, so it comes out very funny. But I think that he’s really trying to get at it.

The *Chazon Ish’s* Arguments

Instructor: And what is he saying, the *Chazon Ish*? The *Chazon Ish* is saying that, wait, wait a second. It’s true that desire proper, like desire just as desire, *lishma* [לשמה: for its own sake], is a weird thing. But let’s be real. Firstly, very few people are actually like that. There are some people. But that’s not the big problem in life.

Secondly, this doesn’t actually tell me how to act. Doesn’t… you can be a *mush’ba* [משובע: satisfied/satiated] either *greis* [גרייס: Yiddish: grits/porridge] or garbage eat in that sense and still a big *rasha* [רשע: wicked person]. Even a big *rasha* in the time away. You can even be a *ganav* [גנב: thief]. Why could he be a *ganav*? Because *ganav* is not defined by me not wanting things. It’s the final… meaning something doesn’t belong to me. And how does not belong to me defined? Not by what I don’t want, right?

So this definition, I’m not doing what you want, it’s definitely not a good enough of positive definition for what to do. It might be good as a negative definition for not to make the criteria of all your actions. Or you could say in a very general sense, so the answer to everything else is to do what is correct. But who decides what is correct is something entirely different.

The Problem of “Apathetic *Geneivah*” [גניבה: Theft]

Instructor: Meaning it still enables what we may call casual *geneivah*. Not only casual, even… No, I mean casual in the sense of apathetic *geneivah*. Even, no, even in a certain sense, I think… I actually think… That’s one thing, but I actually think that I was on the same, but I think it even enables *geneivah* with wanting, just not in this passionate way, not in a wild way, in a restrained way. But you could be a pretty nice guy—not with one orange, not three, right?

Like if we imagine like the caricature of this guy that we’re against as some like weird really like… he said most people don’t have the ability to be that. Most people are not rich enough and not powerful enough to really be, you know, extreme hedonist, to really follow their passions. Most people… that’s why when we give these crazy examples of following a passion we talk about extremely powerful people, right? Because most people can’t follow their passions. They’re limited by the reality they live in, right?

But if we take that as the kind of example, right, and then we say okay, most people are not that, but most people still aren’t… still aren’t good people. They didn’t tell… all the restraint that civilization put on people didn’t make them into good people. They’re still stealing and thieving and doing this all the time. So this doesn’t seem to have actually been the final solution.

Student: Even worse, they’re just born worse than?

Instructor: Even worse, they’re just born maybe not through an unrestrained passion, but what are they? Right?

Goodness Is Defined by External Reality, Not Internal Refinement

The External Standard

Instructor: The more important thing is that interestingly, what is good and bad is defined by some kind of… the *Ramchal* [רמח”ל: Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto] called external reality, by other people. Okay, that’s just because he doesn’t have a way of saying this, but it’s defined by other people.

Refinement ≠ Goodness

Instructor: You being a really this guy with the *mussar* [מוסר: ethics/character development]… it doesn’t make you a guy that smells less amazingly. It makes you a very sensitive guy, but sensitive guys are not better guys. It might make you a very, like, refined…

[End of chunk]

Lo Tachmod and the Nature of Hypocrisy: Internal Refinement vs. External Moral Reality

The Limits of Internal Virtue — Why Halakhah Defines Goodness

Goodness Is Defined Externally, Not by Internal Refinement

Instructor: That’s what we’re saying, right? I’m not saying it doesn’t help. It doesn’t help as much as its promoters pretend that it helps. It’s easier to see how destructive it is when taken to an extreme and harder to see how not being that helps. I think we can agree. I think we argued about this a few weeks ago.

I think it needs some degree of suppression just to allow you to—

Student: Yes, yes. Last time you disagreed with me.

Instructor: I don’t remember. I think that it helps. I think it needs some degree of suppression just to allow other things to come to the surface, even.

Student: That’s true, but that’s another way of saying things like, again, going back to this extreme example—

Instructor: And you could say in some subtle sense everyone is extreme because people have a very difficult time even seeing something beyond their own desires, like seeing that as a reason to do things, not seeing it. Most people, and even some ba’alei mussar [בעלי מוסר: masters of ethical discipline], strengthen this by pretending that that’s just what people are. It’s not. You’re just, like, in some level of, like, what we call sometimes, people call that—

And I’m against calling it that way because it just makes it harder to see how simple it is. But some people call something that’s going out of your own ego or something like that is a necessary condition for anything, even for doing math. And it’s a very simple thing. It’s not so complicated. But it’s true that that is needed.

And some people, again, the extreme cases, I think, it’s easy to see how that’s the problem. There are some people that never get beauty because beauty is not you. They get enjoyment from beauty. Like, modern discourse pretends that this makes sense, right? We can’t really talk about what’s beautiful, we can talk about what you enjoy. Beauty is subjective, which boils down to saying there isn’t beauty, there’s only enjoyment, which is about me.

But that’s nonsense. Nobody really thinks that. Only extreme crazy people, or people—our language, our society’s language was created by really extremely crazy people, like the ones you mentioned before, and that’s why it’s very hard for us to talk about. But if you look around in daily life, you’ll see that it’s not that way. We’re controlled by things outside us all the time. That’s not a big chiddush [חידוש: novel insight] really. People do understand motivation for something because it’s good and not just because they want it.

But why do you want it? It’s good because you want it? Just words.

Why the Anti-Desire Approach Fails on Its Own Terms

Instructor: So I think it’s less helpful. It’s easy to see how it helps and negates certain extreme issues. It’s less easy to see how it actually helps, and also even less easy to see therefore how it succeeds at its own aims, which is like defining how to be good in this very general way and saying that good consists of that. Because it might be good as a negative thing. It doesn’t need to be good as a positive. And therefore, even what to want depends on what is correct to want.

Lo Tachmod Requires Knowledge of Property Rights

The Ramban: Parshat Mishpatim Expands Lo Tachmod

Instructor: In other words, lo tachmod [לא תחמוד: you shall not covet] can only be defined after you know what belongs to you and what doesn’t belong to you. If we talk about lo tachmod in a monetary sense, right? This says the holy Ramban [רמב”ן: Rabbi Moshe ben Nachman, Nachmanides] last week in Parashat Mishpatim [פרשת משפטים: the Torah portion on civil law], in the beginning of Parashat Mishpatim.

Ramban says that Parashat Mishpatim and the whole derush [דרוש: exposition] over there is an expansion of the Aseret HaDibrot [עשרת הדברות: the Ten Commandments]. Instead, Parashat Mishpatim is an expansion of lo tachmod.

Why doesn’t he say lo tignov [לא תגנוב: you shall not steal]? Maybe because he thought that means really gonev nefashot [גונב נפשות: kidnapping]. I don’t know. I think that because he understood that wanting—now I’ll give you a third thing, I have to say the third pshat [פשט: interpretation] also on lo tachmod, this is the second pshat that I said last time—that being a kind of person that is wanting is after knowing what really belongs to you and what doesn’t belong really to you.

Rav Soloveitchik: Ignorance of Choshen Mishpat Makes One a Thief

Instructor: And there’s a lot of detail in that, which means that if you don’t—like Rav Soloveitchik says, people that don’t know Choshen Mishpat [חושן משפט: the section of Jewish law dealing with civil matters] by default can’t know him. Because we don’t really know usually what belongs to us or what our obligations are and so on. It’s not natural. The natural thing of like, “I don’t take things that are not mine”—no, the world is much more complicated. That’s more detailed than that. You have to figure out what your obligations are.

I gave a very long derush about this last week in Boro Park and it didn’t help. Nobody understood what I said. Maybe I’ll say it again. Anyways, yeah I could, but I don’t have patience to repeat all of that.

And that’s what I understand to be the second pshat. And therefore the chokhmah [חכמה: wisdom], it turns out to be—

Example: Two Kinds of Hypocrisy

Instructor: Like I want to give an example that I might have said it here in another context before, but I think it’s a better good example of understanding the difference between the first version of internality and the second version, which is I think a more practical version and also I think it’s more the pshat of Chazal [חז”ל: our Sages, of blessed memory] and the pesukim [פסוקים: verses] when they talk about things.

The Navi’s Critique — Behavioral vs. Emotional Hypocrisy

The Chovot HaLevavot Error

Instructor: So, people like the Chovot HaLevavot [חובות הלבבות: Duties of the Heart, a medieval Jewish philosophical work] like to do this move, and I think it’s the wrong move. They like to say things like, it says in the Navi [נביא: prophet], “b’fiv u’visfatav kibduni v’libo rachak mimeni” [בפיו ובשפתיו כבדוני ולבו רחק ממני: with his mouth and lips he honored Me, but his heart is far from Me].

From here we learn that what God wants is what’s in your heart and not what you say. But that’s not true, that’s not what the Navi said. Right? Let’s explain the difference.

First Reading: Behavioral Hypocrisy (The Pshat)

Instructor: What the Navi said is like this. Someone comes and says, by davening [davening: prayer], “I love God, I believe in the truth, I believe that only God controls everything, and getting a—you don’t get anything, you don’t gain anything by going in bad ways,” and so on. That’s what he says by davening. Okay?

Now there’s two kinds of problems that we could call by a similar name with someone saying this. Both are called hypocrisy. Okay?

Now what is in the hypocrisy when—then in the simple sense—but the Navi is criticizing, the Navi is criticizing someone who comes and says all these nice things about, you know, you have—we have to have bitachon [בטחון: trust in God] and God controls the world and we love Hashem [השם: God, lit. “the Name”] and all of that.

Turns out, whenever he lives his life, whenever he needs something, he forgets, doesn’t really live with bitachon. Or he doesn’t—not steal because he thinks that God is just. He steals because he doesn’t really trust that he’ll get the things that we’ll need without stealing, right? That’s what the iker mitzvah [עיקר מצוה: essential commandment] of bitachon is—not to steal, right? I’ve told you this many times.

So, that’s—now, when he says this, you’re a liar. You’re not saying what you believe, what you live. That’s called a hypocrite. And that’s what libo [לבו: his heart] means—libo rachak mimeni [his heart is far from Me]. Okay? You’re not living that. That’s what libo means.

And now like I said, why is this called heart? Because you’re saying the correct words, you might even sometimes do the correct actions, but you’re the kind of person who always tends to do the opposite. That’s all that heart means in this context.

Second Reading: Emotional Hypocrisy (Rejected)

Instructor: Now there’s a different pshat which is the Chovot HaLevavot pshat, for the Chassidish [חסידיש: Hasidic] pshat sometimes, which doesn’t mean something like this. You could say words out of rote, and you don’t mean it, you don’t think what you say, you don’t feel in your heart at the moment that you say—you’re not impressed, you’re not excited, you’re not dedicated, you’re not devoted to the words you’re saying, you’re just saying them.

And then there’s someone else who when he says it, he means it, right? He’s like devoted to what he’s—excited by—to see them think that being excited or having what they call high emotional energy in it is the good thing. And the Chovot HaLevavot seems to say things like that often.

The Lecturer’s Strong Rejection

Instructor: Now, you can understand that if my main problem is the first problem, someone might be saying it by rote and he is—libo karov laHashem [לבו קרוב לה’: his heart is close to God]. Because when he says Shema Yisrael [שמע ישראל: Hear O Israel], he lives in some sense in Shema Yisrael. Because he doesn’t steal because he believes that there’s a God who provides for the people that don’t steal.

Now, the criticism of the Navi is not that he says Shema Yisrael quickly. Who cares if he says it quickly? Which mitzvah [מצוה: commandment] is it to say things? It doesn’t help anyone. That’s a bli berakhah [בלי ברכה: lit. “without blessing,” here meaning “worthless”]. You shrei [שריי: you shout], you get so emotional thinking of—ein makhshava [אין מחשבה: there is no thought]—as there is, and you’re a shakran [שקרן: liar], you’re a bluffer, bli berakhah. You don’t mean that. You don’t believe that, what you’re saying. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

I think you mentioned this, I think I heard it, I don’t know if it was published, that Daniel [דניאל: the biblical prophet] didn’t say “HaKel HaGadol” [הקל הגדול: the Great God]—he didn’t buy it, he didn’t think so.

Right, and the opposite guy who is thinking—

[*Transcript ends mid-sentence*]

The Hypocrisy of Internal Feelings Without External Conformity

Libo D’chu Kemanei [His Heart Is Not With Him] — The Emotional Liar

That’s a libo d’chu kemanei [Hebrew: לבו דחו כמניה, his heart is not with him]. You’re in a shiur [Torah lecture], you get so emotional by the drasha [sermon/Torah discourse], and you’re really there, you’re not thinking of any machshavah zarah [Hebrew: מחשבה זרה, foreign/extraneous thought], and you’re a shakran [Hebrew: שקרן, liar], you’re a bluff [bluffer], libo d’chu kemanei. You don’t mean that. You don’t believe that, what you’re saying. You have no idea what you’re talking about.

It’s like when you go to, I don’t know if you mentioned this, I think I heard it, I don’t know if it was published, that Daniel said, didn’t say it, I can’t remember, couldn’t lie, he didn’t think so.

The Problem of Internality as Feeling

And the opposite guy who thinks that the internality is something inside — how about how I feel? Like I explained before, there’s some reason why people get to think things like that. He is — this is the problem that I’m getting at, that you make — like people think of aveirah [Hebrew: עבירה, sin/transgression] also, right? The main thing is that you’re a good person inside, right?

“I feel so bad for you. Give me your knife, the knife to sheikh. I feel so bad.”

I see people doing this every day. It’s amazing and they consider themselves all good people. “So bad for you. I’m such a good person.”

The Greater Hypocrisy of Genuine Feeling

He means it when he says the words and nothing — that he’s lying. Some people are lying. People are just psychopaths when they say the words that “I feel bad for you, it hurts me more than it hurts you.” Doesn’t hurt some people. Does hurt. He’s not even lying. It really hurts him. But he’s a bigger hypocrite.

Yeah, another word. This is the second definition of middah [Hebrew: מידה, character trait/measure] that we’re saying. It is someone who doesn’t do it, doesn’t like doing it. If you’re doing it and you feel bad, is that in the contradiction? You have a — your own feelings is very cute, but I don’t — who cares? It’s not even a good feeling. Is nothing good about things that this — you’re not even a better person for that. You’re a better — yeah, feelings, okay. But your feelings — so that’s the second thing. That’s the second thing.

And that’s what they — something like “I never wanted it. I just took it without wanting it. It’s not even my sachmet [unclear term, possibly related to desire/will].” No, you’re — so the other could lead you to this, to do the right actions, right? If you use that as a tool, you will do — the other sachmet is exactly — be the kind of person for who other people’s money is a thing that causes you to not want it. Be limited by that.

Student: No, I know that, but if you like — it just — it doesn’t mean — I think maybe you could use it as a tool to get to your sachmet.

Instructor: The first one you mean?

Student: The first one you use as a tool.

Instructor: I worry that it’s usually used as a tool to not get to it. That’s why I’m against it. Because I notice the people thinking that way — I don’t know, a lot of this is, some of this is theoretical about like ancient people and thinkers that have talked about this, and some of it is me noticing that we’re very — we in some sense, we in the sense of like the yeshivos [Hebrew: ישיבות, Torah academies] that we all went to, inherited this bad version of internality, and it makes people worse usually instead of better. Because they think that they’re good people because when they say Shema [Hebrew: שמע, the central Jewish prayer declaring God’s unity] they feel it, or because when they say “it hurts me” they feel it. That’s the same idea.

Squashing Desire Is Also Insufficient

Squashing desire is also internal thing. Everyone agrees that it’s internal thing. Like “I don’t care about what I want. I do only what I think is correct.”

Yeah, but you never think of what’s correct, right? So it’s true that you don’t do a desire, not even giving like this mussar [Hebrew: מוסר, ethical/character development teachings] argument that you don’t hear in a gift. No, you’re a person pure from the negios [Hebrew: נגיעות, personal biases/conflicts of interest]. You just feel a bad person. Like I wish would tell you because you don’t know what is yours and what is not yours. You never thought about. You never put a lot of effort in to figure out what your obligation, what your place in the world is, what belongs to you, what do you have to act. These are all external things and you’re not into an external things. You’re just busy sitting by your shtender [Yiddish: שטענדער, lectern/study stand] there and being a good guy. And that’s not a good guy.

That’s what I worried about. You get what I’m saying?

The Health Analogy — Removing Vice Doesn’t Create Virtue

It’s like someone would say something like — like take an example of physical health, right? Of course being a very desirous person is not conducive to physical health. You might drink too much, eat too much, and so on, right?

Right.

But not being a desirous person doesn’t make you healthy. You’ve got to actually find out what’s healthy. There’s no magic that says — people claim that there’s such magic, but in general, it’s not really like that. Like, no magic that says that once you won’t eat for your taivos [Hebrew: תאוות, desires], you’ll eat healthily. You might just eat kugel [Yiddish: קוגל, traditional baked pudding/casserole] without taivos. It doesn’t mean that all problems are solved when you make it, like, in deficiency.

Yeah, that’s one way. I feel like there’s a deeper problem here, but yeah, that’s one problem.

The Deeper Problem — Internal Work Doesn’t Guarantee Right Action

That is my bigger problem. I think that this doesn’t actually help. You could work a lot on your religiously, sachmet will be a ganus [unclear term, possibly related to theft/stealing] and it has nothing to do. It doesn’t even help. It might help, like I said. He says it helps in extreme cases. I don’t even know.

Yeah, right. And then when you stop being a guy and you stop wanting to be a kind of also, and that’s called having the middah of this act might according to me. Exactly.

The Correct Order — Internality Comes Second, Not First

First in Reality, Second in Theory

It’s not — it comes first in the order of reality because people act from their internals. But it comes second in the order of theory. Like what defines the good person? Like I said, what defines the person who is not the libo d’chu kemanei is how we act, not how we — not how we mean what in me.

When he means — when he says, of course the person who says it that way, when he says it’s also coming in a certain sense more from his internals. It’s like — it’s true that it’s like external. The guy that doesn’t live what he’s — what he says by his drushas [plural of drasha, sermons] when he says that he’s lying, which is the clearest case of someone speaking externally, right? His mouth is saying it but his heart doesn’t say it.

Redefining Lying — Conformity to Reality, Not Internal State

But firstly, heart doesn’t mean feelings. Doesn’t mean feelings at that moment, right? It’s like — it’s very this very weird thing where lying is not the — lying is not the — conformity of your external state to your internal state when you’re lying. A good liar lies on his thoughts too. It’s not when I’m lying I’m thinking, “no, that’s a lie.”

Lying is the non-conformance of your words to the reality. Now that reality is what we call the most internal thing. But it’s the external reality, so to speak, the thing outside yourself, or at least outside yourself at that moment, is the criteria for what makes it not a lie.

Does that make sense?

Brief Mention of a Third Interpretation and Side Discussion

A Third Pshat [Interpretation] Deferred

There’s a third that I have to get to, but I’m going to stop here because it’s connected with too many things and it’s going to take me too much time to figure out.

The Chayei Adam on Saying Words

Student: With the Chayei Adam [Hebrew: חיי אדם, “Life of Man” — a major halakhic work] for some, not related, just anyway, what does he do with what he said? How do you say the words?

Instructor: I don’t think it’s important. It might be a practice for something, like just for focus or meditation, but I don’t think it’s important at all. He seems to think it’s important. That’s what I’m saying. I think Chayei Adam does a lot of these rhetorical tricks where he takes things that meant something totally different and pretends that they mean what he wanted them to mean.

Student: I’m saying he kind of like asks it on himself. If Hamas desires spiraling at it, why do you need these words if really it’s all in your heart?

Instructor: Okay, that’s a different question. I’m talking about actions.

Student: Yeah, that’s a question about words. That’s not my question, it’s about actions.

Instructor: Easier this way. But like, easier this way, that doesn’t get to what — what the real thing is.

Student: Yeah, the words is a different question really, but yeah.

Instructor: Okay, I have to sort out the video.