Overcoming yourself vs. Pretending to be a good person – Transcript

Aristotelian Temperance, Self-Friendship, and the Path of Teshuvah

Chapter 1: Preliminary Remarks on Pronunciation and Spelling

Instructor: Abayisar, this is Choy Deshow, and Choy Deshow will do Tshiva—Tshuva [תשובה, Teshuvah: repentance] for the people that know the difference between a Melepim [מלאפים, melupim: a vowel marking] and a Chirik [חיריק, chirik: another vowel marking]. And on Pekabule [פה קבלה, presumably a regional pronunciation tradition] there’s a big difference. If you want to do Tshuva, you want to do Tshiva or Tshuva, you’re going to go on a different island than them.

But even those people, when they write it, they write it correctly. So maybe it has to do with how you write it, not how you say it. And the Meiri [מאירי, Rabbi Menachem Meiri, medieval Talmudic commentator] results—yeah, agree and say it.

Anyways, so we got to talking about doing Tshiva, but we’re also learning about Hilchas [הלכות, Hilchos: laws of]—what’s it called—Hilchas, what we’re learning?

Student: Hilchas Temperance.

Instructor: There’s still a few Hilchas that we have to learn. And today I have that there’s a connection with Hilchas Tshiva, so I’m going to say my—I don’t know because I don’t remember exactly what it says where, but I tried to understand the ideas, what it should have said.

—

Chapter 2: The Framework of Temperance — Aristotle’s Three Types of People

The Basic Distinction

The thing is like this. This is the basic thing. Let’s see if I could say it correctly.

We learned about this thing called temperance. You remember—very important—of Aristotle. I mean, he makes it explicit later in his book that also has a chapter later that makes this explicit, right. But it’s very important that whenever we learn about any middah [מידה, middah: character trait], which is the difference between what Aristotle calls an enkratic [ἐγκρατής, enkratēs: self-controlled] and an akratic [ἀκρατής, akratēs: lacking self-control] person, right, something like that. I forgot—there’s a solution in—and that’s the same shayrish [שורש, shoresh: root] I’m forgetting. Anyways, it means something like “control” in some—”in control.”

So that’s my—and remember there’s three kinds of people, right:

1. People that have no self-control — In other words, they know in some sense that something is good, but they don’t like it, they don’t actually control their desire, and therefore they do bad things sometimes.

2. People that do have self-control, but still don’t have—they’re not virtuous — Right? There’s a difference between someone who is self-controlled but virtuous.

3. The virtuous person — Who loves what is good naturally.

The Most Important Distinction in Aristotelian Ethics

This is the most important chilik [חילוק, chilek: distinction] between the Aristotelian kind of ethics, which Rambam [רמב״ם, Maimonides] accepts and which most Chassidim [חסידים, Hasidim: followers of Hasidic Judaism] accept, right?

Tanya [תניא, the foundational text of Chabad Hasidism by Rabbi Schneur Zalman of Liadi] basically wrote a book about this, called Sefer Shabbat Anonim [likely referring to Sefer HaTanya or Likkutei Amarim] in his other way. But a tzaddik [צדיק, tzaddik: righteous person] of Tanya is basically someone who is not self-controlled but loves what is good by himself, right? And a beinoni [בינוני, beinoni: intermediate person] is someone who’s self-controlled, right? It’s all about the same difference.

And then there’s the worst kind of person, right? Which is actually not self-controlled and not good, so he actually loves what is bad, right?

—

Chapter 3: Self-Love and Inner Conflict

Two Kinds of Consistency, One Kind of Conflict

So it turns out that there’s two kinds of people that are happy and one kind of person that’s conflicted. “Happy” in the sense of consistent, in the sense of in love with themselves.

This is very important because nowadays everyone says that Shuvah [שובה, Teshuvah: repentance] means loving yourself. Remember who says this? Self-acceptance. There’s something called self-acceptance. It says in Sifrei Chassidus [ספרי חסידות, Hasidic texts]—in Chassidic sifrei, at least some people said—it says in Chassidic sifrei that the first step is self-acceptance, because if God won’t accept you, might as well accept yourself. You stop believing in a God—everything is by yourself. So you got to do Teshuvah to yourself. That’s what the Torah says?

No.

The Torah says—anyways.

The Language of Self-Examination in Rambam

But it’s important to realize that it’s true that there’s such language in Chassidic words. In the Rambam, Rambam says: look at yourself, right? Nefesh [נפש, nefesh: soul/self] means yourself, your soul. Remember? Look at yourself.

But the important thing is like this: that like we’re saying here, that there’s two kinds of people that are in love with themselves.

—

Chapter 4: Aristotle on Friendship with Oneself

Book 9 of the Nicomachean Ethics

Aristotle very interestingly talks about this in his Book 9 [of the Nicomachean Ethics], which is all about friendship. And he talks about being a friend with yourself. We’ll have to learn it at some point at length because friendship is a very important middah.

And for Aristotle—Aristotle has a list, like we’re going through his list of specific virtues, but then there’s like two whole books or something about the virtues or the correct ways of being a friend.

Friendship as the Basis of Politics

This is very important because friendship is the basis of politics, right? Being me, being a friend with you, and then there’s greater levels of friendship. We’re friends with all the Yidden [יידן, Yidden: Jews] and we’re friends with all the humans and so on, which is, you know, and so on.

So friendship is very basic to humanity, especially since humans have an interesting meaning of living with other humans. So it’s very important to discuss friends.

Philia: The Broad Concept of Friendship

Now when they discuss friendship—which is much broader—in Aristotle called philia [φιλία, philia: love, friendship, loyalty], right? Love, or like all kinds of loyalty and love and kinds of things like that. What friendship is—a good term that we could use. Rambam also uses friendship, and I brought a term—sometimes I don’t know the Arabic—but says sometimes they should be friends with the angels, things like that, and should be in their society. Which doesn’t mean a friend, but it means being familiar with, like loving.

—

Chapter 5: The Three Types and Self-Friendship

Who Can Love Themselves?

So there’s a discussion about loving yourself. Which people are in love with themselves?

It turns out that there’s three kinds of people, and two of them are in love with themselves and one is not. Why?

The Completely Evil Person

Because someone who is fully evil—he really loves doing evil—he is in love with himself. He is coherent with himself. He’s identical to himself. He likes himself, right?

Like in the broader—like, I don’t know if he has like a desire towards himself, auto-eroticism or something—I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about like some kind of wholeness with himself. He is complete with himself. He is what we would—psychologists would now—they call a complete person, a healthy person, has good self-esteem, self-love, things like that.

The Completely Righteous Person

Same thing is true for the mirror image of this person, right? The tzaddik.

So this is like a rasha gamur [רשע גמור, rasha gamur: completely wicked person]—the guy that doesn’t have a yetzer tov [יצר טוב, yetzer tov: good inclination] anymore in the Tanya’s language, doesn’t have a nefesh behamis [נפש בהמית, nefesh behamis: animal soul] anymore—he’s in love with himself.

Same thing with the tzaddik gamur [צדיק גמור, tzaddik gamur: completely righteous person] who loves the truth, right? Or loves what is really good. The truth is a different level of desire, but he loves what is really good. So his loving, his desires, his desiring soul—as we call the seat of the virtues—is in sync with what he thinks, and therefore he’s also in love with himself. He’s friendly with himself.

So good people can be friendly with themselves.

The Beinoni: At War with Himself

Who is afraid of himself? The beinoni.

The beinoni is someone who is—both if he is self-conscious—you know, there’s two kinds of beinonis, right? There’s like the Tanya called it, whatever, a beinoni tzaddik and a beinoni rasha. The Tanya is a little confused because he calls a beinoni the tzaddik, because what we call a beinoni in here—a beinoni is someone who has some middos, some virtues.

Or if you translate it to this language: a beinoni is someone—a normal person, right? He likes—he knows what is good in some sense. He’s a little confused, because if he wouldn’t be a little confused, I don’t think he would be doing the wrong thing. But we’ll get into details on that—there’s a different discussion.

But he likes what is good in some sense, but doesn’t like it in another sense. We could say there’s different parts in his soul that are in a conflict, right? His reason is in a conflict with his desire. Or different, more complicated ways of saying it that Aristotle says in more complicated ways.

But in any case, there’s some conflict. There’s a war. He literally says he’s at war with himself.

—

Chapter 6: The Two Types of Intermediate People

This is the—there’s two kinds of beinonis. There’s—and there’s—people that are both—both of them are at war with themselves. Someone judging themselves, like self-judged, which is like—I’m almost forgetting. I saw this week, I was attached to a post that says “self-control” or “self-judge.” Gosh, I have to remember. Like, I don’t remember, remember? It’s almost like a word that means this, but I forgot.

In any case, that’s—but both of those people, whether they win the war generally—or in other words, they still have control—or whether they sometimes lose it, like most people—they’re in conflict with themselves, and therefore they can’t love themselves.

—

Chapter 7: The Practical Implications

Inner Division and Its Consequences

So this is important. The Halach HaLamass [הלכה למעשה, halacha l’ma’aseh: practical application] says—

Student: Yeah, he’s mechilek [מחולק, mechulek: divided] with himself.

Instructor: Right, he’s divided with himself. If he wouldn’t have a part of the tzaddik, he wouldn’t be beinoni, he wouldn’t be Yerushalayim [ירושלים, Jerusalem—possibly a metaphor or reference].

Right, it’s very hard to be—like the Ramchal [רמח״ל, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto] famously says that it’s very hard. He says most people that we know, the good people, are working their whole life.

All Inner Work as Becoming Friends with Yourself

So everyone, in some sense—if there’s something called inner work, let’s say like this—if there’s something called inner work, like Chassidus [חסידות, Hasidic philosophy] or Mussar [מוסר, Jewish ethical literature] or ethics, it’s all about making people whole with themselves.

In other words, all work can be said as the work of becoming friends with yourself first. And then if you’re friends with yourself, you’re friends with other people.

That’s why the beinonim have a harder time to be friends with other people, because you’re in a conflict and you’re fighting with yourself all the time. You have the habit of fighting. It’s not a good habit.

Solutions and Chesed

And there’s solutions for this, like you have to misgavra [מתגבר, misgaber: overcome] yourself and do chesed [חסד, chesed: kindness/lovingkindness] with the other person instead.

But—we’ll get this in a second—so it’s very important to think about how to do chesed with other people. But you can’t just go all the way there.

The Life Project of the Tzaddik

Point is that it’s very important to have—so everyone—so it says everyone is like a tzaddik. If you’re a Chassidish tzaddik, which is in this sense recording this like thing with his like whole laboratory—but he’s recording this—your whole life is about actually loving what you think you should love, right?

And so you work so hard—I finally become a tzaddik or something like that.

So Rambam says—you know, he’s met people that have this opposite thing. They think that they should—

[Transcript continues in next chunk]

Chapter 8: Two Paths to Inner Peace: Self-Love, Habituation, and the Tzaddik’s Way

The Impossibility of Complete Evil

So Nachman says, you know, he’s met people that have this opposite thing. They think that they should love the bad things, but they sometimes like good things. They went to school and they have something called—people call it a conscience, or I don’t know, their mother’s voice in them or something like that, their superego. And he keeps on telling them, “No, you have to do תשובה [teshuvah: repentance], you have to do—” so they’re not happy.

So they go to Footsteps [organization helping people who leave Orthodox Jewish communities] and they try to teach them how to be happy with all the עבירות [aveiros: sins] that they do. It’s a whole עבודה [avodah: work/effort] that’s very hard, because you have the other side. They’re not going to say that—since a human being, according to his theory, actually can’t live by being entirely evil. He could live by being entirely good, although maybe he’ll die—I don’t know if he could live in a body. That’s with a sheet from last week, two weeks ago in Yiddish, about to what extent the נשמה [neshamah: soul] can be separate entirely from the body. We’ll get to that more. But maybe you could live somehow, but not entirely clear.

But he says you definitely can’t live if you’re entirely evil. So he says that if someone is מצליח [matzliach: successful]—he like rips out his entire education that told him that he has to love the good things and do the good things, he’s not part of that at all, he does whatever he wants and he’s not part of that at all—at the moment he gets that מדרגה [madreigah: spiritual level], he dies. Because you can’t live like that. A human being has to have some good.

Anyways, and that’s the sort of—or something like that. Anyways, my kids is a mess. Anyways.

Two Ways to Make Peace with Yourself

So back to the noises. You see that there’s two ways—it’s very important—there’s two ways to make peace with yourself:

1. One is to actually love the things you know that you should be loving

2. Or one is to go the other way direction, which people might think is easier, which is to love the evil things

And therefore you have to be very careful that they see this. Let’s say that you should start being in love with yourself, you accept yourself—what they mean is that you should internalize, right, what we call usually internalization. What they mean is that you should actually love the things that it’s good to love.

The Tzaddik Lives a Life of Pleasure

And then it sounds like Aristotle says, or the Rambam says, it sounds like someone who has pleasure in his whole life. A צדיק [tzaddik: righteous person] lives a life of pleasure, right, in the basic sense, because he does what he wants. A tzaddik is someone that does what he wants, but it starts because he wants the correct thing.

A רשע [rasha: wicked person] is someone who doesn’t do what he wants. And therefore, in other words, a rasha—a normal rasha, like a בינוני [beinoni: intermediate person]—usually doesn’t do what he wants because most people have some goodness in them. It’s very weird to find someone who’s fully—it’s just like it’s very weird to find someone who’s fully, fully a tzaddik. But it’s very—I think it’s even weirder to find someone who’s fully in peace, like maybe a psychopath or things like that, people that we say that they’re at peace with their evilness. But in general most people are not at peace with that.

And therefore, but that person shouldn’t work on self-love. He should actually first win the war and then maybe think of also loving it.

Habituation and the Path to Self-Love

But of course, since we understand it this way, all of עבודה [avodah: spiritual work], all of the קונטרס [kuntres: treatise, referring to the Tanya’s teachings]—this is about self-love. Because every time you habituate to something, you start liking it more. People don’t actually force themselves; they teach themselves. We don’t like the words “fighting itself.” There is a fight, but the practice—if you even start a little bit of practice of doing the good thing, you start liking it, because people like their habits. And the natural way of a human being is to betray themselves and start liking it also, not to be forced.

And that’s why I think that the דרשות [drashos: homiletical interpretations] of the מוסר [mussar: ethical discipline] people are trying to force something to be forced when it’s usually not. Oh, that was my class last week. Anyways, secret class. Well, we talked about that in more radical ways, but it’s the same point, right?

Student: Very good.

Summary: Who Should Have Self-Love

So now we know who should have self-love. It sounds like—a tzaddik loved himself. A tzaddik is someone that loves themselves, basically, is in love with himself. Because I don’t know—loves his whole, is not in a war with himself because he likes the right thing. Same thing for a very evil rasha. But you should be careful not to do the wrong kind of חינוך [chinuch: education/training], which is not really a problem, because anything you’ll do, you’ll start to—which is winning yourself and teaching your body or your heart or whatever you want to call it, your desire, to love the right thing. It doesn’t take a very long time. A little bit of time, but not a very long time.

The Problem of Loving Others

Now, as I want to say, I think that there is a problem with loving others, like we said. The truth is, the Rambam has this long discussion about how people—who could you be really friends with. It turns out you can only be friends with good people for various reasons. But one of the reasons is that evil people are selfish in all kinds of ways. But another reason is that it’s even hard to be a friend of someone who is always fighting with himself, because he likes fighting with everyone. And if he fights with you also—

And of course, since most people are not going to be fully tzaddikim and fully love what is good, we have to have a solution for this. And it’s the same solution: you gotta do the right things to other people even if you don’t like them yet, but you start liking them. If you don’t start liking them, something’s wrong with you.

Application to Shalom Bayis (Marital Peace)

But I do know—like there’s this whole discussion that I know, there’s a yid, there’s different discussions in contemporary discussions about people—the mussar people, they give דרשות [drashos] about שלום בית [shalom bayis: marital peace]. And they say it’s the beginning of חסד [chesed: kindness] to do the nice things for your wife. And you should—how does—what Rav Dessler said, that it’s all about giving from yourself, not being selfish, and so on.

The Debate Over Framing Marriage as Duty vs. Love

And then some other people are very upset at this. They say, “What do you mean? It doesn’t make a matter that you should love your wife. You have to bring a גמרא [Gemara: Talmudic passage]. And if you love someone, you want to do good things for them.” Like when people are actually in love, they don’t—דרוש [drush: homiletical teaching] is about chesed and about being selfish. It sounds very weird to them. Because like, “I’m in love, what do you mean?”

And then this guy says—like Rabbi Frand, for sure, says that, “What do you mean you shouldn’t say these drashos? Those drashos cause people to not love their wives, to do מצוות [mitzvos: commandments] with their wives. You’re not doing mitzvos, you’re loving her.”

This is a very nice argument, but it’s trying to make you into a tzaddik.

The Reality of Fading Infatuation

Now, of course, everyone starts with being in love with their wife, and then infatuation passes after a year or two. That’s what the reality is. And even when you’re infatuated with your wife, you’re not always going to really be able to discern what she wants, or not always going to be in the mood of doing what she wants. So there’s always going to be this situation of not being ecstatic or not loving what is good.

Two Versions of “Just Do It”

Therefore I think it’s very realistic—a little more realistic—to talk about the kind of like “just do it.” But there’s two different—that’s what I’m saying. Even if we talk about just doing it, there’s two ways of talking about it:

1. The duty/self-breaking model: You’re doing it because it’s a mitzvah, because you’re breaking yourself, you’re going out of yourself, being selfless by doing whatever your wife needs.

2. The “fake it till you make it” model: That’s a different thing, because you’re teaching yourself to do things which belong—the same kind. Not words—the language that we say is: you do what you would have done if you would have loved her. That’s the same thing. It’s not actually—it’s not the מעלה [ma’alah: virtue/advantage].

Critique of the Self-Coercion Model

Remember that there’s the whole other theory of ethics that says that goodness of good acts consists in them being against what you want. That’s really wrong. I agree with that—that’s wrong. But it’s not—you know, because then, and then you’re like, so the more you hate your wife—like it’s from זרא [Zahra?]—the more she’s a—like what’s the guy that has videos now on YouTube? I forget his name.

Student: Moses says—

Instructor: You know, the more you’re in a fight with your wife, the bigger tzaddik you are.

Student: Yeah, it says in the Gemara—it’s the same Gemara we discussed last week by the שיעור [shiur: lesson]. The next Gemara, very good, you’re going to have יסורים [yisurim: suffering], but it’s a big yisurim. That’s not like a way, that’s not a דרך [derech: path] of shalom bayis. That’s like לקבל באהבה [l’kabel b’ahavah: to accept with love]. You can’t be שמח [same’ach: happy] באהבה [b’ahavah: with love]. Okay, no problem. You can’t be same’ach b’ahavah. That’s not what—shalom bayis is not being called to be same’ach b’ahavah, right?

The Ideal vs. The Practical

Instructor: But I do think that talking only in the language of “you should be a tzaddik, you should be identical with yourself, you should be in love with yourself, you should do what you really want”—which is for sure the ideal—I think it’s not practical to say that it’s only that, since most of the people that I know are not full tzaddikim.

And even to the extent that they are, right? Like, there’s other things. There’s something called forgetting. And there’s situations where you don’t realize—I think we went through this—that Aristotle’s real understanding of how people do things they don’t want is because they don’t realize that this situation is the thing that they want. That they want, remember? There’s this kind of blindness of the particular situation. Like, “Of course I love my wife, but right now I should go eat supper with her—what’s one got to do with the other?” And that’s like certain blindness to the particulars. It’s like a שוגג [shogeg: unintentional transgression]. It’s not really a—it’s not a religious—it’s a kind of like intellectual blindness.

Student: Was this שיטה [shitah: approach] that the Socrates want?

Instructor: No, this is Aristotle’s. I came to the Socrates. Like, after I came to the Socrates, he said that you totally forgot. He said you didn’t forget, but you forgot the דעת [da’at: knowledge], the פרט [prat: particular detail], you forgot.

Self-Control as Practice, Not Goal

Anyways, but what I’m saying is, because of all these realities, I think that saying you should only—you should be in love. “I cannot love, so I say, I’m son of a שלח [shalach?].” You cannot love? Why don’t you give a גט [get: divorce document]? What do you want? No, that’s not realistic.

It’s not realistic because we have to have this intermediate thing called self-control. And it’s very important. But instead of saying the self-control as the goal—which is the more important thing—that I’m—self-control is not the goal. But you should say it as the practice. It’s the way of teaching yourself.

And if you do it this way, you’ll see that actually most of the time, if someone is in love with their wife in theory—like in general—but in this minute is not, if he’s going to act to her in that way, usually he’ll become or remind himself after five minutes and he’ll do it out of love.

Student: So I’m just trying to be clear. Are you saying that there’s actually a difference in how you think about that doing?

Instructor: Yeah.

Chapter 9: The Nature of Friendship and the Problem of Indiscriminate Niceness

Three Types of “Nice” People: A Taxonomy of Motivation

Instructor: In other words, this is a discussion of friendship. I’m just all this like them. Friendship is important enough to talk about itself, but really it’s like them, but we’re never going to get to the content as usual.

But what I’m saying is there’s three different kinds of things.

Type One: The Conflict-Averse Performer

There are some people that I know that whenever you go to them, they’re so nice to you. They pretend to be nice at least, I don’t know, right? And it’s very obvious that they said, they put on their גארטל [gartel: belt worn during prayer] and they said, “לשם יחוד [l’shem yichud: for the sake of unification], מצוה [mitzvah: commandment] is being nice to a יִיד [Yid: Jew].”

That person, usually he’s behind your back, he stabs you. For some reason the מצוה of being nice is only when you’re there. Behind your back you’re not such a Jewish. That’s not an interesting fact about those people. I don’t know, I’m just me backstabbing that guy now. You don’t even know who, so it doesn’t matter. I don’t even know. There’s a bunch of people that are like this, and it’s funny.

But that’s why I think that it’s not really they’re nice—they’re just conflict averse. They’re afraid of confrontation and stuff. But maybe they are. And then there’s… it’s just a particular intellectual problem. They forget that לשון הרע [lashon hara: evil speech/gossip] is also a thing, yeah. That’s לשון הרע, even my חיידער [cheider: traditional Jewish elementary school].

יידיש חיידער [Yiddish cheider], right? That’s because their whole יידישקייט [Yiddishkeit: Jewish practice/identity] is fighting. So fighting with me is also יידישקייט. So why can’t he fight with me בפדיים [b’edayim: openly/in person]? Oh, because it’s צדיק [tzaddik: righteous].

Anyways, why am I criticizing that guy? But there’s something funny here that I don’t figure out.

Type Two: The Genuine Tzaddik Who Acts from Duty

But anyway, then there’s someone that’s really… Let’s talk about the guy that’s really צדיק. And he does take you into his חיידער or whatever because he holds a מצוה. And so on, it’s a מצוה.

Now, it’s annoying. Number one, it’s annoying to me. But firstly, it’s better than the guy that’s a רשע [rasha: wicked person]. That’s very clear, right? Nobody should stop doing good things because of this. If you’re doing a good thing because you think it’s a מצוה and you have some מצוה, you should continue to do it. It’s better than being a קאצקער [Kotzker: follower of the Kotzker Rebbe, known for radical authenticity] and being a רשע. You have—like I told you many times—you will find a מעשה [ma’aseh: deed/story] that you can’t get. You can’t even find a מעשה that you can’t get. You might as well be a fake צדיק, okay? That’s number one.

אשמעס אמזוכי שייביט [Yiddish/Hebrew phrase]. That’s, that’s, again, unless the guy’s really a שייביד [shaybid]. I’m saying, באללה חבאר תכמר אלנחבאר [Arabic/Hebrew phrase]. If it’s a guy, if it’s a guy with God, you have to ask God what he likes better. I don’t know, it’s a different question. I’m saying, באללה חבאר [b’Allah chavar].

Those guys, they’re very annoying. The מעשה, they’re useful sometimes. They get to look if you ask him, and so on.

Two Criticisms of the Duty-Based Tzaddik

Now, there’s two different criticisms that people make of those guys.

The Desire for Genuine Friendship

So one criticism is: I want you to be my friend. Now, you don’t have to be my friend, but that’s what… Here’s the difference of friend and not friend. Like you talked to me before about friends and acquaintances, right? And Aristotle has words for this. He has three kinds of friends, if you learn [referring to Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Books VIII-IX on friendship]. I don’t know if one of them is an acquaintance. Yeah, I think so. Like a friend of convenience, something like that. Like a business, like a colleague, something like that.

The Collapse of Distinction Between Friend and Non-Friend

But the point is, if I want—if this guy, this guy that’s very nice, he pretends that everyone is his friend, right? Like I said in his thing this week, he said that in קלם [Kelm: Lithuanian Mussar yeshiva known for ethical refinement] he came to קלם. I have to only say ספירת צדיקים [Spiris Tzadikim: stories of the righteous]. So that someone came to קלם, he said the name I think even, and someone came to him and said—and the guy, he was like thinking, “Where do I know him from?” He felt bad because like he knows him but he doesn’t know who the guy is. Maybe he must have met him once and he doesn’t know. He feels that.

Then the next guy comes out and says “שלום עליכם [Shalom Aleichem: peace be upon you]” to anyone. Doesn’t mean anything. He doesn’t say—it doesn’t mean anything. He says from here we learned that there was a מצוה.

I’m thinking: wait, you ruined some basic signal between human beings! I want there to be a difference between—I think that someone that knows me… Now of course they give even bigger שלום עליכם to the guy they actually know. Maybe not. And then they’re stuck with weirdos like—how can you know? You can never know if the guy is a friend or not.

The Bracha of Shehecheyanu on Seeing a Friend

If he’s a friend, then you know—he says if you see a friend after 30 days, he says like our friend Uri Haltzman is מקיים [mekayem: fulfills] the only יִיד that I know that’s מקיים. Yeah, it’s a מצוה or whatever. There’s no—but some says we’re not to do it. We, meaning those people that are not—because we don’t know who’s our friend. That’s why. Because everyone is nice, that’s why. No, we’re afraid someone’s going to be upset he don’t say שהחיינו [shehecheyanu: blessing of thanksgiving for special occasions] on him.

No, no. That’s what he says. The real reason we don’t say it, because we don’t identify with ברכות [brachot: blessings], we only say it when we have to. But don’t tell anyone, that’s a different שמועס [shmuess: talk/discussion]. But then ברכות, ברכות, ברכות—I didn’t say that. Okay.

Anyways, but you have what I’m saying? Like, there’s a friend that he says שהחיינו on him, and there’s other guys that you also—he’s his brother, and he comes and he says, and he’s not supposed to be insulted because you’re not doing anything bad to him. He’s not my friend. But this צדיק, he’s—there’s no difference between a friend and a not friend.

The Bach on Mishloach Manos: Friendship Is Singular and Specific

So you have—so the argument here, this is back to my argument. This is just an illustration. It might not be entirely exact. But the point is I wanted—because you like, you’re happy to see me. Now why would you be happy to see me? Let’s say because you know my—and therefore you’re happy. I don’t care why. There’s different ways in which you could like me. But if you just give me a national מלאכים [malachim: angels/messengers] because it’s a מצוה to give everybody the national מלאכים—now just be clear, I like it. That guy has a lot of friends. Everyone likes it, right?

But the מעשה, he also doesn’t have any friends sometimes. Some of them don’t have any friends, or they do and they’re just lying. So it’s just a שאקע [shake: question/challenge] against the מעשה.

So I’m trying to figure out like, is there some kind of רמאות [ramus: deception/trickery] in this situation? You’re pro—there was a זיוטא [ziuta: small gathering] last week. It was everyone came and was like… And now you don’t know if the רבי [Rebbe] actually likes you. He might hate you.

Now I’m not saying is it a better מנהג [minhag: custom] to say to people, to be to like snob out the people that you don’t like? I don’t know. But there’s an argument, like a question here. It’s like סוגירסט ואלחסמיד [Sugirst and Elchismid] that they’re supposed to talk about, you know? Or Aristotle. You know you should be nice to everyone. It’s a really, it’s a real question, I think.

The Bach’s Teaching

I told you that I’m very happy because of the בך [Bach: Rabbi Yoel Sirkis, 17th century halachic authority]. And the בך says in the הלכות פורים [Hilchos Purim: Laws of Purim], you ever heard this תורה [Torah: teaching] from me?

Okay, where’s the list of תורות they have to… The בך says in the הלכות פורים, why does it say… מתנות לאביונים [Matanos L’Evyonim: gifts to the poor], משלוח מנות [Mishloach Manos: sending portions], איש לרעהו [Ish L’Re’eihu: a man to his friend].

So as I said, מתנות לאביונים gives two מתנות [matanos: gifts] to two or more. And משלוח מנות gives one מתנה [matana: gift] to one friend. What’s that? It’s the same as the גוסף [Gosef].

So it says in the בך that at אביונים [evyonim: poor people] there’s always a lot. You give as much as two מינה מנום [minah manum] to one. But משלוח מנות is איש לרעהו. You have to give your friend. He has one friend. How do you know he has more friends? Maybe you have only one friend. You have one friend, you give him two מתנות. You don’t give the next מתנות, איש לרעהו, instead of the guy that maybe is going to be the next year.

If you have one friend, you have to be—you have to be that friend because friendship is a—it’s not a… I’m like, what are you talking about? No problem. Maybe there’s someone that he says beautiful everyone. It’s a big—he’s not your friend.

Okay, let’s go to this job. I hope what I’m saying—

Student: Sure. But I think you’re also coming in the middle of a story. In other words, how do I—let’s say I met you, I met you for the first time in my life, and I gave you a greeting, and you said, “Oh, this guy likes me.” And then you sat by my side, and three hours later, you said—basically, for whatever three hours could bring, and I know everything about you, and that’s how the relationship gets stronger and better. Why can’t there be a price for this?

Instructor: I didn’t say it can’t.

Student: Really want friends and the way I could get to the Israeli friendship is talking about being—I would—

Instructor: So like, yeah, like very—we’re at the very practical level here. But like my answer would be something like, again, this distinction—this is how I’m trying to be annoying. I’m not even good at this because I’m snobby also. But besides for that, like my thing would be—

Chapter 10: The Three Types of Nice People: Distinguishing Genuine Character from Mitzvah Performance

The Problem of Pretending to Be Everyone’s Best Friend

Niceness as Mitzvah vs. Creating False Impressions

It’s a mitzvah. No problem. Be nice to everyone. That’s a big *aveira* [sin]. That’s very nice. I don’t think that that includes tricking someone to think that you’re a friend. You see, this exact story, I think it’s a very good illustration that he gave. He thought he was my friend.

You could say, there’s a *menschlichkeit* [basic human decency]. If someone says a nice *shalom* [greeting of peace] to you, I’m going to give you a special nice one. No problem. Nicer than everyone. Some people are more extroverted. They like smiling more. No problem. So you smile even more. But you’re not—it’s not by making the guy think, “Oh, he’s my special friend.” It’s why it’s being nice.

Now if someone wants to become your friend, if people become friends, and in a long process, right, doesn’t happen at once. Yeah, so slowly you’ll become more warmed up. That’s the—you have to have a door, it has to be open. If you go in, your face is closed, you may advertise that “I have enough friends, my friend list is closed.” Then those people are like this, right? They have their two friends and then they walk around like this.

Open vs. Closed Friend Lists

There’s a difference. Now, maybe he’s right for having his friend list closed. I don’t know if everyone could have a hundred friends. But that’s not the same thing.

Now, let’s just get back. Okay, that’s a side discussion—how it would be the correct thing. To me, it seems like, yeah, I don’t like the people that are pretending to be everyone’s best friend. You should pretend to be everyone’s friend. It’s a mitzvah to pretend also, like we’re saying, but not to be his best friend. You should have your best friend. And everyone’s allowed to know who your best friend is. It’s not a secret. It’s not a problem.

Meaning those people that say, “Oh, *shalom aleichem*” [peace be upon you] with their best friend—like you’re saying with Kelm, with his best friend he doesn’t even say *shalom aleichem*. With *shalom aleichem*, it’s for the strangers.

Student: Yeah, it could be. I didn’t say that exact thing.

Instructor: Like I’m saying, it’s true that being nice to everyone makes you—yeah, it’s helpful. Sometimes it’s helpful.

—

Chapter 2: A Critique of “Niceness”

Niceness as Self-Serving Reputation Management

I’m not sure. I’m not such a big fan of niceness. I already told you I think that it’s mostly for your own good name and less for helping other people. Did I give a sheet here about this? You know, nobody is writing down, *mashiach* [the Messiah—used here as an exclamation].

I think that niceness—what people value very much—is mostly about yourself, about having a good name, and that you’re a nice guy. Less about helping anyone. So because yeah, helping people often, or maybe half of the time at least, includes being not nice. Not nice to other people, even not nice to that person himself.

And very often the people that have this name that “he’s a really nice guy,” it’s based on a lot of making sure never to help a person actually. Just make sure to always smile. I have a lot of examples about this, but I’m not going to get into it. But that’s aside.

—

Chapter 3: The Lishmah Problem in Relationships

The Wife’s Objection to Being a Mitzvah Project

Now let’s go back. So let’s—this is one I want to make. I’m back to my *lambdas* [referring to a framework or list being discussed], okay? This is *lambdas*. The *lambdas* plus *chassidashema* [possibly a reference to a Chassidic teaching] says, but like, some hacking is not that simple.

So, the guy that—there’s one argument that says, this is one argument, you understand? Or if we go back to my *Shulchan Aruch* [Code of Jewish Law] and *bias* [coming/entering] example, I’m going to talk. If you go back to my *Shulchan Aruch* and *bias* example, your wife could say, “I don’t want you to do mitzvahs for me. You want to do mitzvahs? You have to do that. You know, you’re a *makabel* [one who accepts upon himself]. You went to the *vav* [possibly a shiur or learning session] this week, and you’re *makabel* to do three acts of *chesed* [kindness] every week.”

I saw that in the same paper—you should be *makabel* that this week you’re going to do one *chesed*: you’re going to put away dishes when your wife doesn’t see. And I’m thinking about this—what’s that got to do with *chesed*? If you’re a man, you live in a house, you see dishes, you put them away sometimes. You don’t, so become a *mensch* [decent person] this week. What’s it got to do with *chesed*? It’s a very weird framing.

That’s like one argument, right? That’s exactly what you’re—in other words, back to my wife, your wife could say, “Yeah, it’s funny. No, someone else should put—I don’t know, you live here just like everyone else.” Okay, your wife doesn’t—she wants you to love her, you know. She doesn’t want you to do mitzvahs with her. “I want you to love me. I don’t want you to be on mitzvah. I don’t even want you to do that mitzvah that you were talking about.”

Student: But this is how—

Instructor: That’s good for a date. It’s not good for a wife. Very nice.

Not Everyone Deserves to Be Loved

Now then, that’s one argument, and that—I said I think my answer would be it depends on the relationship. I don’t think everyone deserves that. I don’t think there can be a demand for everyone to say that, like you should—you know, of course some people like you, some people don’t like you. Even people that don’t like you should be nice, but not more.

—

Chapter 4: Why the “Mitzvah Guy” Is Annoying

The Problem of Self-Overcoming as Service

Then there’s a different argument, right? And I understand the problem with doing that as a mitzvah. Now this is also going to help me with that niceness-level person.

Then there’s a different thing. If that guy—one of the another reasons why I don’t like that guy is because he is doing it because it’s a mitzvah. He is—that’s annoying. Why is it annoying? Because he doesn’t actually like it. Because he doesn’t even believe that he should like it. Again, we’re going to get to the level of which level of—but he doesn’t even like it, doesn’t even think he should like it. He’s doing it as like an action that’s against himself. He’s like hating himself by loving me, you know, like going against himself by loving me.

And that is annoying not because he doesn’t like me. I want him to like me. I can’t want everyone to like me. But if there’s someone else that he’s a nice—he’s like a good kind of person. He understands that a good person is someone that’s nice to strangers. That’s his thing. Sometimes he’s feeling it. Sometimes he’s not feeling it. I don’t even think that I would know the difference between a person feeling it or not feeling it. I don’t know that the whole difference—this whole “I don’t know the difference between the guy that likes it and doesn’t like it” is noticeable to anyone besides for themselves.

Student: The self-controlled people and the virtuous people—I won’t—I would realize you don’t like them equally?

Instructor: No, I think—I think that—forget it, I do like them equally. The opposite, because he acts in the way—there’s different ways of acting. I’m going to get back to your question.

—

Chapter 5: The Three-Way Distinction

Three Types of People Performing the Same Actions

There’s different ways of acting. There’s someone that acts in a way that he’s doing a mitzvah in the sense of being *misgaber* [overcoming] himself—he’s going against himself to be selfless. That’s not what I’m talking about now.

What I’m talking about now is—see, that’s the opposite. I’m trying to say that there’s three different things. The opposite of doing a mitzvah is not loving you. The opposite of doing a mitzvah is being a kind of guy that likes being nice to another person. He likes it.

Student: How do you know? Like the big guy—like this friend, if he’s friend—in other words, if the guy would be *fry* [non-religious], right, would he still like schmoozing with people?

Instructor: I just like it. That’s the kind of guy he is. Or maybe not only he likes it, he thinks that it’s good. But it’s not good—I know, does everyone have to be that exact kind of person? Again, we get it, that’s questions of extroversion and how and so on.

Type 1: The “Gishmak Guy” (The Naturally Pleasant Person)

But you know, some guys—he likes to be nice to everyone. You don’t feel like—the big difference is that you don’t feel like you’re as mitzvah, because that’s the kind of way he acts. He acts, and it’s not—sometimes he’s doing it fakely, sometimes really. There’s not—I’m not worried about that difference.

Understand what I’m worried about is: does he—is he doing it because he’s overcoming himself by giving you a cheer? Because he came to the shul and he didn’t tell you that it’s his place, you know. “It’s such a *tzaddik* [righteous person], he sits here, but a guest came so he’s—yeah, can I sit here? Yeah, sure.”

Why don’t you just tell me to sit in the next chair and everyone will be happy? He’s too much *tzaddik*, and then I’m an obligation, you know. I’m like his—I’m becoming his obligation. And like, he’s trying to get put away from me really, because he’s doing a mitzvah against himself.

Then there’s another guy—he just likes it. He doesn’t really care where he sits. He likes everyone should have a place. That’s all. He doesn’t care. He’s the kind of guy—he’s a nice, he’s a *gishmak* [pleasant/enjoyable] guy.

Type 2: The Tzaddik vs. The Gishmak Guy

You know, the *gishmak* guy and the *tzaddik*—two different people. They’re both doing the same thing. They’re not even doing the same thing. That’s what I’m trying to say. They’re not doing the same thing.

The difference is not “does he like them.” The *gishmak* guy doesn’t like you either. He’s not your friend. He doesn’t care for you in particular at all. He’s the kind of guy that’s *gishmak* with other people—sit, schmooze. He’ll be nice. He’ll bring you a tea if you want. He’s not like—some people are very—I don’t know if it’s called lazy—like some people are very averse to serving others. Like they never—

I see, like, I’m not—I’m somewhat that person. But like, whenever in a group of people, there’s some guy that’s just like happy to be the one that clears off the table after the party, and some guy that just doesn’t ever. You know what I’m talking about?

Type 3: The Forced Mitzvah Guy

Now there’s—then there’s a third guy that is a mitzvah. Like if you remind him that you learned *Chafetz Chaim* [a work on proper speech and ethics] today, *Chafetz Chesed* [a work on kindness], it says that three times a day you should—it’s not the same guy.

There’s two guys in that one guy. One guy hates it. He doesn’t have this mitzvah I tell you about of just being helpful, right? Then there’s another guy, he does have it. That’s his mitzvah, not because he likes me.

Student: You say you can’t even fake it once you start doing it, type of thing. In other words, the person that’s forcing himself versus the person that’s really having *gishmak* in it—they’re both the same?

The Mitzvah Guy Is Not Faking—But What He’s “For Real” About Is Weird

Instructor: The mitzvah guy is not faking the same thing. He doesn’t have—not faking anything. Mitzvah guy is not faking. He’s for real. The problem is that he’s for real is something weird. He’s not faking. He really is doing a big mitzvah, mitzvah *chesed*.

Student: I’m talking about the mitzvah guy—that guy, you can see in his actions he’s not faking that he likes it. He’s also clearing off—

Instructor: Exactly. It’s helpful. I’m telling you that guy is a nice guy. I’m not telling him to stop clearing off. It might somehow teach him to like it, but actually usually it doesn’t teach him, because he’s not doing—

You see, that’s my biggest thought. That’s to answer your question. You know what I’m saying? I’m trying to distinguish this argument that we—like some people, some of our friends have against the mitzvah guys—that they think that the answer is to like you. The answer is not to like you. The answer is to be a *gishmaki* guy. Two different things.

Is liking you? That’s for some people you should like. But generally, I think that even…

Chapter 11: The Nature of Virtue: Self-Overcoming vs. Becoming a Good Person

Chapter 1: The Distinction Between “Liking You” and “Being a Gishmak Guy”

Instructor: It might somehow teach him to like it, but actually usually it doesn’t teach him, because he’s not doing— you see, that’s what my biggest thought, that’s the answer to your question. You know what I’m saying? I’m trying to distinguish this argument that we, like some people, some of our friends have, against the mitzvah [מצוה, commandment] guys, that they think that the answer is to like you. The answer is not to like you, the answer is to be a gishmak [גשמאק, Yiddish: delightful/wholesome] guy. Two different things.

If he’s liking you, that’s— for some people, you should like. But generally, and like I think that even— yeah, you get back to the question of shouldn’t bias— no, I guess that’s that you should— should be because you like her. But and there’s— then within those, both of these things in front, both of these things can have a— let’s say something like this: the difference between being self-controlled, like what Aristotle calls enkrateia [ἐγκράτεια, Greek: self-control/continence]— so I have a whole sheet about enkrateia relative to pain and temperance, and I’m not going to say that, but this is serious about friendship.

—

Chapter 2: Self-Control vs. Virtue in Friendship

Instructor: The difference between being a self-controlled person and being a virtuous person does not cut at all in the same way as liking you and not liking you at all. Those are two different things. There’s a question of: do you like me, or are you doing it just because you’re a cordial guy?

But there’s two methods. I think the answer is some people you should like and some people you should be cordial. I don’t think there’s any reason to assume—

—

Chapter 3: Critique of Universal Love — The Revisionist Rabbi

Instructor: I read the— it’s another thing I think is wrong, but also not for that reason. I read the revisionist rabbi said— you know, they wrote, they called this book *Ahavas Yisroel* [אהבת ישראל, Love of a Fellow Jew], and he said because he really— he works on liking every Yid [Jew], it’s good for his business, you know. It’s not so impressive that a rabbi has this, because what else is it going to be?

But anyways, I saw— like it said, I was reading his book, so it says like he said: “But since I became a rabbi, I was not able to see bad in any Yid.” And of course, like the rabbis that are canon, they have less chassidim [חסידים, followers/disciples] generally, unless they’re— see the— much— they’re— that’s my whatever. But I understand my point.

But what I’m saying, so— and then he said that he’s worried, he doesn’t know if he really likes that, but he thinks that his own children’s pain doesn’t hurt him more, or doesn’t care for his own children more than other people. So like his idea was: there’s a certain level of love that a person has for his children, he wants to expand that to every other person, to every other Yid.

The Problem with Equalizing All Love

Instructor: Besides with the seeming just wrong, because you should love your children more than you love other people. There’s something good in that. It’s not just like selfishness. Maybe it is, but that’s what a good person is. I don’t know.

It’s also, like I’m saying, that’s like misunderstanding that there’s not— all love is the same. There’s a kind of love that has to do with a relationship. I love you because you’re my child, because you’re my father, because you’re my wife, because you’re my teacher. And then I love you because you’re a talmid chacham [תלמיד חכם, Torah scholar]. You have to love a talmid chacham. You have to respect them, love them, whatever you want to call it.

No, in this sense, we’re talking about like relation, a certain kind of relation. It doesn’t make a difference. But they’re not the same. You have to respect your teacher more. Why? Because your teacher. What do you mean? It’s just— that’s egoism. No, it’s— the obligation comes from the relationship. It doesn’t come from egoism.

—

Chapter 4: Three Distinct Questions About Good Action

Instructor: So that’s one chilek [חילוק, distinction]. Then there’s another— right, understand, you can demand— I think there’s demand of like, for everything to be so— you love, like you said, you love humanity, yeah, but that’s exactly what I call a different level of relationship.

Then there’s a different question: are you faking it or are you for real?

And then there’s a third question: are you doing it just for the mitzvah?

Those are three different things, understand.

The Critique of Self-Overcoming as Goodness

Instructor: The second thing is: are you doing it like as a mitzvah because of this gevurah [גבורה, strength/overcoming] and egoism, because of the overcoming the egoism— is that the activity that you’re doing? Is what you’re doing in your good act is it overcoming yourself? Is that what you’re doing?

That I think is not a very good framing, because I don’t think there’s any goodness in overcoming yourself. What there is goodness in— right, and that’s not the same, this is important, that’s not the same as saying that I am doing it but I’m not feeling it.

—

Chapter 5: The Rambam on Self-Control and Reward for Struggle

Student: Have to think?

Instructor: So, I’m saying a very interesting chiddush [חידוש, novel interpretation] that the Rambam [Maimonides] assumes in perek [פרק, chapter]— which perek is it? Yeah, that the moshel b’nafsho [מושל בנפשו, one who rules over himself/the self-controlled person] is the same as the l’fum tza’ara agra [לפום צערא אגרא, Aramaic: “according to the suffering is the reward”].

And what Aristotle called the moshel b’nafsho is the same as like the l’fum tza’ara agra. But it’s not, it’s actually a different thing. Understand? Because Aristotle’s—

Student: I’m arguing with Rambam now, yeah?

Instructor: I’m arguing with Rambam. Maybe he knows there’s a difference—

Student: No, no, I don’t care, they argue—

Instructor: I’m just making sure, yeah, yes, I’m arguing with him. I’m clarifying what he said.

The Conflation of Two Different Concepts

Instructor: Many people assume— I think this was this question beginning of the shiur [שיעור, lesson]— that when you say there’s someone who is self-controlled, he’s fighting with himself, like I said, he’s the guy, right? That is the same thing as the guy that’s doing mitzvah.

Say, if I criticize the guy that’s— you see, if I criticize the guy that’s doing because it’s a mitzvah, and you say, “Okay, what do you want from him? It’s not at the level of a tzaddik [צדיק, righteous person] that loves it yet, no problem, you will—” yourself saying that most people are not at that level, and that’s okay. I mean, it’s not okay, but it’s life, right?

I’m saying no. My disagreement with that person is not about which level of these two levels here. My disagreement with that person is what is good.

In the same way, like there’s a third disagreement— like should you be nice to your children the same way as everyone else? That’s not a disagreement of what should you do, what you love. It’s a disagreement about what is good.

—

Chapter 6: The Evil of Valorizing Internal Conflict

Instructor: Right, now this person thinks that what is good is overcoming yourself. Because I’m nishma [נשמע, heard/understood], I’m being misgaber [מתגבר, overcoming] myself, I’m l’shem shamayim [לשם שמים, for the sake of Heaven], I’m fighting with myself. The good is in the fighting. That’s why he says l’fum tza’ara agra— there’s no fight, he’s not interested in it. There’s no goodness in that.

That is evil, as I actually think. I think that’s actually evil. That’s like working on a bad thing.

Like we said that— ikka [איכא, Aramaic: there is], a tzaddik is someone that is at peace with himself. Nebach [נעבעך, Yiddish: unfortunately/pitifully], you’re not, so at least pretend to be. But he’s like saying, no, tzaddik is the guy that’s the most secretive with himself. The more tzaddiki [righteous] he is, he’s never going to—

—

Chapter 7: The Role of Kavana (Intention) in Defining Action

Instructor: Now, you ask me, you understand? The chilek [distinction], it’s totally not now. Now, I’m going to have to finish with this. It’s very important.

So you ask me, so I’m saying the difference is kavana [כוונה, intention]. His kavana is l’shem gevurah [לשם גבורה, for the sake of self-overcoming]. And my kavana is in order to start loving. But l’ma’aseh [למעשה, in practice], I’m doing the same thing. Since when does kavana make a difference?

So I think that this is not accurate. Why? Because there’s like shiurim [שיעורים, lessons/measures] and hilchos [הלכות, laws], like ideas, toys that you could say about hilchos kavana, mefurash [מפורש, explicit] kavana about this.

Human Actions Require Descriptions

Instructor: What I think is— what I think is that human actions, we get this in different ways, human actions are not things that make sense without descriptions. They also don’t do what they do to the person himself without descriptions, without certain beliefs or understanding of what they are doing.

So in other words, there’s some level— for example, if you talk about— there’s some level of— that— and this is like one of the— I don’t know, I don’t believe in that. But in any case, there’s some level in which you are not blowing a shofar [שופר, ram’s horn blown on Rosh Hashanah]. It’s not a mitzvah to blow a shofar.

The Shofar Analogy

Instructor: People say— I think many great people have thought— that if there’s a tzad [צד, side/aspect] mitzvah, and there’s like such a ra’ayah [ראיה, proof] and fetish, and like a shofar that say that— that means you have to mechaven [מכוון, intend] l’shem mitzvah [לשם מצוה, for the sake of the commandment]. People think that means that you have to do it l’shem mitzvah.

In other words, someone like— I can’t like get into the real debate, but people would say that like so therefore, if you do it for your own purposes, like if you also want to join together, you’re not doing l’shem mitzvah, and then you’re not yotzei [יוצא, fulfilling the obligation] to do a shofar for that midrash [מדרש, interpretation], because— and you’re doing it for yourself.

So in other words, like— would be the same thing as like meaning what you really mean, or something like that. No, I don’t think that’s true.

Intention Constitutes the Act

Instructor: I think that when we talk about kavana, and someone that says mitzvah— kavana is like all these levels. But when we’re talking about the thing that the one that really makes a difference is that there’s— what you’re doing depends on what you mean to be doing.

If I take a ram’s horn and I sing a song with it, I am not blowing shofar. That’s called— that’s called— that’s called— but anyways, I’m not blowing shofar. What are you doing? You sing a song. Ah, your hands are doing the same thing. So what? Hands are not enough to describe what humans are doing. You have to describe also the context.

So someone says, okay, there’s never a question that someone goes to Rosh Hashanah, he’s not mechaven— there’s not such a thing. The Gemara [גמרא, Talmud] is always talking about someone doing something else.

Understand, there’s no case in the Gemara that says, “I went to shul [synagogue] but I forgot to have kavana for the mitzvah.” That doesn’t make any sense, because what are you doing in shul? What are you doing with yourself? You’re blowing shofar for a bunch of— what do you think you’re doing?

But if I’m singing a song, or if I’m practicing it for the same thing— I’m practicing to blow a shofar— now we could have like, how do you say, it’s like an edge case. Like you’re practicing till you’re blowing shofar, but just now I can— you could like argue the different sides of this. But it’s still a different activity. It’s not just a different— not the same activity with different kavana. It’s a different ma’aseh [מעשה, act]. It’s the Rambam’s— the andere ma’aseh [Yiddish/Hebrew: a different act].

—

Chapter 8: Digression on the Rambam and Kedoshim

Student: Right, right, I get that. So therefore— when we spoke about the Rambam—

Instructor: So, I don’t know what about— wait, wait.

Student: With the Parshas Kedoshim [פרשת קדושים, the Torah portion “Kedoshim”], right, there somehow you abandoned this whole—

Instructor: I don’t remember.

Student: —this whole surah [סוגיא, topic/discussion].

Instructor: I’m not sure what you mean. He’s eating kosher. Like, who cares that there is—

Student: No, the Rambam was— that’s not the argument, that’s not the argument.

Instructor: No?

Student: No, no, no, I don’t think—

Instructor: The Torah says what is assur [אסור, forbidden] and what is mutar [מותר, permitted], and the Rambam adds—

Student: No, no, no, no, no, no, wait, wait, I don’t think, I don’t think, I don’t think you’re reading that Tanakh [תנ״ך, Hebrew Bible] correctly, but I have to finish here, let me, let me say—

—

Chapter 9: Why the “Mitzvah Guy” Never Becomes Good

Instructor: So therefore, what I think is, and I think that that person that is doing l’shem mitzvah, he is doing a ma’aseh— that’s what he’s doing, he’s not doing the ma’aseh chesed [מעשה חסד, act of kindness], he’s not even yotzei chesed, if there’s an inyan [עניין, concept/matter] that you should have a kavana of chesed, he’s not yotzei. He’s doing a different inyan, a kultim [קולטים, a different category], that’s called chesed, no problem, I have a—

And therefore, he actually never starts liking it.

Habituation Works on What You Actually Do

Instructor: He does start liking what he’s doing. Everyone, see, this is a fact. This is something that has to do with the fact, not with the kavana. It’s true that everyone, whatever you do, you start liking.

What does this person start liking? He starts liking to fight with himself. I’m not saying it’s even an argument. What’s hot is that you’re fighting with yourself. You’re becoming a better fighter the whole time, which is maybe an important middah [מידה, character trait].

Now, this comes into the very important thing. I have to finish. Do you understand?

And that’s true. That guy actually stopped being hard for him to do it because he starts liking doing this. That’s— but he never starts liking being a good guy. He never becomes a gishmak guy.

Why did he never become a gishmak guy? You’re doing gishmak, so you’re giving tzedakah [צדקה, charity] your whole life— because you were never doing that. You were doing a different thing.

The Difference Is in the Kavana — Which Constitutes a Different Act

Instructor: Where is the difference? It’s in your kavana. Of course, this kavana is also gonna make a difference in the ma’aseh— like it’s gonna look different. You can have a different expression on your face when you’re doing it. There’s gonna be all kinds of differences there.

You say they express themselves in different slight differences in the way—

Chapter 12: The Distinction Between Pretending and Fighting: Classifying Kovesh as Middas Gevurah

The Classification of Kovesh: Gevurah, Not Chesed

But the reason is because you’re doing something different. That’s how I would say it. And this is all for me to say, and therefore, very important to distinguish between—it says we have to discuss this. But we shouldn’t therefore say that therefore, the מידה [middah: character trait] of כובש [kovesh: suppression/restraint] is מידת חסד [middas chesed: attribute of lovingkindness]. No, it’s מידת גבורה [middas gevurah: attribute of strength/courage]. You understand? Because פרישות [perishus: abstinence/separation] has to do with מידת גבורה [middas gevurah], not with מידת חסד [middas chesed].

The Training Stage: Pretending to Love the Right Things

Because sometimes, when you’re in training—which most of us are—we don’t really love eating the correct amount and everything, so we have to sometimes pretend that we love it. But you have to pretend that you love it. You can’t—if you think that it’s the dinner in the middle of the סעודה [se’udah: meal], then courage and temperance are the same in there.

The Mishnah’s Approach: An Interesting but Limited Teaching

That’s what the משנה [Mishnah] of Ezekiel seems to be saying, but of course it’s just a משנה [Mishnah], it’s just like a תורה [Torah], like a מדרש [Midrash]—not sure it’s really an argument, but it’s very interesting to me.

According to us, it means liking the right things, or in the correct way. Which is—it’s about liking. It’s not about fighting. The משנה [Mishnah] seems to make it about fighting. So this is important. It’s important to realize—and there’s a whole longer discussion about this that we had—that if that would be true, then courage and temperance would be the same.

The Problem of English Terminology

And then, like I said with English, there’s not even a good word for having temperate pleasures, for being temperate. I don’t know what the correct word is. Maybe it’s a—I said already, maybe there’s a word for it called—maybe in the משנה [Mishnah], I don’t know. Maybe צנוע [tzanua: modest/refined] means that. But that’s a מידת חסד [middas chesed]. It’s not תיקרא מידת גבורה [tikra middas gevurah: called an attribute of strength].

Reframing Kovesh: Pretending Rather Than Fighting

And פרישות [perishus] is not גבורה [gevurah] either. Even the כובש יצרו [kovesh yitzro: one who suppresses his inclination] is not the עניין [inyan: concept/matter] of גבורה [gevurah]. It’s the עניין [inyan] of faking. What he’s doing is pretending.

I think the word “pretending” is a better word than “fighting with yourself.” Understand?

Practical Applications of Pretending

I think this is true practically. Like, I’m training and want to fight with my יצר [yetzer: inclination]—so what should I do? Pretend you’re not. What would I do if I would not? Maybe I would buy something nice. Maybe I would stand—be nicer.

“I am today not in the mood of davening [praying].” Let’s talk—it’s once over. So do it anyways. Pretend that you are.

It’s a different—it sounds different, and I think it also leads to different results.

Conclusion: The Fundamental Distinction

But then there you are—it’s a big חילוק [chiluk: distinction]: pretending and pretending “I’m fighting.”

Short outcome—the שיעור [shiur: class/lesson] ends here, 2011. We gotta go and do מצוות [mitzvos: commandments]. Some awesome time.