Welcome, everyone. We're about to begin with Hashem Shalom Baez, Shear number 683. We're going to conclude the book, The Ten Secrets to Passionate Marriage. And one main insight he brings here is about the raising children. There's someone who said that you can't raise first-class children without having a first-class marriage. Or the way he put it, you can't raise first-class children with a second-class marriage. Again, there's exceptions to this rule. Sometimes someone had a difficult wife and husband and they ended up with beautiful thriving children, Bar-Khashem. And Halavai should always be that way when these things happen. It's very, very important and to daven for your children and very often Bar-Khashem that does happen. But there's no question that ideally you want your children to have a great marriage. You need to show them how to have one. Your marriage is what they will be emulating, generally speaking. They will see what you do and that's how they will act with their future spouse. When your children see that you are giving, they will become givers. When your children see you screaming in anger, they will do the same thing in their marriage. They'll scream in anger. If you want your children to have the best marriage possible, you need to show them how. That's healthy chenech. That's not sitting on a platform and preaching. It's living it. It's living it. If you are not showing them a great marriage, you're setting them up, your children, for misery and pain. That's something you need to realize. People don't need to, they separate it a lot. But the pain and aggravation and agmas nefesh, you're causing your spouse. It really is ultimately the pain and agmas nefesh and yisurim that you are putting on your children. You may not realize it no matter how nice you are to your kids. If you're mean to your spouse, you are killing your kids. So improving your marriage will not only help you and your own husband or wife, it'll help your children and generations and generations of children and grandchildren and so on and so forth. So it's very important. There's different methods of how a couple could get better working with each other. There's cognitive therapy, which is very helpful. It tries to help them find the root of the problem. In many ways, sometimes it's by changing your thoughts and perspective that will change your behavior. This behavioral therapy, which basically means to do positive things in a marriage, consistent little baby steps at a time, changing your actions and emotions do not happen overnight, but you work through it. It'll definitely help greatly in your marriage. Emotional regulation, how to know how to handle your emotions properly. A lot of us come with great challenges because of this. Because what do we do with our emotions? Sometimes we do these four different things. We either suppress it, that means pushing it down, venting or numbing it or transforming it. The goal is transformation. To transform yourself, to transform your emotions into the best possible way. That's the idea. You have to believe in yourself. You have to believe in the possibility of having a wonderful beautiful marriage. The idea is that you keep on working towards this. He ends off with a closing story. I'm going to relate this story here. Listen carefully because it's a real important lesson. This is a story about two friends who lived in what is now Israel. It was the time of the Roman conquest and expulsion of Jews from their land about 2000 years ago. One friend moved to Syria. The other moved to Rome. They were very close. They were always able to rely on each other. One day the one from Syria was visiting his friend in Rome. He was captured by the authorities, falsely accused of spying on Rome for Syria. It was a sham trial. He was sentenced to hang. He pleaded with the court that he could go back to Syria and settle all his business and say goodbye to his family. He owes lots of money to people and people owe him lots of money. He wants to settle it so that whenever he realizes he's dead, everyone would owe him money, would not pay his family. When we owed money, too, it would cause pressure on his wife and family and they would be destitute. Now the judge laughed this off. He says, I'm going to let you go. Are you crazy? You're sentenced to be executed. I'm going to let you go to another land to settle your accounts. You're going to run away and escape? So the man said, I have a friend here in Rome. He'll sit in my place. If I don't come back, you can hang him instead. The judge was blown away. He never heard of such a thing. He never heard of someone, a friend risking his life to be on death row until his friend comes back. So the judge was very curious about this. He must have done research. The judge recognized they were really true friends and he agreed. He'll sit in for the man to go and sever to Syria, settle his accounts. The friend agreed. He'll stay in prison. And if that day doesn't, he's not back, the friend instead will be executed. So what happened was he went to Syria, took care of his business, and he went back to catch a boat to Rome to go back to get killed, to be executed. But the boat needed winds to fill the sails those days. There was no wind. He was delayed by a few days. He ran the risk of not making it back in time for the execution. The winds picked up. Finally he boarded the boat and he would arrive in the last minutes right before the execution. So he arrived on shore. He took the fastest horse to take him to road and he saw that the execution, he finally went to the courtyard. He saw the execution was about to take place. His friend was being escorted to the gallows ready to get beheaded or hung, whatever it was. And he yelled loudly, shout, I'm back, I'm back, take me instead. The friend saw him and said, no, you're late. I'm the one who's going to be executed. And they started arguing about who should be killed. And the executioner did not know what to do. And the judge did not know what to do. So they went to the emperor. Who should they execute? On one hand, the original person should be the one executed. He's the one who had the sentence. But he came technically a little bit late. And the other one saying he should be killed. The emperor brought these two men in his palace and he was trying to figure out how to sell this. You know, they had a certain, you know, you had these really wicked, crazy emperors that would basically kill the both of them without without qualms. But this one happened to be more have a just sense feeling of justice, a healthy justice, not for you to kill them both, but there was a sentence here. And they were still arguing with each other, who should be executed. Each one was saying they should be executed. Finally, the emperor said, stop. And then the emperor said something fascinating. He said, I'm willing to free the both of you on one condition. You make me a third friend. He valued that friendship so much, he was so impressed by it, the mysterious nephish of one willing to give over the life of the other. He said, I want to be part of that friendship. The most the huskle behind this is, is that Hashem wants to be that third friend in the marriage. He wants to be that partner. You have to open up your heart, both husband and wife, open your heart and let Haqqadash Barhu in. And you can't do it alone. You can't do it without having spirituality in your life. This is similar to basically what we said in secret number 10, that common purpose, which really needs to be Hashem and his Ashgafa behind everything. Rapam used to talk about it a lot while dating. And if he said he would save a lot of Aghmas nephish, if you just focus on what your common goal should be, what your tachlis is, in being married and what you want to accomplish in life as a married couple. So that's the idea. We've assigned this book. All the 10 secrets are very, very important. Work hard at it. You have

I go to Nero Shabbos, we're about to begin Bessah Shem, Sheer number 171. And today we're going to talk about Rosella Plisken's book about taking action. The idea of Zerizos and a joyful art of Zerizos. To do things with zest, with alacrity. And it is connected to self-esteem because it's one developed self-esteem. It's easier to do this. The idea of Zerizos is to take action with an appropriate speed. There are words used for this quality in English, alacrity or promptness or swiftness or quickness. Someone who has this quality is said to be what we call proactive, which is the opposite of being lazy or the opposite of procrastinating. And it is a challenge. He writes, Rosella Plisken is a challenge for him. Certainly a challenge to the speaker of the Shiorim very often. And for many. And focusing on Zerizos, joyful Zerizos. Joyful Zerizos means that when you're taking action, it's coming from a goodwill, a healthy place that has a Simcha Sakhaim built into it. A joy, meaningful, fulfilling. And at the same time, calmness. People seem to sometimes mix it up and say if you're Zerizos, if you're very alacrity, with alacrity and you're going quick with things, you're not thinking things through, you're being hasty. No, it's a calmness with a Simcha taking action consistently, timely, without the hesitation and delay. But also you had the proper preparation. You're not doing it mindlessly either. It's an art. And most of us, he says, this content of what he's talking about here is not a luxury. It's an absolute necessity. Very all of us, many of us have that lazy streak in us and we have a procrastination aspect of us that holds back from being what we could be and from doing all the meaningful things that we could possibly do. Sometimes it's a physical aspects to it too. Someone's not in shape, they're not eating healthy or they're not sleeping enough. That could also affect a person not to behave in a healthy, Zerizos way. So that's part of it also taking care of our physical health but it's combined with emotional health with a joyful willpower and it can enhance many areas in life, whether it's spiritual areas, professional areas, interactions with family, interactions with friends, the emotional quality of one's life, all this is affected by positively when you have this, Zerizos. A lot of people do many positive things but they do it with a lot of unnecessary stress, with unnecessary tension and they sometimes feel frustration and even anger when they're doing those things and for those people, it's not just Zerizos, it's the calm Zerizos, a centered emotional state, a balanced emotional state, an idea of doing this with an inner peace. Zerizos does not contradict having inner peace. When you're taking action on things it comes with a Yishavadas, it comes with a peace of mind and people who will start enjoying to take action they'll find great fulfillment in their accomplishments. They'll have a higher quality of life then if we'd be lazy or procrastinate and it's not easy for many of us not to procrastinate and we need to work on it. Now, the Archess Tzadikim, which is a famous Musa Safer, chapter Tessov, talks about the quality of Zerizos and it says it's the crown jewel of all character traits because with this quality you could take action to do whatever's necessary to refine all your other traits because one who is lazy won't take those steps. G'morah Makkah says, B'dar shalom raitzala lachas mai lichina he says, a person is led to where he wills to go. If you have a strong will for the positive you'll lead a positive life. Ratzin means the strong will that the stronger your Ratzin is for something the more mental power you will apply to achieve it or to acquire it. There's another saying that in lechadavah ayimid bifnear Ratzin there's nothing that stands in the way of a strong Ratzin. So remember those times when you did have a strong Ratzin for something and it gave you inner strength to continue along that path that memory will help find easier to access that strength more often. The chinuch says that our character's developed a lot by our choice of actions. It's a famous chinuch, Mitzetesavav that our paulais, our external behaviors affect our internal being. So a lot of how we are inside and what we create is based on how we act and we act in a way that's aligning with the positive traits and attributes that is who we ultimately become. See, there's many expressions of artistic talents. Some artists draw beautiful paintings. Some take pictures with their cameras. Some design buildings and homes. Some write books and poems. Some surfaced the mills. Some compose and play music. Some are teachers, some are storytellers. The greatest artists are those who create meaningful lives for themselves and for others. And when you master the art of taking action with a joyful zereces, that will enhance the life you created for yourself. Now to have intelligence is great, to have education is great chinuch and potential is all great, but without action you won't be able to accomplish or achieve. A person with average intelligence and with a limited education, with mediocre potential, if they believe that will be able to still accomplish and achieve many, many, many great things by taking focused actions. And consider that thought, that if I were to master joyful willpower and were able to follow through on the positive actions that I choose, what would I choose today? And it's something that's kadi to daven for, to ask Hashem to see how did this might help you with. Many, many meaningful accomplishments can happen if you go about doing this. So he talks about the awesome power of joyful willpower. The idea first of all to recognize that Akadish Baruch Hu, Hashem himself, gave us, gave you the tremendous potential for power, the ability to make choices. Unlike animals who follow their instincts, we human beings are blessed with the ability to choose our thoughts, to choose our words, to choose our actions. And that is the most valuable ability that Akadish Baruch Hu has given to people. Therefore it's upon us as a responsibility given by Hashem to choose our thoughts properly, to choose our words properly, and to choose our actions with the proper willpower, the proper self-discipline. And that is really the art of Zerizus, of utilizing that willpower for the good. Willpower people sometimes have a heavy feeling when they hear that they have to carry like major weight. You have the discourage, I lack power, I don't have enough willpower. I asked Hashem, he didn't give it to me yet. And one needs to really recognize that it starts from your thoughts with Bichira. Your thoughts are the source of your willpower. And your actions will take flow from the thoughts about them. And every step you take is through the use of your willpower. You choose to read is your willpower. You choose to walk that willpower. Even the laziest person will use his willpower to eat whatever he's eating. So the idea is, is you have willpower. Every person does. The question is, is how he uses it? How he uses it? The truth is, if you think about it this way, he talks about a weight situation here, or eating unhealthy. A person who wants to watch his weight knows that he shouldn't eat food that's not conducive to health and fitness. And he may excuse a chocolate binge or ice cream binge by saying he has no willpower. But in truth, when he binges on the chocolate, his will to overindulge on the unhealthy snack is stronger at the moment than his will to refrain from eating it. So there's a will there. He just has a current willpower that's stronger than the knowledge that I shouldn't be eating this. And over time and work you could have the willpower of I shouldn't be eating this overriding your desire to eat that thing. There is a simcha that comes with mastering this joyful willpower to do what's in your best interest. Then you could practice this. You could practice this, take

We know that Avram was faced with this difficult test of Lech Lechah when Hashem commanded him to cut all ties from his homeland and his birthplace, his family, and go to a land that wasn't designated. He didn't know and he wasn't told where to go and Rashi says that the purpose of that is because Hashem wanted his arrival at the final destination to be precious in Avram's eyes and also to give him a scar for every word of Hashem that he obeyed. Now the stapler in Berch's parrots brings an important point to learn from this. We see Avram Avina was traveling to an unknown destination. He didn't know where he was going so there was an anxiety there. Where am I heading? Maybe I'm heading in the wrong direction. Maybe I'm going further from where I'm supposed to be. When he finally arrived in Eritzkanan he had such a simcha that was much greater than it would have been if he would have received precise directions in the first place. And because of that shuka to reach Eritzkanan that shuka was actually heightened by the fact that he had obstacles in his way and the stapler going in Berch's parrots says that this concept could apply to Limit Hataira too. Very often a person struggles to understand a piece of Gomorrah. He doesn't understand the meaning. He gets frustrated but he doesn't give up and he works and works till he finds a resolution with Hashem's help and finally when he does solve the problem and it's clear to him then he has a tremendous simcha more than if he would have understood it immediately. And this is a nechama for so many who learn and you know who they're learning requires effort. If a Talmud fights his natural feelings of discouragement that doesn't give up he will be matzliach and memory is dependent on your original impression of acquiring it. So the more you struggle when you finally achieve that understanding it sticks to you. Ruchav Tchaim writes about an old man that remembered every detail of his visit of the visit that the Russian Tsar visited his tiny village more than 80 years earlier and the old man were recorded exactly the white horses that was there in the royal coach exactly how many soldiers there were and so on. You remember how the Tsar waved his hand to the crowd and he described every single detail. How is this old man able to remember something so clearly that occurred over 80 years before it was because that visit was momentous in his life and made a great impression on him so it was stored in his memory. And that's why Godel Israel how they became great and carried so much Tyra in knowledge in them. Now it's true that many of them were blessed with very sharp minds some of them even photographic memories and that definitely helped together with the Asmada but many of them did not they did not have those type of minds and the reason and how they became tremendous Tami the Chahamim in Godel Israel was not because of their sharp minds or photographic memory that they did not have but because every piece of Tyra that they learned was so precious to them that it left such an impression in their memory and and and it stayed with them. It says he brings down very interesting. The Hadoah Shane G'daylan brings down from the Eir Zerua and and and it was from someone of Yitzhak of Yenna and he wrote Eir Zerua, Safer Nalacha very well known and why did he name the Safer Eir Zerua because he had a Shaila there's Akiva how you write it. The Mission of the Gomorrah says you know it could sometimes it's spelled with a hey at the end Akiva and sometimes it's spelled with an aleph at the end our practice is to say it with an aleph. But he was going back and forth in Halachim and the in Yonem Ghet and other types of Halachis where you have to spell it correctly. So he looked and he felt that it was with a hey. We don't pass go like that now the Tazegh or Smosh says that that's not our practice we do with an aleph but he held that it was with a hey and he found a a a a remis to it. It says Eir Zerua la Tzadik ul Yishre Leif Simcha spells Akiva with the word with the hey. He saw that remis he was so the Simcha over it that it coordinated with the Safer Nalacha that he felt was correct that he named the Safer Eir Zerua. You see how how how it's so so internalized. It's brought down also a famous story that Shlaima Haiman once visited Rabar and they were dancing in the middle of an ordinary weekday. Why were they dancing? He came in the middle and Talmud explains that for a few days Rabar was struggling to understand a particular Rajbha and he analyzed it again and again. He couldn't quite get what the Rajbha was trying to say and what happened was he as Rabar was talking to Talmud the Rajbha's kavana became very clear to Rabar and as soon as Rabar grasped what the Rajbha what he meant he took a hold of Talmud's hands and began to dance around the table. He was so the Simcha to acquire that knowledge of Taira and he never forgot the Rajbha obviously. So the lesson from here you'll learn is not limited by the way to Taira any time any matter person struggles to achieve something his eventual success will be heightened specifically because of the obstacles that were along the way and that should be a comfort and the khama when you're dealing with sometimes challenges in life that yes they are bumps in the road but when you overcome them and you work through them it it leaves you with a tremendous tremendous a king in and a tremendous tremendous Simcha that's one lesson in this week's parshah another beautiful lesson in this week's parshah it's brought down that Hashem took Avram outside Vayoyimur and he said to Avram, Abaytna Hashemayimu look up in the heavens as farak haykhavim and count the stars and tuchal lispar aisam can you count them? There there there so many of them. Vayoyimu loy khayyeh az-arachi your children will be like these stars. The Mayanashal Taira brings down from the Baal Shemtev that the descendants of Avram of Inu are like stars meaning that when we see stars from a great distance they appear to us like tiny dots like nothing they're very very small in reality up there wherever they are a lot of them are gigantic some of them are many many times the size and sometimes even giving off more light than our own sun they're they're tremendous but over here it looks like a tiny dot sees the Baal Shemtev said so too in this world many people look very small but in reality they have a tremendous greatness to them so this hayra of the comparing Klayasol to stars in particular you see that a lesson that when you look at another person you realize that he is like a star he may seem small to you he doesn't appear to have accomplished much doesn't appear to have many miles as far as you could see but you should gain the awareness whether you see it right now or not of the great potential that's within each and every person truth is all humanity in the Klayasol to a great great level unless they lose it because of their riches that could be but at some they have a Klayasol and certainly Nishmas Yisrael the soul of a Jew that comes from the Holy Spirit and when you view each person and certainly every person you need as a whole world and that that that allows you to realize the reality of who they really are and you will behave towards them with a tremendous amount of derecherites and a tremendous amount of covered and when you show others this respect they will gain greater respect for themselves this gives a person encouragement by the way when you look at them like you see them and you recognize them for the potential of what they really are inside then that allows them very often with that encouragement and that view to bring out their own potential and actually actualize it to bring out that light that they have inside of them so this is a very important decided of Al Shem Tev brings out. The next thing we need to know another Hayra in Avaydes Hashem is that it says Hutsa and he took him out and he said Klayas Aracha and

Welcome everyone we are about to begin the Asadashayam Life Transforming Advice Year number 94. We're talking about emotional intelligence and about how to alleviate stress and staying calm and we mentioned in the last two years many good pieces of advice on how to go about doing that and we're going to continue today. Another way to do that is to learn how to say no when you need to say no. Another way of putting it is is to have healthy healthy borders. Research also conducted in various studies show that the more difficulty you have in saying no the more likely you will experience stress and burnout and even depression and to say no for many people is a challenge but no is a very powerful word we should not be afraid to use when we need to use it when it's time to say no. Don't say like in a vague way I don't think I can or I'm not certain or maybe I'll try I'll see what I can do no at some points where you know it's not the right thing to do you're overwhelmed as it is or even if let's say you need to work and invest time in Shalom Bayez and someone asks you a favor even if it's a chesed and the right decision is to say no you could do it politely but you have to say I'm sorry I'm unable to do this and that healthy border is very very healthy that is the meadah of Gavura of the Tsimtsum that is necessary in order for you to do chesed. People sometimes have the reverse problem and they're overly self-centered and they'll say no to everything but many of us need to say no to certain things put healthy borders to protect ourselves and that's very healthy we will go more barricas in this subject but this is a very important concept. Another way which we're going to talk about soon more is also how to neutralize toxic people in your life we're going to talk sooner soon in regard to how to handle toxic people as an emotionally intelligent person when we're challenged with difficult people dealing with difficult people is frustrating it's exhausting it's very very stressful of course sometimes Hashem places these people in our lives that we can't get out of it and we have to deal with it and we have to learn how to go about it and we can control those interactions with those toxic people by keeping our own feelings in check you know very often we tell ourselves and we can't blame ourselves because it's very very difficult that they are making us crazy they're making us tense they're putting us in the bad mood they're getting us stressed out and very often a lot of that is very true but as an emotionally intelligent person as we develop it we work hard in our inner work to keep our own feelings in check to realize we're reacting and we can choose to develop that strength not to react that way and to defend ourselves from the onslaught of the unhealthy behaviors of a toxic person to approach the situation rationally when it happens you identify your emotions you don't allow anger and frustration to add to the chaos that's already there sometimes you have no choice you have to interact with a difficult person so you try to see their viewpoint you try to find solutions and common ground take them with a grain of salt don't allow them to bring you down and of course it's easier said than done we acknowledge that it is not easy and Mr. Sham we're going to have separate shiurim soon on how to handle these toxic people another healthy thing that emotionally people do to the emotionally intelligent people do to alleviate stress and stay calm is not to beer a grudge you know the terrorist says like seek I'm don't beer don't actually take revenge like see there means don't have that feeling of grudge in your heart and it's the Swiss charm does acknowledge it and others that it's an extremely hard thing for human beings to do it is not easy very often if you were very hurt by someone it is not easy at all but the tire is telling you and we have again we don't need science to back it up but it is true that the working through it and letting go of those grudges create a tremendous amount of healing and the negative emotions that come with holding a grudge is a stress response it's sort of like a fight-and-flight mode type of thing you know when when a threat is imminent a lion or a bear is chasing you then the reaction is essential to your survival but when it's ancient history or something that already happened then holding out holding on to that stress wreaks havoc on your body and could be devastating for your health it could increase high blood pressure heart disease so what if you're in a situation now and you're dealing with something difficult with a difficult person we'll talk about that but when you're holding on to a grudge of something already happened before means you're holding on to the stress and an emotionally intelligent person knows they need to avoid it at all cost you know people view it as a weakness they hurt me I'm not gonna let it go but for your own sake for our own health emotionally and physically one needs to work very hard on letting go of those grudges letting go of a grudge not only makes you feel better now but it will improve your health that is also another very important you site and then of course to become is the mindfulness which we're gonna talk about more what is mindfulness mindfulness is a simple research supported form of meditation that helps you gain control of disturbing thoughts and disturbing behaviors people who practice it sometimes it's deep breathing and other types of things stay more focused focused even if they're not meditating and you go to a kosher place if you think yoga and these type of things certain things are I don't know how we deserve or stuff like that you worry about that if you get it from Buddhism or non-Jewish sources okay but then you have many many Jewish sources you know the glaze are others that talk about how to practice why mindfulness they're totally healthy kosher way a riot had some books on Jewish mindfulness but the bottom line is is that it's a great way to make it through calmly in your day to be present and we will talk about that as well later in more detail another concept is to structure your free time in the right way to use your time wisely when you're not working or when you're not have been not you know don't have to do that now some of us may not have a choice that we were crazy hours but whatever whenever we can to choose professions or to work in a way we are not putting in excess work hours if you're putting in 80 90 hour work weeks even 50 plus work weeks on a consistent basis when you're really putting all your carcass in there and of course for most people they won't find the energy or focus to use their time outside of work in a productive way and overall there's no point in working that much Stanford study showed that productivity per hour declined sharply as soon as a work week exceeds 50 hours it drops and after 55 hours for most people there's no point working anymore people work as much as 70 hours or more actually get the same amount done as people work 55 hours and the studies have shown that so one needs to balance that work aspects of it and spend your free time in a healthy way of course Tara mitsis but also taking care of yourself here are some of those things there's some chores that you have to do we all are tired and we need to work on minimizing those things to schedule chores like you do anything else and do it in a way see what's important that has to be done now then you have no choice other things that could be sort of like spread out over time so you have to clean the garage and you know see you don't go you know and spend an entire large chunk of town how time doing it you could do a piecemeal over time in a scheduled way and you do it the soother in a normal way and that helps you alleviate stress as well exercise there is a book am I my body's keeper by someone Michael Kauffman I recommend everyone to read it and one I'm talking to myself also

Welcome, everyone. We're about to begin with Hashem Shalom Baez, Shear number 683. We're going to conclude the book, The Ten Secrets to Passionate Marriage. And one main insight he brings here is about the raising children. There's someone who said that you can't raise first-class children without having a first-class marriage. Or the way he put it, you can't raise first-class children with a second-class marriage. Again, there's exceptions to this rule. Sometimes someone had a difficult wife and husband and they ended up with beautiful thriving children, Bar-Khashem. And Halavai should always be that way when these things happen. It's very, very important and to daven for your children and very often Bar-Khashem that does happen. But there's no question that ideally you want your children to have a great marriage. You need to show them how to have one. Your marriage is what they will be emulating, generally speaking. They will see what you do and that's how they will act with their future spouse. When your children see that you are giving, they will become givers. When your children see you screaming in anger, they will do the same thing in their marriage. They'll scream in anger. If you want your children to have the best marriage possible, you need to show them how. That's healthy chenech. That's not sitting on a platform and preaching. It's living it. It's living it. If you are not showing them a great marriage, you're setting them up, your children, for misery and pain. That's something you need to realize. People don't need to, they separate it a lot. But the pain and aggravation and agmas nefesh, you're causing your spouse. It really is ultimately the pain and agmas nefesh and yisurim that you are putting on your children. You may not realize it no matter how nice you are to your kids. If you're mean to your spouse, you are killing your kids. So improving your marriage will not only help you and your own husband or wife, it'll help your children and generations and generations of children and grandchildren and so on and so forth. So it's very important. There's different methods of how a couple could get better working with each other. There's cognitive therapy, which is very helpful. It tries to help them find the root of the problem. In many ways, sometimes it's by changing your thoughts and perspective that will change your behavior. This behavioral therapy, which basically means to do positive things in a marriage, consistent little baby steps at a time, changing your actions and emotions do not happen overnight, but you work through it. It'll definitely help greatly in your marriage. Emotional regulation, how to know how to handle your emotions properly. A lot of us come with great challenges because of this. Because what do we do with our emotions? Sometimes we do these four different things. We either suppress it, that means pushing it down, venting or numbing it or transforming it. The goal is transformation. To transform yourself, to transform your emotions into the best possible way. That's the idea. You have to believe in yourself. You have to believe in the possibility of having a wonderful beautiful marriage. The idea is that you keep on working towards this. He ends off with a closing story. I'm going to relate this story here. Listen carefully because it's a real important lesson. This is a story about two friends who lived in what is now Israel. It was the time of the Roman conquest and expulsion of Jews from their land about 2000 years ago. One friend moved to Syria. The other moved to Rome. They were very close. They were always able to rely on each other. One day the one from Syria was visiting his friend in Rome. He was captured by the authorities, falsely accused of spying on Rome for Syria. It was a sham trial. He was sentenced to hang. He pleaded with the court that he could go back to Syria and settle all his business and say goodbye to his family. He owes lots of money to people and people owe him lots of money. He wants to settle it so that whenever he realizes he's dead, everyone would owe him money, would not pay his family. When we owed money, too, it would cause pressure on his wife and family and they would be destitute. Now the judge laughed this off. He says, I'm going to let you go. Are you crazy? You're sentenced to be executed. I'm going to let you go to another land to settle your accounts. You're going to run away and escape? So the man said, I have a friend here in Rome. He'll sit in my place. If I don't come back, you can hang him instead. The judge was blown away. He never heard of such a thing. He never heard of someone, a friend risking his life to be on death row until his friend comes back. So the judge was very curious about this. He must have done research. The judge recognized they were really true friends and he agreed. He'll sit in for the man to go and sever to Syria, settle his accounts. The friend agreed. He'll stay in prison. And if that day doesn't, he's not back, the friend instead will be executed. So what happened was he went to Syria, took care of his business, and he went back to catch a boat to Rome to go back to get killed, to be executed. But the boat needed winds to fill the sails those days. There was no wind. He was delayed by a few days. He ran the risk of not making it back in time for the execution. The winds picked up. Finally he boarded the boat and he would arrive in the last minutes right before the execution. So he arrived on shore. He took the fastest horse to take him to road and he saw that the execution, he finally went to the courtyard. He saw the execution was about to take place. His friend was being escorted to the gallows ready to get beheaded or hung, whatever it was. And he yelled loudly, shout, I'm back, I'm back, take me instead. The friend saw him and said, no, you're late. I'm the one who's going to be executed. And they started arguing about who should be killed. And the executioner did not know what to do. And the judge did not know what to do. So they went to the emperor. Who should they execute? On one hand, the original person should be the one executed. He's the one who had the sentence. But he came technically a little bit late. And the other one saying he should be killed. The emperor brought these two men in his palace and he was trying to figure out how to sell this. You know, they had a certain, you know, you had these really wicked, crazy emperors that would basically kill the both of them without without qualms. But this one happened to be more have a just sense feeling of justice, a healthy justice, not for you to kill them both, but there was a sentence here. And they were still arguing with each other, who should be executed. Each one was saying they should be executed. Finally, the emperor said, stop. And then the emperor said something fascinating. He said, I'm willing to free the both of you on one condition. You make me a third friend. He valued that friendship so much, he was so impressed by it, the mysterious nephish of one willing to give over the life of the other. He said, I want to be part of that friendship. The most the huskle behind this is, is that Hashem wants to be that third friend in the marriage. He wants to be that partner. You have to open up your heart, both husband and wife, open your heart and let Haqqadash Barhu in. And you can't do it alone. You can't do it without having spirituality in your life. This is similar to basically what we said in secret number 10, that common purpose, which really needs to be Hashem and his Ashgafa behind everything. Rapam used to talk about it a lot while dating. And if he said he would save a lot of Aghmas nephish, if you just focus on what your common goal should be, what your tachlis is, in being married and what you want to accomplish in life as a married couple. So that's the idea. We've assigned this book. All the 10 secrets are very, very important. Work hard at it. You have

I go to Nero Shabbos everyone. We're about to begin by Zashem Shire number 172. Today, we're going to talk about Rav Tworsky's book, Life's Too Short, which is to pull the plug on self-defeating behaviors and turn on the power of self-esteem. We're going to alternate sometimes talking about this book, which is really one of his main books on self-esteem, as well as Rav Zellik Pliskin's book Taking Action on Sreezis that we talked about last week and other things, so we'll mix it up a little bit. So we have different angles of various, very important topics. He talks a lot about himself, Rav Tworsky, and he was very honest with himself in his relevation and explaining to us how he himself, even at the age of 38 years old, had very low self-esteem and a lot of difficulties with it. He talks about when he was very, very overwhelmed from work and he really just needed to get away and someone suggested to go to Hot Springs, Arkansas and he went into a whirlpool bath over there for five, six minutes. It was paradise, it was great, just what he needed. But then that was enough. He got out and said, no, we have the treatment, you have to sit there for 25 minutes in that mineral water he went back in. After five minutes he said that was enough. He said, no, you got to stay there for 25 minutes. For him it was Gahanim and he recognized later that day, it was a rude awakening for him that he was able to take three years of harassing schedule that he had, that he describes in stride, but he couldn't take that calm paradise for more than seven minutes. An analysis led him to conclude that a realization that he didn't like himself. See, what happened was that over there finally he was in a matzah where he had no one to talk to, no one to look at, nothing to read, nothing to listen to. Nothing to listen to, he was left alone in company with himself and all there was was himself and he was alone with, I was alone with me. He said, and he realized he didn't like himself and he questioned why he didn't like himself and he said very self-reflective, honest things about himself. I'm just going to quote it, but he himself wrote it to publicize it and it's something that we all need to do, I'm just going to read it. We know he was a very special, unbelievable person, but here is what he wrote. Eventually I discovered that my image of myself was incorrect, my self-image was quite unlikeable. I felt I was a phony. My rabbinic beard and gar portrayed a spiritual person, but I felt that I did not measure up the spirituality. I was greedy, envious, selfish and resentful. I acted as though I was humble when in fact I was proud and vain. My humility was but a facade of my arrogance. I pretended to be wise, but my ignorance was overwhelming. I could successfully relate to people only as long as I managed to maintain this facade, but I was always apprehensive that some astute person would see through it and see the real me. And I was a people pleaser, constantly doing things for others because I desperately wanted others to like me. I felt that to buy friendships and affections, I never refused the request regardless of how unreasonable it was because I could not risk offending or alienating anyone. I pretended I was glad to do the favor, but inside I resented people for imposing on me. On many occasions I was grossly overpaid for my services, underpaid rather. I was grossly underpaid for my services, but I acted overjoyed and enthusiastically thanked people for what they have given me. On the other hand, on several occasions, when people gave me large amounts of money and appreciation of something I had done, I refused to accept the bonus in order to impress them. When others received honors that I felt I deserved, I was magnanimous pretending to be happy for the recipient of the award, whereas inside I see enrage. Those were some of the mechanisms, only some of the mechanisms I used to persuade others that I was not the person I felt myself to be. Now he says, you know, I'm a much different person now. And when someone asks me to do something, I'm free to refuse if I feel it was an unrealistic imposition. And when I do things for others, it's with a sincere goodwill. I charge what I feel is a fair fee for my services and do not fear that people accuse me of avarice. And I approve that my efforts at self-awareness have been successful because I returned to Hot Springs several times since and I can enjoy 25 minutes of relaxation in the whirlpool. So this is a very, very revealing aspect about a negative self-image that he had even at the age of 38, which we have very often ourselves and sometimes even older. And this self-image, you know, he has very interesting cartoons. He liked Peanuts, which is a cartoon by Charles Schultz. And so he has some imagery over here. So he has a cartoon where Charlie Brown, he's sitting there laying down with a rock under his head and he's just saying, no one likes me. And then a bird lands on his foot and he's looking, wow, a bird landed on my foot. And then the bird got off the foot and flew away. And Charlie Brown in his mind said, no one likes me, meaning not even that bird. Now that bird had no connection at all to Charlie Brown, but it made him feel even more unlikable. He interpreted the bird leaving his foot where it landed as a rejection. See that negative attitude drains people from energies and may result in self-defeating behavior. And he goes through this idea. And the idea being, though, is that we are all better than who we think we are. We are a chelakalaka, we are celamelikim. We're very special because God created us, not in the egotistic way where we are arrogant about it, but we have to recognize the gift that is within us. He has a very poignant story in the beginning of his book. You're Better Than You Think is the title of this chapter. He says, oh, young woman was admitted for treatment because of her heroin addiction. Her veins became obstructed by injecting herself with narcotics, received multiple abscesses. So this otherwise attractive woman was a pathetic sight because of all these lesions in her arms. And she said she was a nurse and had access to drugs and she used sedatives for insomnia and Percocets for menstrual cramps. And they were taken on their own, not prescribed by a physician, and she got addicted to both these medications. And when she feared that the hospital would know that the drugs were missing, she used street drugs, gravitated to heroin, and it caused her to be unable to work, used up all her savings, sold everything, including herself for money to buy drugs. Now, Robert Tversky was treating her or talking to her and he noted that she was wearing a locket, which he said was gold. And he asked her, why didn't you sell that for heroin? And she said it was her mother's and she could never part with that. I asked her to show it to me. He said, after handing it to me, I picked up a sharp instrument and acted as if I was about to scratch the locket. What are you doing? She asked with a tone of panic. Well, just scratching this a little bit. Why would you want to do that? Oh, it's just something I like to do, but it's mine. I know, I'll give it back to you. But I don't want it all scratched up. It's beautiful and it's valuable to me. So, Tversky says you mean that something has value and beauty and you do not allow it to be marred and ruined. And then he showed her hands, her bruises, her abscesses. Do you see what this says? These self-inflicting wounds are a loud statement that says, I am not beautiful. I have no value. And people who do not have a sense of self-worth are prone to do destructive things to themselves and allow themselves to be injured. And overcoming self-defeating behaviors requires self-esteem. Now, he discusses drug abuse, alcohol abuse and other ways that one may injure themselves dropping out of school, unplanned pregnancies, allowing weight to get out of control, entertaining unhealt

Okay, so this is a very important the one thing to know as one listens to something like this When you listen to it or hear it or watch it That Lushan Hara The main point of the emphasis of it to really is to ingrain in us the seriousness of it and the power of our words It should not of course bring to a Yiyush or despair. You know if someone sees the effects and has Harata about it and sees the damage done in the past and wants to work through it The Havatschheim himself talks about it is not to be me I should not to give up or not to despair despite the fact of him for example talking about the feathers Spread all over the place and how you're gonna put it back into the pillow The bottom line is the deep-rooted Concept of that shoe that helps for everything You know and you help others and you do kindness for others and you're careful going forward You will have a tickling for this. So that's not the real You know point every time you watch a video like this one needs to understand Of course that part of it that should not despair. It really should spur us on for further future You know better behaviors and really just shifting our lives to remove ourselves from this But the main point of why I posted here is That aspect it doesn't also mean to underplay the importance of Kedusha Sabris And watching your eyes which we talk about in our shiurim Often again and again and again in our Shalom by a shiurim and other shiurim about the importance of a Kedusha the Kedusha Regarding sexuality and things like that. So it's not downplaying that either But really the purpose of this is to really really just contemplate and work through and understand the ramifications Are of our words and by talking better and we're moving ourselves from Lush and horror and certainly not from From falsehoods from a jishamra from real evil gossip But even things that are true but if they're Lush and horror we move ourselves from it as best as we could and we try to do the reverse and Spread goodness with our words and help people in practical ways People are a havesi throw with even with people that are different than us or may seem opposite of us in many times To really really have it in our consciousness of how serious it is and how much Agmas nevish we could remove from ourselves and from the world if we Really really do everything we can to remove ourselves from this particular hate of Lush and horror and Have a time read Agdama again and again and again The bottom line is the shayrish of the gullis the main shayrish and the coup that he is right the main the coup The of all of the gullis we had since the orbit by a shayni all these thousands of years already long long time Okay, you could say there's many have eras many many reasons But the ultimate what the chazal revealed to us how it's kind talks about a lot is the sin as chinam And this in his chinam is connected to the Lush and horror like he explains in the psico over there and Yes, I'm helped that by doing the reverse of this and speaking dharm type and being malam at us And even if it's hard for us we turn to shem and ask a shem help us with this You know and not three years not to be despair But really work very hard on it in an optimistic way to change our lifestyles in the way we talk in the way We behave it would bring the force in Yeshua's to all of our families and to all of Christ Brochawad slacha

Simcha is a tremendous mitzvah. It's a comradical role in our Vaitis Hashem, Ta'a Kodesh Baruchu. Without Simcha, we're not able to have a meaningful and enduring relationship with that Kodesh Baruchu. The ultimate goal of a Yid is to connect Ta'a Hashem and without Simcha, without joy, it's impossible because the Shchina only rests in a mock-up of Simcha. Because sadness, when a person is by atzvahs, the way the Balitani explains it, it's an absence of feeling. It's a deadness, it's a lack of emotion. And therefore Simcha and sadness cannot coexist. And we could view Simcha as an added quality in our Vaitis Hashem, but it's more than just an added quality. Our Vaitis Hashem, without Simcha, is lacking something integral. And it's very big aside. So there's a story brought down that the daughter of Shmuel, Kamincha was childless for many years, and she died with Ta'a Kodesh Baruchu to be blessed with a child. And when her father was out of town, this daughter of Rafal, a big tzadik visited the town of Kamincha, and this young woman asked to meet the tzadik and poured out her heart to him to ask for a bracha for a child. And Rafal answered back and said that the school, a special school for having children, is Simcha. And when Rafal returned home, the daughter related what Rafal said, and Rafal said, yes, you have a raya from this, from Tanakh, from Taira Naveem and Kusum. And the Taira says, in this week's parasha, that titzchak sara sara laughed. And you could interpret this as that was a catalyst for her bracha to having a child. Since she expressed it joyfully, it was a school for her to have a child. The Naveen Yashaya says, runi akhara la yolada, sing out, you barren one without children. Sing out, rejoice, you who had not given birth. That if a woman is barren, does not have a child yet, the solution to her problem to a large extent would be runi. Sing out with Simcha, and Hashem will listen. And in Kusum, it's in Tehillim, in Halal, my shevi akhara saba yis aim habonim Semecha. He transforms the barren wife into a glad mother of children. How is she transformed? How is this akhara transformed? Ayide Simcha, by being glad. Ayim habonim, how does she become an aim habonim Semecha? By rejoicing. Now Roshmuel's daughter herself was a bas tamat kacham and a tamat kacham herself. She knew Gantz Taira. And she also asked her father, it's a little bit difficult. You told me the raya, that Yini Simcha is from the Taira, is from a titzchach tsara, that tsara laughed. So the question is, it says that Kakarosh Baruch was mocked by her reaction. Why? She only expressed joy as a form of a skula for Simcha to be zecha to children. Again, it's not going for the Derech Habshat of that she had a suffix there. But her father replied that a skula works when you have a bracha from a tzadik. When you have a bracha from people, from big tzadik, then a skula supports that bracha. Over here, Kakarosh Baruch himself gave the bracha to a tzara. And once Hashem himself b'khvayday v'atsmai told tzara, you will have a child, you don't need any muhaftakha. His blessing needs no haftakha. So that was the tzvi on her. But in general, as a skula indeed, is Simcha. That's one you said, a lesson in this parshah. Another lesson in this parshah is what it says, that Avram is special. And it says, Avram, haiaia, he'll become a great nation. Because I know he will command his children and his household after him to show them the way of Hashem to serve me. This parshah seems to imply that Avram Avino's greatness and his squs was primarily because of the fact that he had an impact on future generations. That he connected with the Messiah and he taught his children the Dara Hashem. And that seems strange, although that's an unbelievable you said. But wasn't Avram worthy from his own mice in tzara atzmai? He was the first one who recognized Kakarosh Baruch. He was the one who was willing to be mice-en-efesh and threw himself into the kifshana-esh in the fiery furnace because of his amunah in Hashem. He fought against an entire society to preach man of the years and to preach at the Zabirah Yolam. So his only squs is the fact that he's going to pass it over to other generations. And many learn from here, you see, Taka, how important Messiah is. And that's very true. But in the case of Chaim, the one who wrote the Ben-Yayyodah from Baghdad, Big Tzadik, he explains first by explaining the chazal that says that Tzadikim are compared to trees and they are called Shosul, Tzadikatoma-Yifruch, that Tzadik is compared to a tree while Risham are compared like grass. Why? Say, he's Mazber. That trees have deep roots. What appears above the ground is only part of the entire tree. The roots are real deep and there's a lot of depth and tachin to that tree that's beneath the surface. Regarding grass, however, what you see is what you get. It does not have penetrating roots. And a rush is very much like grass. The way he is, that's what exists. A Russia lives and he dies since he's forgotten about it. He doesn't have roots. There's nothing enduring about him. Nothing remains but his evil lifestyle. Mashe Enkei, that Tzadik is considered like a tree and eighths because his life does not end with the grave. There's much more to Tzadik's life than what we see in front of us. It has deep roots penetrating far beneath the surface in all directions. His children carry on his Messiah, his legacy. That reflects his lofty character. In other words, Avram in his lifetime created that impact of roots that would be mamshech le daireis. And you see that also with Hashbo on Talmedim, not just children. Tzadik is very much alive even after his Neshama leaves to the Eilemen MS because of those roots that he placed. And so we understand now that Avram's ability to give over his teachings to the next daire that gave him that tschus to become the leader and the head of Am Yisrael, our first father, Mogen Avram. He's a great, the Torah is saying that of course Avram was a great individual. And it says Avram Hayyayyeh, a double Lushan. Hayyayyeh is two Havayyes. Avram of now during his lifetime. And Avram based on what he did now till later than the future generations. There's a revealed aspect of Avram which like a tree you could see by everyone, a beautiful tree. Everyone who came in contact with him and then there are the roots, the concealed impact that he has on his children and his Talmedim, even after they leave the world. And that is our legacy. Another thing to learn after this week's parasha is to realize when we talk about the rishis of Sidani, they were not insane. Avraagile Bach explains they were not insane. They were normal people, but wicked people. Sort of similar to the Nazis. People think they were totally crazy, like deranged. They were not deranged. They were very sharp. They were very sane. They were very logical. They knew what they were doing, but they were purely evil. They had a system, a system of that a person should stand on his own two feet by himself, not having assistance of any kind, uprooting compassion from their lives. That is a weakness in the eyes of Sidani. That's why they deny the concept of charity. They consider charity a hate and they help people in contempt when they need things because it's the strong that survive. It's independence that survives. The Nazis were like that. What was chilling to me, and I read up and studied that period and the most chilling things to me when I was reading about the riches of the Nazis is not just what they did in the concentration camps and the footage there and the documentation there. What is extremely and truly scary is when there is literature and I saw the videos of how they trained in those Hitler youth camps meaning these camps that were made in the late 1930s, mid 1930s to late 1930s for 13, 14, 15 year old boys and girls who later, many of them became Nazis who murdered Jews. They taught them how to uproot Rachmanus from their existenc

Welcome everyone, we're about to begin by saying Hashem, Ahavzi, Strah, Lushan, Tau'yuz, share number eight. Lushan hara that is common knowledge. Most people mistakenly think that repeating well-known negative information is not considered Lushan hara. It should be made clear that many Halakh authorities do not differentiate between Lushan hara that is well-known and Lushan hara that is not well-known. However, there is a lenient opinion which holds that if one speaks Lushan hara in the presence of three or more people, it's called Ape Tlaas in front of three people and they subsequently, these three people, subsequently repeat this information further that they are not guilty of Lushan hara and the original speaker of Khor Sindh. In chapter 11 of the book Guard Your Eyes and in The Safer we will enumerate the qualifications of this lenient opinion which is so, which so severely restricts it that its application would be extremely rare. I mentioned this in the previous share. This heter should be rarely, rarely used. Even if all necessary conditions are fulfilled in a particular sense, the Chavitzheim remains in doubt whether the lenient opinion can be relied upon even then since according to many authorities there's no basis for this ruling. So therefore, even Lushan hara that is well-known should not be repeated. That is the concept. Don't use this heter Ape Tlaas in front of three. The people know about it already. It's going to be revealed. Even Lushan hara that is well-known should not be repeated. So for example, Mr. Gold read in the New York Times that Mr. Kohn was arrested for infringement of a law. Even though this is obviously well-known, Mr. Gold should not relate this information to others. You know, you hear things in the newspaper that are public. Do not relate it to others. The Issa Lushan hara is even on well-known things. In general anyway you purify your tongue, your mouth by speaking, by not speaking about these things and your Taira has more power and your Tfilah has more power. Now, regards to Chesed, we're obligated to provide clothes for the needy. There are organizations that provide clothes and it's a tremendous, tremendous Chesed. You see from the Taira that after the Chaita Yitzadaas, they were driven out of Ghanaydn and before banishing them, it says that he made for them clothes, garments of skin, and he covered them and he clothed them. We are obligated to emulate HaKadash Baruch Hu, just like he clothed the naked, so too we must be clothing the naked. We should find the finest quality for the poor. There is an organization, Leivish Tzedakais, that organization that before Pesach works out gives distributes clothing, nice clothing, yantif clothing, shabas clothing, men and women for people who need it. It's a tremendous, tremendous mitzvah. However, before one discards used clothing, one should consider the possibility that a poor person would prefer using clothes to none at all. So great care must be taken not to embarrass the recipient since the person may feel humiliated when offered used clothing. In some communities, volunteers go regularly from house to house collecting clothes that are not needed. If this commendable practice cannot be instituted, then every community should at least appoint someone to keep a list of institutions or individuals who could utilize such garments. So that's a very, very important insight. Some people, you know, nice ties that are secondhand already, but they are beautiful ties and to give it out and so on. So here's a few stories that emulate this concept and bring it out. So when Rabbi Yol Yopián was Minal Ruchni of Yeshiva, a young man came to visit the Yeshiva. He told Rabbi Lopián that he planned to stay for several days and would leave on Thursday. The man enjoyed his visit so much that he decided to stay over Shabas as well. But on Friday morning after prayers, when Rabbi Lopián saw the visitor was still present, he sent someone to tell him that he wished to speak to him. The young man and the student stood nearby, thought that this was because he had not requested permission to extend his visit. And he might be refused permission to stay for Shabas. But the apprehension disappeared when Rabbi Lopián cordially said, originally you were only planning to stay till Thursday. Now that you will be here longer, you most probably don't have special clothes for Shabas. Come with me and I'll give you some of my own clothes for Shabas. Another story. After Vilna was annexed into Lithuania, this is before World War II, the whole miracle of the escape of the Tamidim and Mir in Senkai was related to that annex and being part of that at that point in time. A delegation of Kovna Center of Chaimoizer in Vilna to consult on several problems. As they were about to leave, they asked him if he needed anything from Kovna and he replied, I have two requests, one minor, one major. A minor one is that I need some medication which cannot be obtained in Vilna. And a major one is that our maid needs new shoes which are presently unavailable here. I also need shoes but not as urgently as she does for I live a simple life. And I stay home most of the time. She must walk on the streets every day. And at this time of the year, Khasar Shalom, she could catch a cold. So make sure to get her those shoes. Rabbi Lopián once noticed a young student at his school wearing very tattered shoes. Clearly, the boy needed a new pair of shoes as soon as possible. Rabbi Arya knew that the father's father would take a fence if he bought the shoes for their child. So during the morning recess, while the youngsters were playing in the courtyard, Rabbi Arya called the boy to his office and told him it was time to test him on the Gomorrah that he was learning. And it was within the boy's grasp and he answered them all. And Rabbi Lopián said, splendid, for this you deserve a prize. He handed the boy a note to give to the local shoemaker. The note requested that the shoemaker give the boy a pair of shoes, which Rabbi Arya would pay. And Rabbi Lopián also gave the boy a note to give his father stating that he won the shoes as a prize for correctly answering the questions on his studies. So the father, so he wasn't embarrassed. It was a prize and he got his shoes. The Chavachayim writes that even if one can't afford to buy clothing himself, you nonetheless fulfill the mitzvah by helping him choose clothing. For example, if you're in a strange city and need advice about where to buy the articles of clothing, you should advise him and take him to a reliable store. Any effort to help someone requiring clothing is included in this mitzvah. Adam was a wealthiest person. He had the whole world, but Hashem nevertheless fashioned a garment of skin for him. And this is the source of our obligation. When parents dress their young children or diaper their infants, they should not consider their task as burdensome. They're Mekhaim, the mitzvah of emulating Akkadosh Baruch Hu. Every time you change a dirty diaper or you clean up a child or you clothe them with new clothing, fresh clothing, you are Mekhaim, the mitzvah of emulating Akkadosh Baruch Hu. And sometimes for girls, for women, to help girls dress nicer, more presentable, to help them on dates or to help them just give them clothing and make them look and feel good about themselves, women to women, and help them shop and help them, you know, get dressed nicely is a tremendous mitzvah as well.

Parshashchaya Sura says Sura was nifter and it's brought down that Vayokam Avram mayalpnei meisai. Avram rose up from the presence of his mace. The Riyanis and Aibashat Springs had down a beautiful pshad here and he says that the Maura Samachpeila was a place, a resting place only for those tzadikim that died by Misas Neshika, by Hashem himself as opposed through the Malachamavis, which almost all humanity passes away through that. And Rabbi Yainison brings down like this. He says that the Malachamavis is full of eyes and when a person is ill the Malachamavis stands in the ear above his head. He has a sword and his drop of poison at its tip and when the person notices the Malachamavis he's afraid and he opens his mouth and Malachamavis throws that drop of poison into his mouth and that's how he dies and that causes his body to deteriorate and his face to turn different color and so on. And Rabbi Yainison says in Yeris Advash that full of eyes means that through a person's avairis he creates a Malacham that sea, that avaira, and that's the eyes that we're referring to here, his khatayim. And based on that khazal Rabbi Yainison says that when Avramavinu took one look at Zorah, Imenu's face, after she passed away when she was nifter and she saw that her face did not turn though whatever color that normally turns and she looked perfectly healthy and her face shined as it did in her lifetime. Immediately Avramavinu realized that Zorah's patira was unique, it was Misa Sashika. And that's what it means, Avram. He rose up in the presence literally the face of his mace, al-Penei. He saw the face. He saw her face and realized that the Malachamavis had no power over her and she died Misa Sashika. As soon as he realized that he went to the Benei Chays to have Zorah buried in the Marisa Machpeila like we said that was the place the person is worthy to enter because that was a place of Kavura for people who died through Misa Sashika. This is our freedman. This is brought down from Peneinim al-Ataira that brings down that Keryas Arba is Mirames. That Zorah Imenu did not die through any sin or any or even else the the hate of the other Vareeshin, but it left the Keryas Arba with these four words, the tower of those four words. What four words? The four words in Kriyashma of Hashem elekenu Hashem echod. And that's what it means, He heav'rain be eres kenoan. Heav'rain is the Russian of Heber to connect and through those four words, the Keryas Arba of Hashem elekenu Hashem echod, those through those four words, Zorah Imenu connected to Akodesh Baruchu and in Hashem eleft betahara. That's a tremendous dva'atayra. Another dva'atayra of Ma'alpne Mesa is Mirames that you should do chuvah one day before you die and since you don't know when you're gonna die you need to do chuvah constantly. And that's what the Pharisees told, the redomska brings down, that the whole person's life should be full of chuvah and that's the way you live. Not in a depressed way to be nervous. You know, you should always have betah and Hashem will be kind to you, that you'll have arichis yam bishanem and not to get depressed and be nervous about yema Mesa, but at the same time at a certain level, yes, to realize today is the last day of my life. I'm allowed to live today. Why am I allowed to live today so I can leave this world spiritually pure? Having done chuvah for anything I did wrong and that Hashem goes up with purity and agav that's why it's so important to say kriyashmalamita and in that kriyashmalamita to ask mekhila for that virus that you did that day because that day could be your last day and at least you did chuvah before that. He brings down over here that the redomska lived that way. He always had that in mind. He actually was nifter on Parshishabhishaparshishayisara and I don't think he's talking about the Tiferish Lime. He's talking about his son, I believe, but akapanim was nifter Parshishabhishaparshishayisara, Friday night he sangashishayil and vatitzchak le yay maachrain. He said many, many times she will joyfully wait to the last day. He said that many, many times and he was nifter with those words on his lips. He died in the same manner as he lived and he never lost sight of the yay maachrain. Bechol be'godecha tzezbed shoyamel sezen kriyhelas that your garment should be white. Ye be'godecha leveinim. What does that mean? That means that it's a muscle that you should be spiritually clean all the time. Yes, people make mistakes. Ain't adam tzadik par tzashiyasatayvala yachta. Everyone sins. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone has flaws. But if we can't really live with that mode of today, hayayim lasayisam, because we don't know what tomorrow we'll bring. We try to correct everything we can't correct today as best as we could, then vatitzchak le yay maachrain. We'll so-called, quote unquote, have the last laugh. That's another aside in this week's parasha. A third aside in this week's parasha is just in something wrong. Pam sech tzadik vach oiz was madgesh. Haavrom avinu wanted to choose a wife for yitzchak, not from the kanan that they knew they inherently did not have good midais. So he looked for people in his own mishpachah and hopefully would find Isha that would have good midais, midais taivais. And that's what Avram was looking for. He was not looking for the genius. He was not looking for the geo. He was not looking for the top of the class per se. He was looking for midais taivais, good character traits. And if he found a girl that whose midais were exemplary, that is the zidik for yitzchak. Her midais will help that her mind should be pure. It has nothing to do with IQ that we call now or sharpkeit or sharpness. It has to do with protecting your mind with good midais. If you protect your mind, whatever mind you have with good midais, then you have a good mind. Pelina Malatair brings down a story from the Khasam Seifer. There were two bachar and potential Talmidim that were brought to the Khasam Seifer at his Yeshiva in Presberg when he had a big Yeshiva in Hungary. And the smiths that happened right after the Yantav of Tsukkis and these two bachar were very different from one another. And the Khasam Seifer was to make a decision of which Talmid should come into his Yeshiva. And these two Talmidim were very different from one another. One of them possessed a brilliant mind, was able to grasp and analyze everything. And the other bachar was a fine person, a big masmid, but he was not blessed with a sharp kite. He did not have a good mind to understand Tyra in depth, but he was Miagaya in Tyra. He was a masmid. They were both good Talmidim, but the Khasam Seifer chose only one, the one who did not lack the natural aptitude, did not lack, did not have that sharpness, did not have that kindness. And when he was asked about his decision, and I guess he was only able to accept one, but the Khasam Seifer explained that when the bachar came into the Yeshiva it was right after Tsukkis. And some leaves that were served as the Sakh covering the Tsukkis fell to the ground. And he noticed these two Talmidim, and he noticed that the Talmid, whose brilliance would have automatically gotten him into the Yeshiva without a problem, but he had no issue stepping on those leaves that had once been part of the Mitzvah of Sakh. The other Talmid, although he was intellectually weaker, moved the leaves aside and walked around the leaves, because he didn't want to step on an object that was recently a major chalak of a Mitzvah of Sakh. And the Khasam Seifer says, I'm more interested in accepting a student that's sensitive to the Kedusha of the Mitzvah, and not one that's not sensitive to the Kedusha of a Mitzvah. You see from here just Agav, that Seikhul is relative. Again, Hashem gives gifts to people. Some are naturally more intelligent than the others. And there's nothing that can be done about it, but they're a klal. Although there's neuroplasticity, and a lot of people could develop the

Welcome, everyone. We're about to begin Bezashem Shalom Ba'is' year number 685 and this safer you owe it to yourself by Attara Malach talks about different effective keys to a happy marriage key number one understanding childhood influences Extremely important by understanding this and working through it your marriages can heal and Transform and We're gonna talk about this now How the influence of childhood memories on your current family atmosphere could have a major effect And by learning about it and working through it your whole marriage becomes more transformed and beautiful and a lot of the problems Really get alleviated and and you could move forward. So here's an example That's so important and as you listen to this, I think it will resonate even if this particular case Doesn't resonate with you, but you'll see many things if you look deeply into it that it really does and it'll give you a great understanding so in this example Hedva complained her husband is extremely frustrating because every time he comes home, he brings along unexpected guests Makes no difference whether it's from work from the street from shul. He's always dragging in strangers And maybe a house-to-house collector. They need a cold drink an old friend the stranger The story is different. The fact is the same my house is a constant open door I never know who will be there at any given time and Hedva always dreamt to have a calm serene family a husband wife well-behaved children a Guest here and there But her husband turned her life upside down and their lives upside down. Yes. She doesn't mind guests, but invited in a misodic away and And and family and friends not an array of all these different characters and fly-by-nights and sudden spontaneous visits of People that you know that she didn't vet out or whatever it is and and where is her husband's respect of her and her needs and And and and if he truly cared about me, why is he doing something that upsets me so much? But here's the interesting thing before going into that and going into her own childhood Hedva was asked how she met her husband. What qualities did she see in her husband and She said like this listen carefully You'll never believe this. This is what happened My parents and I were driving down a street and our car died It was a middle of the summer the day was unbearably hot. We stood outside a steaming car We didn't know what to do sunny sunny this fellow Her future husband noticed their predicament from the porch flew down three flights of stairs took a look at the car ran up Upstairs to telephone the nearby garage to service the overheated engine and then he invited us to his parents apartment We would find a cold drink and sit in front of the van That his ex-family was extremely warm and concerned and the repairman towed the car to the garage Said it'll be a while before they proceeded so they were invited for supper You're free to use the telephone and everything is yours So here we were total strangers, but it made no difference to him or his family We were fellow Jews in need and when they were there for us and my parents was so impressed by this boy's sensitivity By extending himself beyond the usual and by his warm caring family that they send the shot him to speak about the Shiddah and that was her husband So you see very interesting that this nekuda of His warmness and being kind to everybody and bringing them in is the same me da that's Frustrating her now 20 years later. The same woman is extremely frustrated by the identical character traits that drew her to her husband in the first place When head of a realized that You know basically her husband brought in her his own her own family Emulating Abramovina doors open to everyone and so then she started to realize that her husband didn't change at all He just continued his same open caring door policy that he had Since he was a child growing up and it's just that she herself lost respect for that basic part of his nature So her anger right away calm down Her anger calm down. She had that understanding based on that now look at her own child Childhood experiences hers was a family that was properly punctual and extremely highly scheduled and You know, you invited in advance and his blue lemon linen tablecloth and his matching napkins and everything is misudder And so on and so forth and gets were formerly invited and so on and so forth So so so there's there's the idea and she recalls them childhood memory one Shavas afternoon when she was a child there was a knackin on the front door and She was playing block with blocks. She was she remembers this Her parents were reading on the couch and knocking continued and her father told her mother do you invite anyone and the mother said no Did you know so they didn't open the door and They motioned that I should continue playing silently So they did she think we're resting and they're knocking and they were people with left So that was the household she was raised in So now but now right in her married life She has no idea who's gonna show up by her kitchen table or going through a refrigerator and things like that So obviously when you have that different such a difference in upbringing There needs to be a compromise So yes, the husband needs to learn Why unexpected guests are upsetting to his wife? He shouldn't brush her off and saying what's the problem? Just put more water in the soup or just throw in an extra piece of chicken If there's no cake we could give them a bag of cookies and if you have no cookies you give them pretzels You know, that's the husband's idea But she has a little girl You know said, you know, it was raised You don't just bring people into your home to run like a 24-hour a day hotel So they both needed to learn the husband needed to learn her sensitivities and she needed to learn about his warm heart and Balance it and balance those two aspects to realize that this lave type is what drew Her him to her in the first place. So it's a good meter to have it just has to be balanced That's all so the way it worked They worked on a compromise and of course she still contends with far more guests than she would prefer But her husband also needs to be satisfied to have less than he would like to make that sort of Peshara or to figure out You know to do certain things in advance Whatever work that part out with each other to have that balance and each one learns from the other Though the husband learns certain boundaries that are healthy to have in a family life and she learns to open up more That's healthy for her So this is an example That we all have to understand our own lives we each come husband and wife from two different families in which we grew up and It's not always a matter of right or wrong type of thing it's a matter of how we were brought up in various different office and This understanding of this could help so much in marriages and prevent divorces too You see there are divorces that take place because of real Toxic unhealthy behaviors from one or both sides. We're not getting into that now There are other divorces that take place where you have two genuinely good people that have their own sets of flaws But they're genuinely good people But they're vastly different from each other in different Ashkoff is different on brigings that they just don't naturally click together now sometimes they're you know, you ask a Shaila and Divorce is necessary when it's necessary But very often those type of things when one says I married my opposite I don't know whatever the reasons were we have nothing in common and quote-unquote and all those things Those are if the if you're both honest healthy decent people Those things are resolvable and only that it could transform in the most beautiful marriage in the world by absorbing these opposites And that's the idea of intimacy in general. It requires a risk. Yes. Sometimes you'll be hurt Sometimes you'll be disappointed, but you you

I'll go to Nershavis, everybody. We're about to give Mersah Shem Shire number 173. Ratorsky, in his book Life's Too Short about Self-Esteem, he has a chapter why you feel so bad when you should feel good. Many people may say that I don't have a distorted self-image and I know myself thoroughly and I know myself accurately and I know for a fact that I am inadequate or worthless. But the truth is that, as he mentions, very capable and gifted people come to think of themselves as inadequate, won't judge from their belief even if there's undeniable evidence to the opposite. He once had a woman, a highly skilled physician who graduated in the highest levels, won a tremendous award for scholastic excellence and nevertheless she felt an intense feeling of inadequacy. And when Ratorsky pointed out to her that she could not possibly deny her intellectual abilities, her response was, when they told me that I won that award, I knew they made a mistake. I just knew they made a mistake. And time and time again counted many highly accomplished people, a profound feeling of inferiority, negative self-concept. And he tries to figure out why this happens. There could be many, many reasons. Sometimes when a parent punishes a child in the wrong way, they'll think that they are bad instead of just saying it was a negative behavior. Sometimes a younger sibling has a special needs or paid more attention to them than that person and the child can't understand it. And they come to the conclusion that my parents like my brother better than me or my sister better than me and I'm not likable. These wrong conclusions sometimes because there's no roots. In those days they used to live multiple generations in the same community. And one knew their roots, their parents, their grandparents had a certain sense of belonging in the family in Tashem. And in today's society it's different. Parents change jobs, they move from place to place, and they feel like uprooted that they don't have roots. And whatever the reasons are that once a child develops that negative self-image, they assume that and they reinforce their own condition. So many people, for example, they struggle in math because they approach the subject with the pre-notion that they're too dumb for math. They fail as they're not because they really don't have that ability because they just feel they're too dumb to even try. These self-fulfilling prophecies of inadequacy, they're reinforced many times over, creates that vicious cycle. And failure to recognize one's personality strength is similar to being ignorant of one's assets, right? If you're here to have fortune, you have a tremendous amount of money that could come to you be a rucha. Or you won a lottery ticket but you didn't learn of this and you're struggling and struggling financially and you could be living in luxury. So everyone has problems in life. But the idea is, is if you have realistic, you'll utilize the abilities that you do have to adapt to the situation and make things better. That's why you have very interesting, he says that, let's say, what if you're going to say though, okay, these are very gifted people, but I know myself. I am not gifted or I do have real drawbacks in my personality. I'm not so special and they believe it's accurate. So the way to look at that though is that you have, let's say, a small car. In those days, I don't know how they make it now. Four-cylinder engine and it'll take you where you go, smaller car, but then you have one, a powerful V8 engine. But two of the cylinders aren't functioning. It doesn't give you a smooth ride because you need all eight cylinders to be functioning. The same thing is with people. You have people that are, they may have less gifts inherently, but they make adjustments. I have what I have. I know my capacity. I'm doing the best I can with what I have and they will feel good about themselves. They will make the most of themselves. While a person that may have a greater capacity, but if you think you're defective, then you won't be able to adapt to life well. He has a poignant story when he was young. Robert Torski, he loved baseball, but he was a terrible athlete. He couldn't hit. He couldn't catch. He was a liability. He was never chosen to play. But he wanted to be part of the team. So he used to give them candy and they took the candy, but he still wasn't chosen to play. So he was desperate. He wanted to be part of this baseball together with all the other boys. So he saw a beautiful bat with Lou Gehrig's signature on it. It cost then $1.25 back then. It was a lot of money. And he pried open his own bank, whatever it is, his bank account there, or Boxway. He kept all his money for years and he took out that $1.25. He purchased the bat and he thought that he would be allowed in and they still said, nah, you take him, you take him, you take him. They went back and forth. Okay, I'll take him, but his outs don't count. Now he realized later after a few days that it wasn't worth it. He withdrew from the game. He let the kids use his bat anyway. But from then on he spent his time during recess not being bothered with baseball but with studying. He looks back at this and he wasn't traumatized by this. He looks back with amusement. It was unpleasant at the time, but he doesn't have feelings of humiliation connected to it. Why not? Because those defects were real. He was not good in baseball. He couldn't hit or catch a ball. He wasn't athletic. So he said to himself, so what? So what? I have other areas of excellence, scholastic abilities. I'll develop them instead. So you compensate for actual limitations. If you're not good at something, you work at something else that you are good at. In everything, in Ruchnius, in Ghashmius, in Avaitas Hashem, you do your best. But what we do is we tend to cover up. We cover up. We want to feel more adequate and we cover up and we pretend who we are not. And we really need to learn. And then the comparison games come and a lot of Agma Snefesh comes as a result. It's not worth it. Now when he goes through understanding the problems of low self-esteem, he has a fascinating story here and we'll be Messiahing with that. He brings an interesting story. And listen to this. This is so eye-opening. He calls a guy Ralph. He had a string of unsuccessful romantic relationships. He dated frequently, never was able to find an ongoing relationship. Some young women showed some initial interest in him, but they turned him away. And he resigned himself to the situation. So Ralph had a best friend in the Navy. And he was given an assignment that would take him out to see at least six months. So Ralph said take out his girlfriend to show her a good time. This girlfriend, I don't think was a romantic girlfriend. Just I'm a close friend. Show him a good time. And Ralph did so and she fell in love with him. But Ralph had a poor image. He was convinced that no woman would be interested in him if they saw the real Ralph. Right? So he put on a facade and it was awkward and it was the opposite. But over here was different. Why? Because he was just doing his friend a favor. He wasn't trying to impress her. It's his girlfriend or whatever it is. So he just was relaxed and natural around her. That gave her the opportunity to see the real Ralph with whom she fell in love. So, you know, you often expect, for example, people to act natural when taking pictures of them. But their pose is not natural. So this is what Ralph was doing. He was posing in himself in order to impress women about, you know, and it wasn't natural. So, of course, States found him unattractive. But when he stopped posing and he became his self, his own self, then his personality came through. A lot of us are this way. We're so nervous about our fear of rejection about other people that we work hard to cover up and pretend to be something we're not. And that leads us to feel very uncomfortable. But in reality, there's no reason