כפרה באמצעות צער

00:01 Speaker 1 This is Igris. Uh, yesterday we talked about redeeming the fasts listed in various different Kabbalah with money. The upshot of that conversation was that even seemingly minor sins have many, many fasts associated with them, and practically speaking, we're not allowed to engage in Ta'anit and Sigufim. That was pretty much the, uh, the end of the discussion. Since we're not allowed to engage in Ta'anit and Sigufim, we're, uh-- which is self-affliction, we have to pay the equivalent in Tzedakah. So we went through part of a very long letter from the Rebbe where he laid out exactly how much we had to give for our sins. We basically owe a lot of money. I mean, I don't wanna speak for everybody here. I basically owe a lot of money. There were a hundred and fifty fasts for every time you get angry, and that is, uh, what, fifteen hundred dollars more or less in modern silver. So we have to either hope that silver drops so that I become a tzadik because this is becoming rapidly unaffordable. Any event, based on that share and our general understanding of Chassidus Chabad and the Rebbe Shlichus, I think it's safe to say that, uh, that all of us kind of know and all of us kind of agree that the Rebbe is not supportive of self-affliction. He's not supportive of Sigufim. You're not allowed to hurt yourself. You're not allowed to fast. This goes all the way back to the Alter Rebbe in some form or another, but the

01:03 Speaker 1 Rebbe really hit it hard. Fasting is absolutely something that we do not do besides for the normal-- besides for the required fast days, of course. Fasting for repentance is not really in our repertoire. Nonetheless, a ton of people wrote to the Rebbe throughout the years asking about Ta'anit and Sigufim, and the Rebbe has, uh, the Rebbe usually is there from . Usually, the Rebbe says, uh, somebody will write to the Rebbe saying, "I'm hurting myself. I'm doing something interesting. I'm, like, lying on a bed of nails." And the Rebbe will say, "Absolutely not. You have to stop that right now. What's wrong with you?" People write to the Rebbe saying that they're not eating. The Rebbe says they have to eat, but they're not sleeping. The Rebbe says they have to sleep. However, every now and then, someone writes to the Rebbe, uh, about their interest in Sigufim and engaging in self-affliction practices or engaging in fasting, and the Rebbe would allow one particular kind of self-affliction, one particular kind of fast that he not only allowed, but in some cases actively encouraged. And in some letters, it looks to me like he's encouraging we try it too. So, uh, I wanna introduce you to what I think is the only kind of valid self-affliction, the only kind of affliction, the only kind of Sigufim that the Rebbe puts a stamp of approval on and strongly suggests. And here it is. So we have, uh, one letter down here. This is the one we're gonna

02:06 Speaker 1 start with. It's from volume fourteen. This is letter number and we're gonna scroll all the way down. This is somebody writing about, uh, a Tikkun for the Inyan Hayedua. Those who know, know, and those who don't know, I'll tell you afterwards what's the Inyan Hayedua. A lot of people write to the Rebbe looking for a Tikkun for these things. The important for us down-- The important part for us is this section down here. The Rebbe writes, I want to inform you. It's mentioned in many books that you have to do certain fasts for sins. If you look in the beginning of the third chapter of the Yere Ihtova, which we were actually-- we were, we were looking at it yesterday at length. It says, These fasts only apply to somebody who's very strong and healthy. When it comes to people in our generation, they're too weak, they can't do it. So obviously, Ta'anit and Sigufim are off-limits nowadays. We see specifically that the Ta'anit fasting has an effect on someone's health. This therefore damages their ability to understand things, their ability to process things mentally, and also their ability to have hisbodedut, their ability to meditate on concepts of God and Chassidus. So obviously, we're not allowing fasts and Sigufim at all. Because we lose the reward, we, we-- There's more loss than gain. There's a net loss here. Now, this is interesting. Wouldn't it be better then to fast according to or to self-afflict, to fast according to the expression of the Rebbe Maharash,

03:32 Speaker 1 which is printed in Toldos Maharash on page seventy-two? Now, quick pause here. Toldos Maharash is not the Toldos section. There's a whole bunch of Toldos series, Toldos They have Toldos speech of the Rebbes now that are in print, and they're fantastic. That's not what Toldos Maharash is. The Rebbe wrote Toldos Maharash before he was Rebbe. He wrote it, I believe, uh, he wrote it, I believe, at the instruction of the at least parts of it written before. I think the whole thing might have been published before he was Rebbe. It's by the Rebbe. One of the Rebbe's works, uh, that people don't know about so much is that the Rebbe wrote a biography of the Rebbe Maharash among the Rebbe's works. And, uh, on the it says there that, uh, that the Toldos Maharash by the Rebbe. It has his name as the author. This is the Rebbe's own book. The Rebbe wrote a book about the Rebbe Maharash. Uh, anyway, he says that you should do, you should do what the, what the Rebbe Maharash says to do. Says, "Resist saying unpleasant things. Close your mouth tight. Shut your mouth. Don't say things you're not supposed to say." unpleasant things, and this counts as suffering. It is very difficult when you have something you really wanna say to not say it. This is the kind of incredible self-affliction. You know, when you, you know when you really wanna say something and you hold back, even when it's not something you mean. You know, holding

04:38 Speaker 1 back from saying something nasty is, is somewhat easy because you don't wanna hurt people and you don't wanna deal with the fallout. But sometimes you have a really good joke, sometimes you have a really good, uh, side comment that's not relevant, sometimes really good divan betalim. Says here, "Not speaking is a kind of yinui." This is a kind of fasting. The Rebbe says, "In most cases, resisting saying something you really wanna say, uh, is much more-- it causes much more suffering than not eating or drinking. You really wanna hurt yourself, don't say no to food or to drink, say no to talking, say no to saying things that shouldn't be said." We see this all the time, uh, explicitly. You'll see that, uh, that your nature will change from time to time. Um, you shouldn't fight your yetzer. You shouldn't, uh, be, you shouldn't be, um, intimidated by your yetzer hara that wants to fight you on this point for many different reasons. Your yetzer hara is gonna come to you and say, "No, no, no." It's not enough just to, uh, to practice a little and not say everything you want to say. It's gonna come to you in the cloak of of fear of heaven. Your yetzer hara is going to tell you, instead of engaging in this behavior where you don't talk so much, that you should that you should separate yourself from people, separate yourself from the world, make yourself suffer, afflict yourself. Your yetzer hara will tell you that it'd

05:58 Speaker 1 be much better to be a hermit who self-afflicts and doesn't talk to people and hides in the corner because The Yetzer Hara doesn't want you to do something that is far more effective, which is not saying things that shouldn't be said. And we see that in this orphan generation, we see the outcomes of such behaviors. Usually, it causes the opposite of the mattara, the opposite of the goal that people were trying to pursue. um, the mattara, the intent and the mattara, the Rebbe says that is self-understood. Okay, so we have here from the Rebbe the idea that if you really wanna self-afflict, you really wanna make yourself suffer, you're allowed to. The way to really make yourself suffer, though, is not in food and drink, and not in beating yourself up. It is . Close your mouth from speaking things that are, that are not pleasant because the Rebbe says, that absolutely counts as suffering. We have another letter that is quite similar to this, where the Rebbe pushes the idea. Um, I don't wanna miss a cool part. Is the cool part over here? Yeah, it's over here. Don't worry, I won't miss it. There's a cool thing I wanna show you later. Okay. This person is-- this is a letter from Taf Shin Yud Beis, letters Alef, Taf, Reish, Ayin, Gimel, and the Rebbe writes, . This person wrote to the Rebbe asking if it'd be a good idea for him to self-afflict, which obviously not, hurt himself. The , however, his examples

07:07 Speaker 1 here were kind of weird. I, I don't know. Apparently, this guy's idea of self-affliction was that he was going to lie-- sleep on a couch with only a pillow under his head. That sounds like a good night to me . I don't know. He has a pillow. I think maybe without a pillow, but, uh, he-- I don't know. Maybe he usually use two pillows. I have no idea. This is his segul.

07:23 Speaker 2 A bench.

07:24 Speaker 1 Huh?

07:24 Speaker 2 A bench. A bench.

07:27 Speaker 1 Okay, but I mean, that's, um... Okay, fine. So a safsal is a hard bench.

07:29 Speaker 2 Kar-kar is a pillow.

07:31 Speaker 1 Yeah, but he's saying a safsal can be a hard bench. I always think of a safsal as like a couch.

07:35 Speaker 2 Sa-- No, no, that's, that's not a couch and, uh, okay, that's-

07:38 Speaker 1 Okay, fine. So safsal is a hard bench. Right. So that's-- I-- There you go. Segul, sleeping in seven seventy with a pillow under your head.

07:44 Speaker 2 Hard bench is good for your back.

07:46 Speaker 1 Yeah, I don't know. I, uh, when, when I first got to Yeshiva, they didn't have a bed for me, and I slept on a bed frame with no mattress for, like, six months. I, I don't understand this. But anyway, this was a kind of segul for some people, not a run-of-the-mill experience. When it comes to these, uh, excuse me. The Rebbe says you didn't write the reason why you wanna do these segulim, but general, when it comes to our generation, nonetheless, even though you don't tell me the reason for your desire for these segulim, there is a rule of thumb, which is that you need to choose segulim. You need to choose forms of self-affliction that will not damage, God forbid, the health of your body. As the RamBam says in Hilchot Yes, that a healthy body is among the Darkei Hashem, is one of the ways of God. Certainly, we see when it comes to weakness of the body, this is, uh, something that begins to confuse. And once again, the Rebbe gives this advice. Therefore, if you wanna do segulim, if you wanna hurt yourself, why don't you try what it says in Toldos Ma'arash, what it says in that same book Toldos Ma'arash that the Rebbe wrote on page seventy-two near the end. And he doesn't say what it is. It says go look it up. We know what it is already from this letter. That's . That is resisting saying the things you wanna say. And then the Rebbe gives several

09:00 Speaker 1 advantages to resisting saying things that you want to say as a form of self-affliction over conventional forms of self-affliction like fasting or sleeping on a hard bench with a pillow. He gives four reasons why there's an advantage to just not talking so much. First advantage, it doesn't hurt the body. It doesn't damage the body's health, which is important. And reason number two, this doesn't cause other people to think you're such a big deal because, you know, this guy, he's, he's fasting all the time, and he's always-- he's, he's, he's, he's a, he's a hermit. He's, uh, he's afflicting. He's, um, engaging in these sorts of behaviors. People tend to think, "Oh, that's a big tzadik." But when it comes to this, no one knows that you wanted to say something when you decide not to say something, so it is a private matter. It is true, uh, it is true, true humility. Only a person knows by himself just how difficult it is to hold in the thing that he wanted to say. So it is also a personal aveida that doesn't have any, um, any airs to it. You're not putting on airs and showing off. Reason number three why there's an advantage the Rebbe says it can also be a lot harder than segulot min taniyos, harder than sleeping on a bench, uh, on a hard bench or not eating or drinking. Because it is fundamentally mutar to say the things that you wanna say as long as you're not gonna say something

10:11 Speaker 1 else. Therefore, it doesn't feel like you're doing a big thing. It doesn't feel like you're engaging in gedolus. It doesn't feel like you're engaging in a big deal, so it's harder for you to do because it's a lot easier for you to rally yourself to do something difficult, and this is the hira, something that is not even an area of a, of aveida. So it is more difficult to encourage yourself to do it, and therefore it is a deeper level, and it also causes more pain. Dalet, the fourth reason, uh, using this by, by way of this aveida, if you do this thing, you just resist saying the things you wanna say sometimes, you will slowly, slowly change yourself . I want you to remember that phrase because we're gonna see in a second that's the exact phrase that Rabbi Maarash used when describing this aveida. So and based on this, I think you'll be able to respond to what the Yetzer Hara says, uh, strongly, that you will be able to push off the Yetzer Hara strongly and based on the pain will be the reward. I will point out one more thing from a letter from the Rebbe before we look at the Rebbe Maarash that we keep on teasing, which is that there's a letter over here from Taf Shin Yud Tes, where someone writes to the Rebbe that they're aware of this idea from the Rebbe Maarash. They're aware of this idea of Taanos Sebor. By the way, in, in the

11:17 Speaker 1 Misnagyd yeshivas I went to, Taanos Sebor was very common. They loved doing this, is that, you know, Misnagyd wants to eat, but, uh, but he doesn't necessarily wanna talk. So, uh, I had friends who would engage in-- would, would do Taanos Sebor with the entire elul. I had friends who would do a Taanos Sebor, that's what they called it, a fast-- a speech fasting, where they wouldn't talk for a long period of time. That is not what the Rebbe Maarash is suggesting. He's saying to resist saying what you wanna say. But in any event, somebody wrote to the Rebbe asking about Taanos Sebor. It seems from the context of the letter that maybe they were aware of the Rebbe Maarash's position, that, uh, that is a kind of segul, and what they're asking is a different thing. They wanna know whether they can use this to pay off their fasts, right? So we t- we said yesterday that, uh, you have basically three choices. Don't sin, get enough money to pay off your fasts, or get used to fasting. This person wrote to the Rebbe, Ben of Hakham writes to the Rebbe and says, "Can I just not speak on those days? Would that work? Could I do a Taanos Sebor on the-- for a hundred and fifty-one days when I get angry?" The Rebbe says no. He says, it's very clear that, um- When, uh, that you need to do tanus for these, that you need to fast or give money for these things,

12:15 Speaker 1 the tanus Tibur, that tanus Tibur, he doesn't, he's not . He doesn't say tanus Tibur is to be thrown away because obviously the Rebbe Me'ir Hash likes a version of it, but he says it's an . It's its own thing. It's, uh, it's for . It's for specific examples. You want specific examples? Look on that page in the Toldos Me'ir Hash. This cannot be substituted for the tanus ha-Mora. So unfortunately, we still have only three options on the table. We can not sin, we can not eat, or we can lose our money. Those are our three choices. We are not allowed to just not talk on those days. Uh, I-- this has nothing to do with our shiur, but this is a really interesting paragraph down here in this letter, uh, and I wanted to mention it 'cause it was cool. That person asked the Rebbe another question. Uh, this person asked the Rebbe, it sounds like he asked him somewhat combatively about the practice of Peile She Rebbes of giving out coins for Shemira and the like. And I think this guy was not happy with it, and he wrote to the Rebbe saying, "Don't you think this is a little messed up? The Peile She Rebbes are giving out coins." This was probably before the Rebbe started giving out coins, . So yeah, a little bit earlier. So he says, um, . I just, I love the Rebbe's Derech here. Um, the Rebbe says, "I don't really know what the is for

13:22 Speaker 1 you." Well, what do you, what do you care? Nothing in the world is created for nothing. Therefore, this is also for us. Since God didn't make any waste, that means we can't make any waste. All of our thoughts, speech, and action needs to be not for waste. There has to be a point to it. We can't just do things stam because we're interested. What should the point of everything we do be? It's a Sak Mishna. I did the other one. I was created to serve my Creator, which means that I'm not allowed to just be interested in things. I have to have a point. If I don't have a point, and that point is supposed to be serving God, then it doesn't belong. It doesn't get head space. It doesn't belong in my if I'm not gonna use it. So the Rebbe says, "I don't really know why you're asking. What exactly are you gonna do with this information?" It's also a given in Shulchan Aruch, that you have to know God in all of your ways, not just in some of your ways, but all of them. So the Rebbe is saying, basically, this guy asked the Rebbe, uh, "What's with the Rebbes and the publisher coins?" And the Rebbe's answer is, "What, what, why is this taking up head space by you? It seems to me that it might be asur that this takes up your head space because you're not gonna be using it for Avodah." So I, I don't know, what

14:35 Speaker 1 is the in this question? But, excuse me, this is the part I like. I mean, I like the whole thing. nonetheless, the Rebbe says, basically, lest people say things about this, lest people say I didn't answer you or lest people say that the Peleg She Rebbe is doing something wrong, the Rebbe says, "I do want to explain." It could be that it's a, it's a in Baba Basra. It could be that it's Gemara in Baba Basra that says that Tzadikim should give out coins. I went and found it. Look at this. I'll make it big. I made it too small, so now we can't see anything. Make it big on the screen. Baba Basra fifteen B, this is something Satan says. Satan says to Hashem about Iyov. Hashem says, "Did you see Iyov? He's awesome." Job. "Do you see Iyov? He's awesome." Satan says back, "Uh, not so much. You've taken very good care of him. You've given him a great life. You've blessed the work of his hands." Wow. he says, anybody who received a coin from Iyov would get a special berakhah. So the Rebbe says, that the practice of Hasidim She Rebbes and later on, L'cher, the practice of our Rebbe himself, is that anybody who receives a prutah from a great tzadik is supposed to get a berakhah. So the Rebbe says, "If you really want, I will give you an explanation for this, but why this is taking up space in your mind." We've talked a lot about this, uh,

15:51 Speaker 1 this thing in the Toldos Me'ir Hash that is, uh, supposed to explain Taanis Tibur and Bilu and Pircha, so I do wanna read it together. It is, uh, a bit Yiddish, and I actually-- a word here. There's one word here that, uh, near the bottom that I'm going to ask some of your opinions on. I asked the parents, and we had some ideas, but there's a word here that's a bit unconventional. Anyway, this is the story. Uh, the Rebbe Me'ir Hash. So this is always the, uh, the Frija Rebbe talking. The Rebbe always speaks in the Frija Rebbe's voi-- voice for this, uh, except for near the bottom where he says the Frija Rebbe finished. Whatever. Anyway, trust me, it's the Rebbe Me'ir Hash. Um, it says, "By the Rebbe Me'ir Hash, most of the Hasidim were . Uh, they were an interesting group of people. And one time, a Hasid complained to the Rebbe Me'ir Hash, and he said that he was . It means that he's very tricky, he's very cunning. Uh, everything, every, every single topic in his life, he's always approaching it in a sly, cunning, tricky way, and he didn't wanna be that kind of person anymore. I guess he wanted to be more simplistic and maybe a little bit less, uh, tricky and cunning. So he wrote-- t-said to the Rebbe Me'ir Hash that he wanted that fixed. the Rebbe Me'ir Hash. The Rebbe Me'ir Hash said back to him, six hundred Taanis them . The Rebbe Me'ir Hash

17:00 Speaker 1 told him, "Yeah, I have a tikun for that, sure. Fast six hundred times even on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur." Now, that is an enormous number of fasts. That is even an enormous number of fasts given the Segulim we talked about yesterday. Even the worst Averas did not have six hundred fasts associated with them. And we had Averas Chamuros. We had, like, the big three, were not six hundred. The Rebbe Me'ir Hash tells this guy, "Oh, you're a little tricky, you're a little too sly, six hundred fasts." And to say the least, the Hasid was quite surprised that he was going to have to fast six hundred times for the sin of feeling that he was too cunning. Then the Rebbe Me'ir Hash said to him, um, "This is what I mean. Uh, do you think I mean, do you think I mean that fasting is, uh..." I'm, I'm, I'm translating a little funny. Um, but anyway, what do you think fasting is? Do you think fasting is that you, uh, that you don't eat from Neitz Ha-Chamah until Shkiya? That you don't eat from sunrise until sunset? That is, that's called Baran, which as, uh, Daran, excuse me, which as, uh, uh, parents thinks, and I think probably too 'cause parents makes a lot of sense, that means making yourself skinny. That is, uh, that's losing weight. Uh, not literally losing weight.

17:59 Speaker 2 It's a diet.

18:00 Speaker 1 Huh?

18:00 Speaker 2 It's a diet.

18:00 Speaker 1 Right.

18:01 Speaker 2 It's a diet.

18:01 Speaker 1 Parents doesn't love the idea of a diet because parents isn't sure people in, uh, people back then did diets. But yes, that was also what parent said. He thought maybe a diet.

18:07 Speaker 2 But the re-- the literal translation is skinnying yourself.

18:10 Speaker 1 That's exactly what parent said, skinnying yourself. So we're in agreement. Okay. So that's a-- fasting is not not eating, that is just skinnying yourself Ta'anis is a, ta'anis is an aveida. That's not what ta'anis is. So not eating is skinning yourself. Ta'anis is not not eating, it's aveida. Now what does that aveida look like? Tracht ale tag fifteen minute ad te nafshe veg gezicht. That's very interesting. He says to think for fifteen minutes every day about yourself, about yourself. Blen pich am midaver, don't talk so much, and the Rebbe expanded upon this in his letters to say this meant blen pich am midaver is not-- And the very first time I read this, I thought this meant that during those fifteen minutes, don't talk, but that's not how the Rebbe's reading it. The Rebbe reads his-- and Rebbe wrote this. So the Rebbe, the Rebbe means by this that, uh, in addition to that blen pich am midaver, don't speak excessively about things that don't matter. Uh, nit machsheves duf, nar-narpashut tracht, tracht veg gezicht. He says, "Don't just..." He, he's not saying to think for fifteen minutes about Hasidus. Think for fifteen minutes about yourself, about yourself. I, I don't know exactly what that looks like, but look at this. Kishav rebeishan, two years passed. Nishana legamre. He changed entirely. I don't know what that abbreviation is. B-b-b- some ifin, maybe? I don't know. He changed completely. Kishsifeli, when, uh, when the, uh, when the Rebbe Rashab told the Friddle Rebbe about this-

19:19 Speaker 2 Baifin, baifin acher legamre. Baifin acher

19:21 Speaker 1 Baifin acher, there we go. Baifin acher legamre. Thank you. So he changed in a completely different way. He changed completely after two years. He was a different person. When the Rebbe Rashab told this story to the Friddle Rebbe, he said that it wasn't just a change in the teches nefesh, it was a change in mehus lemehus, that he changed from one mehus to another mehus. Remember I told you, remember that phrase? The Rebbe says, "If you do this, you will change mehus lemehus." That seems to be a Halacha Harav. He's telling people that if you engage in this practice of fifteen minutes of thinking every day about yourself, you can change mehus lemehus. Um, and, uh, he said that, uh, you would be surprised when you saw the kind of change in mehus lemehus that was seen by him. Was a, was a surprising, a noticeable, a wondrous change. The Rebbe finished, and I believe this is the Friddle Rebbe now. So the Friddle Rebbe finished off by saying, in the Gemara that, uh, there's an expression, zeis ameris, meaning that this is supposed to teach us something. Funden Sifra kemen, uh, zich reisnamen az yedidre darf-- Az yedidre, that everybody adarft tracht ale tag fifteen minute veg gezicht. So based on this, we can see that there is a, there is a, uh, zeis ameris, this is Harav, that every single person should spend fifteen minutes every day thinking about themselves. Just thinking about themselves, not about Hasidus, focusing inward on who they are

20:27 Speaker 1 and what they are, and that this causes a fundamental change in a person, and that this is considered a form of segufim, this is a form of ta'anis, this is what a real ta'anis is, not fasting. This is a approved form of segufim. I'll derech with that will conclude. I know we're short on time, but, uh, there's a letter to, uh, to Chatchefagan. There's a letter that was written to... I'm sorry. I t-- I got it wrong. I'm, I'm sorry. It's a letter that Chatchefagan was the maskir who wrote it out, so I don't know who this was written to. Oh, well. Uh, I originally thought that it was to him, but I realized the line's in the other order. Anyway, uh, the Friddle Rebbe wrote a letter to a certain student where he said something somewhat similar about how he should arrange his aveidas. He said, "Maad av, this letter from the Friddle Rebbe, this is Alef Nun Gimel. And the Friddle Rebbe says, "In response to your letter." You wrote about your aveida for the Kirsh Malhamita, the Kirsh Maat Knight, and also Tefill about Riklas, and I wanna tell you that is not aveida to me. That's not something you should do all the time. You can't daven all day, every day. There should only be on certain days that you're davening all day and doing a real long Kirsh Malsh Malhamita 'cause he's a student. all the other days, I want you to work very hard on learning, uh, learning Niglan,

21:26 Speaker 1 on learning Hasidus, with an expansion of the mind and with joy. When it comes to self-affliction, Hinei, he say, uh, hinei, ha-ta'anis and, and ha-ta'anisim asur, Ta'anis, fasting is forbidden for anybody involved in Torah study. It's also asur to do seguf and sheena, to not sleep so much. This is something people try to do to get around the fasting problem. I just won't sleep much. Uh, that doesn't work either. You're not allowed to get in, in too little sleep or too little food because you won't learn well. What is the mutar and mukrach, the permitted and also the obligatory kind of seguf, self-affliction that is allowed, is bechosia nefesh, only in the chosia nefesh, in the, uh, in the senses. That is closing your eyes so you don't see things you shouldn't see. closing your ears, so you don't hear things you shouldn't hear, and learning for many hours with incredible, um, diligence, without any pauses. and God will help you. So I think we have a similar theme here, where the Friddle Rebbe is saying that if you really wanna know what seguf is of Yichsidus, it's not just, you know, not eating is, is skinning. Not eating is skinning yourself. And in a lot of cases, not eating and not sleeping are things that are behaviors that, that are But we do have here from our Rebbe a sort of derech in what a seguf should look like, what ta'anis should look like. Hasidim are supposed to afflict themselves, but they're not supposed

22:42 Speaker 1 to be afflicting their bodies, not quite like that. They're supposed to do things that are a little bit difficult sometimes. The Friddle Rebbe says that not see things you shouldn't see or hear things you shouldn't hear, and not to pause when you're in a Seder Limud to go have a conversation or check your phone. He doesn't say check your phone, but that's totally what he means. The, uh, Rebbe in these letters says, "Not always saying exactly what you wanna say or saying things that are not pleasant, even though you wanna say them very badly because that's called idna." And what we of course have from the Rebbe Maharshe is the idea that for fifteen minutes every day, a person should engage in a ta'anis, which is that for fifteen minutes every day, they sit down, and they think just about themselves. I don't know why this is seguf, but I do know that it is called a ta'anis, that it's a kind of aveida, in that it's supposed to change So we have here, I think, um, several, several things that we could do over the next couple days if we wanted to engage in behaviors that were without Chassidim engaging in the forbidden behaviors. That's it.

23:38 Speaker 2 So based on this, it's a bigger seguf to not tell people that you never ate pizza than to never eat pizza.

23:45 Speaker 1 It really is. It really is. Yes. Yes.

23:50 Speaker 2 Vid'al.

23:51 Speaker 1 Yeah.

23:54 Speaker 2 Very interesting.

23:55 Speaker 3 It's, it's sort of like the, uh, you know, how do you know, like regarding the joke about vegans or something, that they'll always s-- you'll always hear about-

24:04 Speaker 2 How do you know someone's a vegan? Don't worry, they'll tell you.

24:08 Speaker 1 That's right. That's right. Um, this, uh, this idea of sitting for fifteen minutes and thinking about yourself is, is very, is very interesting to me. I'm not sure exactly what-- I'm not sure exactly how to do it. My guess is that this is a good, hard look in the mirror, that this is a-

24:22 Speaker 2 What does that even mean? Does it mean a cheshbon nefesh? Does it mean-

24:25 Speaker 1 I don't think-

24:25 Speaker 2 'Cause it's not-- except for cheshbon nefesh. What does it mean?

24:27 Speaker 1 No, I don't think it's a cheshbon nefesh. I think that if you think about yourself honestly for fifteen minutes every day, you'll come to the conclusion that things need to be different. Um, that's my guess. But no, I, I don't know. 'Cause he says it-- I, I would have thought fifteen minutes maybe is or a cheshbon nefesh. No, it's, uh, about-

24:45 Speaker 2 Cheshbon nefesh? What does that mean?

24:46 Speaker 1 I don't know. I looked around. I di- I didn't find, I didn't find elaborations of this.

24:52 Speaker 2 So interesting.

24:54 Speaker 1 But I don't know.

24:54 Speaker 2 'Cause you would think that thinking of yourself equals cheshbon nefesh, right? Think of who am I? How do I behave? What's my behavior like? What is my thought patterns like? How is my day going? It all would lead theoretically to a cheshbon nefesh.

25:06 Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, uh, it would-- it's certainly a safe bet because worst case scenario, you do a fifteen-minute cheshbon nefesh every day, right? So it's a, it's a real safe bet that's what Um, I will note that when the Rabbi talks about this section of Toldos Marash, he never quotes that part. In all the letters when he says to look on this page, he always is m- he always Matayen to the and not the rest of it. So I, I, I don't know, but the down here says that it's a that every single person should be taking fifteen minutes to .

25:36 Speaker 2 I think that in, in, in life, it's, it's almost like a fantastic lesson just in general when you tell people to, you know, not everything that you think of saying do you have to say. Um, I think that it's, uh, in, in part interpersonal relationships, business and in so many different ways. There's so... as a, so many more, so-- There is so much more value in listening than there is to talking and to saying things. So I don't know. I think it's a fantastic lesson.

26:01 Speaker 1 Absolutely.

26:03 Speaker 2 . Glad I joined.

26:04 Speaker 4 So the-- I just wanna clarify, what the Rabbi is saying is not necessarily to hold back on Lashon Hara, but things that are Devarim Hamutaram?

26:13 Speaker 1 Yeah. That's the way it sounds in this other letter. Um, over here, he says, which sure doesn't sound like us or things. That's not-- You wouldn't call a Lashon Hara . It sounds like things that are, are, that are not pleasant to say. Um, and over here, he specifically says in this other letter that I have on the screen right now, that it's, uh, that one of the reasons why it's a bigger challenge is because it's in Devarim Mutar. Um, where is that? It's around here somewhere. So yeah, it sounds like this is in Devar Mutar. That is that there's, uh, people have things they wanna say. Maybe sometimes it's a good joke, maybe sometimes it's, uh, it's, uh, it's, it's praising, it's praising themselves. It's, it's-- Really, his example was a good one. We're all a little bit tempted to tell everybody how holy we are. So, uh, re-resisting the urge to show off, maybe. Resisting the urge to say things, um, that aren't Lashon Hara, but that aren't Torah. Um, maybe it's just resisting the urge to share a piece of news that isn't necessary, you know? Because what we're talking about here is not Mutar and Assur, because it's not Assur to say things. We're talking here about if you want to afflict yourself, what does affliction look like in a Mutar way, and that's probably, I really wanna say this, and I'm not going to.