 So far, we've learned that Judaism is the spiritual path of the Jewish people and We've learned that the Jewish people were chosen by God To be a light and a blessing to the rest of the world. That's essentially why we're here and We learned that the teachings of Judaism are contained in the Torah and in our spiritual literature and Their essential goals of this literature are to help us as individuals and as a nation as a people To reach our potential Some people have observed that all of these teachings are really centered in three areas. One is the relationship between Individuals and God the the divine human relationship The second area is the relationship between people and themselves we and our soul and Trying to really come to the fulfillment of who we can be as individuals and Thirdly the relationship between people to one another the interpersonal realm the Torah Focuses directly Primarily on two of these You'll find a tremendous amount in the Torah dealing with the relationship between people and God and that is captured by the famous Directive which teaches us via hafta s Hashem al-okecha yusha love the Lord your God It's one of the great teachings of the Bible is that human beings are here to have a love relationship with God and The second of these three areas is captured by the famous Teaching of the Bible via hafta la reyecha kamochai shall love your neighbor or your friend as yourself One of the highest goals in Judaism is What we call what the Bible calls diva equt diva equt literally means attachment and The Bible teaches us that we're supposed to attach ourselves to God We're supposed to become Intimately connected with God and the word itself diva equt is a very very Powerful term for the Bible to use because in the beginning of the Bible in Genesis Where the Bible speaks about the creation of human beings and it says therefore each man must leave his father and mother and Attach himself to his wife The dovak by ishto that same word that the Bible uses for the connection Intimate connection between a man and a woman is the very same word diva equt that the Bible uses For the divine human connection But how do we achieve this? How do human beings attach themselves to God? So the truth is Judaism in the Bible or for many ways in which we're able to do this But one of the primary ways in which we attach ourselves to God is As the Torah itself describes in Deuteronomy chapter 28 verse 9 the Hallachda Bedrachov we're supposed to walk in the ways of God What in Latin is described as imitatio dei? imitating God Modeling ourselves after the way God is Shown to act in the Bible so the Talmud says for example just as God is merciful We are to be merciful as God is generous We are to be generous as God is compassionate We are to be compassionate and the idea is that when we begin to model ourselves After the way God behaves we become like God and it's a way of attaching ourselves to God by the way human psychology has very very Clearly demonstrated the power of this idea that people build closeness by Becoming like each other they found for example that people that have tremendous rapport and have a tremendously close relationship If you watch them interacting they tend to act as a mirror one towards the other There's a wonderful teaching by Yitzchak Bugsbaum and these in this regard He says if you look in the Bible at the creation story so He describes the creation of man as different than everything else that was created the creation of the human being has God's taking earth and Forming the earth into the shape of a human being and He says that if you look at this activity if you look at what God is doing There seems to be an analog To something else that happens in the Bible if you look at what God is doing in this scene It looks very much like something that human beings do God takes earth takes dirt takes the stuff from the ground and He molds it into a shape and that shape is called something Bitselem Bitselem Elohim in the image of God Bugsbaum says think about what we do as human beings when we try to create or build an idol so we might take clay and We might form it into the shape of what we imagine to be a God and The Hebrew word for a idol is selen So he says it's interesting that the action of God in creating a human being is taking earth taking clay taking dirt and Forming it into a human shape and that Human is called in the Bible, but selen Elohim in the image of God and Yet we do something that's sort of similar when we try to create God So to speak we take earth we take clay and we shape it into what we imagine to be the image of God and that Idol in Hebrew is also called at selen and Bucksbaum says that what the Bible is teaching us here is a very important lesson The Bible is teaching us that If we want to serve God If we want to get close to God We shouldn't serve what we make To be in the image of God We should serve what God made in his own image When we serve what we make what we think is the image of God. That's called idolatry But when we serve other human beings, which is what God made in his image That is what the Bible is saying is the path toward getting close to God We ultimately are able to serve God by serving that which he made in his image By helping people By being in service of these people So one of the things I want you to think about tonight is that these ideas of loving God and loving men are very much connected interrelated and They really reflect back on each other So here we have an idea that We are able to serve God Ultimately By connecting ourselves and helping and serving other people We get to God so to speak through other people But the truth is it goes the other way as well the truth is that our ability to Relate to others our ability to serve others Really depends on our connection with God. Let me share with you a few examples In the book of Genesis Abraham Has his wife kidnapped by Avimelech and When he protests and says what what are you taking my wife for? Avimelech says well, I thought it was your sister. I didn't realize it was your wife and Abraham is questioned Abraham is questioned. Why did you lie to me? Avimelech wants to know you deceived me. You told me it was your sister Why didn't you just tell me she was your wife and? Abraham says to him It's because there's no fear of God in this place and he says if there's no fear of God in this place You would kill me to get my wife What Abraham is basically saying is look you might be a nice guy avimelech you might be very moral You might be someone that's respected in your community. You may have your values and your ideals and your ethics But push comes to shove What's really stopping you from killing me? In order to take my wife if she is what you really want There's nothing holding you back because you don't have a fear of God your entire Ethical system is based upon what you feel to be right and wrong So even though you may normally think it's wrong to take someone else's wife But if you have a conflict if it's someone that you really want what's holding you back? You are the judge jury and executioner and so since you don't fear God there's nothing To stop you from killing me and taking my wife Bertrand Russell was a famous Atheist who did not believe in God, but he came to realize that without a divine being That establishes ultimate absolute morality There really is no morality and he said it in a very very pithy way Bertrand Russell said I Failed to believe I refuse to believe he said I refuse to believe That the only thing wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it Now what he meant was you have to sort of read through what he's saying He is saying that since he doesn't believe in a God So at the end of the day for Bertrand Russell, what's wrong with stealing or murder or rape? What's wrong with it? So he understands there's either one or two things wrong with it either it's wrong because the state Says that it's wrong society says that it's wrong But he realizes that's very very weak because what if society changed its rules? So let's say you're in a society where they say you know what it's permissible to steal from people who are blind That's the new law Bertrand Russell understood that that cannot make something right Simply because the society the government Declare that it's right or it's wrong So he was he had to resort to well then it offends me Stealing bothers me it it offends me Rape bothers me it offends me murder bothers me, but he couldn't appeal to anything greater and He said though I refuse to believe that the only thing wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it He had a realization that there must be something more To what makes it wrong than the fact it offends him. He felt there must be something Intrinsically wrong with murder Cosmically wrong with stealing But he couldn't appeal to anything Intrinsic or cosmically wrong with it all he had were his sensitivities his sensibilities his feelings My monities explains. I think if we read into him a little bit about why Ethics and morality have to be based upon revelation My monities says that the truth is human beings when we came off the assembly line We were perfectly capable of knowing right from wrong Because my monities says that before human beings in the Garden of Eden ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil Before we ate from that tree of knowledge of good and evil My monities said that we didn't see things human beings didn't see things in Categories of good and bad or right and wrong He suggests that human beings saw everything in categories of true or false That was the way we saw everything now We understand when it comes to issues of mathematics two plus two is for true two plus two is nine false So we see an issue like mathematical equations as true or false But if you or I are walking down the street and we see some 40-year-old man Chasing a nine-year-old child with a big knife and the trial is running away terrified We might stop this person and say stop what you're about to do is wrong. It's evil And my monities says that's not what Adam and Eve would have said before they eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil They would have said what you're about to do is false Because he says that originally human beings had a crystal clear Perception of everything in the world be it a mathematical equation or an ethical equation He said what was the effect of eating from the tree of knowledge of good and evil? He said now our way of processing and interacting with the world was no longer in categories of true and false It now became categories of right and wrong good and evil the tree of knowledge of good and evil good and evil right and wrong are not as objective as True or false when we speak about categories of right and wrong good and evil those become somewhat subjective And what's the proof? take any moral ethical issue in the world today and Get a room full of people a hundred people or a thousand people intelligent people Sensitive people bright people and ask them to weigh in on a question like abortion and You will get bright sensitive intelligent people that differ on that question And the truth is that today people differ on almost any single ethical moral question in the world we don't have Absolute clarity wherever human being would see the same issue in the same categories of true and false and Therefore, I believe what my mononies would say is that after human beings lost that clarity We need to have God declare definitively issues of morality and therefore what happens is After revelation after the Torah is revealed Morality becomes essential It's not just conventional anymore because the author of thou shalt not kill is The same author of let there be light What happens with revealed morality is that the author of reality is the author of morality and therefore Morality is built into the fabric of reality. It's no longer a function of what we feel or social convention Things become intrinsically Cosmically right or wrong and that's why in order to have an Effective and proper relationship with other people. We have to figure God into the equation and Finally one last thing. I'll just throw out quickly. Now. We'll get back to this in terms of the impact of Spirituality on our interpersonal relationships what we're going to see is that when it comes to the ritual laws of Judaism The laws where we think there can't be any connection between the ritual laws of Judaism and the interpersonal realm What we'll see is that all of the ritual laws of Judaism impact our inner lives and our interpersonal lives Now the Torah and the teachings of Judaism place a huge emphasis on Interperson on the interpersonal realm. I'll just share a few examples to to prove this We know we discussed previously that Abraham was chosen to be the progenitor of the nation of Israel But why was Abraham chosen? Why did God choose him? So we find in Genesis chapter 18 verse 19 God explicitly spells it out. God says I have loved him Because he commands his children and his household after him that they may keep the way of God Doing righteousness charity and justice That's why Abraham was chosen Number two in the Ten Commandments, which everyone assumes is the bedrock of Judaism Well, you have two sides the Ten Commandments the first five at least four of the five seem to deal with the human divine Relationship, but the last five or six deal with the relationship between people number three I Think I've mentioned this in the Talmud is a famous story Where someone comes to Hillel the great sage and asks Hillel to teach him the entire Torah While he stands on one foot. He says I want to convert to Judaism. I don't have a lot of time So give me the whole story while I stand on one foot, which basically is insulting He's saying I tell me the whole everything, you know in five seconds. So Hillel says to him fine He says what is hateful to you don't do to your friend if it really would bother you Don't do it to someone else and then Hillel goes on to say the rest of the Torah everything else is a commentary to that now Go and learn it, but you see that Hillel here seems to reduce Distilled Judaism into this principle of interpersonal relationships number four Rabbi Akiva another great great sage of Judaism quotes the verse in Leviticus The a half Delariah Kamocha you shall love your neighbor your friend as yourself And he says this is the great principle of the Torah Number five on Yom Kippur our holiest day of the year the day of atonement We spend much of the day Confessing all the things we did that were wrong. It's customary to have in the prayer book a long list of Transgressions we bend over and we strike ourselves on the heart and you go through this long list of transgressions You'll see the vast majority of them are not discussing our transgressions against God But rather our transgressions against other people number six My mononies himself writes in his laws of the Sabbath chapter 2 Paragraph 7 he writes the following the purpose of the laws of the Torah are to bring mercy loving-kindness and peace upon the world and Finally number seven in the Babylonian Talmud tractate my coat pages 23 B to 24 a They have a number of different attempts to distill the 613 commandments into their essence Let me share with you some of these reductions David came King David and he summed up the 613 commandments in 11 principles and he bases these 11 principles on What he wrote in the book of Psalms chapter 15 verses 1 through 5 he says what does the 613 commandments distill down into he says Lord who may sojourn in your tent and who may dwell on your holy mountain God who can have a relationship with you He says number one one who lives without blame number two. He who does righteous acts number three He who speaks the truth in his heart number four he whose tongue speaks no deceit number five He who has not done harm to his fellow number six He was born reproach for his acts toward his neighbor number seven He for whom a contemptible person is apparent number eight He who honors those who are in awe of God number nine He who stands by his oath even when it's to his disadvantage number ten He was never lent money for interest in number eleven. He was accepted never Accepted a bribe against the innocent Well, the way King David seems to be distilling all of the Torah is in basically interpersonal ethical Concepts then Isaiah came and he summed up the 630 commandments in six principles Based upon Isaiah chapter 33 verses 15 to 16 number one The Torah is based upon walking in righteousness number two speaking honestly number three Spurning profit from a fraudulent dealing number four waving away a bribe instead of taking it number five He who closes his ears and doesn't listen to malicious words number six He who shuts his eyes against looking at evil again it's focusing on the interpersonal realm and then the prophet Micheal came and he summed up the entire Torah in three principles. This is Micheal chapter 6 verse 8 God has told you oh man. What is good and what does God require of you only to do justice? To love goodness and to walk humbly and modestly with your God Isaiah comes back with a second distillation and he says based upon chapter 56 verse 1 All of the 613 commandments can be summed up in two principles number one do justice number two carry out acts of righteousness and charity and Finally Habakkuk came and he summed up the 613 commandments in one principle And he said in his book chapter 2 verse 4 the righteous shall live according to their faith What he's saying is for the righteous person who is righteous in the eyes of God Everything they do vis-a-vis the world whether it's vis-a-vis the natural world or their own personal life or their interpersonal Relationships is all done based upon their faith in God And then the teachings of Judaism relating to interpersonal ethics or vests it would be a Little bit too ambitious to assume we can cover all of it tonight. What I'd like to do is look at The interpersonal realm through the lens of a verse in the book of psalms Chapter 34 verse 15 where King David says first sore may raw Turn away from doing evil and then he says I say tov and do good These are the two planes. I would like to look at the first level as in the field of medicine Is what we say do no harm the first level of interpersonal Ethics and excellence is first don't do any harm don't hurt other people However, it needs to be said that the definition of a good person is certainly not Simply someone who doesn't hurt others. That's not a good person. That simply means that the person isn't a criminal If you don't hurt other people, you're not a criminal It doesn't make you get a good person until you go to the next level and actually do good So let's begin now by exploring some of the Torah's teachings in the realm of not harming others turning away from evil So the first thing I like to discuss is the Torah's prohibition and Warning that we should never cause any damage to people or their property The simplest level don't hurt people or their property and This would include doing anything that creates a dangerous situation The Talmud goes through many many examples of what it might mean to act irresponsibly But for example, it means not leaving something on the ground that might cause other people to trip That would be evil because even though you haven't actually necessarily hurt someone You've done something irresponsible that might lead to someone being hurt or their property being hurt Rabbi Yisrael Salantar great sages once talking to another rabbi and he noticed that the rabbi had his umbrella and it was Pointing down diagonally. He wasn't holding the umbrella vertically and He criticized the other rabbi. He says what are you holding your umbrella like that for you know someone might trip So the person who is ethical Lives their life concerned about possibly causing any damage or harm to other people One of my pet peeves. I'm still threatening to write a book about this is the way people behave in cars I think that people often think that they're in a world by themselves in a car and Nothing really is real that can do whatever they want But you'll notice that many parking lots So they have places that are designated as parking spots And then they have places that are clearly not parking spots like for example in the lane That goes between two lanes of cars, but then they have areas delineated specifically Not as a parking spot meaning you might think you could park there, but they're telling you with these Lines that go in a diagonal. You're not supposed to park here Yet what do people do they park there now? I would say that according to Torah teaching that's wrong for many reasons But one of the reasons is very simple when you park in an area not designated for parking You are making it more difficult for other cars to maneuver and for other cars to get by and That might lead them To become late to their destination. They may have to go a little bit slower Even by a minute And that's not right. You're slowing someone down Because you don't want to walk another 30 feet to go park in a real parking spot or because people have to Drive out of their way to get around your car You might end up scaring a pedestrian that's walking in the parking lot So the idea of being concerned not just about not harming people or their property But not even coming close to doing something that might have the possibility of harming other people now One of the amazing things about Jewish life is that from a very young age Students in a Jewish school we call it a yeshiva. They study Talmud usually starting that depends on the school nine years old ten years old 11 12 13 One of the subjects that's traditionally studied by children at a very early age for years are the laws of damages and Students are learning what happens if I dig a pit in the ground and your animal falls into the pit and they learn That it's not just literally a pit. It's anything that you do that might cause damage to someone So here what you're seeing is young children from a very young age Are spending hours and hours and hours a day Five or six days a week studying the laws of torts of damages and it helps sensitize them to how wrong and inappropriate this kind of behavior is a Second area of what we shouldn't be doing the Torah says don't steal or take anything that doesn't belong to you Now that sounds like a no-brainer But it's not as simple as that For example the Torah prohibits taking any amount Any amount that doesn't belong to you? It could be taking a pen from your place of work It could be taking some soap from the hotel you're staying in it could be sampling some food in the supermarket That seems trivial. It might seem what's the big deal? They're not going to miss it But the midrash says that the world was destroyed with the flood in the times of Noah Because people stole less than a Pruta Pruta was the smallest coin that they had and it probably was that if you stole that kind of an Amount you could not really be prosecuted in court. So people might have thought that okay, I can steal that much and I won't go to court But what happens is it becomes? Part of normal life to steal small amounts and when that becomes built into the fabric of society Society basically will not be able to exist when dishonesty becomes accepted on any level. It's a tremendous problem Another area is that an employee must put in a full day's work For example, they're not allowed to stay up all night partying or doing whatever the night before they go to work and Come in to work very hard and not be able to work properly Or they're not allowed to waste time at work, you know There was a study done recently on how much time employees at work play computer games at work. It's pretty scary So the person that's specially working per hour is being paid per hour if they're being paid eight hours of work They have to put in eight hours of work and if they steal five minutes of that time, it's stealing from their employer We're also prohibited from wasting the time of other people for example coming late to a meeting That's considered stealing or what we call in Hebrew gazelle Sheina Stealing someone's sleep if you're living in an apartment building and you make a lot of noise late at night or early in the morning Or you call people at a ridiculously early or late hour. That's considered stealing. You're stealing your sleep I had a very strange story happen to me in Australia many years ago I was speaking at a university in Sydney and I was billeted in a home Where something very strange happened? I went to bed late before I went to bed everyone was asleep already I went to the laboratory the washroom and I tried to get out and I was locked in never had to happen before Locked in the bathroom What am I gonna do? Everybody's asleep. I Can't wake anyone up. Thank God. They had a newsweek magazine in there And I was in the bathroom from 8 from 12 at night to late in the morning But it's prohibited to wake people up unless of course it's an emergency in someone's life at stake But I wasn't gonna die from being in the bathroom for eight hours Another area which is very very very significant is what we call in Hebrew Geneva dot stealing someone's mind Deceiving others misleading other people for example, if you're selling a product Concealing the defects in the product that you're selling Putting all the strawberries that are good-looking on top the lousy ones are on the bottom where you can't see them or Creating a false impression so people will think highly of you or have gratitude It's not rightfully yours the Talmud Speaks about not urging someone to come and be your guest or to come and eat with you If you know in advance that they won't or they can't come anyway So you know that they really can't come and you're extending this generous invitation big shot What kind of a generous invitation it is. It's nothing. You know that can't come anyway That's creating a false impression You're stealing the person's gratitude because they're going to feel gratitude to you for inviting them making a generous invitation or Here's one. It's going to come up very soon for many Jewish families Passover is coming soon People who observe Passover can't have leavened products in their house Let's say you have a cake that you didn't eat a big beautiful frozen cake. That's in your freezer You can't keep the cake. We're not allowed to have in our homes leavened products So let's say you have a big box of beautiful pasta So what do I do? I have my next-door neighbors right on the street here They're Italian beautiful people before Passover. I come on and give them all my leavened products But if you do that without explaining to them that it's a religious obligation for you to get rid of your Chum mates of your leavened products. You're creating the impression. It's just a nice guy So you're not allowed to give them all of these things without explaining to them why you're giving it to them Another form of deception is giving misleading advice. I just read in the fascinating Story about the cultures in different countries that film the shot I don't know if the show is on anymore But who wants to be a millionaire and one of the things that the Contestant can do if they don't know the answer that could either call a friend somewhere else as a lifeline or they can pull the audience They found that in the former Soviet Union The audience members would often give people the wrong answer. It's very interesting here in North America the audience Generally speaking they will give the right answer But for some reason which I can direct you to the reason why they might do this in the former Soviet Union It was very common for the audience members to mislead the contestant with the wrong answer There was a famous story in France where in France It's not normally done to mislead people But there was a contestant who got the first four answers correctly and then the fifth question Which was the easiest question in the world? The person didn't know and he pulled the audience and the audience basically all gave the wrong answer because they felt it was not Right. It wasn't fair for such a dumbbell to proceed with the with this with this contest So they gave him the wrong answer on purpose But when you give people the wrong advice or wrong information, that's also a form of deception Another area is acknowledging when you don't know something Rather than bluffing or switching the topic or something I would do in university essay tests I would answer a similar question correctly So the Talmud says you should train your tongue to say I don't know Rather than pretending to know something and finally the Talmud says in tractate Bubba Metsia Chapter 4 mission of 10. It's prohibited to ask the price of an item in a store that you have no intention of buying Let's say for example, you're out on the street and it starts to pour and rain and you run into an electronic store You are not shopping for a new cell phone. You've got one. You just bought your Your phone a year before this But you start looking at all the phones and asking how much of this one cost the Talmud says It's absolutely prohibited to ask for the price of something if you're not actually shopping or it might be that you are shopping But you've decided to purchase something online But you want to see what it looks like so you go into a store and pretend to be a customer The Talmud says absolutely forbidden for two reasons number one You're misleading the sales people and giving them false hope they may make their money on commission and They might think you're a potential customer and number two You're wasting your time because they could be talking to a real customer a Third area of things that we're not supposed to do is as the Bible says in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 18 We're not supposed to take revenge and we're not supposed to hold a grudge And what does it mean to take revenge? What does it mean to hold a grudge? So the Talmud in tractate Yuma page 23a gives a very simple definition of both of these prohibitions What does it mean to take revenge that Talmud says? You go to your neighbor and You say can I please borrow your lawn mower and your neighbor says no you can't borrow my lawn mower A week later your neighbor comes to you and says can I borrow your leaf blower? And you say no you wouldn't lend me your lawn mower. I'm not going to lend you my leaf blower. That's considered taking revenge What does it mean to hold a grudge? so in holding a grudge the case is that your neighbor comes to you and says can I borrow Your lawn mower and you say no you can't borrow my lawn mower a Week later you go to your neighbor and say can I borrow your leaf blower and your neighbor says sure here's the leaf blower I'm not like you you wouldn't lend me your lawn mower, but I'm going to let you have my leaf blower That's called bearing a grudge Now what is the proper response? What should a person actually say so the Torah teaches us in Leviticus chapter 19 verse 17 Don't hate your brother in your heart But you shall surely Reprove or rebuke your neighbor and don't bear sin because of him What the Torah is teaching us is that we should call people on their poor behavior But do it in a way where you don't yourself sin in the process So for example Don't call them on it in a way that humiliates them or embarrasses them as a matter of fact The Talmud says if you embarrass someone in public, it's like you murdered them So what might be appropriate you might say to them when they come asking for your leaf blower sure here is the leaf blower I'm just curious about why you didn't lend me your lawn mower last week And what you're doing by presenting it as a question is similar to what God did in the beginning of the Bible After Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil They went to hide and God just asked an open-ended question. Where are you and Later when Cain kills his brother God confronts Cain and just simply says where is your able your brother? But what God is doing in both cases is giving people a chance to reflect on what they've done and possibly engage in a discussion One of the most serious Things the Bible warns us against doing is harmful speech in Hebrew. It's called a show on her. Ah, literally evil tongue all societies every society in the world has laws against Untrue slander if I say something about you that is slanderous that will harm you That's not true. I could be taken to court and sued but the Torah doesn't only prohibit untrue negative language the Torah prohibits even true statements that are derogatory demeaning Will hurt or diminish or embarrass other people for example, I say you know sue is a great mom and Keeps a beautiful home, but you know she rarely has any guests totally prohibited or Remark about one of my co-workers, you know Joe is not a very talented person But we all know that he got his job through his connections So any statement like that which might be true But which is damaging to someone's reputation or might hurt their feelings is totally prohibited even hinting is Prohibited and inappropriate For example, if I were to say, you know, it's a messy story about Barbara. I don't want to get into it Or Someone says to you, you know rabbi Goldberg gave a great talk this weekend and you say Sarcasticly you're right or you roll your eyes Totally prohibited even though you never said a word There's a wonderful story a study that was done. I really recommend this book it's called suede or sway I think and They have us a study that was done at a university Where there was a large class that was going to have a Substitute teacher someone was going to cut him in and take the place of the regular teacher half the students were given a biography a CV of this substitute teacher and the other half was given the Exact same CV biography except one word was different So both of the both of the stories about this teacher that was coming in spoke about their education and what they've written but one of them said that this teacher is considered to be cold and serious and The other one said basically that this teacher is really considered to be a warm person and very serious So you had a whole paragraph describing this teacher Very very exact same description except one word difference and What was fascinating about this study was after the teacher left the students were asked to rate this teacher in terms of many different Characteristics were they a good communicator were they fair Were they were they an interesting teacher and they were about a dozen things they had to rate the teacher on What was amazing was that the students who were given the negative evaluation even though all the students were in the same class With the same teacher the students who received the negative quote-unquote because of that one word biography or CV Rated this teacher horribly when they were asked to give their feedback The students who were given the more positive CV Had a glowing report about this teacher Even though he was teaching the exact same students exact same teachings But they were predisposed towards looking at this person because of the report that they were given what we see from this is That evil speech can ruin reputations Ruin careers ruin relationships and we know ruin lives We've seen many cases recently of people that were publicly shamed especially on the internet who went and committed suicide So we're not talking about something that is harmless in Jewish literature evil speeches seen as particularly pernicious and it's considered on par with the cardinal sins of idolatry adultery and murder The Talmud says that evil speech harms three people the one that says it the one that it said about and the one It's listening to it and we know that it's almost impossible to make amends for evil speech It was a famous story where someone was very very broken and they were very Regretful they had tremendous remorse about the fact that they had spoken negative negatively about someone and they went to the rabbi and said What can I do? That is a whole question of whether it makes any sense to tell the person that you spoke about and to Ask them for forgiveness because maybe it's better. They don't know you spoke about them But the rabbi said if you want to make up for what you did I want you to bring a big feather pillow to the top of the mountain tomorrow and meet me there And the person wonder why we're gonna do that and the rabbi said the next day Here's a knife. I want you to slice open this feather pillow and shake it and The feathers are blown all over the countryside and then the rabbi said try picking them up And the problem is that when we say anything about someone we have no way of taking it back We don't know how far it's gonna go We don't know who it's gonna be repeated to especially again in our days with the virtual world We live in where one word that's spoken or written here in Toronto can end up in New Zealand within three seconds Evil speech or negative reports are only permitted if there is an immediate practical Important need then it's permissible for example if you're checking references for hiring someone or for a match You were set up with someone to go out on a date Someone that you're thinking of marrying so you're allowed to call up their references to call up a potential person You're gonna hire for a job and check their references. You're not required to take the person sight unseen So you can call their previous employer and say how did this person perform at the job? Now there are tremendous restrictions in terms of what the person's allowed to tell you that can only tell you What is absolutely necessary without exaggerating without any intention of harming the person's reputation? But that's the only exception to the rule of not speaking negatively with one Interesting caveat that you're allowed to ask for such a report and the person can relay such information But you're not allowed to believe it Mean there's three problems speaking evil speech listening to it and believing it So what is the implication of not believing it? It's very simple if someone else comes to you and Asks you that they're interested in hiring Joe. What can you tell me? You can't tell them anything because you're not allowed to believe what that other person told you You were able to listen to the report from the previous employer, but you didn't get it from two witnesses You're not allowed to accept it is absolutely true to the degree that you're allowed to relay it to a third party Now in the time that we have remaining Let's try to briefly look at some of the Torah's teachings on what is considered virtuous behavior We did a little bit about what we shouldn't do now looks like at the Torah what it says in terms of what we should do Before we do this though. I want to Look at an important prerequisite Remember that Hillel summarized Judaism by saying that if something would annoy you you shouldn't do it to someone else This principle is premised on the idea that we're going to think about how our behavior impacts other people The problem is that each one of us is acutely aware of how we feel If I'm standing next to you, I'm acutely aware if you're standing too close to me If you're in my space, I don't feel right and if you're Doing something that bothers me. I feel it very very acutely But we don't feel the same way about how our actions impact others. We're not Automatically sensitive to how our actions impact other people. So the question is how does the Torah prompt us? to think about others So I want to share with you three thoughts number one comes from a wonderful Jewish philosopher Elias of Birkevitz now in a very long article that really shares much more than I'm going to be sharing He says the following and this takes us back to what I mentioned earlier tonight How the ritual laws impact our interpersonal relationships? He says that when you want to train people to do something You can't just lecture them for example if you want to teach someone how to swim You can't give them a lecture with a blackboard. They have to go into the water and if you want to train soldiers You can't give them lectures. They have to actually fight and what happens to train soldiers is you can't Throw them into a battle into a real war situation. You're gonna lose half your army So we have something called war games where they act as if the fighting was real They put little sticks on their helmets and they crawl the bullets coming or not real But they play war games to fight as if it was a real war experience The way we learn things is by actually doing them So the way we learn for example self-control is not by going to a lecture about self-control. It's about learning it by controlling ourselves So my Birkevitz says that we as Jews grow up Where from a very young age we are thrown into a world of ritual hundreds of rituals to for example and Especially how these impact children Jews have rituals and elaborate laws about what we're allowed to eat and not allowed to eat and when we're allowed to eat it Someone once said very wisely. It's not a bad thing for children to learn. They can't eat every candy in the store So what happens is young Jewish people growing up are learning from a young age That before they eat food, they have to check to see if it's kosher or if they just had a meal with meat They have to wait a certain amount of time before they drink milk There's a whole world of kashrut of dietary laws, which again, it's not once a year or twice a year It's every single day for the whole day Kids are always thinking about eating So this is a ritual that impacts kids all the time or Shabbat Once a week where there are many things that the children are told they're not allowed to do and the truth is Birkevitz says that Nothing is really gonna happen to the kid or even adults Nothing's gonna happen on the spot at least that we can see that is a Reaction to we do the wrong thing meaning that the kid goes to the store and buys non kosher candy His tongue is not gonna fall out. There's no immediate obvious kind of impact so he says that we go through our lives as if It really did make an impact spiritually it obviously does So what is the payoff? Two things number one We're not normally attuned to how other people feel But growing up in a Jewish life We from a very very young age become Trained to always be thinking about how an other feels and the other is God What does God say about eating this? What does God say about doing this on Shabbat? It said and many other laws So what happens is Jewish kids from a time they're very very young are trained not to only be Considerate and thinking of and sensitive to their agenda They're trained from a very young age to think about What does God feel and so the ability for them to get beyond themselves and think about how their behavior impacts other people is facilitated secondly in order to behave properly it often requires the exercise of tremendous self-control so when do people learn to exercise self-control in a crisis situation When it's really tempting to do the wrong thing or for those years and years and years before there was a crisis and They had to control themselves in terms of what they were gonna eat and when they were gonna eat So they've already built up a tremendous reservoir of self-discipline a Second way in which the Torah helps us think about others is by the many laws and rituals Which teach us empathy for inanimate objects now? This sounds like science fiction or strangeness. What does it mean to have sympathy for inanimate objects? And yet Torah law constantly does it. I'll just give two examples We know that every meal normally that we eat starts with bread meals begin with bread Yet on the Sabbath and on a holiday the meal does not begin with bread the meal begins with a cup of wine So the custom is in Jewish families That the bread is sitting there on the table and yet we're gonna pass over it and begin the meal with wine So in order that the bread shouldn't be embarrassed the custom is we cover the bread So children are taught from a young age You know what we don't want to embarrass the bread So we cover the bread because we're passing over the bread now there's a lesson here if We're being urged to be considerate of the feeling of something which doesn't have feelings an inanimate object Then obviously in all the more so we should have consideration and empathy for people that do have feelings or another example The Torah tells us to wear see teeth these strings which remind us of the 613 commandments So the custom is that if we ever go to a cemetery We're supposed to take these strings and tuck them into our pants not let them be exposed. Why so the Torah says because to flaunt the Commandments that you're able to do is Rubbing it into the noses of the people that are dead. They can't observe Commandments and the Talmud calls it low-egg lorosh. You're mocking the poor now again the person is dead they don't know what's going on and yet we relate to them as If they have feelings So there are many many Rituals where we are led to treat the inanimate objects as if they had feelings and to be Considerate of those feelings again as a way of helping us to become sensitive to the feelings of other people and finally one last Technique which again, this is not exhaust all their techniques But the Torah Constantly reminds us to remember that we were slaves in Egypt and we were oppressed in Egypt and the reason the Torah is Constantly reminding us to remember that we were slaves in Egypt and the Torah says never forget How you suffered in Egypt and therefore since you know how it feels you should never do it to someone else You know what it's like to be oppressed you should never got forbid oppressed others The major directive in forming the Torah's positive aspects of our interpersonal relationships is love of the other to love others and to treat them with kindness of course It's not so simple for the Torah to command an emotion. What does it mean that Torah says to love other people? What is primarily meant when a Torah says to love others is To treat them as If we love them meaning treat people with kindness Respect with generosity and with patients treat them in a way as if you love them and This will ultimately lead to cultivating feelings of love. This is how human beings are wired The word in Hebrew for love is ahavah Ahavah and ahavah has as its root have have in Hebrew means to give and so what we're being taught is that Not only do we give to those who we love But we begin to love those who we give to our Interstate is Impacted by our external actions our interstate is impacted by what we do You know when if you ever volunteer for uja federation for their telethon making phone calls There's always big signs on the wall that say smile as you dial Because if you're smiling believe it or not you will come across at the person at the other end of the line They can't even see you You'll sound happier Friendlier and we all know this that if you're feeling tired sit up straight if you're feeling Any way that you want to cultivate an inner feeling you can begin to change that by changing your outer actions So let's discuss some of the Torah's teachings on giving the Torah teaches in chapter 19 verse 15 of Leviticus But said that fish boat at Amitaka you should judge people with righteousness Ie. You should judge people generously the way this is expressed in ethics of the fathers and the Talmud is Heavy done at call Adam look have script give every person the benefit of the doubt and If it's tremendously probable that the person is wrong is not much of a doubt You should at least have the matter undecided in your mind But in general what the Torah is saying is we should try to give others the benefit of the doubt You know what we are all geniuses We're all very adept at judging ourselves favorably giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt Finding explanations for our bad behavior making excuses for ourselves. We're very good at doing that The Torah asks us to do the same for others to try to find Continuating circumstances for their behavior and not to jump to conclusions prematurely about what happens I'll recommend two wonderful books. One is called courtrooms of the mind by Rabbi Hanukh teller Another is called the other side of the story by Yehudi's Samit She's part of a group in Jerusalem of women that would meet every week and they would present to the group Situations in their lives where people that they knew hurt them let them down Disappointed them. I didn't get invited to this person's wedding or this person returned my return my crockpot And it wasn't clean Every day especially with those closest to us. We are disappointed We're upset we're hurt and we tend to judge negatively And so what they did in this group was they would brainstorm How could you have judged the person favorably and it's a book which she recounts many teachings on the topic of judging people favorably She reviews many of the stories that they discussed in their group I recommend the book highly in pika a vote again from the Talmud ethics of the fathers chapter 2 paragraph 5 The missionist says don't judge your friend till you stand in their place Don't judge others till you're in their situation The truth is we are never in someone else's place. We never know Totally what's going on in someone else's life. We don't know about what kind of health issues. They're facing We don't know about the difficulties are going through at work or at their home We don't know about whether they had a death of a friend or a family member We don't know about their financial problems. We don't know about their stress We don't know what people are going through and therefore we shouldn't judge them One of the greatest elixirs in life if you want a recipe for Dramatically improving your interpersonal relationships use this technique of giving people the benefit of the doubt Finally on a spiritual side. We're taught that God judges us in the same way. We judge other people So if we are generous and kind in the way we judge other people, that's the way God will judge us Moving on the Torah's main teaching is that we should treat others with chesed with kindness and with loving kindness One of the quintessential Character traits that the Torah seeks to instill in us is to be kind to others and extend kindness to others This includes hospitality Welcoming guests into your home. If you read chapter Genesis chapter 18 Abraham who was just circumcised three days before is running around like a maniac to welcome guests into his home He's upset that no one has come to visit him. God finally sends three visitors in the heat of the day But welcoming guests into our homes is a quintessential Jewish activity I know many many many Jewish people that for them their Shabbat table is empty unless they have guests the Torah Directs us to visit the sick people are not well to visit them to comfort people that are mourners To rejoice in the success and good fortune of others Sometimes hard to do that To bring joy to a bride and groom You know the one major difference between a Jewish wedding and a non-Jewish wedding at a non-Jewish wedding people there to Have a good time. They dance with their spouse At a Jewish wedding, you're not there to have a good time. You're there to make a good time for the bride and groom so everyone at the wedding is there to Celebrate for to make the bride and groom feel good not for themselves to have a great time and Finally again, it's in a long list, but making peace between quarreling people bringing people who are quarreling to peace is a very very critical idea One of the central areas of extending loving-kindness to others is the institution of staka Sometimes translated as charity, but more correctly translated as righteousness The norm is to give a minimum of 10% to others to charitable causes That means after taxes not 10% of the gross but 10% of the net after taxes The recommendation is you don't give more than 20% because you yourself should not become impoverished But some people do give more than 20% that should be the worst thing they do And it's not just giving people money, but encouragement moral support Advice any way that we're helpful is a way of giving charity my mononies Speaks about eight levels of charity eight levels of giving staka from the lowest to the highest The lowest level is to give grudgingly The next lowest level is to give less than you should give but to give it cheerfully the next level up is Giving directly to the poor when you're asked the next level up is giving to the poor without being asked The next level up is giving indirectly where the recipient knows the giver, but the giver doesn't know the recipient the next level up is where the giver knows the recipient, but the recipient doesn't know the giver The next level up is where the recipient doesn't know the giver and the giver doesn't know the recipient For example, if you give money to a general charity fund in the city That's the seventh level of giving charity and the eighth level the highest level is Helping a person get a job taking them as a business partner giving them a loan so they can get on their feet Anything that you could do to make them independent where they won't have to ask for charity Obviously, what is central in the ethic here is giving in a way where you give Sensitively and you respect the dignity of the recipient I want to share two final thoughts before we take questions One very very central idea in the Talmud is that even though the Torah has many laws We are encouraged to always go beyond the letter of the law the Talmud says in Tractate Baba Matzia that the temple was only destroyed There are actually many reasons the Talmud gives to why the temple was destroyed but one of the reasons the Talmud gives is because the Jewish people at that time followed the Torah that seems Counter-intuitive. I mean the temple was destroyed because the Jewish people followed the Torah the Talmud says I thought that's a good thing So the Talmud says yes, they follow the law, but they didn't go beyond the letter of the law now What does that mean? Think of it this way if you get married and on the first day of your wedding after your wedding you say to your spouse You know dear I love you very much, and I'm willing to fulfill all of the terms in the marriage document But don't even dream about asking me to do anything. It's not written down in the marriage document That's a recipe for a disastrous marriage or you come into the first day at work and you tell the boss You know, I really am happy. I have this job I just want to let you know sir that I am only willing to do what's exactly spelled out in my job description Don't even dream about asking me to come in one minute earlier than nine o'clock in the morning Don't even dream about asking me to stay here one minute after five o'clock Don't even dream about asking me to do anything that's not specified and delineated in my job description That's not going to work out So the Talmud says if our attitude is I'm only going to do exactly what's required. That's a recipe for disaster we have to try to Understand what is it that God really wants? What is God's ultimate agenda? What the Torah really prescribes or or teaches is a minimum is a Minimum is the bottom line But a person shouldn't go through life saying yes my whole life. I'm going to do exactly what the minimum is I want to squeak by The attitude should be I really want to do the right thing and the right thing is often going beyond the letter of the law Let me give one example One of the major ethical concerns in Judaism and this goes back to the first class We had is Sanctifying the name of God the role of the Jewish people in this world is to help the rest of the world come to know God So as Jews one of our major ethical obligations as we call in Hebrew Kiddush Hashem to sanctify the name of God we represent God in the world We are responsible for being his ambassadors in the world and this awareness is especially Critical when it comes to our interaction with non-Jews There's a famous story in the Talmud where Rabbi Shimon Ben Shetach purchased a camel from an Arab and When he brought the camel back to his home He went through the saddlebag and he saw there was a very precious jewel in the saddlebag now the law would say Finders keepers losers weepers. He sold me the camel and everything in it you know if you buy a car from someone and they didn't check the glove compartment and there's a You know a Rolex watch in the glove compartment. It's your Rolex technically speaking But Shimon Ben Shetach said even though that's the law that's not what I'm called upon to do So he returned the camel to this Arab He said look you probably weren't aware that in the saddlebag was this very precious jewel and the Arab says Blessed be the God of the Jewish people So these are two meta ideas that are supposed to inform all of our interactions number one Going beyond the letter of the law and number two living with an awareness that we have a responsibility To sanctify the name of God