 Tonight we're going to explore a little bit about the topic of what is called in Hebrew Savlanut or Savlanus and the meaning of the word is important to understand when you go back to the biblical story of the enslavement of the Israelites in Egypt So one of the things that God tells Moses When he's announcing that the Israelites are going to be liberated is that God says that he's going to take the people of Israel out from the burdens of Egypt Mitachat Sivlot Mitzrayim It's going to take them out from under the burdens of Egypt Obviously when you're working as a slave, that's a tremendous burden but the word also has the implication of Bearing up under that suffering meaning Patiently bearing up with that suffering putting up with it carrying it holding it So it's not just the the suffering the uncomfortable experience that's the idea of Lisboll or Sivlot as sufferings but also The idea of Putting up with that uncomfortable situation One of the Hasidic Rebbe's the Gararebi Said that what God was telling Moses is that he was going to free the Israelites From their toleration from their putting up with their suffering in Egypt meaning that We speak about Savva Nuit not just as suffering But as patience and the problem the Israelites had was that they became very patient They were putting up with their situation in Egypt. It became their new normal And so that's not good when you're suffering especially a suffering that's inappropriate like slavery in Egypt Becomes okay, and they tolerate it So what God is saying is number one the suffering the slavery is going to end But before that happens before you become freed Physically you have to become freed Emotionally you have to become freed from the fact that you're not bothered by your your slavery That you're putting up with it to the degree where it's okay Now that's a very very radical situation But the truth is that when we go through our dear daily Lives, there are a lot of things that we will find annoying and we suffer from them they're a little bit painful and So what happens with Savva Nuit is we have to develop the capability to Carry the burden to suffer With nobility not there. We're putting up with something that is so Horrible that it has to be fought with ten plagues that God sends So we're going to be looking at this topic of patience tonight. I will say that I myself find this a very challenging Me duh character trait to To have to deal with I usually find myself in many situations to be a very patient person I can put up with a lot and yet I find myself And I'm frustrated by this Very often I catch myself being very impatient and and not being able to Carry this burden. So it's something that I think many people Over history have had to deal with it's very easy to become impatient and I think especially in a modern age when you think about it a large part of being patient is waiting is waiting and We are living in a world today where everything has been designed to move so quickly That we have a more difficult time to wait I believe then maybe generations ago when I grew up a Television if you switched it on it would take a minute or two for it to go on You'd have to wait until this big white dot appeared in the middle of the screen and then the big white dot got bigger and bigger But you turn a television on and it wouldn't go on right away. You'd have to wait Today if that happened to someone Regular blood pressure which shoot all the way up I remember probably most of you when we had a computer that was called a 286 computer Those that that was the in the early days of computers anyone here remember 286 Well, if your computer today Ran at that speed you go out of your mind Because we become used to we become very used to things moving very quickly that becomes Normal that becomes what we expect and if it moves just a little bit slower We become very aggravated and our patients wears thin Many people who drive probably experience getting stuck in traffic Especially if we are late for an appointment That can be very trying or if you're driving behind a slow driver All right, you may be on a slide street here in Toronto. Maybe even trying to get home and You're used to going at 40 kilometers an hour at night on the side streets And there's someone in front of you who's going 30 kilometers per hour and already you're feeling yourself getting hot under the collar Sometimes we have a hard time listening to people who are slow talkers We sometimes want to finish their sentences for them. We interrupt We don't want to have to wait until they finish their entire speech This is certainly true for people that have speech difficulties and It's very difficult to listen to them and it requires a tremendous amount of patience When you think about it There are an infinite number of Situations that we go through in our daily lives that try our patience If you're living with someone that gets ready at a different speed than you do if you're going out to an Event if you're going to a wedding if you're going to a party and you're ready and you have to wait Five ten fifteen minutes for your partner Those ten or fifteen minutes can feel like two hours if you like two days so These are all situations which are not Once or twice in a lifetime These kind of situations are literally every single day If you're trying to make a phone call to get through to a company to speak to a Representative of the company and you're put on hold and You have to listen to elevator music for a half hour or you're bumped back and forth between different Offices and transferred and you have to hold Sometimes I found that to get customer service you might have to wait over a half hour to speak to the right person You may end up with someone from a different country Who doesn't speak English that well? And it's very very difficult not to lose your patience or to hold your patience if you're going to the Take a flight at the airport and your flight is delayed Having to wait for a flight again, especially if you're on a tight schedule you can grow very anxious You can get very impatient if aggressive people on the street Asking for handouts anyone here who's been to Jerusalem. I know now it's changed. This doesn't happen at the Western Wall anymore But there was a time when you went to the Western Wall in Jerusalem and it was hard to pray Because you were being constantly asked for money Which is an important thing to do But maybe there are times when you want to be uninterrupted so It's important to actually go through this exercise and Spend a few minutes and think about what are the things that trigger you each one of us is a little bit different Each one of us life circumstances is different But it's important to be aware because there's not going to be any way That we're going to have any chance of Overcoming this and we'll see we'll examine why it's so negative We're not going to have a chance to overcome this unless we're aware of our personal syndrome of what kind of situations in our lives set us off parents probably Have to pull their hair outs at time because of their children that try their patience Children who are not obeying what parents asked them to do and any number of situations They don't want to go to bed on time. They don't want to eat their food. I Think I drove my mother crazy Trying when she was trying to feed me. I don't like it. I don't And you never tasted it. I don't like it and I can't imagine my mother or poor mother for years and years and years Had to try and get me to eat So it's important again try to identify What are the situations that get us? upset and Try our patience now. What is the downside of? Impatience what is the downside of becoming impatient and letting us wear on us the truth is that as we go through our lives We are often our own worst enemies There's a wonderful parable that the rabbis tell in the midrash on their comments to the book of Genesis to beret sheet Where they describe the creation of the world and how? after the creation The trees come to God and they're very upset The trees are screaming and they come to God and they say we are very upset We have a big complaint and God says what's the problem? And they say we heard that you invented that you created iron iron was created and God says to them so what's the problem with iron? They say to him iron They're gonna make axes with the iron and chop us down trees are very upset So God says to the trees, you know You're very foolish because It's only due to the fact that you allow your wood to be used for the axe handle That the iron is able to chop you down Without the wood and iron axe Can't do anything You have to have the handle in order to have some force behind the axe behind the blade and So I believe that one of the lessons that the rabbis are teaching in this midrash is that we often cause the harm to ourselves Just like these trees We're afraid of the metal the metal really isn't the problem. The problem is going to be the wood So we all know that stress anxiety Symptoms of impatience are simply painful We find it painful distressing to have our patients tried. It's not a pleasant experience And even when it's not a horrible situation just sometimes having to wait is Annoying it's stressful. It's not a pleasant experience. It adds to our misery in life we know by the way that being anxious and Lacking patients doesn't make things move faster As I've been told many times It's not going to make things move faster if you lose patience also When we become impatient when we are impatient It's impossible for us to ever learn One of the things are supposed to be doing in life is learning and when we're impatient We don't have a settled mind And without a settled mind, it's not really that easy to learn or to accomplish anything It's certainly difficult to teach if you're impatient The Talmud says in Perkayavot ethics of the fathers that the impatient or irascible Person cannot teach it is certainly in defiers with our relationships. It certainly causes stress and Pressure on relationships when we are impatient with each other One of the things that's the most problematic about it in patients is that it can lead to worse things Like full-blown anger and rage Usually anger doesn't begin as anger Very often anger and rage Has a genesis it begins much earlier with losing one's patience and so It's a tremendous problem that needs to be nipped in the bud One of the greatest problems with impatience is that it hurts our health. I Read recently about the discovery of the type a personality and it was discovered in a very interesting way Some of you might know this story There was a cardiologist's office. I think this may be back in the 50s and They were noticing that the upholstered chairs in their waiting room We're getting worn out very very quickly. They were spending a fortune Hiring an upholsterer to fix the chairs in their waiting room with it waiting room The fellow that was hired to fix the chairs Told the doctors that he's noticing something that's strange about his chairs Said that the chairs in the waiting room Were only worn out on the very front of the seat and the doctor realized these people are Sitting literally at the edge of their seats. They can't even sit in the seat and just wait patiently for their appointment These are people that are probably in the cardiologists office Because all the stress they're living with on a daily basis is causing them tremendous problems resulting in heart disease So we can understand what are the downsides of being stressed and anxious and impatient Spiritually, it's incredibly important to work on this first of all We've discussed in the past that one of the ways in which we nurture spirituality in which we nurture a relationship with God is by modeling our lives after God By trying to live as God would live in a sense by taking the example of God and running with that example We're just we're told that God is infinitely patient with us The Bible says God is Eric a pine long suffering. He puts up with a tremendous amount God is very slow to anger Anyone that reads the Bible sees how much God put up with with the Jewish people the very important Kabbalistic book Tomer Devorah the palm tree of Deborah describes Based upon a passage in the book of Micha God's nature and says that God is so patient with us That even when we are rebelling against God Even when we are doing the worst things in the world in God's eyes. He still sustains us He still gives us breath. He still gives us the ability for our limbs to move the very limbs That are doing the wrong thing that are angering him He allows those limbs to move if God did not want us to move or breathe. We wouldn't breathe. We wouldn't move and So that demonstrates according to of Moshe Corduvera who wrote the book palm tree of Deborah the incredible Extents of God's patience That he tolerates us to an infinite degree the Talmud tells incredible stories of patients from our sages The tractate a rovin page 54 B talks about rough Prada Now if Prada had a difficult student student was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. I Think they would say that when God was giving out brains and said come forth this fellow came fifth and Rev Prada was very very patient with him and the Talmud says that Rev Prada would teach him the same lesson 400 times That's how many times he'd have to repeat the same lesson over and over and over again Now it could be that the Talmud here was speaking in hyperbolic terms Maybe it's just a way of saying he taught him so many times. It would drive the average teacher crazy But that's what we're told about Rev Prada that he would have to teach this student 400 times until he finally understood the lesson So the Talmud says that one time he taught him 400 times and the student didn't understand Even after 400 times so Rev Prada said what was the problem? What was different now that you didn't understand it? So what happened in this particular case was that as they were beginning their lesson Someone came by and said to Rev Prada that we're gonna need you to do something important I'm maybe to sit on a bait in on a rabbinical court But someone came in interrupted the lesson and said we're gonna need you to take part in something important And the student said to Rev Prada that I wasn't able to focus and concentrate because I was nervous at any minute They were gonna pull you out and I wouldn't be able to sit with you for the 400 times So even though he had just taught this student 400 times and the student didn't get it Rev Prada sat with him another 400 times Until he got it. So the Talmud says it's an amazing story that as a result of this He was visited by an angel basically who said to him you have a choice either we're gonna add 400 years to your life or Everyone in your generation will be Basically guaranteed a place in the world to come so he said I'll take was what's behind door number two He took the that everyone in the generation should be able to go to the world to come and they said well We're gonna give you both Obviously you have to think about whether to take the story literally But the point of the story is very important that here is someone that was so dedicated to the student that How long it took was not important Even if he had to go over it and over it and over it again and again and again He stuck with the student another famous story and the Talmud speaks about Hillel the great sage Hillel and He was someone that was famous for his patience and his and the difficulty to provoke him So there were a few fellows that decided we're going to make a wager and they wagered 400 zoos that they'd be able to get Hillel to lose his patience So what did they do? They waited until Friday afternoon when everyone in the house is getting ready for Shabbat and People are cleaning and cooking and people are going to shower in their bathing. So they waited until Hillel was in the bath Right before the Shabbat is to begin and they knock on the door knocking on the door is Hillel here is someone named Hillel in this home and He hears the knocking and obviously someone needs him So he gets out of the shower and he puts on his bathrobe and he runs down there probably with his hair wet And he goes to the door. What is it? What is it? How can I help you? They say oh We have a very very difficult question. We need to ask you. He says please ask my son and They say why do Babylonians have rounded heads? Why are the heads of Babylonians rounded? So Hillel says that's a very good question He says the reason is because their midwives are not very skilled. Oh Interesting and they say thank you and he goes back to his house Probably gets his bathrobe off back into the shower Gets his hair lathered up again, and then a few minutes later Hillel is Hillel there something very important We have to ask you so Hillel gets out of the shower again And he puts on his bathrobe and he runs down to the door. What is it? What is it? Can I help you? He said we have been very another important very important question. We can't we can't live without this question being answered Can't imagine. What's the question? So they say to him why do people from Palmyra have Droopy eyes. Why are their eyes droopy? I think a normal person would have slammed the door Maybe if they're lucky He says, you know, that's a very very good question He says the reason is because they live in areas that are very sandy So because there's so much sand flying around and so much dust their eyes and maybe we're closed than most people Thank you very much Goes back upstairs probably back into the shower now trying to finish Shabbat is approaching No, a few minutes later. Hello. Hello is Hillel there is Hillel there. We need to speak to him It's out of the shower of third time Son his robe runs downstairs. What is it now? What is it now and again? He's not saying in In a gruff way. It's not aggravated. He says my son He even uses terms of endearment my son. How can I help you? They say we have another really really important question We cannot live without this one being answered. What's the question? They ask him? Why do Africans people from Africa have wide feet? So he says that's because they live in very swampy areas. So this feet have to be wider so they say a You really in the man named Hillel And he says yes, and they say well may there be no other people in the world like you ever again And he says what why not why what's the problem? He said because we lost four hundred zoos because of you We bet that we'd be able to get you angry and upset and he says You should lose many many zoos and I should never get angry never lose my patience One of the things that happens to us When our patience is being tried is we fear that our time is being wasted Especially now we're so overworked and we're multitasking and we're doing so many things and we can't get a moments of rest I think much more so than previous generations We all thought that with the technology that we've invented our lives would get easier We'd be less busy less stressed, and it's become the exact opposite People are tethered to their technology They always have to be on call Constantly they don't even have a time to leave their work their work often comes home with them And so our time becomes very precious to us because we feel we don't have any time to ourselves And when our time is being wasted, it's a cause of great aggravation So when you think about it in these instances when our patience is being tried because we feel that our time is being wasted We remember that the Vilna Gong of Elijah of Vilna taught that the primary reason we were put into this world The primary reason not a third or a fourth or a fifth reason The main reason we're put into this world was to work on perfecting our character traits And so when our patience is being tried and we have the impulse to say They're wasting my time. They're wasting my time Here come the dudniks Here come the drake-ups Here come the people that are just wasting my time Another way of reframing that is wow I have an opportunity now to work on myself to work on myself to work on developing more patience because some people They don't have a problem with this For some people they are so laid back So laid back nothing presses their buttons and so for them. This is not part of their curriculum It's not something they have to work on But for most of us our buttons are pressed sometimes very easily And so when that's happening and we feel ourselves getting impatient When we feel it coming on and again a big part of this is just to be aware of our feelings To be aware of how we're feeling and when we feel impatience coming on To free frame it and don't jump to my time is being wasted But to think about the fact that now we have an opportunity Right in front of us now is a spiritual treadmill It's a spiritual treadmill and Sometimes when we come home at night We say to ourselves. I don't feel like going on the treadmill tonight. I'm tired. I Don't feel like it on the other hand There's a part of our self that says but it's good for you. It's good for you. Just do it Just do it get on the treadmill and walk for an hour or half hour or whatever it's going to be And so we often don't want to go on the treadmill a physical one or a spiritual one And so at that moment when we feel our patience is being taxed and our time is being wasted We should say to ourselves. What an opportunity I have now to get on a spiritual treadmill and to work on Becoming more patient to work on it To use these situations Where our patience is being tried as a tremendous opportunity To use that time that we think is being wasted the point the Villanagones saying no Your time is not being wasted. It's not being wasted This is the most precious time in the world this extra ten minutes or five minutes or two minutes Whatever it is you're gonna be two minutes late to where you are going you have to wait five minutes longer on the phone Whatever the delay is You could see it as a waste of your time or you could see it as well I could now do something for which I was put into this world If I have a problem with patience, this is why I was put here to overcome that and to work on that It's really the best way to use our time The Talmud calls impatience idolatry When impatience leads to anger Talmud says that that is idolatry Because what's happening is we're extending our ego into the world so far that We say my time is being intruded upon What I find convenient what I think life should be like how I think things should go My view of the world becomes so preeminent That I over extend my ego into the world that displaces God in some way And so the rabbis say that whenever we overextend our ego into the world. That's a form of idol worship and so One of the things that we're accomplishing by working on becoming more patient is That We're fulfilling the mitzvah We're fulfilling the commandment of not worshiping idols when you think about it when it says in the Ten Commandments Don't worship idols For most of us. We're not tempted to go and bow down to a statue For many of us we think that that commandment is irrelevant to our lives idolatry worshipping idols Nothing to do with that. That's like forget about that But the truth is when we think about the fact that we over extend our egos into the world quite a bit and So to work on not doing that is the fulfillment of the commandment not to worship idols This becomes part of our service of God one of the arenas in life where Working on this character trait is Extremely important is marriage Marriage is just about the most critical arena. We're working on patients becomes so important in Hebrew marriage is called nisu in Nisu in the root word of nisu in is nasa nasa can mean to carry to bear To forebear or put up with That's what the word means I Don't think that the bride and groom were often told that under the marriage canopy That they are now entering into a relationship where they have to carry and Bear and forbear and put up with a lot That's what it means Because the other person is now part of my life. I Can't just disregard them and Two people aren't always totally in sync and So marriage often requires a tremendous amount of putting up with putting up with the imperfections in our mate or Putting up with just the situations where our personalities are not in sync Rabbi Shlomo Wolby says that if you do this if you are able to put up with and bear with and forbear then another meaning of the word nasa is Actualized because the root can also mean uplifted to lift up So when we successfully carry the burden put up with bear All meanings of the word nasa We do that successfully we become uplifted and the truth is the relationship becomes uplifted the marriage becomes uplifted and so does our spouse we're told that The shell of an oyster will sometimes develop irritations. I Don't know what that feels like. I don't have such a shell But we're told that the oyster shell will develop irritations and the oyster doesn't like these irritations But it can't get rid of them Not able to get rid of these irritations But what it does is it begins to settle down and It makes one of the most beautiful things in the world out of those irritations in its shell Which is a beautiful pearl So the lesson for us if we look at nature is that we're able to transform Many of the irritations in life into a pearl if we handle them with patience The truth is that it takes a tremendous amount of effort to work on overcoming in patients It's not easy The Bible says in the book of Proverbs Sheva ye pole Sadiq the calm Sheva ye pole Sadiq the calm seven times a righteous person will fall down, but they will get up seven times a Righteous person will fall, but they will get up and Revitzchak Hutner explained that there are two ways of understanding this verse One way is not really the intended meaning He says that you could understand the verse to be teaching that yes The nature of a righteous person is such that when they fall they will get up That's one way that people understand the verse, but if Hutner says it doesn't mean that He says what it means is that how did the person become righteous? It's through the process of having fall down seven times and have gotten up meaning through these failures through these These situations where they fell down and they got up and they learned from it and they grew from it These experiences of learning and growing from failures and mistakes is what would allow someone to become a righteous person So the battles we might have with our patients and inpatients are worth it even though it's very difficult It causes tremendous growth We just lost one of our great Jewish singers Leonard Cohen When one of his songs says that light comes in at the broken places and so if in our lives Dealing with our patients and inpatients is a situation where we become broken Because it's so painful and irritating There's tremendous light that can come in specifically in those situations if we grow from them So I want to speak for a few minutes about ways in which we can cultivate patients What can we do to help overcome this tremendous problem that so many people deal with? So the first step I mentioned before is that there's a need and this is not easy There's a need to begin to recognize our feelings of impatience as they begin to arise Usually what happens is we only catch ourselves after our blood is beginning to percolate a little bit So that is a situation where it becomes much more difficult to stop because there it's almost like a car out of control So it's much more important to be able to and this is a skill that can be learned To pay attention to ourselves and to be able to catch impatience at the very beginning It's helpful to say to yourself actually to do this. I'm feeling impatient To catch the sensation at the beginning Let's say someone is not exactly on time So not to catch it five minutes later when you're talking to yourself and maybe cursing them out With five minutes earlier and say I'm beginning to feel impatient or to say That is impatience To identify it to label it Now that's very powerful Because when you label it or identify it you're in control What often happens is we're not aware of the fact that we're impatient and it just cooks inside of us Until it gets to the point where we can't control it anymore It's like a runaway train Because when the impatience leads to anger which leads to rage Rage is going to be very difficult for you to pull back But at the very very beginning when you're beginning to feel impatient and you name it and identify and say I'm feeling impatient You're in the driver's seat And what happens is when you're in the driver's seat You have clarity You have clarity you're able to shine the light of clarity and knowledge your mind is able to take over You're in control and What happens is when your mind is in control at this point you have the ability to Choose wisely you have the ability to make wise choices Which are which are guided by your values which are guided by your goals in life Rather than your habits or instincts or emotions That's what happens. Our life is often a battle between our mind and our hearts and Unusual unusually if there's a battle between our mind and our heart usually the heart wins Our hearts are very very powerful our emotions are very very powerful The the challenge is how do you stay in control? How do you stay in control where your emotions are not ruling you where you are ruling your emotions? And so the trick is to identify the battle at the beginning of the battle Identify it quickly and when you are able to label it and and say I'm feeling impatient This is impatient that's coming up You're able to choose You're able to choose according to your mind Rabbi Avraham Ben Harambam the son of my monities Suggests that one of the ways of battling impatience is to reflect to meditate on How negative impatience is to think about it again It's using our minds to counteract our emotions Possibly to study stories in the Bible where impatience Leads to disastrous consequences I'll share with you one such example One of the most catastrophic Events in Jewish history Was the building of the golden calf not too many weeks after we came out of Egypt Why did that happen? Because the Israelites expected Moses to come back at a certain time and The Bible says that Moses was delayed and They had a difficult time waiting So that impatience and it wasn't very long. It wasn't as if he came three or four days late It was one day later than they expected So because they weren't able to hold that uncomfortable feeling They were so anxious and so stressed out and some impatient That his being delayed just for a day Led to them building the golden calf So the son of my mononies says think about the disastrous consequences of Impatience study stories in the Bible think about how impatience has been destructive in our lives Think about how it's put stress on Relationships or sometimes ruined relationships because we were impatient think about its toll on our physical health How it affects our blood pressure? We know the tremendous negative effects of stress and anxiety in life It's not a minor problem a minor health problem stress is a serious health problem Think about and meditate on the value of the relationships that will be hurt by being impatient Think about the importance of these relationships again if our relationships were not important Then there's not such a downside to messing them up by being impatient But if we think about and really appreciate the tremendous value of our relationships that we don't want to sabotage That's helpful. I mentioned before thinking about the fact that being patient is a spiritual Activity it's a way in which we become closer to God think about the value of that Think about the value of working on our personalities and overcoming negative character traits as one of the most important things We can do in life. There are so many benefits to being patient so many downsides to being impatient and Finally We would want people to be patient with us. What is the golden rule in Judaism? They asked Can you sum up all of Judaism? While you're standing on one foot this was asked to Hillel I mentioned Hillel before Someone wanted to convert to Judaism and said teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot Which means I don't have much time. I can't stand on one foot for too long Teach me the whole thing while I stand on one foot and Hillel said whatever annoys you if Something really ticks you off. Don't do it to someone else. He said that's the whole Torah. That's it Everything else is commentary now go and learn it. I Often have to think about this for example When I'm driving at night and I'm behind someone who's going slowly and I feel myself getting Irritated and impatient. I Have to say to myself You know what? I've sometimes been in a neighborhood that I didn't know well. I've sometimes gone to a different city I don't know the streets. Well, I have a hard time seeing the signs and I might have to go Slower than people who are living in these neighborhoods and drive on automatic pilot. They don't have to think they can go very quickly so when I find myself behind someone who I Might immediately say a Dracup a noob Nick why are they going so slowly give me a break It's very easy to do that and I catch myself and I say I often find myself in the same situation I'm not being a no-nick. I'm trying to see where I'm going. I'm looking for the number on a house I don't know the neighborhood. I can't drive as quickly So I say to myself How do I feel when the person behind me is either tailgating or flashing their lights or hunking? You can tell when someone is annoyed with you when you're driving you can tell when they're upset that you're not going as fast as they Want you to go so I catch myself saying I've been in that situation. I know what it feels like to express aggressiveness or Express a desire that the person in front moves a little bit faster. I Can't do it to someone else It's important to realize that we all have the capability of being patient We know that it's very easy to be patient if we're with an important person You can imagine that you're waiting for a meeting with the chief rabbi and You're sitting in a waiting area and the chief rabbi is five minutes late You're not going to get all bent out of shape so quickly If you meet it if you're waiting to meet the president or CEO of a company You'll be very patient because you're very happy to have that meeting so we know that we all have the capability of being patient of waiting of Bearing the burden we need to apply that same respect to all people very famous story It's happened many many times to different people. I Heard it recently where there was a great rabbi who was the head of a rabbinical school and He wanted to meet with someone that might ultimately donate to his rabbinical school This was at a time when the schools in Europe were in very bad financial situations and he had a meeting with a very very successful important businessman and The businessman was not told who the person waiting for him was and he opened the door of his Office and he looked outside and there is an older Jew there with a long black coat and a big hat and a beard And he thought it was another beggar and he was very rough with him and very dismissive and The rabbi You know felt very bad this happened and a few minutes later The person came back out of his office and he was very very Welcoming and respectful and he says oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know it was you Someone obviously told him who this rabbi was in the office and he was very Very deferential to the rabbi and very felt I felt very bad and he says I'm very happy I'm gonna be able to you know write a very large check to your school your institution He said to give the rabbi a fortune and the rabbi turned him down and said I'm no different than the person that you dismissed as a beggar We're all human beings And you can't treat someone that you think it is important differently I don't deserve more respect than the beggar that comes to your office and this rabbi Although his school needed the money Refused to take it from this person So we have the ability to be patient with big people with important people We would not dare lose our patience if the CEO we're waiting for is five minutes late to our appointment We're thrilled to wait for the five minutes And so we have that capability and If we extend the same honor respect to all human beings were created in God's image We can extend that to all people They tell a story about someone who bought a new car and He was driving the new car home He was very happy that he had this new car and he stopped at a red light and The person behind him didn't stop in time and smacked him in the back of his car And the driver of this new car was furious and he puffs himself up And he opens the door of his new car and he walks over very very aggressively to this person That hit the back of his new car He was about to give him a piece of his mind and The other fellow opens the door of his car and steps out He's like nine feet tall with muscles on top of his muscles and the person in new car says Excuse me. I'm very sorry. I stopped so quickly without giving you a chance to stop I mean he was able to in one second turn on a dime from being aggressive to Being very differential We all have that capability another thing to bear in mind is that One of the things that we're here to do in this life is to do kindness to other people or Shlomo Karabach used to always say That one of the greatest lessons he ever learned was that the greatest thing that you can do in life Is to do someone else a favor To do kindness to other people and so if we think about the fact that it's a huge Kindness that we can do for people when we let others take their time if someone is Stammering if someone stutters Don't interrupt them. Don't finish their sentence for them Allow them to talk even though it may be hard to put up with their slow speech If people are slower than we want them to be I spoke about this last week To be able to accept what other people are able to do We often don't want to accept what others are capable of doing. We have our own expectations So it's a tremendous chesed a tremendous act of kindness to let other people take their time To be patient with them and to help them relax To help these people relax. I Might have told the story the first week of this series of Rabbi Yisrael Salantar that on his last day of his life He was basically the last day of his life He was in a house and there was someone who was assigned to be in the house with him Because when the great rabbi would die he shouldn't be a you shouldn't have a corpse in the house by itself and so there was someone that was appointed that they're going to be in the house with the rabbi and to be able to watch the body overnight and Rabbi Yisrael Salantar saw that this person was very agitated very nervous very upset and He spent the last hours of his life Reassuring him. It's okay. It's not bad to be alone with a corpse. You'll be all right Now Yisrael Salantar could have said you think you have problems On my deathbed and you're just nervous about being with someone that's not alive anymore But he didn't he extended himself to do this kindness to someone else A very important technique which I've tried and it really works If we're feeling stressed and anxious and impatient is to breathe It's impossible It is physically impossible to feel anxious and impatient If you relax yourself physically, it's an incredible thing If you relax yourself physically, it is not possible to feel anxious and impatient So a powerful tool is to exhale And when you exhale to just feel the tension Leaving as you exhale and and in your mind Think about the fact that you're exhaling And the tension is leaving your body and when you inhale And you feel the fresh the fresh oxygen coming in Let yourself relax And as you're doing this repeat to yourself in your mind actually in your mind say these words patience As I breathe Or you could have someone saying it to you Imagine someone saying to you patience as you breathe Or if you're a fan of Seinfeld Serenity now Serenity now But to actually say words which are called affirmations Which are positive Say words of relaxation And breathe Some people practice deep breathing Where they inhale for a number of seconds five six seven eight seconds and they hold the breath And then they exhale there are different ways of breathing, but if you breathe serenely You actually stop to breathe It's very difficult to be anxious and Impatient A very important thing to think about very important The Talmud asks the question who is the wise person? Who is the wise person? There are actually several answers that are given to this question One of the answers is that the wise person is the one that can learn from everyone But another answer that's given is the wise person is the one who is able to foresee the future Haroe es honolad the one who's able to look down and see what's about to happen If we live our life with that in mind If we anticipate anticipate Times when we might become impatient to think about it when we're about to embark on some activity We're about to come home after a day of work And you know that that's a time when it can be stressful Because everyone wants your attention and maybe you just need to relax Or in other situations, it's very easy Again, I mentioned at the very beginning tonight Think about the times that are your trigger points Think about the times that are easy to set us off to become impatient and the wise person thinks ahead And tries to understand why is it that those times are stressful for example Maybe I become impatient and stressed because I'm taking on too many things and I'm multitasking Maybe by simplifying my life, my life will become less stressful I won't have to try my patience as much Another important thing Especially in our busy lives is to build rest into our routine Make sure that we get not just enough sleep at night But to maybe take many breaks during the day Some people find it helpful to take a siesta a nap Some people just might get up from working and take a short walk But there are many things that we can do to just break the incessant constant stream of work and activity and pressure very important because most stress in terms of anxiety and losing patience comes Because of time issues Always feel our time is being impinged upon so another important thing in terms of looking down the pike and seeing what's ahead is Not to procrastinate We often procrastinate And push things off and then we begin to run late And we begin to have to rush and when we're late and we're rushing those are very prime times for being impatient Don't put yourself in a position When you have to rush When you could do things in life in a more relaxed way In a calmer way you're much less likely to become impatient than when you're rushing and you're late Another technique that might be helpful Is to always have something to do when you are delayed I mentioned before that when your time is being delayed when you have to wait It's a great time to work on patience a great time to work on that But there may be other things for example, you're at an airport and your flight is delayed I've seen people sitting there in their seat for a half hour fuming and cursing and going up to the flight crew and screaming at them I mean it's there's road rage and there's airport rage And the reality is that when you're delayed you're delayed you can't do anything about it And so if you had something important to do at that time Bring something that you're able to work on I mean, I know I never leave anywhere without a book So I always have something I can study So it may be frustrating not to be on your flight when the flight's supposed to leave But if you say to yourself, okay, I have Now an hour where I'll get a chance to do something that maybe I don't get a chance to do all the time I don't often have time to study I have now an uninterrupted time to be able to study or whatever else I can do in that period of time If you remember the movie the karate kid Mr. Miyagi Who is the master teacher? He told Daniel wax on wax off Right. Now poor Daniel thought that this man was crazy Right. He's coming to study karate and this guy's teaching him how to wax a car Wax on wax off and He only realized weeks later He only realized weeks later That he was being taught the rudimentary movements of karate He thought that his time was being wasted. He was angry at Mr. Miyagi What is he giving me this ridiculous nonsense to do? Painting events. What is painting a fence? I didn't come to learn how to paint a fence But the teacher In an indirect way Was teaching him something that maybe he wouldn't have learned as easily We all know that good education is where you help someone transfer something they know already to something that's new So everyone knows about how to paint a fence. We all painted Waxing a car. He's probably done many times Mr. Miyagi was only showing him that these motions that you've done before If you practice them, that's the rudimentary movements of karate God is the ultimate teacher. If you think Mr. Miyagi was a great teacher The ultimate teacher is god And because we all need to cultivate patience and trust That when god tests us It's for a purpose Then we go through these experiences in life That we find annoying And we find Irritating It's for a purpose We are being tested in order to help us grow These are all tests that were designed for us to help us grow A person on a very very lofty spiritual level might even be thankful For these situations when their patience is being tested Thank you god for putting me in a situation Where i'm able to grow and develop Nachmanidi said and taught That By learning to be patient We're going to be able to save our lives Because he says that one of the greatest sins is anger If you think in patience is bad, anger is a hundred times worse And He said that what we can do To prevent this spiraling out of control Is to get into the habit Of speaking Softly And slowly He didn't say that if you're in a tense situation He didn't say that if you find yourself When your emotions are running high Don't raise your voice That's what often people are told Don't get so excited when you're upset Don't start screaming Ranban Nachmanidi said Always speak Always Quietly And softly Get into the habit Build that muscle in your body So there's muscle memory So that if you are in a situation that's provocative If you are in a situation Which is about to drive you crazy You're not going to end up raising your voice and screaming at someone And then letting it go to the next stage of anger and rage It's one of the best ways of diffusing A tense situation Because we know that one of the ways that fights get started Is when emotions start running high And people raise their voices and it's subtle sometimes When you go from a normal conversational tone To a tone where you're expressing your anger Just by raising the voice So one of the most powerful ways of diffusing A hostile situation Is to speak quietly And in a slower tone Not to express yourself in a way Where it looks like you're upset And it sounds like you're upset And finally One of the most powerful tools Is to pray for patience We pray for many things in life To actually say, God, please help me become more patient And not just to do it when our patience is being tried It's certainly a worthwhile thing to ask for every day We don't have to wait until there's a catastrophe To pray for help We don't need to wait until we're tried And our patience is really at a critical stage Simply to ask God every day, look God, I know this is a difficult thing I know that life is hard I know that I'm often put in situations where my Temper is being tested and my patience is being tested Please help me control myself Please help me think ahead And plan for situations that might test me So I can be better prepared We can pray for many things in terms of our patience In terms of exercises There are a number of things that we can do As exercises I mentioned most of them already tonight, I'm going to review One is to train ourselves to become aware Of the first moments that we're becoming impatient So it's a thing that you might want to practice over the next week Is to just be attentive To be attentive to the moments during the day When your patience is being tested, when you feel yourself becoming impatient Another thing that you may want to do, and this is a little bit more dangerous Is to put yourselves in situations that try your patience Let's give an example There may be someone in your life that you avoid Because when you have interactions with them It's trying Now I think all of us probably have People in our lives that we should be in touch with more than we are Communication today is often reduced to texting people or emailing people I would say that's not the platform, that's not the arena Where we're able to practice this so easily I'm talking about either a conversation on the phone Or a live face-to-face conversation But as a practice, if you want to do something to practice exercising patience Is maybe identify someone that, I'm not talking about a complete stranger Someone in your life that you might normally call But you maybe not call as often as you could Someone that when you speak to them, you find that your patience is being tried Let's say they tend to take the conversation and not let you get a word in edgewise Right, we know there are many people in our lives that can try our patience for many reasons They may end up spending the half hour with you complaining about their lives Not letting you get a word in edgewise There could be any number of things, let's say that you're sensitive to gossip They may very easily spend a half hour gossiping So I'm sure each of us can identify someone like this in our lives It may be helpful to us to give them a call once a week, once a month And practice being patient Practice being patient By the way, it doesn't only have a powerful effect on ourselves when we're patient It has a powerful effect on other people as well And finally, as an important exercise, to contemplate, to think about What are the times in my life? What are the situations that tend to be provocative to me? Is it that first five minutes when I come home to my family after a full day of work? Is it when I have to speak to certain people? It's when I do certain activities It could be that some people are simply aggravated and stressed out on technology Having to deal with a computer That they can't figure out There is a large menu, a large menu of things that provoke us And they get us aggravated And we are tried, our patients is tried So to purposely choose one of those activities Put ourselves in a situation where our patients is going to be tried And try to control that in patients So it's, I would say, one of the most important areas of our life to work on I think for most people, this is not an easy test, not an easy trial But I think that all of us recognize that probably if there's something that we can improve upon This would really really change our lives in a tremendously important and positive way