The Secret for Maximum Life and Enjoyment - Rabbi Lazer Brody

[music] Today's podcast is entitled the happy fish and I was teaching a class in body soul health and I told the class that we have to take good care of the body because it's a priceless gift from Hashem. One of the participants, a young man named Ron, he didn't like what I said. He called out, he said, "Hey, Rabbi, who ever heard of giving a gift and then dictating to the recipient how to use the gift. Besides, if my body is a gift, then it should be I should be entitled to use it any way I see fit." He says, "Who asked for the gift in the first place?" He continued, he wasn't a happy young man. And he said to me, I should be entitled to use the gift any way I want. And he said, I'll give you an example. I'd like to eat shellfish, especially shrimp. And the Torah says I can't do that. And I I love to drive to the beach on Shabbat. And the Torah says I can't do that. So what kind of gift is that? You give me a gift and you give all these stipulations. I can't do this and I can't do that. And what's good is a gift that's got all types of strings attached to it. In this case, 613 strings. Well, it seemed that the young man was making a strong point. The other people in the class said, "Oh, wait. This guy's got something to say." But it's only superficially. So, so I noticed that he liked the water. He mentioned shellfish, he mentioned fish, he mentioned the beach, and he probably loves the ocean, too, and everything related to it. So, I asked him, I said, "Hey, Ron, if your birthday was coming up and I really like you and I decided to buy you an aquarium, would you be happy with a gift like that?" And Ron said, "Sure, the bigger the better." So, I said, "Okay, that's fine. Suppose I get you this gorgeous 80galon aquarium complete with everything you need. It's got a heater. It's got a filter. It's got lights. It's got all the equipment you need. And you've got a beautiful pair of fish neon tetras that they glow in the dark and the proper feed food that you have to fish that pet store owner gives everything we need. And he says, "But one thing that the pet store owner gave when I bought the gift for you or when I will buy the gift for you, I give it some stipulations how to take care of that aquarium." He's going to tell me to to make sure that the water's got to be 78 degrees Fahrenheit plus -4 degrees. It's not a big deal, but best to aim for 78 degrees. And make sure the pH, the acidity of the water is neutral. And if possible, if not exactly neutral, which is 7.0 pH, we got a little bit acidic, somewhere between 6.5 and seven, but no more no certainly not not more acidic and not more alkalinic, of course. And then we have to make sure that that water doesn't have any ammonia in it or it doesn't have any additives, not chemical additives that could danger the fish. They have to clean the filter on time and do proper maintenance. would to agree to these stipulations and give this gorgeous gift. Mar says, "Sure, that's a proper maintenance. That's what you have to do." So, wait a second. I asked him. I said, "Wait, what if you thought that I had no right in dictating you how to use your gift that maybe you want to save electricity and you don't want to use the light or you don't want to use the filter and maybe you don't want to change the water or change the filter because when you change the filter, it doesn't smell so good. It stinks. Maybe you want to feed the fish breadcrumbs instead of this expensive fish food. If you did that, made these changes, the fish wouldn't last long, would they? He agreed. Of course, the fish wouldn't last long. So, not only did Ron agree, but the whole class agreed that the best way to take care of an aquarium is to read a proper manual, care for aquarium, and care for fish. And that's definitely not dictating to the recipient of the aquarium, the recipient that gift how to take care of his gift. They're not dictating what to do. It's how to get the best enjoyment and to make it look beautiful. You when people come over to your aquarium, you want the the water to be clear and the fish to look fantastic and you get your most enjoyment out of this. So, we see that it's even it's an a gift even though there are conditions about the best way to care for it. Well, the same thing with the body. The body is truly a gift, but the Torah is simply the creator's manual how to take the best how to get the very best out of that gift. just we need a manual to care for our fish and for our aquarium. We certainly need a manual how to take care of ourselves because we're a lot more complicated creatures than fish. We have uh creatures that fish have a basic a basic animal soul and they can't speak. They don't that's neish. They don't have a they have nama. We have the basic animal soul. We have the ru the human soul speaking the soul. We have nama. The higher part is part of the divine. People think they know how to take care of themselves, but maybe they're only taking care of one part of themselves. Most people don't even know how to take care of nef, the basic animal soul. How many people eat junk food? How many people do things that are detrimental to themselves? But since so many people use this gift from the creator improperly, they suffer from anger. They suffer from jealousy. Uh millions of people are chronically depressed. That's not what Hashem didn't put us in the world to to be chronically depressed. He gives us a manual. what's called a Torah. We fulfill the Torah. The Torah teaches how to be happy. So all these ailments that we have or for not properly following the the manufacturers's guid guidelines which is the owner's manual and Hashem created us at creator. He created us and gave us the owner manual which is called the Torah. So the Torah doesn't force anyone to do anything. Torah gives a blessing for doing the proper thing and it's a curse. The Torah is really more cause and effect that is telling you must do this. If a person doesn't do what the Torah says, he doesn't go outside, get a hit in the head with a bolt of lightning. That's taken away our free choice. Hashem doesn't take our free choice. So, it's not dictating what to do. It's telling us the best possible way to take care of ourselves. And that's what the creator wants us. He wants most enjoyment from our lives, most enjoyment from ourselves. And this way we need to follow the owner's manual because the creator, he wrote that himself. That's the Torah. And we follow the Torah. We manifest what the creator wants in the world. We make this world a better place. We make ourselves a better place. Meanwhile, take care and God bless.