Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser: Don't Be an Arrogant Bastard

Shalom and welcome to practical spirituality here in Asia Torah in the old city of Jerusalem overlooking the Temple Mount today's class titled uh how not to be or don't be an Arrogant Bastard is um is the fact that that um ego is always the puffed up nature of someone who feels small ego is always bu up nature of someone small so that means that from now on when you see like a I don't know like a fancy sports car go by which you only buy if you want everyone to notice your you know your affluence so if you see a fancy Sports Park go by shed a tear shed a tear for someone who feels small when you see a lady in a long shael and a little too much makeup shed a tear and say somebody feels small when you when you see someone who's like being a know-it-all at a shavis table sh it you and know that somebody's feeling small I don't think any of us have to be Geniuses to know that when you run into arrogance you're dealing with someone who's who's hurting inside feeling small feeling weak feeling probably worthless feeling dumb feeling ugly feeling um uh uh insignificant and when they're when they're acting arrogantly or showing off or in any way flexing their muscles so to speak they're their this is their only hope really to feel good about themselves so they're just trying to feel good about themselves people are crushed I mean people are really crushed and and so if you can figure out some way that you can raise yourself above the others and people will choose like funny things to do this with I mean you could because all you have to do is have one way and then you'll be arrogant at least over people like that like I mean one of the rare things especially today is a bass player okay so bass players are generally more humble people but but amongst bass players all of a sudden there it is like they got to show they're the biggest bass player and and uh fast car drivers you know they they're generally mellow but as soon as you speed by them they're just going to take you you know you know they're going to show you so um one of the things by the way and this side point on this but that you got to watch out for arrogance is your brain your brain especially Jewish brains which are very analytical is see a bass player can only have ego against a bass player and a fast car driver can only have arrogance against fast car drivers but everyone's got a brain so if you're a particularly good thinker you can have arrogance over everybody and this is why you'll notice some of the great female teachers in the Jewish world are single because they they just you can't stay married to such a person and the and and and it's not that they're not amazing people they really are amazing people but it's hard to be married to them because because the uh they don't respect their husbands necessarily and this is what's tough for a woman who's who's uh brilliant should marry a brilliant man so she has respect for him and the only chance she could possibly survive with a non- brilliant man is to be very humble she has to Humble herself a lot but not too many people are that successful in being humble and so probably better just to marry a brilliant man it's probably the better way to go because the key to marriages is respect you got to respect now arrogance is always a cover up whenever people acting arrogantly they're always covering up for something they're always cover up for something real small that they're trying to Puff themselves up and we have source for this actually and the source is the Sheep a sheep animals you know the Sheep when I was a little kid we used to go with my grandfather sheep shearing my f grandfather was a wool Trader so he knew all the all the you know the sheep farms and stuff and one of our field trips with Grandpa was to go sheep sharing anyway we would jump out of his Jeep Cherokee and and there would be uh these giant wool sheep that were like bred for their wool I mean these were huge sheep with like the I mean they were like they'd all come barreling down you know to to get shorn and and uh my brothers and I would hide under my grandfather's legs from these monstrous sheep anyway then they would Shear the sheep and in the end you know what they look like have you ever seen a Shor sheep it just looks like a little thin goopy grimy like oversized rodent and so once we saw the shorn sheep we all came out from under my grandfather's legs because we saw that these are harmless slimy things by the way you know what all the Slime is what's all that slime on a shap sweat right it's there's sweat they're shitzen in there wearing full Co coats of wool all year round and you know what the term is for the schitz there's a you know what that chemical is called that is called Sheep sweat you know what it is lanoline lanoline it's in every skin product cuz it is amazing amazing for the skin but no lanoline product is better for the skin than lanzano lanzano usually used for breastfeeding is the most incredible thing you will ever put on your skin so buy lanen to your local they actually have these mini tubes that are great because you just pop them in your pocket so like you'll never get a split finger like when we discover l know I don't know if you know but living in Jerusalem you can get like split Knuckles and your cuticles can start splitting and stuff till you try laneno once you try lanzano your split Skins are over now anyway but there were these scrawny sheep there were scrawny sheep nothing to be afraid of just scrawny slime ball sheep now inside of all of us is a scrawny sheep we all have inside of us a scrawny sheep meaning inside of all of us ladies inside of you is a scrawny sheep a slimy scrawny sheep that just wants to hide from the world sometimes you get aggressive you're going to fight sometimes there's some of you are more flight different people have different ways of dealing with things when you can fight you fight when you can't fight you flight but in the end underneath it all is a slimy grimy little shepa sheep but what do we do we puff ourselves out when we're in the fight mode we puff ourselves out with beautiful W now what is the word for for being a what is the word for being a uh what would you call it in English that's thin sheep compared to the fat wool scrawny did I use the word scrawny before yeah so that scrawny self in Hebrew is called SAR SAR means narrow and a lot of people have a very narrow definition of themselves meaning they don't they're not seeing themselves as big they're seeing themselves as small ugly stupid inadequate don't make a difference worthless unwanted unliked unloved you know that's the way most people see themselves and the word for that is SAR SAR it means narrow yeah means narrow could also mean painful too that's often with an i but but SAR means narrow that's the root and if you add a m at the beginning so then you got the word matar which means the Straits straights like the narrowness and the uh and it's actually the word for Egypt as well isim or MIT and it becomes Egypt and interestingly the god of the Egyptians is the god of the Egyptians is the sheep and on the 10th of Nissan my birthday the we are instructed to take a sheep and we're to bring it into a the Inner Room of your house and tie it to the bed post you know good luck explaining that to your wife you know honey God said so great what else did he say you know so anyway you're supposed to take a a sheep tie it to the to the bed post and inspect it for four days as if a sheep needs four days of inspection like what in the world do you need four days for to inspect the Sheep but inspect it for four days I mean the maybe the only good thing about a 4-day inspection is if it had a blemish on the first day maybe it'll heal by the fourth day so that would be good but as long as it doesn't have a blemish on the first day it's probably not going to have it on the fourth day um whatever but check it over for four days and then on the on the fourth day you take it out and you Slaughter it you Slaughter it you Slaughter the god of the Egyptians now the narrowness that you are meaning all your negative self-definitions that you have yeah all those thoughts about yourself that are like not very complimentary all those thoughts about yourself they are completely out of Integrity with being someone who has created in the image of God meaning it's it's it's not just Lush andhara because lushan Hara at least could be true this is not even true so it's Moy shamr I mean you're over on Moy shamro about yourself because I imagine if you've made it to this classroom you probably know you're already created in the image of God which means you're awesome you're awesome you're like Beyond brilliant you're beautiful you're uh capable beyond measure I mean you're the upper one percentile of capability of the humanity you're you're but that's just because you're brilliant too and that putting your capabilities with your Brilliance puts you in a very high percentile and you're just awesome I mean everything about you is awesome you're holy you're pure you know you're like and if you're not pure you can we have we have steps to purify yourself and now you are pure and and you're like you're just everything about you is incredible so therefore the matar the matar that you live with is just simply a lie but no one can live with that matour so what do they have to do they have to Puff the themselves up and make themselves arrogant and what they do is they make a a big beautiful coat of what of T they make a big beautiful coat of T what's SE wo so you got here is the the scrawny self-de of oneself and here is the wool and what is Wool Wool is just it's just this puffy stuff it's just how how much can you puff yourself out with your outfits or with your hair or with your muscles or with your your a suit you bought or a car you're driving or a business you're running or or I mean people puff themselves over anything because every Community has different standards what's called puffed up you might just work yourself to the Bone having a giant family because all your neighbors have giant families I mean I don't know what how you puff yourself up but there's different standards of puff up but ultimately what it comes out to be is just sammer it's just it's just fluff and this is where arrogance lies arrogance the root of arrogance is is matar and the arrogance is the sammer that's the fluff Judaism says Slaughter the whole damn thing Judaism says just kill it just kill it just Slaughter it inspect it get to know it well why you going to inspect it if you're going to kill it just kill it why do you need four days inspection you know why you need four days inspection because if you don't understand yourself if you don't get this stuff in detail because you have to be sophisticated about the details of the scr where did it come from where' you get scrawny was it a family Dynamic did you get embarrassed as a kid did something really go wrong was there a trauma was there a molestation what what what the hell happened to you that made you start seeing yourself as scrawny it might be important to know that stuff especially if you'd like to protect your kids from it the next thing is well what kind of scrawny am I I mean there I could come up with probably a hundred different definitions that would all equal scanny you know I already told you about 10 of them should I list them again you remember them what oh we said ugly stupid incapable unlovable insignificant worthless you know you name it I mean there's just but the list just keep going small uh uh weak victim uh and many more words doomed you meet people who actually think they're doomed mean like damned if I do damage if I don't like they're doomed you me people they they believe they're doomed you know it's it's just scrawny got a lot of definition but you better inspect it before you shcked it inspect before you shcked why because the next you think you got to inspect is you got to inspect the wall inspect that wall I know for example I played I am I still wearing a bag out of my it's because my waterproof pants aren't that waterproof and the water goes flying up from the back tire while you're riding and so I just kind of have this layer of waterproofing is there any water here is that a h water yeah fire water um we have any uh those it clean cups you might pour me a cup or two what's the what's the that's myself that's the scrawny definition of self and the SE is the ego that's the the puffed up self-image in other words let's put it like this ladies and gentlemen there's two steps to self-image scrawny which is matar thank you very much there's the scrawny definition of oneself and then there is the puffed up definition oneself together they make your self-image you have your inner self image that's the one you don't want anyone to know that's the secret self- IM menion side mine was basically I think my biggest ones were like loser unwanted um and unworthy I think loser unwanted and where they were probably my biggest ones and my my wool was cool you know the guitar playing surfing you know like party animal guy you know like that was my that was my go-to what's going on here they're all stuck together yeah we had a problem drink just I'm such an environmentalist like here I'm drinking out of uh four five cups they're all stuck together bro um clear so so check this out you got to know meaning you can Slaughter this thing but do you think your sheep's going to go down like go what's the word go down easy how would you say go down without a fight you think your sheep's Going Down Easy sheep Ain't Going Down Easy that's why you need you need days to inspect it why because each aspect of scrawny and each aspect of the wool of the puff up the EGO they're all like street signs and you got to know your street signs so that way if you're going down one of those strees you stop yourself for example let's say I'm on my way somewhere and let's say I have to give a talk which is usually what I have to do so I have to give a talk somewhere but I notice that you know you kind of mentally prepare I mean most people actually prepare the talk I don't do that but most people like at least mentally prepar before they give a talk so if I notice that I'm heading towards something cool like a cool topic with maybe a cool story here and there I'll just like I'm walking to the class and all of a sudden I got like cool coming up in my prep I'll just stop I know that straight I know where that's coming from that's coming from loser unwanted and um an unworthy and and oh well it all makes sense cuz the people I'm giving the talk to are like Way Beyond me it's like I don't know it's like University professors or something and they're bringing me in as a like a for a very specific thing and I'm way out of my depth there you understand I'm like I'm like I dropped out of school when I was 11 you know and I'm speaking to University Professor like no wonder but you need to inspect that sheep because if to go in and give a cool lecture to professors is a waste of money of the university for having hired you for the job you understand you're you're it's called a Mech ta it's a how do you say that in English a uh mistake that's the easy English but there's a what is it called when someone sells you something with false uhler false ad false advertising SW whatever it is it just isn't what they it's why not why they were bringing me you understand it just so I'm getting paid and not delivering so I stop and I catch myself and but the only way I can catch myself is I have to be sophisticated about the way I work you got to be sophisticated you got to understand yourself deeply in knowing how you function between the scrawny and and the and the wool now one of the reason why you need to know your details of scrawny hood is because different people trigger you just like I got triggered by the professors well you have an aunt that triggers you and you have an uncle that triggers you and and you all of you are going to have a mother-in-law that triggers you believe me and and and so they all trigger the scrawny part of you and there's always someone more beautiful than you and there's always someone more handsome than you and there's always someone stronger than you and there's always someone smarter than you and there's always something this in you and that you and so you got to know your you got to know your blemish you got to know what you've been saying about yourself all these years because you're going to wind up at a pesak table with these people you gota enjoy you gotta enjoy PES you know are you're kidding in in New York you can't get a you can't get a I mean already by today you know we're already in like coming towards por you can't get an appointment with a therapist already me you have to book with a therapist well two three months in front of PESA because they're booked up because everyone's getting prepared to be with you know Aunt whomever or Uncle you know weirdo you know and Uncle weirdo and you and you got to you know how am I going to deal with that but someone who's free cuz what happens is you inspect it you get your scrawny wired you get your your your pu you're puffed up self image wired and then what do we do on the 14th of Nissan Slaughter that baby Slaughter it ain't nobody got time for that yeah nobody got time for that think about getting married without inspecting this without slaughtering it if you never Slaughter this and you marry somebody talk about Mecca TOS you know imagine your spouse is under Thea you know they're like you know like with all their dreams and hopes and little do they know what they're getting themselves into with you I mean think about what they're going to wind up with and it's all coming out too because stuff you can keep in when you're single comes flying out when you're married maybe not the first week maybe not the first month but just give it a couple months and you like you spring a leak all over the place your spouse is like what was that and you're like I don't know you know you know you hold like couldn't you done couldn't you dealt with that when you were single my goodness you're like I was scared oh great so now it's all over me nothing worse than people afraid of themselves CU they because it's not like it's only about you like get over it man there's a lot of people are going to be involved in that stuff so if you're scared of yourself you know you better get over that quick because you know you're going to have a lot of people dealing with you especially once you get married and have kids oh my gosh I mean you could think of yourself as like a pool and everyone has to swim in your pool you know I mean if you're having a swimming party before everyone arrives you should probably go through there with a net and like make sure nothing funkies floating around yeah because they're all going to be jumping into your pool there so like when you get married they're swimming in your pool and all your stuff's in there and kids forget about swimming in the pool they got an intervenous drip line from your from your uh your stuff because aren't you made of your parents' best and worst like isn't that all in you wouldn't have been nice had they filtered the water a little bit before you were born you know wouldn't that have been better if they got themselves put together a little bit before they had you but they're just like you scared of themselves they're scared of themselves scared to go inside scared to look in there scared to be scared to be guided into those nooks and crannies that nobody wants to go into but meanwhile those things are going on all the time that's what it is to I mean think about being friends with you you're a liability and then what you get what you can talk about what you can't talk about you know you're like it's like walking on eggshells I mean what is a good friend a good friend who knows enough knows has learned you well enough to know what not to talk about and what not to bring up like they know exactly how to protect you so that you can still remain an absolute bomb for your spouse to explode about three months in and that's a good friend we're we're serious liabilities I know for a fact I'm married 24 years I mean I know exactly what a liability I have been for my wife and and whatever I find and she lets me know it's part of being married to a Jewish woman they let you know that whatever I find which he finds for me apparently I I fix that it might I might have to go talk to somebody I might have to cry something out I got to work it through I don't know what I'm going to do but I'll do it but anything I can work on without having it to have to come to that I will but friendship relationship is supposed to be cleaner than just tiptoeing around the liability of that person but I understand people are really scared of themselves apparently what's crazy about it is if you put on a scale like they're more scared of looking into themselves than they are scared of all the consequences of their spous and children which is crazy because that gets expensive because if you don't have yourself worked out when you're raising kids you're going to be paying for that later it's expensive you know it's called therapy you know like if you don't if you're not worked out before you're raising children your your kids are going to have to be working this stuff out it could be many of you have been working it out those you are into therapy no you're working it out and your parents could have saved you that is why in the Poss seminar when when these kids are like you know you see when they're they're handing you a credit card number from their parents so so when it's their credit card I'm quite proud of them I'm like good for you investing in yourself when it's their parents credit cards I'm like damnn right you now they're paying now they're paying and my my goal my goal is that that I never have children of my seminar graduates in my seminar that's my goal meaning you understand meaning meaning the young people in this obviously I've had many children of graduates who are their kids are already late teens and 20s those of course I've had because they already grew up in that in the hell hole of a of an of you know an unidentified flying object called Mom and an unidentified flying object called Dad just totally unidentified and just acting out in all the ways that unidentified people act out because they haven't identified their stuff so it just it's just free reign to just like you know just kind of throw up on everybody and and so I've had those kids but uh my dream is that the generation of people that did the seminar when they were young are not going to have their kids coming to the seminar and I've met all these kids they're great many of them come to my shabas table they're in like their first year of yiva and stuff from years ago and they're uh and they're they're really seem good I don't think they're coming to the possibly use SAR I think they're I think they're in good shape and by the way it's not that the seminar is for people with problems everyone hasn't it's just that I would hope those kids have tools through which to inspect these things so they know how to navigate themselves properly now um what was the other word you used GAA versus what self self-esteem yeah so self-esteem comes from God self-esteem is the soul so if you look at it like this you got let's say this pen is the soul that's like your true self your actual natural personality which most people have lost touch with since they were three but let's just say that's the pure self okay so all the negative stuff we say this granny is called is what you'd call A or a barrier it's a barrier to this to this meaning we don't have access anymore because we just have this scrawny thing and then and then of course add the wool they have two and so that so what happens is that that our source of self-esteem is hidden underneath these layers and so when we go through this beer when we take off theet the puffed up what iset is just the puff that's all the puff I mean take a take a moi kala anyone been to Moi in uh on shamgar yeah take a moi kala big fluffy one and sit on it for about 10 minutes what do you get matah it's not Kos P but you get matah sit on you get matah because what happens is Hala is a lie it's not true it's just fluff sit on a Kala you get the actual stuff that's the that's what's really there because you've removed all the air removed all the fluff and now you're at the truth by the way why do you think we do this on Passover why in the foundation of our nation Passover where our nation was founded why do you think we have to eat matah and we have to avoid leaven why is that anyone know yeah yeah but what's the connection to us being founded as a nation we leave Egypt we're like we're we're in the University of we've graduated the University of slavery we're in caps and gowns like moving into nationhood what does it have to do with matah so the answer is truth Kal is a lie it's filled with air mat mat is like such a True Food think about it it's what's in matah two ingredients flour and water that's it just flower and water it's the ultimate truth now why is truth important truth is important because any foundation requires truth and this is the foundation of our nation and so we have to eat the bread of Truth when we when we are going into there we can't have puffed up stuff on this holiday puffed up stuff because because that's cool it's just that in foundational when you're doing something foundational it's got to be Truth For example when you get married one day your husband should know what he's getting himself into but how many people marry and only find out what they got themselves into later and then you got the hdic world where it's like you know like this family said all this stuff about the boy their son hiding what was really going on telling a story about I'm not saying family does but this I have to meet a lot of couples like this but the thing is it's generally generally me like they find each other that the other family also is willing to lie so they both lie and then they go into the K based on truth or lies on lies so I meet these couples 10 years later 15 years later 20 years later it's the weirdest thing they're not married they're really not married and I have this whole thing that I've created this like um remarrying one another's uh therapy that I've I've developed I have this whole way for them to remarry each other even 15 20 years down the line they go through this remarriage thing that I've developed and it's amazing work it's very special and but why aren't they married like okay so they lied and you found out the truth over the years you know you got you found out what's really going on with your spouse so so what the answer is that when something is foundational well I think we'd all understand this in a business situation if you were in a business situation and you know you're signing and you're like you know with with this other body like you got your company and you got this other body that you're going to be signing on something and and and they're lying well that's going to be hemorrhaging later that's going to wind up problematic that's why we have lawyers before we sign with people because law the job of the lawyer is to make sure this Deal's clean so that three years down the line it doesn't blow up on everybody and it's the same thing with marriage it's same thing with clausel we have to start with the truth so self-esteem is a form of truth it's recognizing the image of God inside you someone who says they're nothing is just playing some kind of ego trip on you like reverse psychology or something but someone who says that they're awesome and the source of that awesomeness is their soul and the source of their soul is God in other words if you everything great about you is recognized as being sourced in God that's self-esteem whereas the scrawny sense of self with the fluffed up wool sense of self which notice I imagine you notice it's the same letters because the root the root of all the fluff is is all the garbage that's the root of it meaning if you think about someone who's doing this arrogant show off he way of life the root of all that is is just this grotesque thin god of the Egyptians Shalom everybody thank you