The Foundation of Man - Body And Soul

foreign is telling us that the uh ballet Musa the people that the sages that taught Musa wanted to get our attention by telling us that this character trait development is a separate teaching of its own but he says the truth is that the traits are not really a separate reality rather the the foundation for everything is the same it's all part of the same Foundation but it was necessary to break off the teachings of musar that are about character trait development in order for it to be more uh um more effective why because the foundation of every man is made up of two things Body and Soul you have the physical needs that are the motivation of a person and then you have the intelligent soul the physical needs many times are the opposite of what the intelligent soul wants and the way for a person to develop their character traits and succeed means that they have to overcome these bodily desires and make the intelligence Soul the priority now the khazonation is telling us that the fact that they're opposite the bodily desires are opposite of the intelligent soul is one of the most important parts of character trait development and the reason for that is because if a person wants to see where their weaknesses are but they don't have let's say a one-on-one teacher they don't necessarily have a uh teachings like this that are spoon feeding into them and telling them exactly what to do Hashem even gave them nature within themselves to identify their weaknesses and that is simply look at what you lust for if you lust after certain things especially if it's beyond the norm if you lust after food you're one of these people that eats all day you always have to choose something or you're constantly thinking about a uh intimacy you're constantly thinking about a money making you're constantly thinking you're investing your a lot of your energy focused on one particular thing and it's constantly on your mind even when it's inappropriate for it to be there then obviously that's a weakness it's time for a person to start using their intelligent soul to overcome it the sages term this midot they call this midot they call this character traits in order to describe the body's tendencies midot are also uh a word that's uh measures and if a person looks at their measures looks at their midot they'll see which ones are the weakest that are literally you know there's like May Day announcements there's SOS you have to fix it everyone's complaining about it your wife is complaining about it your kids are complaining about it your your boss complain about the customers are complaining about it this is just something that is constantly a problem you're you're lazy you're arrogant you're this you're that that's the ones that you'll see something is causing that some type of physical desire is causing that if a person could identify that you know which usually only takes a matter of minutes or seconds even that physical desire then they'll have a much easier time to overcome that uh that physical tendency that leads to other character trait flaws now the sages broke down these Tendencies into division subdivisions in order to in order to make it easier to find the tools that are necessary to wage war against each and every single one of these and as Reverend freim says the only solution to overcome these character trait flaws that stem from physical Tendencies physical desires is by training the intellectual soul how to overcome these desires and also any other possibilities that would come from this for example if somebody has a uncontrollable or even not even uncontrollable simply they're they're neither they're one of these people that eats a lot and they uh don't overcome it and of course everyone has seen the videos of some guy that used to eat a lot and he stopped eating or he started replaced the eating with something else and he's just you know eating grass every day for six months or a year and he runs around all day as if he has no work and no job and no responsibilities and somehow he loses 150 pounds and those all fancy uh fantastic Stories the reality is very different there was a lot more behind the scenes you didn't see and even more than that not everybody can do the same thing not everybody can simply dedicate every single one of their waking hours you know deciding which uh version of grass they're going to eat today and not everybody can do that but that doesn't mean that a person cannot overcome their uh their addiction to eating so if a person wants to do that first and foremost they have to see okay wait do I have a plan do I eat all the time or do I eat whenever I'm hungry once they start thinking about okay so I can handle the fact that you know I don't necessarily need to eat all the time hi Kitty when I'm hungry and I'm not necessarily hungry all the time and there are certain things that fill me up better than others if I eat junk food if I eat candy and chocolates and so on those are sweet and tasty and I like it but it doesn't fill me up if I order Chinese food I could eat it for five hours straight and still remain hungry why because the same thing like candy but if I eat I don't know I eat a piece of meat and some bread or I eat I don't know a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or eat one some of these other uh uh you know uh sandwiches some other form of uh food that fills me up then I won't necessarily be craving for something shortly after so automatically a person could see that again it's not even necessarily that you need to eat that much is that sometimes the food that you eat is what leads you to eat more and more secondly it's also a decision that a person has that the intellectual soul has to overcome the physical Desire by simply deciding that I'm only going to eat when I'm hungry not when I simply want to eat and I'm not hungry all the time so that means that automatically a person could you know remove at least 50 percent if not 90 of the amount of times that they eat all day they don't have to look like a cow chewing its cud all day why because I'm not hungry all day the other aspect is that they have to also consider how does the food affect them how does the food affect them there's certain foods that make them tired certain foods that uh you know uh you know don't necessarily make them tight certain foods that even energize them and so on and so forth many times you'll see that some of the Taurus Scholars that were very particular about their time many times you see them eating the same thing for 50 years in a row one famous uh uh dish if you will that is well known is uh the dish that RAF kaduri I love a Shalom used to eat Bamba breakfast lunch and dinner you would eat Bamba for anyone who doesn't know if you're not Israeli and you're not uh uh you're not familiar with a snack it's a peanut butter snack like peanuts uh uh puffed peanuts but it's really corn long story short it's a it's something that is uh uh was good for his stomach was good for his a uh to be satiated from and that's what he would eat Bamba now again you may choose to eat other Foods why did he choose that the same thing like Rob steinemen Rob Steinman would eat a potato that's it potato no meat no chicken no sauce no nothing potato why because I eat because I'm hungry and this food say cheese meat that's it I don't have to worry about the other things now again I'm not telling everybody this is for everybody I'm not recommending for you to start eating only potato for the rest of your life or even just steak for the rest of your life many people simply cannot handle that but the point being is is that when a person decides that they're going to eat for the sake of say cheating their hunger and not their desire automatically that removes a lot of the extra that a person has [Music] let me know what you think and make sure to share it because other people need to learn too