Elul 28 - Self-Reflection and Personal Development

0:00You're listening to Rave Arya Wouli, Director of Torch, Torah Outreach Resource Center of Houston. This is the Jewish Inspiration Podcast. So how do we make change? How do we inspire change? How do we transform who we are? So I want to give you a few, I found this in my documents, a slew of things that one can ask themselves and monitor themselves where am I holding? So I'm just going to go through some of them, praying three times a day. Am I good? Am I terrible? Am I in between? Once in a while? How am I doing with it? Improvement needed perhaps? Person should rate themselves. How am I in these areas? Perfecting my traits. Am I jealous? Do I get angry? Am I being disingenuous with people?

1:01Am I being truthful? Do I speak kosher or ha? Do I hate people inside? Do I not, forg in people? Do I not allow people to have their success, to have their thing with a good eye? Do I speak negatively about others? Do I vow? Do I speak properly? Do I use foul language? Do I protect my eyes? Do I watch over the things that I look at? Or do I just let myself see whatever is in front of me? Or do I use measures to ensure that I have purity and holiness of thought and of character? Do I wash my hands properly? Do I recite the morning blessings with intention and focus? Do I recite the blessing over the Torah properly? Do I put on my fill in every morning appropriately? Do I recite the shema when I'm in bed appropriately? Do I love God? Do I fear God? Do I have a set time to study Torah?

2:03Do I give proper charity? Do I give charity with words? Do I give charity with objects? Do I give charity with money? Do I do it with a smile? Do I sanctify God's name? Do I deal honestly in business? Do I do things to give others merits? By the way, when you share a podcast, when you share a video, and one other person learns from it, one other person, you've changed their world. That could bring chuva to their life. That could be, do you know that you'll come up to heaven? They say, story, this old, you're a shalmi man. He's a long white beard. He did his thing. He learned Torah every day. And then it comes to heaven. And that this massive palace built for him. Red carpet, everything. All the angels are singing for him. Trump, it's everything. He says, for me, how's the simple guy? I didn't know anything. He says, none of you understand.

3:04When you were once by the Western wall, someone looked at you praying and then inspired them to learn about prayer. And that prayer transformed to they were. They started keeping shabby, they started keeping mitzvahs. And now they have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren who are all keeping the Torah mitzvahs because of your inspiration. And he said, I didn't even do it intentionally to inspire them. I didn't edit my, you still get the reward for it. Imagine if someone does it, you know what? Just so that one other person, if you share this video, you share this podcast so that one other person, you send it to a friend, you say, hey, just something to think about before you're a mkipper. One other person changes their life because of you. You've built yourself a world. Do we do that enough? Are we careful with theft? You know, one of the things, examples I like to give my children, if we don't go frequently to restaurants, but if we do, they like, you know, when you leave, they have these toothpicks that you can take and they're a little candy.

4:06So some people like to take a lot of toothpicks I can have for my car, so I can have it my purse, I can have it my this, I don't know my children one. They didn't put it out so that you can restock your house. They put it out so that you can enjoy one right now. Now is it theft? I don't think it's theft and I'm sure if you ask the owner that say, it's okay, it's no big deal. But still have an extra precautionary measure, an extra protection not to fall into the trap of God forbid stealing. Do I ever embarrass someone in public? Am I careful and cautious? meticulously cautious with family purity. The mitzvah of Tushuva, the steps of vidwik confession, charato regret accepting for the future, azivah sachet leaving this in. Do I try to make peace between other people or do I say it's not my business? It's not my it's not my problem. Do I properly give honor and respect for Shabbos and for the holidays?

5:08Do I properly observe the Shabbos? Am I careful to dress modestly with holiness with dignity as a symbol of Hashem walking around? Do I judge people favorably? Am I teaching my children properly how to live a Torah life? A holy life, a dignified life. Do I properly respect my parents? Am I properly respectful of my fellow man? Do I rush to do mitzvahs? Are you properly fulfilling the mitzvah of welcoming guests into your home? Do we pursue that? Find opportunities to welcome others? Do we visit the sick properly? Do we desire the redemption, the coming of Mashiach? Do we rely on our sages properly the way the Mishna tells us to? Do we bring Jews together with Ahtus, with Oneness that there should be love amongst the Jewish people? Do we overcome our Yetsahara?

6:09Do we do positive deeds? Do we properly respect our spouse? Do we have joy when we're fulfilling mitzvahs? Do we have proper faith in Hashem? Do we have fundamental principles of our faith? Do we recite the blessings before and after eating appropriately? Do we have knowledge and clarity when it comes to the areas of Halacha? Do we do acts of kindness? Do we use caution when in synagogue not to speak idol chatter? Do we learn muster every day to know how to correct our ways? Do we do things to perfect our mitzvahs, to elevate our mitzvahs, to make them even more refined? Do we use caution when it comes to food, to make sure that they're perfectly kosher, on and on and on. My dear friends, there's so much to think about when we prepare for Yom Kippur to introspect,

7:13take a pen and paper, write down these things, evaluate. Here am I holding with this? My dear friends, Hashem should accept our Tashuva, our repentance. We should have the opportunity, we should have the privilege to be forgiven and be atoned for all of our sins, Hashem should accept our Tashuva. God willing tonight will continue talking about the concept of Tashuva. But till then, my dear friends, have a Gammar Khatima Tava. We were signed on Rashashana. But we should be sealed on Yom Kippur only for the greatest new year of Maine. Thank you, thank you everyone, Shana Tava, Gammar Khatima Tava. You've been listening to the Jewish Inspiration Podcast, a torch production. Become a supporter at torchweb.org because your assistance enables more Torah learning around the globe. To find more lessons offered by Torch, please visit torchpodcast.com.