Episode 111 - How To Sound Smarter By Talking Less

Mockery can feel like a harmless habit, but it trains the heart. We start with Rabbi Akiva in Pirkei Avot and get painfully practical about how constant joking, belittling, and lightheadedness can lower our standards until immorality starts to look normal. From there, we unpack what our sages mean by a “protective fence” and why the Oral Torah and Gemara aren’t extra material, they’re the instructions for living Torah and doing mitzvot with clarity and care.

We also talk about fences in everyday life: giving tithes and charity as a discipline that protects wealth, and vows as something to fear rather than flaunt. If you truly need a vow to strengthen self-control, we explain why it must be specific and time-bound so it doesn’t collapse into failure. Then we land on a fence that most of us resist: silence. Silence protects wisdom, keeps us learning, and saves us from lashon hara and the kind of chatter that eventually turns into talk about people.

The second half shifts into “Garden of Emunah” territory and connects faith to mental health. We share a bold Breslov-based claim: emotional strength rises or falls with emunah, and fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and mood swings often point to a breakdown in that connection. The practise we challenge you to try is hisbodedut, taking an hour to speak out loud to the Creator, ask for what you need, and build a real relationship that changes your inner world.

If this helped you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs steadiness right now, and leave a review. What “fence” are you going to build this week?

Transcript

Welcome And Why Pirkei Avot

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. We're getting into it. It's another week, and therefore another opportunity for massive, massive growth. And the way that we're going to do that, given the time that we're in right now, where we're counting the Omer, is we're going to do a little bit of Pirkeavot, the ethics of the fathers, nuggets of wisdom that are irreplaceable, that come directly from our sages and teach us about how to be successful people in terms of how we interact with each other and the things that we do, our actions, how we conduct ourselves in this world, not from a mitzvah perspective necessarily, not from doing the acts, the commandments that God gave us, but how we interact with each other, how we hold ourselves out as being what's called mensches, being good people. So having said that, let's get into it today. It says, Rabbi Akiva says, mockery and levity, I want to read that in Hebrew because it can be interpreted differently also. Schok means laughter, and kalut rosh means lightheadedness. In other words, to mean that if you're not a serious guy, you're a guy that you're always laughing at things, you're always belittling, you're always mocking. That's the kind of approach that's being discussed here. He says, Rabbi Akiva says that mockery and levity accustom a man to immorality. That's the segue. If you've learned anything from this Pirkeavot, these ethics of the fathers that we've been going through, you know that it's all connected. So when he starts with that, the way that he finishes is very much connected to the beginning. So that brings somebody to immorality. What does he say next? The transmitted oral Torah, meaning the oral law, the Gemara, the Tabbu, the explanation of how to do the mitzvahs, is a protective fence around the Torah. That's exactly why our sages created it, by the way. A lot of people don't have the basic understanding of why we have the Gemara. Why do we need it? We've got the five books of Moses, and the answer is because without it, you know nothing. Without it, you haven't got a clue of how to perform the mitzvahs that were given to us in the five books of Moses. If you just read the five books, it sounds like a story. It sounds like a bunch of history stories that tell us about our ancestors, but that's not what it is. That's not what it was designed for. You have to read between the lines to understand how to properly conduct yourself as a God-fearing Jew. And the only way to do that is to rely on our sages who did this in a time and place where there wasn't the noise and distraction that we have today about us. And these people were placed on a much higher level. They had Siata Dashemayah. They had a connection back to their creator. They were divinely inspired. So their words are Torah words. And Hashem made sure that the way that they interpreted the Torah was the correct way. So how do you protect your written Torah? By having the Oralah. So it says if you want to protect it, you want to create a fence around it, then you need to have this oral law. The oral law was also, in addition to an explanation of the Torah, it was our sages saying, we're going to put additional fences and boundaries because we understand, you may not understand the importance of keeping the Torah. You may not understand the potential risk of committing the sins. A lot of people don't understand the gravity of them. But the sages did. And so they said, look, just like there's a swimming pool, and if you leave that swimming pool unfenced, then it is very likely that a child will see that, get excited, want to jump in and drown because they can't swim. They're too young. A kid, a young toddler, is drawn to water, especially when they see other young kids swimming in there. So they want to come over and jump in, but they can't. They're not ready for it. And that's why we have an obligation to put a fence around it. That fence is what he's talking about over here. How do we put a fence around our Torah learning? By learning the oral law to make sure that you're conducting yourself properly when it comes to the mitzvahs. And then he goes on. Tithes, giving you 10%, which you're all obligated to do. We all are. We have to give at least 10% of our net income to charity. What does it say about tithes? It's a protective fence for what? For wealth. If you want to maintain the wealth that you have, if you want to make sure that wealth stays by you, then make sure to give your tithes. Very important. Vows are a protective fence for abstinence. It says one who's in control of himself and who is capable of self-denial without making vows is best advised not to make them. Stay away from vows. Vows are a serious thing, especially when you're doing it the right way using God's name. Once upon a time, they used to do that in courtrooms. Today we no longer do that because we understand the importance and the gravity of using Hashem's name. So if you can do something without making a vow, you should. But someone who's unable to subdue his darker side by the willful exercise of self-control may invoke a vow to strengthen his resolve. If somebody's lacking and know that they're weak in terms of self-control, oftentimes they'll revert to making a vow in order to make themselves more reliable in that scenario. However, he should do so for a prescribed amount of time. An open-ended vow may be too difficult to keep indefinitely. So if you're going to make a vow, make sure that there is a prescribed amount of time. I vowed it for a week, for a day, for a month, for a year. Do not keep it open-ended because that becomes almost impossible to keep. And then you break your vow, which is a very serious crime. A protective fence for wisdom is silence. Very interesting. Silence is a powerful, powerful tool. Today we see online, look at all these parades, look at all these marches of people going out there and signing up, and it's clear as day. Just when you hear them, when somebody finally gets to put a microphone in their in their mouth and they get to spew all of the junk that's in their head, you realize that they really don't know anything. You realize that they're really uneducated, they're ignorant on the subject matter. It's clear as day that somebody is paying them. There is an ulterior motive for them to be there. Because the beautiful thing is that they want to just rifle off all the things that are in their head. But as soon as a microphone gets put in front of them and they are asked a simple question, they themselves realize that they should have stayed quiet. Being quiet, keeping your mouth closed and listening, does two things. King Solomon taught that even a silent fool is considered wise. Why? Somebody who's silent, somebody who sits and listens and is not in a rush to speak, to demonstrate their knowledge, gives themselves more opportunity to learn. If you're always the one talking, then you're not the one listening because you can't do both at the same time. So if you're the type of person who remains silent, then the odds are that you're going to absorb what is being given to you. You're listening if you're not talking, because the alternative is that you're talking and you're not listening. So that's why even somebody who's considered a fool, as long as he stays quiet, he has potential to learn much more than somebody who has some wisdom, but all he does all day long is want to share his wisdom with everybody. I've shared with you guys the Gemara that my rabbi used to share a long time ago. It says, Gis de radela binakishkariya, which means that if you take a charity box and you put a few coins in it, that those coins represent wisdom. What happens with that charity box? You shake it, it becomes a rattle, and it's noisy like you can't believe. Few coins. You shake it and it makes so much noise you can't stand it. When you take tons of money and you pack it in to the point where you're jamming in the last few coins, you shake it, you hear nothing. That represents what we're talking about over here. A wise person that is full of knowledge, that knows and is confident in his knowledge, does not need to prove anything to anybody. They stay quiet. And their quiet speaks volumes. The other thing, and we'll finish with this, that staying quiet does is it saves you from saying all the things that you shouldn't say. All of the negative speech, all of the gossip, all of the evil tongue, all of the stuff that we talk about when we just want to keep talking, we want to fill the air with words, brings us to discussing things that we shouldn't be talking about. Brings us to sin, actively sinning by talking about individuals and by spreading rumors. And if you think you can talk about sports and the weather all day long, think again, because the reality is you cannot. It's just a matter of time before we start speaking about people. So, bottom line, protect your wisdom, protect your learning. All the learning that you've been doing can be protected. How? By remaining silent. You'll learn more and you'll stop yourself from saying things that you shouldn't be saying. That wraps it up for Pierre Kevot. Let's get back into the garden of Amuna. Mental health and emotional health. This is a big one, guys. Everybody deals with it. We've touched on it previously. We're going to talk about it a little more right now. A person derives mental health and strength from where? Emuna. Without Amuna, a person is prone to fear, to anxiety, and other negative emotions. Nachman of Brezlev writes that the soul and emuna are one. Your Nishama, your soul, is Amuna, and Emuna is your soul. It is one and the same. Therefore, one's emotional health is directly related to one's level of amuna. You want to be emotionally and mentally healthy. Develop your amuna. Work on your understanding that there is a creator who runs the world and that he is perfect, he lacks nothing, and that he loves you, and that his entire existence is to provide you with the tools necessary to reach the greatest level of success. If you do that, then you will bring upon yourself emotional and mental well-being. That's why we conclude that emotional disturbances result from a breakdown of amuna. Emotional confusion results from confused amuna. There can be confused amuna where people don't understand it. They don't understand where it comes from. They don't understand what the whole purpose of it is. They don't understand the purpose of creation. They don't ever try and foster a relationship with their creator. They don't ever do what we talked about, which is higba de dut, which means to have that personal hour of conversation with your creator. When you don't do that, you become confused about how that relationship is supposed to look. Emotional weakness is the outcome of weak amuna. Very simple. If you're weak in your amuna, you become weak emotionally. This is the rule of thumb for all mental illnesses. Pay attention. All mental illnesses, not some, not a few, not only these that fall into this category or those that fall into that category, all mental illnesses fall into the same category. When we see that a person is born healthy, but at a later age he succumbs to fear, anxiety, depression, and even schizophrenia, or any other mental or emotional difficulties, the root of the problem is a breakdown or insufficiency of amuna. But here's the good news: there's always a silver lining. If the emotionally disturbed individual learns all about amuna and prays for amuna, he or she will recover from the ailment. They will stop being depressed. The anxiety will melt away. The more a person corrects and strengthens their amuna, the more he or she will enjoy mental and emotional health and well-being. Every person, even the so-called normal person, whatever that means, suffers from emotional problems to a certain degree. We all do. Why? The answer is quite simple, isn't it? Because nobody is perfect in their amuna. Nobody is going to pass every test all the time. We're tested every day that we're alive. And so as long as we're not passing a test because we've weaknesses in certain areas. For some people, it might be money. For other people, it might be relations. For other people, it might be substances. For other people, it might be prayer or charity. There's a million different reasons that somebody could be tested and not do so well. And it's different from individual to individual. But he says, in addition to fear and anxiety and depression, people are plagued with boredom, lack of satisfaction, anger, worries, nervousness, and extreme mood fluctuations, i.e. bipolar. Just to name a few, Emuna cures all of these ills. My friends, the only way for you to figure this out is to do it for yourself. The only way for you to confirm that this is true is for you to test it. Work on yourself. Take an hour in the day. Seclude yourself in a room. Go out to a field, find a quiet place, use your words, speak out loud and reach out to your creator and ask. Ask for things and you will receive. I promise you, I've done it umpteen times and I still do it. When you ask, you receive. When you don't ask, you won't receive. It's just that simple. You will get the things that are necessary. You will get the basics for living, the basics to be able to get you through another day. But you will not be thriving. You will not be coming anywhere close to achieving your purpose in this life. If you want to, then you need to ask. Hashem, please give me X because I need that. And without you providing it for me, I can't get it. I've tried. I've tried over and over again. It doesn't work. Please, Hashem, help me. With your help, and only with your help can I achieve greatness. When you say that, trust me, try it. When you say it, you will see miracles unfolding before your eyes. Have an amazing day. Have a miraculous day, my friends, and we will chat again tomorrow.