Speaker 1: Just because it's true doesn't mean you need to say it.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good Wolfe thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Greg Marcus.
Speaker 1: Gregg has a BA in biology from Cornell University and
Speaker 1: earned his PhD in biology from m I T. He
Speaker 1: worked for ten years as a marketer in the Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley genomics industry, after which he became a stay at
Speaker 1: home dad, writer, life balance coach, and biotech consultant. Gregg's
Speaker 1: first book, Busting Your Corporate Idol self help for the
Speaker 1: Chronically Overworked is a five star Amazon bestseller. His latest
Speaker 1: book is called The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions Finding
Speaker 1: Balance through the Soul Traits of Mussar. If you value
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Speaker 1: your help. As the show has grown, so have our
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Speaker 1: you Feed dot net slash Support. Thank you in advance
Speaker 1: for your help. And here's the interview with Greg Marcus. Hi, Greg,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Heir pleasure to be here. I'm
Speaker 1: excited to have you on. You wrote a book called
Speaker 1: The Spiritual Practice of Good Actions Finding Balance through the
Speaker 1: Soul Traits of Mussar, and I'm really excited to get
Speaker 1: into more of that. There's a lot in the book
Speaker 1: that falls right in the heart of what we talked
Speaker 1: about on the show. But let's start like we always
Speaker 1: do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with
Speaker 1: his grandson. He says, in life, there are two wolves
Speaker 1: inside of us that are always at battle. One is
Speaker 1: a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery
Speaker 1: and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the
Speaker 1: grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second
Speaker 1: and looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. Well. The first time I
Speaker 1: heard that parable, I was I was just blown away.
Speaker 1: I think it is great, and it is so similar
Speaker 1: to one of the core and fundamental moss A teachings,
Speaker 1: which is that inside of us there's a battle between
Speaker 1: the good inclination and the evil inclination, and those are
Speaker 1: translated from Hebrew terms. And the evil it's not like
Speaker 1: the kind of terrorists sort of evil. It's more like
Speaker 1: selfishness and fears and those things that come from our
Speaker 1: reptilian brain. And the good inclination are those parts of
Speaker 1: our personality that come from the prefrontal cortex, like generosity
Speaker 1: and caring about others. And all the time we were
Speaker 1: on the crux, and there's a battle that takes place
Speaker 1: between the two. And part of our job and Mussar
Speaker 1: is to train the good inclination to guide the evil inclination.
Speaker 1: There's a famous teaching in the Talmud that says that
Speaker 1: once the rabbis trapped the evil inclination, and everybody rejoiced
Speaker 1: until they noticed that nobody went to work. The chicken
Speaker 1: stopped laying eggs. So it's really a fundamental part of
Speaker 1: who we are. It's just when the evil inclination runs
Speaker 1: a mock that's where we really get into trouble. And
Speaker 1: you gave it away a little bit there by mentioning
Speaker 1: the Talmud. But what is mussar? So Mussar is a
Speaker 1: is a thousand year old Jewish spiritual practice that teaches
Speaker 1: us how to find those things inside that caused us
Speaker 1: to get stuck in the same situation again and again.
Speaker 1: And it offers a path towards balance and healing through
Speaker 1: mindful living and taking mindful actions in everyday life. And
Speaker 1: so I'm going to summarize it very briefly here and
Speaker 1: then we can get into it in a lot more detail.
Speaker 1: You can correct me with what I get wrong. But
Speaker 1: what you do is you come up with a series
Speaker 1: of what you call soul traits um another term for
Speaker 1: them might be virtues or good characteristics that you spend
Speaker 1: a certain amount of time on. In your case, in
Speaker 1: the book, you talk about doing each one for two weeks,
Speaker 1: one for two weeks, the next for two weeks, and
Speaker 1: you sort of meditate on and reflect on and act
Speaker 1: upon those, and then you repeat the whole cycle again
Speaker 1: the next year. An analogy is similar, and you made
Speaker 1: it in the book yourself, to to Ben Franklin, sort
Speaker 1: of tracking of his virtues on a calendar. Yeah, that's right,
Speaker 1: that's exactly correct. And not only is it similar to
Speaker 1: Ben Franklin, it's actually derived from Ben Franklin. So there.
Speaker 1: Moossar itself goes back a thousand years, but for most
Speaker 1: of its history it was kind of a branch of
Speaker 1: theoretical study or Jewish philosophy on how to live a
Speaker 1: good life? And rolled his anger having a good life?
Speaker 1: And what rolled his jealousy? Or when is there too
Speaker 1: much patience. But in the nineteenth century in Lithuania, Rabbi
Speaker 1: Israel Salinter started a Moossart movement, which was how can
Speaker 1: we actually practice this in community? How can we tie
Speaker 1: this theoretical study towards kind of a systematic discipline. And
Speaker 1: one of the key books that he referenced was called
Speaker 1: Accounting of the Soul, and that book was basically a
Speaker 1: Jewish version of Ben Franklin's system and autobiography. So it
Speaker 1: was Ben Franklin who invented the morning mantra, and he
Speaker 1: invented this idea of journaling every night, and this was
Speaker 1: adopted into this larger Moossar framework and philosophy. I didn't
Speaker 1: glean that from the book. I recognized the similarities, but
Speaker 1: I must have not followed it carefully enough that Ben
Speaker 1: Franklin actually had a direct influence. One of the things
Speaker 1: that I loved the most about the book. Besides you
Speaker 1: already touched on the the fact that right at the
Speaker 1: heart of it is this this battle between two forces.
Speaker 1: Is that when you talk about a soul trade. So
Speaker 1: I'll give an example. One might be humility. That you
Speaker 1: guys are looking at it from a perspective of what
Speaker 1: I call the middle way where I didn't call it,
Speaker 1: the Buddha calls it the middle way. Right, this sense
Speaker 1: that too much humility or too little humility gets you
Speaker 1: in trouble, too much courage, too little courage gets you
Speaker 1: into trouble. And so you're searching for that midpoint along
Speaker 1: the line, which I am always so attracted to because
Speaker 1: I just found for myself there's so much wisdom in
Speaker 1: that trying to find the middle way. It was a
Speaker 1: real eye opener for me. And when I look at
Speaker 1: the soul trade, like truth, for example, I mean, my
Speaker 1: natural inclination is to kind of be truthful to a fault.
Speaker 1: And I felt like, hey, as long as I was
Speaker 1: telling the truth, you know, I was gonna you know,
Speaker 1: I was in the corporate world for many years. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be blunt, I'm gonna tell it like it is.
Speaker 1: But the problem is when you get into too much
Speaker 1: truth is that you can lose sight of kindness and
Speaker 1: that you can really hurt people. And it can actually
Speaker 1: be kunter productive to be too truthful. You know, just
Speaker 1: because it's true doesn't mean you need to say it.
Speaker 1: One of the things to follow that idea of truth
Speaker 1: a little bit that I was struck by in the
Speaker 1: book was the idea within Judaism that sometimes not telling
Speaker 1: the truth, if done for the right reasons, is okay.
Speaker 1: Can you elaborate on that a little bit. I just
Speaker 1: thought it was I was kind of struck by it.
Speaker 1: I believe it, but I just hadn't seen it espoused before.
Speaker 1: It's funny. I was just happened to be at a
Speaker 1: at a bot Mitzvah and the teenager gave a little
Speaker 1: Tara teaching and she talked about this, and the way
Speaker 1: that she summarized was that if you're going to be untruthful,
Speaker 1: it can't be just for yourself, you know, being untruthful
Speaker 1: to just spare yourself embarrassment is not okay. But if
Speaker 1: you're looking to spare someone else's feelings, then it can
Speaker 1: be okay if you're trying to keep Like a traditional
Speaker 1: teaching is is that if you're trying to keep peace
Speaker 1: within your house, it's okay to be a little bit untruthful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I agree with it, And it's such a slippery slope,
Speaker 1: it's such a well. I just won't mention that because
Speaker 1: it will make somebody uncomfortable. And I've gotten myself into
Speaker 1: trouble by if I tell him that, it's just gonna
Speaker 1: upset him. So I won't tell him that, And so
Speaker 1: I've gotten myself in trouble with that. But I do
Speaker 1: believe there's some truth in in the core idea, and
Speaker 1: I think, like you said, it really comes from what's
Speaker 1: the real intention. If we're really honest and dig deep
Speaker 1: in ourselves, what's really the intention here? It is a
Speaker 1: slippery slope because we're very good at rationalizations and something
Speaker 1: where we can rationalize it to ourselves. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's just gonna upset the other person. It's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe they're going to be upset because I did something
Speaker 1: where I really messed up. Like there was once when
Speaker 1: I was as you said and moss Are, we practiced
Speaker 1: as soult trade for a couple of weeks at a time,
Speaker 1: and there was once was practicing truth And I was
Speaker 1: supposed to drive my daughter and a friend of hers
Speaker 1: to a play and I'm I'm so embarrassed. I can't
Speaker 1: believe I'm going to share this example. But I was
Speaker 1: Candy Crush and I was so addicted to that stupid
Speaker 1: game that I looked up and I was late picking
Speaker 1: up her friend and we were actually late to the
Speaker 1: play and I was mortified, and I'm like, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm practicing truth. So I was honest and like, you know, girls,
Speaker 1: I am so so sorry. I was playing the stupid
Speaker 1: video game and I lost track of time and now
Speaker 1: we're late, and I really let you down, and I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: But at least by telling the truth, I could give
Speaker 1: them a lesson that it's like, hey, you know, you
Speaker 1: get too into video games that can have negative consequences.
Speaker 1: And so I deleted it from my iPad. I never
Speaker 1: played it again because maybe some other time in the
Speaker 1: future if I had kind of gotten away with it,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and I could have gotten an even
Speaker 1: more trouble by making that same mistake again. So at
Speaker 1: least I I took my medicine and learned my lesson.
Speaker 1: Now you're on the farmville for eighteen hours a day,
Speaker 1: that's right, my kids. I was like, why don't Dad,
Speaker 1: why don't we get video you know, a wee or something,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, because I'll play it all the time.
Speaker 1: That's why we're not going to get it. Oh. I
Speaker 1: can barely mess with Solitaire as a game. I mean,
Speaker 1: no joke. I had a break. I had a week
Speaker 1: off after the holidays, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna relax a little bit, like I work
Speaker 1: all the time, whether it's on the show or other things,
Speaker 1: like I go, go go, and I never really play.
Speaker 1: So I'm just gonna play a little solitaire. And I
Speaker 1: put it on my phone and I swear, but I
Speaker 1: had to take it off. I was like, this is ridiculous,
Speaker 1: Like it's solitaire, but for whatever reason, to use the
Speaker 1: Mussar term, it's the evil inclination. Not really evil, like
Speaker 1: you said, but certainly not further in the direction I
Speaker 1: want to be going in. I gotta find the middle
Speaker 1: way with solitaire. One of the things that you talk
Speaker 1: about in the book is this concept of choice points.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us what a choice point is? You know,
Speaker 1: as we go through our life again, it comes back
Speaker 1: to the evil inclination of the good inclination, or the
Speaker 1: the white wolf and the dark wolf. You know, some
Speaker 1: parts of our lives we're generally just gonna be on
Speaker 1: automatic pilot and we're going to do the right thing.
Speaker 1: And in other parts of our lives are going to
Speaker 1: be on automatic pilot. We're going to do the wrong thing.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm in the habit of cutting corners, or
Speaker 1: maybe I'm gonna spin the truth for the customers or something,
Speaker 1: and I don't even think about it. But sometimes there
Speaker 1: are certain parts of our life where we can go
Speaker 1: either way, and then we're at a choice point and
Speaker 1: we can do the right thing or we can do
Speaker 1: the wrong thing. And a big, big part of MUSSA
Speaker 1: is trying to become more present and more awake and
Speaker 1: creating more choice points so that we can really decide.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you're going to do the wrong thing,
Speaker 1: at least you might as well be conscious about it,
Speaker 1: and you might as well go on with your eyes open.
Speaker 1: But the more awake you are, the more likely is
Speaker 1: that you're going to do the right thing. Hey. Everyone,
Speaker 1: this episode is sponsored by the kind folks who have
Speaker 1: made a donation to the show, So thank you very
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Speaker 1: Everybody so much for all the support that you given us.
Speaker 1: We appreciate it and talk to you later. And here's
Speaker 1: the rest of the interview with Greg Marcus. I think
Speaker 1: that's part of what makes the system so great is
Speaker 1: if I'm focusing on a particular soul trait or again
Speaker 1: a virtue or or or a character trait. If I'm
Speaker 1: focusing on it, I'm more likely to see those choice
Speaker 1: points than I would if I wasn't. And I won't
Speaker 1: begin to try and pronounce the rabbi's name who said this,
Speaker 1: but the rabbi said that Mussar helps give us more
Speaker 1: time by opening the space between the match and the fuse,
Speaker 1: which is a great line, the one I usually use
Speaker 1: as another great Jewish man Frankel, who said between stimulus
Speaker 1: and response. You know, how do we increase that time
Speaker 1: between the match and the fuse, or between stimulus and response,
Speaker 1: so that those choice points become more evident and we
Speaker 1: do have more choice? That's right. And one of the
Speaker 1: things I also talked about in the book is is
Speaker 1: free will. And one of the things that I like
Speaker 1: to teach is that we all have free will that's
Speaker 1: not always accessible to us. And if like my wife
Speaker 1: and my kids do something that kind of makes me
Speaker 1: mad and I start yelling or I get angry. Like
Speaker 1: in theory, I have free will, but the stuff is
Speaker 1: out of my mouth before I even think about it.
Speaker 1: And so this idea of increasing that time between the
Speaker 1: match and the fuse just just being able to slow
Speaker 1: it down and avoiding or it's like that, you know
Speaker 1: one email you send at night and then it upsets
Speaker 1: somebody and you spend your next day kind of digging
Speaker 1: yourself out, you know that I used to do when
Speaker 1: I was in the corporate world. Like those kind of
Speaker 1: things where you just get a little more impulse control
Speaker 1: can make your life a lot better. Yep. And for me,
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I think meditation has done
Speaker 1: for me is allowed that space to increase just a
Speaker 1: little bit. There seems just to be a little bit
Speaker 1: more pause between you know, something happens to me and
Speaker 1: I react, not all the time, And I think you're
Speaker 1: absolutely right. I'm fascinated by the idea of free will,
Speaker 1: both in the way that you just said it, which is,
Speaker 1: once I get to a certain emotional state, I'm kind
Speaker 1: of beyond that. I've heard it described psychologically as being flooded.
Speaker 1: You're just at a point where whatever part of your
Speaker 1: brain that's going to act rational is offline, and all
Speaker 1: you can do is is de escalate. I'm also really
Speaker 1: interested in free will. We had a Dr gab or
Speaker 1: mate on the show who basic ideas that most addiction
Speaker 1: is a result of trauma, and depending on the extent
Speaker 1: of trauma, how much free will is really there with
Speaker 1: what has happened to the mind up to that point.
Speaker 1: I just think it's an interesting concept to think through.
Speaker 1: It is fascinating, and I think, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: temptation when people write about free will almost to get
Speaker 1: in these kind of argument. It's like, well people have
Speaker 1: free will or they don't have free will, And even
Speaker 1: people who believe in free will, it doesn't mean you
Speaker 1: always have free will. It's just, you know, we all
Speaker 1: we have instincts and we have things that are hardwired biologically.
Speaker 1: That's right. I agree. I read people who, you know,
Speaker 1: insist we have complete free will, and I have read
Speaker 1: people who insist there is no free will at all.
Speaker 1: Scientifically it's not possible. And I tend to come down
Speaker 1: like I do on a lot of things, like I
Speaker 1: think it's somewhere in between those two things. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: interesting stuff. What I like about Moussa and what's been
Speaker 1: so powerful and life changing though, is it puts it
Speaker 1: in a context that makes it relative to everyday life.
Speaker 1: I mean, we've all lost it, you know, we've all
Speaker 1: lost our cool, and we all know that, all things
Speaker 1: being equal, we're probably better off keeping our cool, right,
Speaker 1: So having a practice there's something to do to help
Speaker 1: you keep your cool or to help you to kind
Speaker 1: of proactively be a really good person too. Like part
Speaker 1: of Mussar is like this whole trade of enthusiasm. It's like,
Speaker 1: how can I go the extra mile for somebody? You know,
Speaker 1: how can I do that extra thing where it's not
Speaker 1: like yeah I did the minimum, but wow, I could
Speaker 1: really do something nice for somebody if I'm just kind
Speaker 1: of keep my eyes open and pay attention. Well. I
Speaker 1: was struck by in the section about kindness how an
Speaker 1: a rabbi was saying, well, if you're going the same
Speaker 1: direction that somebody is already going and you help them
Speaker 1: carry their heavy load, that doesn't really count it all
Speaker 1: accounts if you're going the other direction. I was like, boy,
Speaker 1: that's a high standard, you know, that's really going the
Speaker 1: extra mile. That's a very counterintuitive teaching for a lot
Speaker 1: of people. And part of what the Rabbi was teaching
Speaker 1: us there is that, well, if you're not going to
Speaker 1: help the person who's going in the same direction, then
Speaker 1: you're kind of a jerk. You know, you should. Of course,
Speaker 1: you're going to help the guy who's who's going in
Speaker 1: that direction. But to do um what's called loving kindness.
Speaker 1: The Hebrew word is called has said, and it's mentioned
Speaker 1: like two sixty three times in the Torah. It's like
Speaker 1: this very high standard, and the idea is that the
Speaker 1: whole world is built on these these acts of loving kindness.
Speaker 1: I had an example of that where I was in
Speaker 1: the library and this young woman came up to me
Speaker 1: and she said, um. It was in December, and she says,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm taking my final exams on my computer
Speaker 1: and I'm about to run on of power. Can I
Speaker 1: borrow your computer card? So I said, sure, no problem,
Speaker 1: but I'm leaving in five minutes. So I thought about it,
Speaker 1: and I was feeling very awake, you know, and very aware,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, I only live a couple of
Speaker 1: blocks away. Just take it, give it to the person
Speaker 1: at the front desk and I'll come back later for it.
Speaker 1: And I gave her my card and um so I
Speaker 1: came back in an hour and her computer was all
Speaker 1: charged up and she was really happy. And I don't
Speaker 1: share this only to tell you, like, what a really
Speaker 1: cool guy, because I was. I just had an opportunity
Speaker 1: to really make somebody's day. And there would have been many,
Speaker 1: many times, you know, this week, I might not have
Speaker 1: even noticed the opportunity. I would have been like, oh geez, sorry,
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta go. But that's the kind of
Speaker 1: thing where you totally make somebody's day and you totally
Speaker 1: bail them out. And that's what really makes the world
Speaker 1: a better places, those kind of above and beyond acts.
Speaker 1: I have a list of things that I know are
Speaker 1: good for me to do on a semi regular basis,
Speaker 1: and I just try and check them off a list
Speaker 1: each day. You know, what did I do? Meditation? And
Speaker 1: one of them is an act of kindness? And I
Speaker 1: often find myself at the end of the day going
Speaker 1: did that count? Like I kind of stumbled into that one,
Speaker 1: like exactly like you said, Like, if I hadn't done that,
Speaker 1: I think I would just be a jerk. I don't
Speaker 1: think I get kindness points for just doing the bare minimum,
Speaker 1: so you know, I usually I'm like, no, I have
Speaker 1: to actually initiate or go out of my way a
Speaker 1: little bit in order for me to get credit. Not
Speaker 1: that credit matters to anyone except me and my little system,
Speaker 1: but it makes me think about it. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for sharing that, because that is a really great example,
Speaker 1: because you know, one of the most important things is
Speaker 1: that you do think about it, and yeah, maybe you
Speaker 1: don't get kindness points, but it's still okay that you
Speaker 1: did it. It reminds me a lot of kind of
Speaker 1: the most are journaling because then at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, you know, we're focusing on our trade, and
Speaker 1: then we would sit in journal about that and you
Speaker 1: might say, okay, well did I do everything I could?
Speaker 1: Does that count? Does that not count? And it's just
Speaker 1: by that act of reflecting. Each time we reflect changes
Speaker 1: our soul a little bit and helps move more towards
Speaker 1: that direction of the good inclination or to use the parable,
Speaker 1: we're feeding. We're feeding the white wolf when we do that.
Speaker 1: I referenced it very quickly at the beginning sort of
Speaker 1: the practice of of mussar, but can you walk through
Speaker 1: sort of how you do it at a high level
Speaker 1: real quick. So one of my friends calls muss are
Speaker 1: extreme spiritual fitness, And the idea is that the soul
Speaker 1: is something that's really hard to understand, so to kind
Speaker 1: of get our arms around it, we we look at
Speaker 1: soul traits where it's just one part of the soul
Speaker 1: and we focus on that part for two weeks at
Speaker 1: a time. So it's kind of like going to the
Speaker 1: gym and today I'm going to work on my arms,
Speaker 1: and the next day I'll work on my legs. So
Speaker 1: when we're focusing on a soul trade, it's something like humility, patients,
Speaker 1: what have you. Will begin in the morning with like
Speaker 1: a mantra or it's also called a recitation phrase, like
Speaker 1: for example, for patients, I think the mantra is this
Speaker 1: two shall pass and I have the strength to get
Speaker 1: by until it does. And he would say that out
Speaker 1: loud for a couple of minutes, and it's funny. Saying
Speaker 1: it out loud is really important because usually after about
Speaker 1: a minute, I start to feel the resistance coming up,
Speaker 1: like why am I still doing this? And that tells
Speaker 1: me okay, I'm actually making an impression on my subconscious
Speaker 1: And then as you go through the day, you look
Speaker 1: for what are the things that challenge my patients, and
Speaker 1: you look for opportunities, and you might pick like one
Speaker 1: specific area that you're going to work on. Like one
Speaker 1: of my students when she was working on patients, she
Speaker 1: was a cut you off, curse everybody out, New York
Speaker 1: City type of driver, and she said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to let everybody merge in front of me.
Speaker 1: So she let everybody merge, and she said, like almost
Speaker 1: within a day or two, she became like calm and
Speaker 1: happy whenever she was driving to work. And then at
Speaker 1: night you journal about it, and it could just be
Speaker 1: a couple of sentences and you say, okay, well, where
Speaker 1: was I challenged? That I meet the challenge, that I
Speaker 1: not meet the challenge, And over time we make small
Speaker 1: gradual steps and that direction of balance. That practice can
Speaker 1: be so helpful. I think I do it less consciously
Speaker 1: now and less formally. But being in a recovery program,
Speaker 1: there's the idea of the tent step, which is at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you sort of take a
Speaker 1: look at how you did today on these things and
Speaker 1: you you make amends for anything that you messed up,
Speaker 1: and so doing that every day in a sense of
Speaker 1: sitting down and writing about it for for so long
Speaker 1: has it was such a huge thing to me, almost
Speaker 1: to the point that those things happen a lot more
Speaker 1: naturally now. But I really like the idea in Mussar
Speaker 1: of digging deep in one particular area for a period
Speaker 1: of time versus sort of maybe looking at a higher level,
Speaker 1: looking at a bunch of traits, you know, every day.
Speaker 1: I think there's something to be said for that deeper view.
Speaker 1: It really does help to be specialized, and we kind
Speaker 1: of start to notice patterns. And sometimes there's a trade
Speaker 1: where going in I'm really trepidacious about it, and then
Speaker 1: it turns out to be really rewarding. And other times
Speaker 1: there's a trade where I think it's going to be
Speaker 1: no big deal and it turns out to be really challenging,
Speaker 1: just because that's where I happen to be at this
Speaker 1: point in my life. So there's also something to be
Speaker 1: said for just having a cycle that you always go through,
Speaker 1: because then you're going to come across some area where
Speaker 1: you have an issue very quickly, and it's almost mystical
Speaker 1: the way sometimes like just whatever soul trade I'm working
Speaker 1: on seems to be the one that I really need
Speaker 1: to be working on at that time. So that's kind
Speaker 1: of interesting too. Earlier you reference that there are three
Speaker 1: assumptions in Mussar, and you talked about one of them.
Speaker 1: It's assumption number three, which is we all have free will,
Speaker 1: but it's not always accessible. Can you talk about the
Speaker 1: other two? And the way you did this was these
Speaker 1: assumptions sort of underlie a lot of the soul traits also,
Speaker 1: So to step back, Judaism has been around for thousands
Speaker 1: of years, and there's many and now there's there's so
Speaker 1: many writings, and there's a lot of really good Moosear
Speaker 1: books that are out there as well. But I wanted
Speaker 1: to make this super accessible and so someone who either
Speaker 1: wasn't Jewish or was Jewish but didn't have a lot
Speaker 1: of literacy, I wanted them to be able to get
Speaker 1: started pretty quickly. My background was in the business world,
Speaker 1: and when we'd make a financial forecast, you would make assumptions.
Speaker 1: So you'd say, okay, well, this number of customers come
Speaker 1: in and on average they're going to spend this amount
Speaker 1: and therefore I can expect these outcomes. So I said, well,
Speaker 1: why not create assumptions around mooss Are so people can
Speaker 1: maybe they agree, maybe they don't agree. But if we
Speaker 1: just say, all right, let's just assume this is true
Speaker 1: and see where it takes us. So the first assumption
Speaker 1: is that we all have a divine spark, which is
Speaker 1: included by our baggage. Now, for people who are unsure
Speaker 1: about the divinity, you can think of this is like
Speaker 1: the core goodness of being human. But we all have
Speaker 1: the same spark of goodness, and from a spiritual perspective,
Speaker 1: we're all equal in that regard. And we also have baggage.
Speaker 1: We have those those hurts that happened to us during
Speaker 1: our lives, and the baggage kind of blocks this light,
Speaker 1: It blocks this divine spark. And in Mossar we try
Speaker 1: to move the bags a little bit and we let
Speaker 1: our goodness shine through, or we learn to recognize the
Speaker 1: goodness and other people. So that's the first assumption. And
Speaker 1: then the second assumption is is that we all have
Speaker 1: the same soul traits, but we have different amounts of each.
Speaker 1: So you might think of someone who's very miserly, they
Speaker 1: still have the soul trade of generosity. It's just very
Speaker 1: much out of balance. And then there are actually four assumptions.
Speaker 1: So the third assumption is that we have this inflict
Speaker 1: between the good inclination and the evil inclination. And so
Speaker 1: then our fourth assumption is that we all have free
Speaker 1: will and it's not always accessible. So that third assumption,
Speaker 1: that's the one that I talked about with the parable,
Speaker 1: where we have this conflict between the good inclination and
Speaker 1: the evil inclination. I'm not even trying with these rabbi's
Speaker 1: last names, but yet another rabbi. He said that the
Speaker 1: evil inclination works not only to lures to do the
Speaker 1: wrong thing, it also works to prevent us from doing
Speaker 1: the right thing. And I find that so true. So often,
Speaker 1: at least in my life, it's been much less grievous
Speaker 1: things that I do in my behavior. I start to
Speaker 1: worry more about sins of omission versus commission at this point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that can function on a number of levels, Like
Speaker 1: it's very tempting to look at the biggest instance of that, like, um, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I need to be out there marching or doing social
Speaker 1: justice or fighting poverty or something like that, and we
Speaker 1: can site of just really small things that we need
Speaker 1: to do, like getting flowers for a loved one, or
Speaker 1: cleaning up after ourselves or you know, these these small
Speaker 1: kindnesses and opportunities to really connect with or to help
Speaker 1: other people, those are the things that can make a
Speaker 1: difference between like a whole home life and a life
Speaker 1: of just love and joy and connection. I agree, I
Speaker 1: think that makes such a big difference. One of the
Speaker 1: themes of the show, I think is that a little
Speaker 1: bit of something is better than a lot of nothing.
Speaker 1: Do something, Start where you are, do what you can.
Speaker 1: That's right. Also, um, that is so important because you know,
Speaker 1: I'm always hesitant to give examples, Like I give a
Speaker 1: lot of examples in the book, but I also try
Speaker 1: to keep them really small scale because if you think
Speaker 1: that you need to like suddenly become mother Teresa in
Speaker 1: order to be a good person, that's that's too big
Speaker 1: a jump, that's too big a change to make. But
Speaker 1: if you can find one small action just starting from
Speaker 1: where you are today, you know you're working on generosity. Uh.
Speaker 1: Instead of giving the bariset Starbucks cent tip, give a
Speaker 1: fifty cent tip. Just make a step, Just make a
Speaker 1: conscious step in that direction towards generosity, and that's all
Speaker 1: we're required to do, is to take that next step.
Speaker 1: In the book, one of the salt traits is patients.
Speaker 1: And you say that patients is the cure for helplessness.
Speaker 1: Help me understand that a little bit better. Okay. So
Speaker 1: sometimes in life we are just hit with things that
Speaker 1: we have no control over. Um, we get cancer, we
Speaker 1: get an illness, we are just stuck in traffic, and
Speaker 1: no amount of honking on the horn or tears is
Speaker 1: going to change that reality. And so patients is a
Speaker 1: is a gift from the divine when there's nothing else
Speaker 1: that's left, when we can't take any actions, we can
Speaker 1: still exercise our patient to help us get through that situation.
Speaker 1: The war word for patients in Hebrew has the same
Speaker 1: route as the Hebrew word for the guy who carries
Speaker 1: your luggage in Israel or it's Um says in the
Speaker 1: Torah that God delivered the Israelites from bondage in Egypt,
Speaker 1: and it was the same idea of bearing the burden.
Speaker 1: So it's just like being able to endure the situation
Speaker 1: until it passes. Interesting. I haven't explored it a lot,
Speaker 1: but I've always been incredibly impressed every time I dig
Speaker 1: into Judaism a little bit about how much wisdom and
Speaker 1: very practical wisdom is there. And one of my very
Speaker 1: favorite things that I've heard is the idea that our
Speaker 1: mission is to repair the world. That's right. Can you
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about that, what role that
Speaker 1: plays and how that applies for you. Yeah, so thanks
Speaker 1: for asking that. Because there is this idea that it's
Speaker 1: our our mission is to make the world a better place,
Speaker 1: and there are some very mystical and esoteric teachings about that,
Speaker 1: and there are also some very very practical ones, so
Speaker 1: you can look at it on an ultra local level.
Speaker 1: It's like, how can I repair the hurts within my family?
Speaker 1: How can I make my community a better place? You
Speaker 1: can go all the way to how do I make
Speaker 1: the world a better place through lobbying the government or
Speaker 1: just volunteering. There's sort of another teaching which is less
Speaker 1: well known, which is also repairing the self. And that's
Speaker 1: what Mussar is all about. It's it's about the Hebrew
Speaker 1: phrases are very similar. It's like repairing the soul traits.
Speaker 1: And the idea is that if we can't take care
Speaker 1: of our own issues. If we can't come to our
Speaker 1: own point of balance, we're not going to be showing
Speaker 1: up in the world. Is like a mench this this
Speaker 1: person of outstanding character. And the more that we can
Speaker 1: show up is a is a really good person. The
Speaker 1: better job we're going to do repairing the world excellent. Well,
Speaker 1: I think that's a great place to wrap up. Greg,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for coming on. I really did enjoy
Speaker 1: the book. Like I said, every time I've explored Judaism
Speaker 1: a little bit more, I I walk away more impressed
Speaker 1: and wanting to learn more. And I love the Mussar
Speaker 1: idea and how practical and simple it is to try
Speaker 1: and make steady improvement in life. So thanks for the
Speaker 1: book and thanks for coming on. Oh you're so welcome.
Speaker 1: It was my pleasure. Okay, talk to you later. Bye.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Greg Marcus and this podcast
Speaker 1: at one you Feed dot net slash Marcus. If what
Speaker 1: you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making
Speaker 1: a donation to the one you Feed podcast. Head over
Speaker 1: to one you Feed dot Net slash Support