TRANSCRIPT
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The Rabbi Daniel Lapin Podcast
Episode: Supercharge Your Psyche-Power Up Your Personality
Date: 04/18/25 Length: 00:32:42
Daniel Lapin 0:00
Greetings, Happy Warriors, and welcome to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin show, where I your rabbi, reveal how the world really works. Thank you for being part of the show, and thank you for spreading the word. Some of you are doing a fabulous job in getting other people to hear about the show, like minded people, people who will enjoy it and benefit from it. And thank you for subscribing yourself and encouraging other folks to subscribe. If any of you have not yet subscribe now would be a terrific time to take care of that, while we proceed to understand how the world, yes, really works, and each and every one of you is a happy warrior, because, As the poem by William Wordsworth, the English poet who wrote this poem in the early years of the 19th century, early 1800s and he said, The Happy Warrior finds comfort in himself and in his cause, and while the mortal mist is gathering, draws his breath in confidence of Heaven's applause. This is the Happy Warrior. This is he that every man in arms should wish to be. Another great poem, of course, is William Ernest Henley's Invictus. Always quote this, and he finishes off his poem saying, I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul, and because you Happy Warriors are not tennis balls floating down the gutter of life, it's indeed my honor to serve each and every one of you, because we're all happy warriors, where the man or woman, because to live productively, we have to fight every day against the force of entropy. If nothing else, you fight to maintain your possessions. You fight to build and maintain your family. These things are all struggles. They don't come easily. It is much easier to be a couch potato and to maintain your money, your finances, the things you own, maintain your body, your business, your profession, your career. God created a world in which chaos and disorder rule. Chaos and disorder have nature working on their side. It's the second verse of the Bible, that life, that the Earth, is created in a state of chaos in Hebrew and a word that's become popular in English, Tohu, bohu. It that means chaos and confusion. Life is a fight, and it's a good thing, because to stop fighting and to stop seeking and to stop striving to achieve, well that's just to die. And I call you not just warriors, but I call you Happy Warriors, because to throw ourselves into the fight for eight or 10 hours a day, six days a week. Well, that's one thing, but to do all that with a debonair smile on our faces and a jaunty pace to our walk, to do all that while generating an irrepressible surge of happiness welling up in our souls. Well, that means that you and I, each and every one of us is spiritually grounded in everything that is life affirming. We are devoted to our faith, our families, our finances, our fitness and our friendships, knowing that we can triumph over those who both intentionally and inadvertently promote a dark abyss of satanic secular socialism and all The many destructive and evil social pathologies that it generates. So if we've got any clowns or creeps or crooks or cranks listening to the show, hang up, you guys. The show is only for Happy Warriors. Let's try and remember that okay and so, knowing and understanding that we can talk about something that happened in 2018, by seven years ago, towards the end of the year in Las Vegas, two young poker players. A guy called Richard Alati and an Australian poker player called Rory young, they they had a wager. They took a bet. Rory young bet Richard Alati that he couldn't stay in a closed dock room without connection with any other person for 100 and for $100,000 and Richard Alati took up the bet, and he said, Yes, he could for $100,000 he will stay in a closed, dark room where he would be isolated from anybody for 30 day, 20 days, no for 30 days, that was the bet. And food was delivered, gourmet, excellent. Food was delivered regularly, but it was, it was with no contact with the delivery person. It was placed in one of these sort of locks where someone on the outside can insert all the the food and the and all the goodies, and then he has to close the door, and only then can the inside door open and Richard Alati would then be able to get hold of his food. Well, turns out that Richard Alati was not able to stay there for 30 days, and he started bargaining with Rory young after about two weeks, about getting out and because they were poker players, Richard said, Well, look, you know what? Maybe I'm just gonna force myself in, and you gonna have to pay me 100,000 and Rory said, Well, if you know, if you want to get out earlier. Well, he didn't know that Richard was desperate to get out earlier. Richard was totally going completely nuts and unable to even contemplate the possibility of staying another 10 days. And so finally, the two friends negotiated that he would leave after 20 days, which Richard was absolutely delighted and relieved to be able to do, and Rory would pay him $62,400 so for Rory, he didn't have to pay 100 he ended up paying 62,000 and Richard didn't have to spend another 10 days. He was able to escape after 20 days, and he spoke afterwards about how terrible it was. It was an awful experience, and nothing he would ever want to repeat himself so that I tell you all of this because it helps us understand the extent to which we human beings need connection. We have connection with family. We have connection through finance and we have connection through friends. What do I mean through finance? Well, one of the most terrible things about retirement is the loneliness a person who had a busy life, people at work, he saw every day, customers, clients, whatever it was, and that was part of connecting to other people, which is deeply life affirming for us all. And a guy retires, and all of a sudden he's he sits around at home, and the loneliness, the isolation, the detachment from other human beings, is dreadful. And so the the idea is that, yes, we have family, and that provides an initial tier of connection, fundamental and important. And then we've got friends, and then we've got finance, the people we meet through our work, all of those things are important, and if you are not quite where you feel you should be, then the first thing I would look at, the first possible culprit is connection, inadequate connection, not connecting with enough people.
Daniel Lapin 9:24
I have a client, as you know, I coach three or four, sometimes four people at a time, and one of the people just told me recently that he learned to fly. He went along and got a training and a pilot's license, strictly because he wanted to have another arena of connection. So now he's got a whole number of friends. He's got people who he meets on a regular basis, and they talk airplanes and they. Discuss it just it was a wonderful thing. It opened up a whole new category of friends, a whole new group of people he would otherwise not have known. So it's not just that friends enhance life. This is the point I want to make. It's not just that it enhances life, but that it's essential to our mental health. And you know, there are a lot of reasons for the explosion of Americans who are on psychotropic drugs for mental disorders, but one of those reasons is undoubtedly that the extent of human connection has diminished. We don't speak to our neighbors, and we connect to people through our devices and through social media, which has zero value. It's got to be real connection through real conversation with real people, in order for it to help build you and to uplift you and to fill you with a warm feeling of Bonami that all is good, is all is well in your life, you've got to be connected to other people. And it's even beyond that. It's that our identities, literally, our very psychic identity, is tied to our relationship with other people, if, if you're not sure who you are, if you're feeling psychically isolated and often, as it were, then family, friends and finance, you do need more connection with people. And there's a very interesting biblical insight on this in Chapter 2 Genesis verse 22 and again, I've stressed before, if you're not religious, that's fine. You should still own a Bible. It's the most significant book that's ever been published in the world. More copies of it have gone around than any other book, and no other book has had the influence on civilization that the Bible has. And so you can just go to the Rabbi Daniel Lapin.com website and go to the store, and you will find the my recommended Bible. You'll find a wonderful Bible that would provide you with an entire Hebrew Scriptures, and it's in an immensely readable format, and it's life changing. It really is. And you'll also be able to look up something when I quote it like now, Genesis 2:22 and the Lord built the side that he had taken from the Adam into a woman, and he brought her to the Adam now, some of the English translations say, And the Lord God built the side that he had taken from man into a woman, and he brought her to man. I prefer to translate that accurately and precisely. And the LORD God built the side that he had taken from the Adam. Think of it as sort of the primeval man. The Adam into a woman, and he brought her to the Adam. And the next verse, 23 says, and the Adam said, this time, it is bone of my bone, of my bones and flesh of my flesh, this one shall be called Woman, because she was taken from man, And what your English translation may not adequately convey is that there has been a change in the wording. It doesn't say And the LORD God built the side. They are taken from the man into a woman, he brought into the man. It's Lord God built a side that he had taken from Adam, the Adam into a woman, and he brought her to the Adam, and then it says this, the Adam said, the Adam said this time it is bone of my bones, flesh of my flesh. This one shall be called woman because she was taken from man. Totally different word. Doesn't say the atom. As a matter of fact, this is the very first time we find the word man used in Scripture. Up till now, the human male has been called the Adam, but now for the first time, he's called man the. And the Hebrew word for the Adam is Ha, Adam, and the Hebrew word for man as it's used for the very first time in chapter two, verse 23 is ish and woman Isha, because in Hebrew, the female version of a male noun is obtained by putting an R sound at the end of the noun. See, you've got the Hebrew word, yelled, boy, yellow, da, girl. And so the R sound at the end of a noun signifies that it's a female noun. I tell you this because man Adams identity as ish doesn't appear until he he meets his wife, Isha, the woman, and he says, and because she was taken from ish, from the man, I want to I want to read to you another poem, if I may. This is a poem written by the great English poet Rudyard Kipling.
Daniel Lapin 16:14
Rudyard Kipling and he wrote this about 100 years later than Wordsworth wrote the character of the happy warrior. But if you're looking for a poem to introduce your child to poetry, this isn't a bad one. If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about, don't deal in die lies or being hated. Don't give way to hating and yet. Don't look too good, nor talk too wise. If you can dream and not make dreams your master. If you can think and not make thoughts your aim, if you can meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same, if you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or watch the things you gave your life to broken And stoop and build them with worn out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe a word about your loss, if you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone. And so hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says to them, hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with kings nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you, but none too much. If you can feel the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run yours is the earth and everything that's in it. And which is more, you'll be a man, my son. Terrific. These are the things that make you a man.
Daniel Lapin 18:27
Anybody who has XY chromosomes can grow up to be a male adult, but that doesn't mean that is a man, and that is what we see from the 23rd verse of chapter two in Genesis, Adam only qualifies and gains his identity as a man after he's met Eve and that piece of ancient Jewish wisdom is something that is important and is true for each and every One of us, which is that our identity is enhanced and made more real by the other people in our lives, and it's an interesting thing, but I have reached a point where I am pretty good at telling when a person does not have a lot of connection there in the in their lives. When I talk to somebody after no more than about five minutes, I can judge whether that person is well connected in life to other people or somewhat isolated. And it's not a good thing. So you really should ask yourself whether you are spending maybe too much time not connected to other people. That connection at its most basic level, family, friends and then finance is, is really, really important. It's it and. Enables people to withstand very grueling and difficult times in the gulag, the old Soviet prison system prisoners with robust identities that grew out of connections with family back home or religious connections, felt that they had partners in their daily struggle against Soviet jailers, those that were connected to communities awaiting them back home, they saw all of What they were enduring as part of a grand historical chain, and they were able to survive. And Israel as a country today is fascinating precisely because of the strong sense of connection, and that helps to produce a sense of optimism, a sense that that everyone really has a strong identity that is built through shared stories and shared values and strong relationships and connections, not for one moment that I refer to the way America has been run for the last few decades, shared and competing grievances do not do it, you know, to say, Well, I'm a woman and and we are trying to regain power, taking it away from the patriarchy that does not produce the connections that build up psychic identity at all, but when nurtured thoughtfully, group identity does enhance our journey and fills out the shape of our personalities. So it's important to note that for patriotism and love of country to exist, there has to be, first of all, love of family and love of friends, and then from there, love of country can grow. But if you try and instill love of country and patriotism where there is no basic connection at its most local level. It never does work. And this is why it is that the evil doctrines of secular fundamentalism, liberalism and progressivism tend to undermine the importance of family. They tend to undermine the importance of friends, and they focus very much on the relationship between people and government, and they do not encourage a more local relationship. And the founders in their Constitution for the United States of America, stressed the importance of freedom of association, that people could form local friendships and clubs and affiliations, and then out of that, it is possible for patriotism to grow, and it does the Passover Seder. And while I'm recording this, we are right in the middle of the holiday of Passover and the Passover Seder experience actually stresses the journey from family to nation, the emergence from Egypt starts off with a special meal of barbecued lamb, and the special meal has to be eaten not in community centers President Obama, and It has to be eaten not in national organizations or large auditoriums. No it has to be eaten in family groups. Father led family groups, not single. Mother led family groups. Father led family groups. It says that explicitly in chapter 12 of gen of Exodus and then what follows after that is the creation of the people of Israel. That's right. Until then there's just a family. It's the family of Jacob that went into Egypt, and it was coming out of Egypt, re-strengthening of the family link, which then made possible the creation of the people of Israel and their acquisition, if you like, of their special land, the holy land in Israel and. That's not all. It certainly is important to ask yourself whether you are adequately connected to family and friends, and if you're not, there are steps you can take to solve that problem, because so much of your future growth in terms of your personality in terms of your intellectual understanding of how the world really works, in terms of building your finances. A lot of that depends, to begin with, on the relationships with family and friends. And one of the additional things that relationship with family gives you is it corrects your positioning in time. You see, in order to live healthily as a human being on this planet, you have to be able to understand future and past just as strongly as you do present. And one of the reasons that you know, you might wonder, you know, does punishment really deter crime? And the answer is, well, not a whole lot, because one of the main characteristics common to criminals is no relationship to the future. And this is really the default condition of human beings, a human being raised simply through the process of evolutionary biology, a young person whose acculturation goes no further than the local get the government indoctrination camp formerly known As public schools, such a person has a strong relationship to the present, right? Because the present is the home of pleasure and pain. You know you feel pleasure and pain in the present. The future has a very soft voice, and so you imagine a high school boy who's tossing up in his mind, should I do my homework or should I go and spend the afternoon with my girlfriend? What's the what is the question, even? And so you know the the conscience might say to you, well, you know you'll be in trouble tomorrow when you come to school and you don't have your work, but what you don't understand is how little the natural default human being is aware of the future. We feel the present very strongly, but the future speaks to us in soft whispers, easy to not hear, and if heard easy to ignore, successful living comes from relating to the future every bit as strongly as you relate to the present. And the same thing is true for the past. You might say to the high school, the high school boy at a gig, you really shouldn't do that. Your grandfather wouldn't be proud of you. And it's of no importance at all. No importance.
Daniel Lapin 28:18
But if I say that to you, Happy Warrior, and I say, you know, think carefully, because your grandfather would not be proud of you. The fact that Grandpa has been gone these last 20 years is neither here nor there. It's still of significance to you, because the past and the future both really, really matter. But when you take those things away and you leave somebody an orphan in time only connected to the present, that person has a lot of trouble making a success of life. And it's important to remember that one of the great gifts of family is a connection to past and future, and that's why I always stress how important it is to make sure that children hear stories about grandparents, that children know where they come from, and they know the story and the history of the family. And that's what family does to you. When you have strong family connections, you have a past, and we all need a past. And when you build your own family, why you have a future as well. And that's what children give you. Your connection to the future, extraordinarily powerful and so for successful living, we need connections with family and friends, and we need a deep connection to past, future and present. The present part is easy, a child growing up by itself with. Very little in the way of any kind of cultural education, will have a strong sense of presence, because that's where things hurt and that's where things feel good. But what really helps you build a successful personality, strengthens your psyche and gives you a life, a sense of past and future as well. And so connection is what today's show is all about, connection to the past, connection to the future, connection to family and connection to friends and all of those build for you a strong you now go along to the website, RabbiDanielLapin.com and get yourself a course called Scrolling through Scripture, because there are secrets, there are insights. There are blindingly incandescent and brilliant teachings to be found in the first 34 verses of this magnificent and mysterious volume we call the Bible. And my teaching called Scrolling through Scripture, which you will find on the website RabbiDaniellapin.com, is a very, very important place to start. The nice thing is, you can just go ahead and watch a free lesson of that to sort of get into the gist of it and see how it works. And you will derive considerable benefit from it, because it is these things we're talking about that help to shape you as a personality. And it is the ultimate shape of your personality and the success with which you sculpt the contours of your own soul that determine how well you are going to do in terms of meaningful human relationships and in terms of financial achievement. So go ahead and make sure you study Scrolling through Scripture at RabbiDanielLapin.com and until next week, my dear Happy Warriors, thank you for all you do for me and thank you for your participation. I want to wish you a week of growth with your family and your finances, your fitness, your faith and your friendships. I'm Rabbi Daniel Lapin, God bless you.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
