It’s Wednesday June the 12th at 1742 Pacific time.
This is Bad Hijabi’s introduction to a consolidation of Lee’s Pearls of Wisdom from the past week or 10 days around social media, it’s something new that I'm trying. What follows is a 12 minute consolidated string of audio clips that Jihadi Jew aka Lee Wiseman has made on his various social media platforms. They're two minute, three minute clips. And they're about character building and stuff like that. So there's a few of them and he does this every week. And I usually end up downloading them and using them in an essay or something. But I just thought it might be a good idea to try to consolidate some of that material into something that could be a quickie podcast episode because I think that it's wisdom that needs to be preserved—it's very useful. Anyway this is just—there are several clips and I haven't edited the background sound out or anything it is just, he's sitting somewhere in a park or something so you can hear a lawnmower or traffic or something and I think that's okay, I think that’s part of their simple and grounded charm, he is literally living his life and stopping and talking to the world. This is a string of recent clips, (one of them is from three years ago about Eid -Adha and it’s very a very lovely message and about sacrifice and ego).
So anyway, I hope you enjoy this String of Pearls.
Summary :: The conversation revolves around the themes of peace, sacrifice, character development, personal responsibility, and effective communication. The speakers discuss the importance of valuing and protecting the lives of children and families, as well as the need for individuals to work on their character to receive guidance from their respective religions. They emphasize the significance of listening to one's inner moral compass and taking responsibility for one's actions. Additionally, they highlight the need for respectful and meaningful communication that acknowledges individual differences in thinking.
Keywords :: peace, sacrifice, character development, personal responsibility, effective communication
Takeaways
Valuing and protecting the lives of children and families is essential.
Working on one's character is crucial to receive guidance from one's religion.
Listening to one's inner moral compass and taking personal responsibility are important.
Effective communication involves talking to each other, not at each other.
AI-Generated Titles
Taking Personal Responsibility
Listening to the Inner Moral Compass
Sound Bites
“No parent should have to bear the death of their own child.”
“We have an incredible responsibility to bring peace to the world.”
“There's no true religion without being a good human being.”
Chapters
00:00 The Importance of Valuing and Protecting Lives
03:26 Character Development and Religious Guidance
06:48 Listening to the Inner Moral Compass
09:16 Taking Personal Responsibility
11:32 Effective Communication: Talking to Each Other
Transcript
Eid Adha 2024 Message
You know, every year on around Eid -Adha, I try to give a message to my Muslim brothers and sisters. And usually it's just a message of peace. It's a something inspirational. And this year, all I can think of is that the story of Eid -Adha is that Abraham, our father, is...prepared to sacrifice his son and God stops him.
And I think one of the reasons is to remind us that no parent should have to bear the death of their own child. There's something so infinitely painful about that. And this year, I feel like life has become so cheap that the lives of children and the lives of their parents and the lives of families.
And it's not just this year, I guess it's my whole life. I guess it's...I never remember a time when innocent people weren't being killed. And my heart is starting to break. Honestly, it's just starting to break. So I wish everybody a happy and a joyous Eid al -Adha, that they should enjoy it with their family and friends. They should. They should make their sacrifice and remind ourselves again that nobody should ever have to sacrifice their own children.
Eid Adha 2021 Message
My Muslim brothers and sisters I wanted to wish you an Eid Mubarak, a blessed Eid, and to share with you a Jewish message for for Eid. In the Torah the neighbours of Abraham, of Ibrahim, may peace be upon him, said of him, you are a prince of God among us.
This is what we should all strive to be. On this day when we honor the memory of the sacrifice of Abraham, let us sacrifice our own egos. Let us perfect our own characters so when the world looks at us, they say, There are princes and princesses of God among us.
We have an incredible responsibility. We children of Abraham have an incredible responsibility to bring peace to the world, to share the message of the oneness of God and the oneness of humanity. May God, may Allah, may Hashem grant us the power to be able to do that in the most beautiful way and to share with each other only peace.
Eid Mubarak
Shavuot 2024 Message
Tomorrow night begins the Festival of Shavuot, which is our commemoration of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai. There is a beautiful Mishnah, a teaching from the rabbis of the first century in Pirkei Avot in the very last chapter that describes 48 ways, 48 prerequisites for the Torah to be received. For a person, to learn the Torah in a deep way. And in those 48 ways, you might expect there to be some rituals, there might be some secret incantations, there might be some kind of profound meditations. But in fact, that's not what you find at all. What you find are 48 different ways to build your character. In order to accept the Torah, in order for us to accept the guidance of God, we need to fix our character.
There's no true religion without character. There's no true religion without being a good human being. In order for us to accept the guidance of our Creator, we need to work on ourselves and become good human beings. And if we're not, then we're not prepared. There's no way, we can understand what the prophets have to say to us, there's no way that we can understand the revelation if we don't make ourselves ready, ethically and morally and psychologically and to build our maturity that we're able to receive—we need to make ourselves into thick receptacles for the Torah. And the fit receptacle for the Torah, is somebody with good character.
I believe we were born with a moral compass, that we have a conscience, that we have an inner sense of right and wrong, and that while we often need advice and we need guidance and we need other people to help us to understand the world around us and to know what the right thing to do is, we often know deep down.
We know what the right thing is. But nevertheless, we follow the direction of the herd. Even though we know that that direction isn't right, even though we know deep in our hearts that that's not the way to go still, we quiet that inner voice and we go with the crowd.
I asked myself and I ask you to listen to the inner voice. Listen to your inner moral compass and just forget the herd sometimes. Instead of just going along with whatever your herd happens to be, make your own decision. Go your own way. Follow your own compass.
The Griz on Jonah Taking Responsibility
I want to share a little teaching that I saw just yesterday from Rabbi Yitzhak Zev Soloveitchik, known as the Griz, on the book of Jonah, the book of Jonah, on Prophet Jonah, or Yunus. And in his commentary, he says that we notice in the text that the moment that the ship starts to flounder and the captain of the ship comes, goes down, into the hold and he wakes up Jonah. Jonah’s first response is, this is my fault. I did this. This is because of me. Now, this is a very curious response because we're told a few minutes later that all of the, or maybe just before, that all of the sailors called to their gods, which means this was a, this was a... a ship full of idolaters. So why in a ship full of idolaters, a ship full of people who are not necessarily, there's sailors on top of that, right? Sailors not known for their great moral turpitude, you know, not known, you know, for their incredible moral behaviour, a bunch of sailors and their idolaters. And he says, no, it's my fault. So what?
What the Griz said is that we have to take responsibility for ourselves. The first person that we should look at is ourselves. Now, you could argue that this only applies personally, that this applies only, you know, when it's us as individuals. But maybe it applies communally too. It's not okay to keep blaming everybody else for our problems. It's to constantly be a victim is not healthy. The only person you have control over is you. You have control over your behaviour. You have control over what you do. And I will add that once you start using power, once you start using power, especially when you start using the power of violence, your responsibility becomes all that much greater. And there is no way to squeeze out of that responsibility by saying that I am the eternal victim. We are not eternal victims. Once you've taken power into your hands, you have to take responsibility for that power. So as we go into Shabbat, I wish everybody a beautiful Shabbat. But I also wish that we...open our hearts and we examine ourselves and instead of looking around at everybody else and try to figure out what they've done wrong we should look at ourselves figure out what we've done and more importantly what we can do to fix it. Shabbat Shalom.
Talk to People Not At them
Far too often we talk at people instead of talking to them. We think that if they only had more information, they would think just like us. So we just keep adding more and more information. And did you know this? And did you know this fact? Do you know this fact? Do you know this? Do you know this? Do you know this? Do you know this? And this, and this, and this. And we keep adding on facts, thinking that if they just knew everything that we knew, they would think the same way that we do, but that's not the way it works. Everybody thinks differently. Everybody thinks differently. No two people think exactly the same. So asking a person to think like you is like asking them to change their face. Imagine pointing to somebody and going, I don't like your face, change it. No, it doesn't work that way. Your face is individual. It's part of you. It's part of who you are in the same way, the way you think is also part of who you are. And just keeping information on a person is not going to change every way that they imagine the world. Okay, so you have to deal with people where they are and actually learn to talk to each other, not at each other.
A String of Pearls