Navigating Projections and Self-Perception Before Rosh Hashanah

0:01 Progress can only be made in reality. Chuava can only be accomplished in reality. We once spoke from Rev Desler that long before Moshe Rabbeinu was called the greatest servant to ever live and the most humble person to walk the earth, he removed his shoes. The ground was holy. A removing of one's shoes and noticing your own limitations, living in reality is very much where it all begins and we can start to ascend the ladder, and therefore it is very much the study of Moshe that is there to help us remove the lies that we may tell ourselves.

0:44 A psychotherapist or regular therapist is there to help show the distorted reality that the client is living in and to bring him back to the home base that we call reality, where now progress can be made. And at a time right before Rosh Hashanah, in the months of Eloh, when a Hezbon HaNefesh and accounting of one's actions is vital. It's very hard to do. We have a big problem because we can't always look at ourselves with an honest eye and HD it's a very blurry screen. We love ourselves and we never want to call ourselves to be doing something wrong. So how can we do? The Gamoran Kedushan gives us a tip in 70B and says that man sees his own thought in others.

1:29 This is what scientist and contemporary wisdom calls projection, in which it's a mental process that people will attribute to others what is, in their own mind, remarkable. You see things that are really happening in you, and it's most benign and mature form. It actually is the basis of empathy to be able to relate to somebody else's struggles and triumphs. But if you should find a class bully with exaggerated shots at his peers, making fun of one being obese or the other one being from a lower financial bracket, when all of it is totally false, it is really just a bully. Projecting his own exaggerated insights on others because he's living in his own reality and he's taking it out on others can be toxic.

2:16 The Kedushi Arim says, in fact, that Kairach when he said Moshe Rabbeinu, why are you looting? Why are you crowning yourself over everybody else? It was Kairach just projecting his own desire for honor and glory onto Moshe Rabbeinu, and this was a classic modeling of this condemned behavior. Moshe is there for us to come back to reality and if you want to get an honest look at yourself, pick up on if you're projecting onto others. Do you see any shortcomings in your friend? Why is he always coming late to Davin? Why do you notice that but no one else notices it?

2:57 Maybe you're just seeing something from your own mind, something that's really going on inside. If a part of Torah doesn't speak to you doesn't mean the Torah is empty. It means that you are empty in regards to that piece of Torah and work must be done. Projection is such an amazing way for us to notice our own impulses, traits and mannerisms, and the limitations on them. That we may see in other people may really be going on inside of us. So projected feelings and the shortcomings that you see in others, take to heart and know that this is a spot that I may need to work on.