4 Days with Shais | NIGHT #2

Good evening. Welcome to Four Days with Chase. This is evening number two of four and tonight we have uh lots of great uh content coming to you live from Crown Heights Brooklyn. And in a moment we'll hear from Rab Ta and our uh in studio guest. First going to do a little review of the campaign. This is a campaign. We're here to raise $500,000 uh over the course of this week for Soul Words uh to support uh the funding necessary to keep uh Soul Words's work and um everything that you love about what Rabbi Tab uh brings to you on a regular basis and all that costs money. So I I did want to start off by reading a fewations that just came in. Um, let's see here. Y Caroline just a minute ago, $72. And this is a beautiful donation from Neil and Rift Jacobs. Uh, $4,700. And there is lots of others that I'd love to read out over the course of the evening. There's also teams. I see a few more teams yesterday. Um, no particular order. seeing um meaningful minute um has a team uh page and uh going for $20,000 parent being alumni which is something we're about to talk about uh parenting program and his thoughts and takes on the importance of parenting ourselves so we can you know not do a bunch of bad things to the next generation. And the this is the parenting alumni. We are grateful mothers and fathers who are alumni of Rabbi Shaes Tab's life-changing parenting course and they are at $4,252. That's huge. And um we have a page a team page uh Shahab Bitaken fans that's really coming through strong. We are grateful beneficiaries of the paradigm shift shifting the paradigm shifting shahadakan classes elucidated by Rab Taab his parenting workshops and the broader soulwards platform and would encourage others to partake as well. Yeah. Um soulwords email list. How about that? Robbie Tab, you sent out an email blast last week uh with the subject title, please unsubscribe. And I thought you were doing that as like a gimmicky uh you know, tacky thing, but I I you were actually serious. And huge kudos to you as someone who survived many charity campaign spam over the last few months. And I I I guess there's healthy people out there who know how to like have boundaries and separate. Like I could get an email. It doesn't mean it's my problem. I don't really know how to do that yet. Perhaps one day when I take up some of these wonderful courses that you give. Um or maybe I'll just call you for some free therapy considering that you're a therapist and you can help me with that. But as it is right now, I get a little semi panic attack every time some guy who I was in yeshiva with in 2007 thinks it's my responsibility to fund new doorway for his kabad house that I've never but anyway so the but you actually said like you know if this is too much for you heads up I'm doing a campaign this week and yet and yet you have a soulwords email list page that is coming through at one of the high 24% towards the goal of $20,000. How about that? You can't hear it, but there's a lot of applause in this room right now. Soulward's WhatsApp broadcast team page, they're at 11% of the $20,000 goal. And uh if any of you would like to subscribe to get updates about what's going on at Soulwords. Um and there's also unique content that Rabbi Ta sends out just to his WhatsApp broadcast list. Little miniature um you know stream of consciousness stuff that comes to him at 3:00 a.m. on the way to his refrigerator. Dried salami stuff. You have like these 3:00 a.m. little dried salami runs. And you know, sometimes you can you can get in on that. Um, and then what do we have here? Why is there dried salami in the refrigerator? I I Well, we'll find out tonight. We'll ask you. Um, you should know I want the dried salami from the ceiling. The delicate Chicago had one of the highest concentrations of Jewish delies before New York. My greatgrandfather Misha Lieberman Lieber butcher southwest side the old Jewish neighborhood uh Maxwell Street or whatever it's going to get into some more juicy details about some of the history of the south side of Chicago and Rabb Tab And I wonder if there's a slight relationship between the fact that you come from a long line of of um butchers. Kosher butchers and early immigrants to Jewish Chicago preholocaust. Yeah, it's true. And you got less baggage pre-s Soviet Union. They came over pre-sviet Union, right? So they came to these golden pastures in search of a better life, not running away from some of the stuff that cosex and then you wonder why people were pums. It wasn't the sunshine and lollipops. Well, you want to you want to go down the suffering Olympics? We could do this. But anyways, yeah, what were you going to say? Oh, well, at one point tonight I'm going to have to ask you to check your my privilege. Your privilege. Yeah. And if you wonder why some people might misassociate you as a therapist, it might be because this is news to them about all this, you know, love and acceptance and all that other good stuff. Yeah. considering um you're saying because my family came over before Stalinism and the Holocaust, so I sort of had the benefit of being like fourth generation American and avoided some of that trauma and that's why I'm all loveydvey. That's what you're saying. Yes. And you think that some of us will take that for granted. And then you like I mean, isn't this obvious to you that a rabbi would be telling you this as a Torah source for these wonderful gayish ideas like love and acceptance? Gayish ideas like what love and acceptance. By the way, they put me in this chair. It's just giving me this whole hubris that I get to You actually were eyeing that chair. This chair. I want I didn't even know it was what it was called and you came over and you told me the name of it. What's it called? I would like to think that the folks at secret labs would do some right by soul words and give something to this campaign for the free advertisement about to give. But I think they're a bunch of like young yepy Asians because I watched like a bunch of their YouTube videos. I spent an insane amount of time researching chairs while my bills and other responsibilities were piling up. I spent about a week and a half full time researching the most comfortable chair to avoid productivity. Obviously, I have two of these. I love them. Uhhuh. Um I was just showing you some of the features and uh and I'm allowed to sit into it and it's just it's empowering. It makes one feel like they have just the go of the place. I can't hear what you're saying. After we raise the $500,000, don't forget to mention and if you're watching on YouTube, go to um soulwords.orglive. I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna say the line s o lw wards.orglive and uh give there. And when we raise the $500,000, how many of the What are these chairs called? Secret Labs. Secret Labs. How many How many Secret Labs chairs could we buy with $500,000? We probably negotiate. Check your privilege and stop assuming that I know things like numbers and stuff. Which brings us to our next guest. We have a special guest in studio. Am I right? We have a special guest in studio. Um, and if they could go to the camera. Rabbi Tab, tell us a little bit about who you're about to speak to. Okay. Uh, there's my camera right here. Yeah. Am I looking in the right camera? Yeah, they're giving the thumbs up. Okay. All right. So, tonight, uh, our first topic is, uh, parenting. So, uh, I was looking for maybe some alumni of the parenting course who would be willing to come down here and talk about their experience and, uh, I noticed a donation from somebody who I know in real life who actually I think even made a dedication in honor of the the parenting course. I believe that was the dedication. And I was like, what? I know who this is. It it is Rabbi Yeshua Lustig, who is the principal of sixth and seventh. Did I say the right ones? sixth and seventh grades Alra in Crown Heights uh now in his 13th year. And I said, you know what, this could be really interesting because here we have somebody who's both a parent and took the parenting course, but also an educator and sort of sees the whole situation from both perspectives. So I I thought it'd be interesting to have you on. Thank you very much for having me. And when you asked me to join, I was hesitant at first, but Alakara Sativ for the phenomenal parenting course which I took this past summer, I felt that I'll say yes and I'm happy to be here. Thank you. We appreciate that uh that you did it. And um Okay. So, without sounding self-s serving, what you say that was a good course. What did what did you like about it? So, look, as parents, we're always trying to grow. We're always trying to learn. We're always looking to be inspired. We're always looking to remain focused. And um it was in the summer and I said, you know, a parenting course six Tuesday evenings or six Wednesday evenings. I have more time in the summer than I do during the year. And I figured uh let me sign up. Um I bar wasn't coming from a place where my parenting was in crisis or I was desperate or you know reading every book out there. And I signed up just like you know let's do this. And I was I'm not going to say surprised because there there was high expectations from you Rabishes Tab but it was it was truly I would say it's extremely valuable and I will say it's highly recommended. Um there were many things that I learned. I mean you have the six evenings each one focusing on another point. Um and that's uh something that that remains with me until today all the things that I learned. So I'm going to just like break open a a subject here. Um, sometimes today, I think maybe especially the way that it's perceived is you have almost like two teams. You have the parents and then you have the school. Now, you're a parent. You took the parenting course. You have your own family, Barashem, but also you deal with everyone else's family because you're a principal. So maybe and and sometimes there's even some tension I think between parents and schools and I certainly have sometimes been drawn into commenting about that. I think sometimes my comments about it may have been misinterpreted but I I'm not here to set the record straight on that. That's really not the the point. I would like to actually focus more on your unique perspective to sort of shed light on is there conflict? Is there not conflict? if there is how to mitigate it like talk about parents and schools. Okay, so there's a lot to talk about. So first of all, um people think that there's a lot of tension between parents and schools. They think that it's much more than it exists. I remember when I took the job, you mentioned my 13th year, Barashem, people thought I was crazy. Like why are you going into a school in a community school and the parents own you and they're so disrespectful? You don't need that trouble, right? They don't they don't appreciate you. And from all the you know reasons to join the job which there were many barem to take the job parents was certainly the one that you were warned most about and most worried about. The biggest surprise the biggest surprise I had in becoming a principal is how much the parents um appreciate the schools. I think that and the schools are doing a phenomenal job. I believe these days parents are in awe of the schools. A lot of parents look up to their son's teachers principles with a lot of admiration. um they sometimes express it and like sometimes they'll say like how do you run a classroom with 25 kids? I I can't even put one kid to bed, you know, they'll say something like that or how do you have an assembly with 400 boys and like how do you do this? I think there's they they really uh appreciate how the schools have really come a very long way and a lot of them are realizing that the yeshivas are only much much more better than they were when they went to school and I think as parents they're finding the parenting harder than when their parents raised them. So we have like kind of this shift right now where in a way every school Ali I could speak for because I work there and I work with so many talented Mim and uh by the way many who work in all the Kabad schools across the United States have come through Alra and uh as a principal you're sometimes the foreign minister of your school. So you get to work with a lot of other schools and a lot of so I could say that firsthand I know that people are really in it for the right reasons. They cure they they're really thinking over each detail. They're doing like the Reb has a about that. Really considering each to what does he need? What does he not need? When do you apply the pressure because sometimes you need pressure to learn this kid actually our job is to remove pressure because he's so anxious and there's so much thought going into it. So much care, so much love. Um and and very efficient. You know, the schools are very efficient. And the parents are actually admiring and in awe of the schools. And I would say parenting today got a lot harder than it was back in the day. We could probably theorize why. You know, the technology, the mother being uh needed to work. When I was a kid, my mother didn't go to work, right? She was home all day ready to greet us. So, there's a lot of reasons why why parenting got harder. And um so there's no tension. I don't think there's tension. And I believe the magic in takes place when the school and the parents do work together. That's where the magic really takes place. Okay. I do want to just mention I don't think everybody assumes that. I think sometimes people assume that for a school the ideal parent is one that they never hear from like they don't want to deal with parents. You're saying it's actually not only is it not a negative part of your job, you're saying it's a positive part of your job, the interaction with the parents, but I I think people are surprised to hear that. So it's it's good that you're saying it. Yes. So first of all, I want to mention Ravish Tal. You may remember it's already quite a few years ago. I don't remember the year you once uh there's an organization counterforce and they hosted you. They made like a principal lunchon obviously to tell us about their services but they hosted you as the attraction and you gave a presentation to principles. It was for principles only. I remember it was in Burough Park. Correct. Yes. And it was for you know all the schools of Brooklyn or or of New York. Maybe a couple of years there. Exactly. Yeah. And that was a another year that I heard by you which actually had a very big impact on me. So thank you for that. I the title was something like how to engage your parents or our role or of engaging parents and you very much spoke about the you know the paradigm shift that's the word you used before that was I think a word you used then of principles not being you know I want to talk about how parents view the principal and we'll talk about the principal viewing the parents that you know you get a phone call from your school it's not just like oh my gosh what's happened my kids call from your kids's principal you know your stomach drops oh no what did my kid do and by the way every time I start a phone call till today the first thing I say hi you know this is Yeshua list they're calling all is well and they always say thank you for that cuz I was in a meeting and I dropped everything for this. So yeah, I always start off with all is well even while sometimes things are not well but you know they think that maybe their kids in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. So parents do that. Um so I always start the calls that way. So you spoke then very much about the role of a principal not just worried about his school but if you're worried about at large the parents are seeking guidance and you spoke about how you wrote that ammy column and people are always asking you questions how much guidance people are seeking out there and you kind of open their eyes about that and put us in that paradigm shift that we have to be the guide to the parents and hold their hands. So you mentioned that it was in Burough Park and it was there was only a couple of amateurs there. There were hundreds of principles there. So sometimes I say like secret labavature messages that I what was I really saying if I would have been speaking you know to unra I would have said that is not just a job it's a and I mean I'm saying that you know our I think you would have said that being a principal is not just a job of running a school being a principal is a and parents are the primary right and the parents are the of their children. So just like they realize you are working with teachers and students and and students and you're coordinating with parents and you're really you're you're not working in a in a building and give in running classes for you know a certain amount of hours. You're actually being brought into these families. You're an extension of these families. And that's that's what I was really I I was saying 100%. So after your course I actually came across a minor of the Reba which I brought with me here tonight. Great. And um it basically you know what you were trying to inspire the principles to do. Then the Reb says I'll read it in Hebrew and the translation. I don't know what the question was but the Reb says um you know to answer your question to an educator but I'm not sure it seems like it right. So the says why and there's more to the minor but I'll read that in English. I brought the translation in reply to your question. In general, our sages teach us that a person should be friendly with others. In part, particular those who are involved in education should be friendly with the children's parents because this increases their influence on the students. Even when one is conducting a regular conversation as long as it isn't prohibited, it is possible to direct the conversation towards productive subjects. And I think your main point was that that's our responsibility. And you also stressed how much the am out there is seeking guidance today and people are having a really hard time. And and I'm a parent myself and you know I'll say the same thing. Sometimes it's easier to run Mina for 250 boys than to put four kids to bed or three kids to bed. Um and and parenting is hard and and any guidance that the parents could get and especially when the school and the parents are aligned is I think that's where the magic and happens and I could tell you that in Alra and again this is very much I believe inspired from that talk and not just by me other we have a like a little division that's called proactive we hosted a couple of events where we have a session how to prepare your son for going to camp we have a session how to prepare your son for a new year in school these are all available on our proactive YouTube channel we have a presentation how to prepare your son for his bar mitzvah. We have also a presentation for parents of like seventh grade. How to talk to your son as he's maturing into the bar mitzvah age physically, emotionally, spiritually. And whenever we do these events, the parents are beyond thankful and so appreciative. So I I just want to like comment because a lot of people are watching. If if you're a young person and uh a young adult and you're looking I'm sure there's somebody out here out there to whom this pertains at a very meaningful way of dedicating yourself to the future of the Jewish people. Uh I think to put yourself in a in a kinuk position the way that you're describing it where you actually become a guide and a mentor to families and become an extension of their home and and and a resource to them. I think it can be very meaningful and I want to encourage people have that talent to to look into that. We understand that you have a gamotir to go teach and there's a car. They're telling me there's a car waiting for you to take you to your gamir. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. I didn't know you were going to say that in public, but okay. Yeah, it's okay. You learn goto, right? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It's just like a little private share. Oh, a private chair. Okay. So, nobody should crash crash the party. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. Great. So, they're going to take us to a video now. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Hi everyone, my name is Yay Albbaz. I'm a in a city near Paris, France. I wanted to encourage everyone to join in and participate in Rabbi Shab's annual campaign. I thought a lot about uh what to say and how to say it. And then I realized I had the perfect idea that that I heard from Rabbi Tabo himself. They they say there was a there was a guy who had to go to a restaurant for a very important client for for his company and uh he realized the the restaurant was very very expensive and uh he was very worried about it and his boss came over to him and told him you won't have to pay for it because you have uh the company's credit card and then he was very assured. Why am I saying that? Because um when we come to a campaign um sometimes we think that uh we we got a lot of uh um people asking us to participate but uh we have to realize that the will give us Hashem will give us enough money to give to everyone especially when it's for such an important uh um an important cause. Um I have I still have to explain why I I'm giving this example because um gave it for the example of that uh when when you're having hardships with your kids and you think you don't have enough strength to to to to be able to educate your kids and to to have enough patience and so on and so forth. Um you have to realize that the is giving you all the you need. So um here too it's the same. Um I think SWS is doing a lot of things. I think a lot of them we don't we don't realize because uh as I heard yesterday um from Mrs. Ra she said uh at the kin banquet banquet she said that the most uh beautiful stories is the ones we don't hear. So um as I know for myself that betab has brought me a lot of uh uh change in my uh the way I educate my kids in the way I learn in the way I teach because I'm using a lot of his classes to to teach on my and I'm very very grateful uh to him for that. So I encourage you also to participate in this beautiful campaign and I wish him a lot of success. We're on. We're I have a Zoom guest here. How you doing? Uh I can Let me Let me speak again. Let me make sure I can hear you. Oh, shalom. Okay. Excellent. I'm having a flashback to a few days ago. We're sitting across each other from each other in real life. We're at the Isisle in Queens. Yes. Nothing is Yeah. You uh you live in New Jersey and you but you came into uh Queens and uh I live very close to the island. We got together. Okay. So, what are we doing tonight? They just told me to sit here and talk to you. Yeah. Well, um I wanted to with the virtual I think the first actually about tweet. Well, you know what? The the sound is really choppy. Can we can we deal with that because I'm getting like every other word. Can we get the sound uh dealt with properly? Yeah. Let's try again. While our tech guys are going to fix this sound, let give me a heads up. It's already good. It's good. Okay, fine. All right. Is this bad? I think I Yeah, just keep talking so they can uh deal with the sound and get it. They'll they'll they'll fix it if you keep talking. Yeah. What I want is I think what? No, it's cutting out. You got to fix it. Uh what? We'll come back to him. Okay. So, this they're gonna fix the sound and and we're gonna come back to you. Okay. Okay. I want to ask you about a few of these team pages. I I mentioned a few before. Okay. And um someone is at 191% of their goal. Who's at 191%? Silly Blefield, who we mentioned yesterday. Wow. He's got conservative. I respect that. He didn't cave to whatever this 20,000 ask was. He said, "I can do I can raise any he went well beyond it." But kudos to everyone um who who who took on um Really? Is it Are you sure? Can you show me that? Yeah. 191%. 191%. Yeah. Amazing. Okay. I mean, of the of the of his goal. Of his goal. Okay. Um so, we mentioned some of these. There's a Tanya the Tanya team. Yeah. Monday morning 11 a.m. We spoke about that yesterday. There's a Schlen team page. Schlen team. Yeah, very important. Intelligence uh Salon Leia. Yeah, this is your uh regular Monday spot. No, she's a big supporter though of what we do. So wonderful. And they're well on their way. I saw a few donations came in today. And Rifka Bayski has a team page. uh Siri Angel. If you know any of these people, you should give to their team. You can support them by supporting Rabbi Tab. Um and you score a little points with them in the process. It's um hipster girl. Yeah, it's another team. She's got a very popular Instagram page. Yes. I'm not going to pretend I don't know what that is. You you know one of my one of my I spoke about last night about when I teach things that people who teach others take from me and then they repackage it and then they use it when they're teaching. Teachers who teach teachers are the best kind of teachers, right? A teachers teacher, right? So we're going to do some Babs trivia later on tonight. What trivia? Babs that Barbara Stryson. Oh, Barbara Strson. Okay. So we spoke about Bur Backreck. So why not? Um, one of the things that I prioritize is influencing influential people. And the reason why I pri prioritize it is because we each of us only has so many minutes in the day. So when you work with somebody who influences others, you magnify your impact. And so yeah, I'm uh I I I give that a lot of uh credence, the idea of working with people who are who have who have a platform and who are influencing other people. Yeah. And I want to read just a few donations um in particular and some dedications. And I want to say this in the be um as a way to sort of I encourage anyone who may wonder, oh, I can't donate anything uh substantial or what you think uh may seem uh substantial. So, you're going to call out some people who made um small donations? No, I'm going to encourage anyone that you if if you feel more comfortable, do it anonymously. Yeah. Um, but I will I will read any dedication that I see and I'll read anyone. Even if somebody gives a dollar, you will read their dedication. Yes. Because despite what you may think, this man is not only not a therapist, he's got a very well, very weak general self-esteem altogether. That's, you know, and um Oh, and you want them to give me praise. I would I think Can I tell you something? But on a very serious praise. First time I did a campaign, which was four years ago after the campaign was all over, after I raised the money, I just sat for a whole like two, three days and just read the comments that people wrote and it was like one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. So yes, I do read these comments and they mean a lot to me. So, so have that in mind. Yeah, no pressure that you have to write no a thoughtful comment, but yes, it is appreciated. Yeah, I see you. I affirm you. Yes. Um, no, but seriously speaking, that is that's part of what's happening tonight to give Rabbit Tao both the financial and the Yeah, we could say that outright. People that this running against I 100% recommend to anybody who has any type of excuse to do so, do a crowdfunding campaign because it's not just a way of getting the the financial boost that you need to do whatever work you're doing. And and I encourage anyone if if you're if you're on the fence about it and you have a cause that uh you need to raise money for, definitely do it because not only you end up raising the money you need to continue doing the the work that you're doing, but there's nothing better for your sense of purpose and direction and mission than getting all these positive comments about the work you're doing. It's just it's it's yeah, it's very therapeutic. So, I'd highly recommend it. And I should use that opportunity to say that I think you're a wonderful person. Having said that, we have some wonderful donations. I wanted to read out specifically I got nervous because when someone says I think you're a wonderful person having said that and they're about to pivot. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is usually the knife comes out when they when when they call you a wonderful person and then there's like that however and then Yeah. You got to worry if you got worry they come out of the gate too strong and Sarah Alfki cause his kid called and said we need to donate also cause hash chase ace. Yeah. Is that an inside joke? And and if it is it's so inside that I don't even get it. Your AC is in my book. Thank you. You know what he's referring to? You know what he's referring to Rabi Alleski there. He's referring to uh my call center is my kids. So, I have my daughters making calls. So, my 10-year-old daughter, Rahul, called him and uh he thought it was cute. I thought it was really a nice surprise and very, very sweet to have your son here last night at the end. Yes. And people really seemed to like that. Yeah. So, he may come back. He may come by again tonight. Can I ask you something about something here? Because people ask you about the silly putty or whatever it is that you have. Yeah. It's the extra firm. I don't mind that you do this in the middle of my live stream to raise $500,000, but I would just at least it's a little bit Let's just acknowledge that you have it because it shouldn't it shouldn't be the elephant in the room. Continue. Go to the audience. Testimonials. We'll do a review of my fidgets later. Um, we're doing a parenting segment in a few minutes. Yes, a parenting segment. Yes. After we're going to first go to our our Zoom guests and then we're going to But I wanted to read some of these beautiful testimonials and as it pertains to the your parenting course. I'm This is one here from all the way from Australia. I'm finding What number card is this? Oh, I'm going in order like you told me. Okay. I am finding the lessons extremely valuable. The parenting course changed my life. Everything I learned with Rabbi Ta is fascinating and inspirational. Um I do believe that his parenting course is life-changing. This is from well I don't know it doesn't MDM. I do believe that this parenting course is a life-changing course. What we learn and apply will change our generations to come as it provides us with the tools we need not only to thrive as parents but also give our children the opportunity to be different better human beings. Um with so many opinions out there and so much judgment these days gave me a clearer outlook on how to love our children. I would like to speak to that personally. um something that grinds my gears in general listening to all right I'm not going to do it but therea just what it isn't but if I had a dime for every time I heard this is the thing the this is the most important and if this and it is refreshing to hear someone who speaks with just a levelheaded nuance sense of no this is not everything and um you know not uh anyway so there there is a lot out there and be wary of anyone who tells you this is the only uh anything um and having said that um I love listening to Shir but especially but when I do I I make it Rabbi Tab's uh classes and and this is my this is time to read testimonials and here's another And it's number four. I am a tra I'm a trauma therapist with a focus on attachment injuries. Learning from Rabbi Tab about connecting with our children in a way that is so in line with the latest psychological oh this is and neur neurobiological re research but is completely Torah based has helped me immensely. Without it, it's almost like the damage happens within Yiddish kite and Jewish families and the healing is outside. Oh, I I maybe should have read that when we talk about you not being a therapist. I I would love to unpack that. Um, but I'm going way over time. Um, Rabbi Tab, we'd like to sort of delve into your parenting course and uh you spoke about it here and there, but why did you start it? What was the impetus behind it? And what has the last year been like uh doing it? Because I I think you've done a number of them. Yeah. Okay. So I'll tell you about the genesis of the parenting course. Last night we had a whole section about uh bhen about trust about shenan spoke about the fact that the covid lockdown was the impetus to finally tackle that book and give nightly classes. So it's interesting the parenting course also had its origins in the covid lockdown. Um, again, everyone was just on Zoom all day and looking for things to do and all of my speaking engagements were cancelled. That's what I that used to be my bread and butter. I mean, uh, I've been traveling around speaking for over 15 years and it used to be the main thing that I did. And, uh, then February 2020 came and I remember my my last gig that I did uh, before everything shut down. I think it was Toronto Bikerum February of 2020 like and then uh yeah so my friend Ley Sham who I mentioned last night also by the way in connection with the uh Shahin as his father Mendel Shamv got the the instruction from the Reb to learn Shah but uh so Ley Sham from Detroit from West Bloomfield called me and he said what do you think about parenting and I said and parenting parenting is very important So he said, "Well, the the way I see it is it could be the most important thing." And he said, "Think about it. Um, parents are the most influential people in the world because everybody grows up in a family and that sort of molds them and their whole future. and we need to we need to help people have the tools to set up their children for success in life. And and as he was talking to me about it, it it became very clear to me that uh not to use a word that sounds grandiose. I mean, it does sound grandiose, but there's something messianic about parenting. Messianic in the sense of the perfection of the world. And and I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say that. Uh if and and this is how I phrased it to to Ley after we were uh discussing it for a while. It finally I I it crystallized in my mind and I was able to formulate it like this. I said, you know, I realize that most of the problems in the world are caused by people, right? You know, the planet on its own and it just it just does what it does. But most of the problems we have are are are man-made. People cause problems. Okay. People do good things as well, but most of the problems are caused by by people. Okay. Now, most people the problems that that the problems that cause the most damage, yeah, are definitely man-made. Now, most people cause problems because they have problems. Like they say, hurt people hurt people. Okay. All right. I'm working my way backward trying to trace the origin of it. And most people have problems mostly because they got messed up in childhood, meaning it goes back all the way to their to their early formative years. And most of those problems that they have, not all, but most of them they got from their parents. Not saying not saying parents are bad people who are messing up children, but I'm just saying the reality is if you trace it back, a little bit better parenting would have a ripple effect of causing almost all of the problems of this world to at least be ameliorated to some level, if not eliminated. So I became very passionate about this idea that if we could give parents tools to parent the next generation better, we would actually be healing the universe. And and it does sound grandiose, but but I see it in microcosm constantly. I I I I I can safely say that more than any other project that I've worked on in all of the years that I've been a rabbi, I would definitely say that the parenting course is the one that's the most impactful. Um, as far as people coming to me and saying that their life was changed, you know, you can give a class, you can give a speech and people will say, "Oh, that was life-changing." But it's it's it's likely that the words will be forgotten within a few days. Very likely, if not almost certain. the parenting course. And I think part of the beauty of it is it's about um I I hate to overuse the word paradigm shift, which we used earlier tonight and as well as last night, but it gives parents a new way of viewing themselves. And once you open up their eyes and they see it for themselves, then it almost becomes irrelevant what words I chose to use. It's not them being inspired by my words. It's almost like me just pointing and saying, "Hey, you see this vision?" And then they're able to to hold on to that. And people will come up to me months and now it's we've been doing the parenting course for almost two years. So now years after they first took the course and tell me that that vision which they gained from the parenting course uh is still clear in their mind and guiding them on on a daily basis in in having a more meaningful relationship with their children. Now I should probably spell out what that vision is and it's hard to do justice to it in a very short segment like uh we have here but to ju just give you uh a small glimpse of that vision um to me the the vision that I want every parent to have begins with a vision of self. Meaning before we even talk about who your child is and how to view your child and and certainly before we talk about how to deal with your child, we need to talk about ourselves. How to view yourself. Uh the first thing we do in the parenting course is we talk about self-concept. Who are you as a parent? A parent is a very funny entity. Um on one hand, a parent is a human being of flesh and blood. On the other hand, as I point out in the first uh lesson of my my six week parenting course, if you look at the ten commandments, the first tablet are obligations between man and God and the second tablet are obligations between man and man. So you have on on one tablet you have worship of your creator, the other tablet you have interpersonal relationships. The commandment to honor your mother and father surprisingly is not on the tablet with the interpersonal relationships. It's on the tablet with how to worship your creator. And I explain to the parents that take my parenting course. The the the Talmud tells us there are three partners in a person, mother, father, and God. And that when it comes to parenting, you've been elevated to this unique status of co-creator. That a child and a parent are in a relationship that it's not just an interpersonal relationship like one person to another person, but actually um a parent serves in a capacity that is akin to a creator. And and for better, for worse, a a parent has the power to make or break, god forbid, uh a child. And and we see this time and time again. What a thousand educators and therapists and experts can come together and and attempt to achieve with one child will never never even come close to what one loving parent is able to accomplish. There is a special power. It a it's a it's a godly uh power. It's a it's a God-given power uh that that a parent was given. And and and I tell parents all the time. The beginning of your parenting transformation has to begin with the transformation of a vision of yourself. You have to realize how influ influential you are. You have to realize how empowered you have been that you have the company credit card. You are not going at this alone as a finite mortal being. You are partnered with the infinite one and he has your back. And just like we know our sages tell us every child is born with the material resources that the family will need in order to support that child and that we don't have to worry and make make calculations and worried about worry about family planning that we won't have the the material resource resource for our resources for our child. I always tell parents the emotional resources how much more so are coming there they are available. That's not to say all parents tap into it. Sometimes people have the company credit card and they don't use it. They don't draw on those resources. There are parents unfortunately who we know failed at parenting. But the potential to succeed and to succeed in a way that surpasses any other accomplishment that a that a human being is normally capable of accomplishing. That potential is there and it was given to you from the moment that you became a parent. And and that's one of my my key messages to parents is to to claim that vision of yourself, to to act on it, to draw upon it, to use that power, and and and to to realize that you can be everything that your child needs you to be. Whatever it is that your child needs, you can provide that. Now, that's not to say sometimes we don't contract outside uh services. We need a therapist for this or we need an expert for that. But even that you see its power, the effectiveness of the the contracted help, you see, is is is based upon the involvement of parents. When there's a parent who's just sort of they they they run a payroll and they they're hiring all the experts to to deal with the kid. Uh but the parent isn't involved, there's limited success. But when you have a devoted parent who's there in a loving way, who's showing up and connecting to their child and the child feels safe and the child feels seen, then uh then there's nothing that a parent can't accomplish. So that that's that's the first message. There's so many more parenting messages, but the first message is to empower parents to realize the literally godly power that they were endowed with. And um our children our children deserve that. Our children deserve the best of us. We need to be the best versions of ourselves. Yeah. Okay. So, uh I'm getting the sign. Oh, we have uh two more minutes. Okay. So, I can speak another parenting concept for two minutes. Okay. Great. So, three minutes. Okay. So, as long as I've been given the floor, um I'll speak about one other point. In addition to the importance of this shift in how parents view themselves, the next concept that follows is how parents view children. How should parents view children? So the the the sort of default is that we view them as these little people. Um who sometimes they're cute, sometimes they're annoying. Uh they live in our homes and we're sort of obligated to take care of them. And uh if things get really out of control, we can just force them at least to a certain age, we can just force them to do whatever we want because we're big and they're small. and and that's sort of the default how people view children. Um in my parenting course and not just in my parenting course anytime I speak to parents. Um I I really plead with people to have a spiritual view of their children. Um a lot of times people are resistant to the spiritual approach because they say I'm not so I'm not like that. You know why do we have to invoke these these lofty mystical ideas? But here's what I want to tell you. If you really really want to have a gamecher in your parenting, then you have to be willing to go deep. And you have to be be willing to to revisit your whole premise and to look at your child from a completely spiritual perspective. And here's what I mean. When your child was an infant in their crib, they were perfect. They could do no wrong. And you had so much pride in them. Now, they hadn't accomplished anything. What are you proud of? They don't do anything. I mean, by all rights, you should say to them, "Listen, grow up. Learn how to talk. We'll go out for coffee. We'll see if we hit it off, and then I'll decide if I like you." But nobody says it. No normal person says that. You know why? Because we intuitively understand that a child, a baby, an infant is worthy of unconditional acceptance and love. And they don't have to earn it. And we're right. We're completely right the way we view babies. And what we're really viewing, I argue, is their soul. Because the soul is unconditionally worthy and infinitely worthy and inherently worthy. And maybe it's because babies are newly arrived souls. They're souls who just came into embodiment. So maybe that's why we're more intuitively attuned to that to see them as a soul and to give them that automatic uh validation. Well, then what what happens is unfortunately they start to grow up. They develop a personality. They have a mind of their own. They start making their own choices. Surprise surprise, God gave them free will. And all of a sudden that inherent pride, that unconditional pride that we used to have of them when they were infants in the crib starts to slip away. And it's replaced even worse by conditional nas where we tell them, "Do this and then I'll feel good about you. Do that and then I won't be able to stare. I won't be able to look in your direction because I can't even look at your face because you disappointed me." And and they feel this rejection essentially of their unconditional worth which they once had being pulled out from under them. and then they have no sense of selfworth and then you try to take someone who has no sense of selfworth and motivate them you know it's hardly a surprise that you're not finding your uh your your attempts to educate them very effective. So we have to go back. Look at your child as a soul. Just like when they were an infant in the crib, look at them as a soul. An entity which is otherworldly, which is beyond. They're not just these little people. They are actually these eternal beings which are sojouring on the earthly plane. Acknowledge that. Cherish that. Understand that your child is essentially worthy. And from there, from that and we are back. Apparently, we lost connection. It sucks for you guys because you missed some tearjerkers, I tell you. Uh, wow. It there was flying all over the room. Um, and you can't you can't redo it. You can't duplicate that stuff. Um, but lucky for us, lucky for us, there's uh still a lot of suffering people and healing out there. I don't think I ever had such an emotionally raw moment as we had and then we found out the internet was cut off. Yeah. But then again, there's always dial a Holocaust story and uh we will do so right now. What are you saying? Dial a Holocaust story. What? Dial a Holocaust story. Is that a real thing? It should be. Um, I wanted to do a financial update because uh, it's been a little while since we did. I'm refreshing the page and behind Rabbi Tab, I'm not sure if the camera's on you. We have Okay, we hit 80,000. We hit 80,000. There's a lot of anonymous donations out there. And I think that that does say something about um the the type of uh people who follow soul words and the nature of this work and the appreciation that people have and um it is uh it's very meaningful. We're at 81,000 and I wanted to read out a few uh dedications and then we have a special guest in studio. Um, can I read one testimonial actually first as it pertains to um the the parenting course that Rabbit Tab was speaking about just before? This is a private message and Rabby Tab told me that whoever wrote this gave permission uh for him to use it. Um, it's a uh one message dated from November 21st of this past year of last year and then a follow-up message. The first message uh is uh this parent writes, "What if I have hatred towards my 12-year-old self?" No, that was my own slip. What if I have hatred? I heard someone put it well. They said, "There's something about you that I really hate about myself." You ever heard that? What? What if I have hatred towards my 12-year-old because of the way he behaves? I'm not happy with him. I'm not interested in bonding with him. Um I only like him when he behaves. And then this What's the date? That's this person wrote that message to you on November 21st. Okay. Because I want to tell you something. We did a parenting course and I think that week was like week one or two of the six week parenting course and that's that's when that would have been November 21st. Yeah. And then this is just less than a month later and this message is uh it's got to be more than a month later after he finished the course. It's got to be more than a month later. November 21st and then All right. over a month later. It was definitely after you finished the course. Okay. I could check up the date later. Yeah. This I know you're a busy man, Rabbi Tao, but I'm sending you an invite to my son's bar mitzvah because I owe you gratitude. Your course changed my life and my relationship with my son and kids. We came a long way and took your classes to use and was able to bond and connect with my son like never before. I can say that I benefited from it also because I was also craving the connection and now bar hashem with all the challenges that I have had with him. It was all orchestrated from Hashem in order to fulfill my desire and my son's desire kamay punim and the timing for it right before the bumritz was amazing. I'm excited for it unlike a few months ago where the behavior was out of control. My son is mostly calm. Just wanted to say thank you. So yeah, that was a very meaningful um that was very meaningful feedback. Um and you see there, by the way, he doesn't mention that the child did anything different. It's it was his own transformation that uh completely changed the relationship. The parents uh transformation his own personal work and that changed everything about Hashem and and you did mention that he gave me permission to share because it's I know a lot of people share with me personal things and they shouldn't worry that I would go and share it. I I was so moved by that uh that text or the change was so profoundly evident in just a short period of time. So I asked him permission to share it and he said if it would help others that he would be uh happy for me to share it. So thank you. Um and the parenting course alumni have a team that has been pushing strong yesterday and tonight and uh there's a number of teams that are coming in strong. I'm seeing um the Shah Patakan team coming in strong and the Tanya team and uh to everyone who took on a team. Thank you. And um please encourage your uh your friends um and whoever else to donate on your page. And if you'd like to dedicate a donation of any kind, uh I will be happy to read it. There's a few recent donations that came in um from anonymous. I can honestly say that you changed my life. Please tenfold and create more programs. So yes, that is not just uh hyperbole because every year that you've run a campaign, the amount of programming and content that you able to produce and do produce, I would say, is tenfold. And each year it just compounds um on top of the other. And with the goal we're going for this year, I have no doubt that the amount of uh production and help and staff that you're able to hire, it's just going to increase the amount of stuff that you because you are a wealth of of stuff. I'm not going to just put in too many words there, but you you have a lot to offer and with the right amount of support, there's a lot of people who can use it. We're going to a special guest in studio. Okay, we have a birthday rabbi in studio who we're going to hear from in person. And uh for you watching, you may not hear it, but there is a happy birthday music. Um hanging with the cake right now. Okay. Happy birthday to you. No, that's not the one I was going for. Rubber Tab likes this one. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Tears and sorrow in the air. People dying everywhere. But happy birthday. Happy birthday. Okay. Isn't that nice? You have a birthday, albeit with all the suffering around us. We have a special guest in the studio, Rabbi Yankl Rascin, uh, who's known for a lot of different things. uh in the Crown Heights community, but I will uh let him share more about that and uh what brings him to the studio tonight on his birthday. On his birthday. Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Okay. That's such an introduction. And it really is his birthday. It's not a joke. Yeah. Yes, it is. Thank you. 37, right? That's right. Say it again. 37. Okay. Um right, Robert Thomas, you invited me here to uh on this podcast, on this program. um speaking about how you are um how you're not a psychologist. I'm not a psychologist. That is correct. That's the title of the segment actually. And somehow it made sense for you to bring me as a therapist to you know some type of compare and contrast difference. So this is a therapist. This is not a therapist. Don't you see the difference? Yeah. Isn't it obvious? Yeah. He's got a cardigan. You don't. If I would have a cardigan, then I I would understand why people would That's one semester in school. Rabbi Tub, you know, just the cardigan. Which semester? Like the first semester? The go there. But you you you clearly didn't get to the point of the elbow patches on the cardigan because that's okay. Okay. It's always always when we grow, right? Um we should mention, by the way, Rabbi List from Ool was here in the in the first hour. We should mention that you're also affiliated with uh with Alertto with uh specifically a department that you're the the founding director of. So uh maybe you want to just speak quickly about that so people understand sort of your role uh in in the community. Yeah. Um you know people often ask me Enki how did reach out to you to become get involved within the therapy department created create a department of wellness and student support. Um, and there's a technical story. Um, I got a call one day from one of the board members asking me to come join them. Um, there's another story which is that I don't remember exactly how old I was, but if I had to guess, not 37. Not 37 cuz you've never done that before. That's This is new today. This one's brand new, right? It's just starting. Just getting started. Um I I would say as a teenager um I kind of intuitive something inside of me said that there's a need um within our school with everything that right that we have going um that there is is a there's something that is that we need to be um becoming a little bit more sensitized to um and yes you know your so much of your conversation is about and about um and parenting um and and we're obviously ly working within a mosid of which is all about um understanding the child and you know especially within that we understand that yeshiva is much more than just um the academics a subject that the reb often spoke about um um yet in some way there was with with every with all the good going on there was an understanding that we're seeing many many students um struggling with anxiety um students not wanting to come to school um you you know, and depending on the age, the nature of of what was going on, the family situations. Um, and they're often referring out to different resources, and there was um the kind of there was an understanding that the time came to do something about that and bring someone in. Um, and it was, you know, when I got that call um I knew, you know, it was it was it was one of those moments for me. Um and I'm it was you know just to say you're speaking about my birthday today. I had the opportunity to uh have a surprise birthday party in yeshiva which was celebrated together with all the menalum of the yeshiva and many of the therapists um that I work with the team that we've been building over the past couple of years um which really speaks a testament to the for me um just to the the understanding of the team of the mim that are in the yeshiva as well as very dedicated um uh therapists that work with us that we're really working together. You know, we're here to support them. We're here to support the teachers and and that's what we do. We're we're a resource. Um we have many therapists that work with us there. We oversee a lot of the other services that go on within the school. Just a central resource um that you know parents grew very organically. Um and we've been building and we hope to continue to grow with tremendous support from the board of directors and all the menalum etc. Um, parents reach out to us for referrals, cons consultation, can you see our can is there someone that can see your you know our son for a couple of sessions or etc etc. Um, and that's what we're that's that's the student wellness support and and I have to say there are many other yeshivas that have been reaching out to me and other people on our team saying we've been hearing about the work that you're doing and um I'm really proud to say that Alterara um and this department were really on the vanguard as far as furthering um the of our students by understanding that even if there's something a little bit new about bringing uh a therapy department within yeshiva if that's what our students then that's what we're going to do. Okay. So, now that people understand a little bit about who you are and where you're coming from and what what you're doing in the community, um, you want to have a conversation with me? I'm here. Okay. All right. So, I'm going to ask you a question. We didn't prepare this, so maybe I'm catching you off guard. You You studied? Yes. A little bit. A little bit. You like it? You enjoy it? Yeah. you find it personally meaningful. Yeah, it's a process, but yeah, I I respect that comment. Meaning to say it's not just you open it up and it's automatically as meaningful as you would wish it to be. You have to work. You have to put in the work. I mean, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but um for me personally, uh people always ask me, well, what should I learn to be inspired? It's not what you learn. It's how you learn. does you could learn anything. It's just if you're willing to work with it and and like you say, it's a process of living with the ideas, applying them, trial and error, figuring out how to do it, how not to do it. Yeah. At any rate, but I but I was vetting you and I was saying, "Okay, so you've learned this and you likeis and through a process you have found personal meaning in so so here's the question I want to ask you. Um, how can people who are coming from a a yeshiva background distinguish between what Torah has to offer as far as understanding our inner workings and and and what the therapeutic world has to offer and and and how important is that distinction? So that's my question. No pressure. No pressure. Okay, we'll give a shot at it. Um, so first of all, you're a man of words. I like words. You like words, right? I do. So, we'll take two words, therapy and psychology. Yes. Um, and you know, just look take a look at where what their origin of those words are and what they actually mean. Right. So, therapy comes from a Greek word similar to the word therapy which means to heal. And I've actually often I've heard one someone refer to it that it's actually very similar to the words to heal. Oh wow. Right. And by the way, it's parasish. We're getting there. Oh, really? That's good. I'm anticipating your direction. Okay. Okay. The second word is the word psychology. Okay. Which means in Greek again, the logic of the psyche or the logic of the soul. And as I've shared with you, you know, a letter to the Reb where the Reb actually speaks writes to psychologist how he looks forward to his encounter with him because our studies were actually we share similar interest in understanding the workings of the mind. Right. There's a letter of the wasn't that psychologist from Chicago also. Yes, he was because I remember because it stuck out stuck out to me because Yeah. Um so you know in and sometime you know like in some ways you know say say it again because I I like it got swallowed up. that Debb writes to this psychologist from Chicago that he's looking forward to their meeting because being that his study is the study of psychology which is the logic of the psyche and the soul and is the study of the the logic of the psyche and the soul. Um, so we're we have so much to talk about, right? It's very interesting that the rebound common ground with everybody and whatever their expertise was, whether it was like uh, you know, uh, finance or or or the military or whatever it is, the Reba would always find himself very comfortable in every discussion. But it's interesting that you you showed me that letter and the Reba is saying that basically hey I'm coming from a background of of studying and yeah we have a common language here let's have a conversation let's talk let's talk um you know so I I want to like kind of divide the conversation into two parts um which is what is therapy and psychology like at the heart of it in other words what is it and then in a way why I think to some degree there's something threatening about it where Sometimes psychology steps out of its line, right? Which brings me to like you were saying it's part of Mishbatim in which the Torah says um and the healer shall heal. And the Gomorrah famously says um right that it was given permission for the healing, right? You shouldn't take for granted that this is something that should be done. Right now, if we're g permission for it. Yeah. When the Reb was asked about psychology about working with therapists, I've I've seen the Reb refer to this um Kazal that there you know today there's a specialized field about you know that studies the mind and the same way Khazal said this about um you know regular general medicine that florapas however many years ago that would apply today to the field of psychology although it is a soft science and it's still a developing field um that the abisher tells us that this is who we turn to um when there's a need um for healing um So, so that's become so like this um so the idea now just like when it comes to a doctor right so we know the reb would often say that a doctor has to stay within his lane right so if someone would come to the doctor and say you know doctor said that you know there's no hope and like it's not it's not their role right your job is to heal your job is to heal not to say doom and gloom right exactly right so in a way I think when it comes to the field of therapy you can say that you could um say the same thing which is that there's a distinction between what we call right so you have you know like famously like we know that um he says uh what's the expression um you know someone says right which is that if there if someone tells you that in the world outside of of there there is wisdom yeah it's you can believe them that but that that famous uh saying sort of clearly is operating on a very clear distinction between what's tora and what'sma and I don't think a lot of people necessarily know what that means in a in a practical sense like okay the the world has doesn't have to for us but they do have okay so tell me what's the difference between okay so one way of putting it would be that tora is what offers us the why what's happening here how what's h why Why are we here? What is this world that we're living in? What's our purpose here? How are we to live our life? It's a direction, right? Torah is from the word which means direction. Um whereas inma is a science, right? The mechanism. How does something work? What are the skills that breaks things down? How it works to why it works that way, the purpose behind it. Right. Exactly. Right. and or what you call they can break down the mechanics of it and explain how it operates but they can't explain to you the ultimate existential meaning behind it. That's right. Right. So to me it's like when we you know you'll often hear people like having psychology and this this and that. It's like you know there's so much to be grateful for that there's actually a field right. One of the reasons I think we get tripped up is that because we hear because psychologists and many of the authors that write their books, it's mesh their philosophy of life is meshed together with what they have to offer. Can I insert a word here or a term value system? Yeah. Right. So they're and and in a way that's really important. That's why the Reb would often speak about that it's important to consider the therapist that you go to. Someone that's either god-fearing or respectful of those who are god-fearing. Um so they're sensitive not to superimpose their value system right on to um their client you know so that's the sensitivity really you know so therapy is just a developed field of healing that studies it's phil psychology studies the logic of the mind and what it's doing is just the same way medicine has developed so there there's a development of the study of the mind um and really that's what they have to off that's that's their offering you know, their offering is um it just breaks things down. So, to to make that distinction a little bit more clear, sure, one might go to a therapist to ask, "How might I accomplish something that I value? I want to do it. I value it, but I'm having difficulty doing it on my own." And the therapist might help me to figure out how to accomplish that thing that's important. Correct? As opposed to coming to them and saying, "I have no idea what my values are. I don't know what's important. Tell me what's important. Tell me what my values should be. That's right. And and I and I think that you know Rabbi do Rabbi Dr. Tski Shalom his yachts site I just want to mention was uh just a few days ago of Shabas Utess uh Schwvat and he was always very good to me. He gave me a lot of time and um once he explained uh that he said he was a psychiatrist he had an MD and uh he said so he said about psychiatry because that's that that was his credentials he said a psychiatrist is a mechanic what is a psychiatrist is a mechanic he said you go to the mechanic because you tell him I need my car working and the mechanic fixes your car but he doesn't tell you where you should drive. In other words, you have to come into the therapeutic relationship understanding, hey, I'm trying to get to this place. I have my goals in life based on my value system, which are already clear to me, but I'm I'm not able to get there. My car is not working. So, help me get my car working so I can accomplish the things that are important. Yeah. You know, and and it's like to me in some ways it's similar to the advent of the internet, you know, like we're meaning like wow there's something very neutral, right? Or to use theic terminology, it's clip, but is it clip or is it right and then and what and based on how on our value system, how are we to relate to it? Right. Right. So I think the reason it sometimes is seen as worse than it is is because of the value system that we hear that kind of comes through and kind of skews that. Um and that that is our responsibility and that is a sensitivity and I think that's one of the reasons why we've seen a growth of having more from therapists as well. You know that that's you're saying people recognize that they do need somebody who not only knows how the healing works but has a a value system which is congruent with with the person who's seeking the healing. It's a plus. You know it's so interesting you compare it to the internet. I was at a Shabaton two weeks ago in Chicago which is my hometown. Um, so someone was asking about the internet and it's interesting Thursday night one of our topics I think the 800 PM topic Thursday night is is internet but they were asking about internet and I said um one of the big dangers is that today we we we listen to a lot of these pundits who we think are so wise and they're telling us basically what our values should be and I said it's very dangerous. The purpose of the internet is to look up on YouTube how to fix a broken door knob. That that was just the example that I used. But fitting it into the the the paradigm that that that you set forth, I'll say it like this. These tools that exist today like the internet, like modern psychologyy's understanding of the mind, they are exactly that. They are tools. In other words, they can tell us how things break, how things can be fixed. But it's not where we should go for the why, for the is this worthy of being a goal that we pursue. Or maybe I I'll give you another set of of of fancy words. I remember I once wrote a column for Ammy years ago when I used to write the weekly column and someone was asking about therapy and I said something which some people were very offended by. It's very interesting. The people who were offended by it as opposed to people who were not offended by it. Uh the people who loved it were all therapists and they contacted me later and said, "Oh, you said good. You said good." And it was the non-therapists who were like offended on the behalf of the therapists. What what was the word that I used? The word I used was amoral. I said, "Psychology is not immoral. It's not inherently telling you to do wrong things, but it's not moral. It's not or at least not the way we define morality. It's amoral. It doesn't have or at least In the purest sense, it shouldn't have a moral code. So then where where's the the morality? You have to come in with a a sense of of morality. So if you come to the therapist and say here are my values. I want to say tell them shabasim and I'm not I'm just giving a realistic example of a struggle a person might have in life because this shabas shabasim and I'm already dreading it. I looked last job I was like oh thank god it's not yet two days from now. Yeah. There's a lot of children and children's children. There's a lot of pressure. Yeah. So I can go to a therapist and say not should I say shabas but I want to say shabas tell them shabas because it says in hayim to do it but I'm having trouble doing that. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. And that's the distinction. Monero, what if no pressure, but what would you think uh what would you think of if I if I said give me an example of an insight into the how into the mechanism that we are privy to in the modern world that just makes it easier to to use this mindbody uh system that we were granted like give an example of of of a modern insight like going under the hood. What? Yeah, going under the hood. Right. Exactly. That just makes it easier to use this this machine. Okay. So, I'll I'll share a story. Okay. I think that will perhaps illustrate this point. Um so, I had a student parent reached out to me. He was in seventh grade, a 13-year-old boy. He was doing great in yeshiva for a long time, for you know, all his years. Um and he came home and he shared with his mom that he has doubts in in cineamuna right and it's it actually struck me if I remember correctly I asked her like why why are you coming to me like go to go to the teacher or go to the principal wrong department this is the wellness department we deal with right somehow the mother intuited right she knew it wasn't uh she she didn't know what it was but it's it just in other words you're saying like he has doubts in faith so speak to a rabbi rabbi Yeah. Why are you talking to mental health guy? Right. Okay. Right. But I agreed. Okay. Um, you know, did you sense that the mother had a mother's intuition? Is that why you agree? I think she kind of knew that there was, you know, I I think also she tried speaking to her son and her son wouldn't offer much. So she understood that one of the things that her son needed was perhaps someone that he may feel safe to speak with, you know, have that privacy, you know, be protected, you know, won't be shared f further, which is something that um, you know, you kind of have that in the therapy room. Um, and I remember I meet with him and long story short, he, you know, I'm kind of like test just trying to see, you know, maybe he's just normal questions. And I asked him, initially I asked him, did anything happen recently? Like nothing happened? anything changed? I go through, you know, like just I'm not figuring out what's going on. And then I asked him the following question. I was like, "Is there something that happened? You're just not comfortable telling me what happened." Okay. And he he says, "Yes, there is something." I'm like, "Did you share this with anyone?" So instead of asking what happened because he couldn't do that, right? You said, "Is there something?" But you're you wouldn't share it. Exactly. But Right. Right. And I even said that even and and if and you wouldn't share it, I'm not going to ask you to share it. Right. So like that it stays with you. Right. Right. Right. And he says there is something that happened two weeks ago around the same time. One of these challenges and he like it wasn't just that he had these doubts. It was it was it took a huge toll on him, right? His mother saw he was everything was different about him. He was like carrying this burden around with him. Um, so I understand. So the mother didn't know what happened either, but she knew. And she didn't even know that something happened, but somehow intuitively she knew these were not religious questions. This was an expression of uh of some to to to use the the word trauma, some type of a traumatizing experience that the child went through. So, and this is an just to me before you tell me how the how the story continued, but it's so funny. It's not funny. It's tragic, but how often I get a call from people who say, "You're a smart rabbi. You got pretty words. Explain to him. Answer this guy's questions." And and and it's like 90% of the time that's not what it is. It's not that he needs a better speech on Amuna. There's there's something that this person's going through on an emotional level. Correct. Now, I when I did meet with him, I did rule out because it's not, you know, it's possible that as a 13-year-old, he's his mind's developing and he may have some questions, you know, and he it may be that it's that is so concerning to him that it would throw him off and then it would be part of the job would be normalizing it, you know, and then seeing what the process would be, understanding what the questions were, but it wasn't, it just wasn't, that's not what it was, right? Right. I was able to, you know, in my work this, you know, sometimes religious questions really are religious questions sometimes. Yeah. And sometimes the internet is just the internet. Sometimes we have um a a announcement um and a few donors. So I'm just going to ask I'm going to put you on the clock for another 60 seconds. Okay. So 60 seconds 59 59 bring this home. And there's a lot of interesting stuff here which I would love to unpack and sit here, but I want to know what does this have to do with the campaign that we're running tonight? These are some heavy heavy stuff that uh as a community I think we're still in the process process of understanding and healing and um bring it home for us and get the people to give. Okay. So, let me with the 30 seconds you have left. Okay. Um, I'll just finish the story. That's okay. And then Yeah. Yeah. Don't leave us hanging. Okay. So, what I asked him, did you share now this thing that you're not ready to share with me? Did you share it with your anyone? No. Didn't share my parents. Would you share with your parent? I wouldn't share it with them, right? Did you Would you And then I realized something, right? He has a secret that's clearly, right? He's ashamed of, right? And he's holding the shame. doesn't want to share with me. What does he do? He doesn't share it with me. Doesn't want to share with his parents. What does he do? He doesn't share with them. But now he doesn't want to share with Hashem. Right? I asked him that. So what do you do then? You cancel him out. Right? So it to me it's like you kind of you go under the hood, right? You kind of on the front end what you're looking at over here is a child that's saying I have doubt and it's so clear superficially. It looks like a religious issue. Exactly. And what you were dealing with was just shame, you know, that was that presented itself. So the that ability to be able to do that work and unpack what's going on, you know, with Hashem's help. Um and then, you know, was interesting there was learning how to work with shame when the person wasn't ready to speak about it, you know, for another segment clearly. Yeah. Um but this is something and really to bring it home to the work that you're doing to me. I was like what a gift for this student you know who we were able to work through it over you know in that during that session right in real time right when it happened but how many people do you hear of you know in their later teens and 20s and 30s who come with these questions right and now they're burdened with their you know the shame that they have around whatever behavior they were engaging with whatever something that hap something else that happened that now translates around their religious issues, right? So having, you know, people such as yourself who speak to this to speak to speak to people, you know, that it's not we're not just here to preach to people, we're here to speak to them, we're here to understand them and help them under better understand um what it is that they're going through and make sense of what they're going through and then offer them uh the ability to connect with reconnect with Hashem and and have a deeper connection. Um, to me that's uh the holiest work. So, thank you and thank you for taking some of the precious 24 hours of your birthday to to join us. And uh I I definitely enjoyed it. And I'll tell you, it was going through my mind. It was probably going through people's minds while they're watching you speak to me. Uh is I have to have you back and we we have to do like a whole series. Like we have to really get it. We have to talk when there's no clock ticking and we could just talk for hours. Okay. All right. Awesome. Happy birthday. Thank you very much. Thank you so much for call and I personally look forward to hearing some of that. And um we have another guest in the studio who considering she is a parent and she needs to be home to uh she needs to be home by 10 o'clock to put her kids to bed. So had a particular Was I not supposed to say that? What's the matter? Testimonials. Testimonials. And then straight to our next guest. Well, we're going to have changing of the guards while I read these testimonials. And this is going to be number nine. Now I got on my screen. It's a testimony from someone who writes, "I am a psychologist and I have found that Rabbi Ta's teachings of Cassidus and personal insight bring all that I have learned professionally to a whole new level." This is uh testimonial number 10 in front of me. I have struggled with signi significant issues in my life and took Rabbi Tab's parenting courses which I've gained tremendously from. After that, I was hooked to soul worlds and pro soul words and why does it always come out of my mouth like that and probably listened to every single talk more than once? You have a diehard fan here. When I came across the trauma related podcast, why would you give me these testimonials as a leadin for the I'm not a psychologist segment? These are just making the case more and more. But whatever. Then again, he thinks he could talk about like all these love and give your kids things even if you and and then think that people won't bug him to like validate them and everything. When I came across the trauma related podcast, I finally found myself. It's as if nobody ever affirmed people in the religious orthodox community or something. I've been in trauma therapy with an amazing therapist for over half a year now and am on my way to recovery. I'm glad I went into therapy with all the spiritual knowledge from my soul words since the outcome would have looked very different without it. May my healing be as for Rab Tab and his entire family and may Hashem give you the kayak to continue with all your holy work of spreading Hashem's light to the world. It's uh it's wrong words. I'm sorry for my sarcasm. What I really meant to say and we have a guest in studio right here with us. Um, all right. I'm going to shut up. I'm going to go straight to our guest. There'll be time for Peanut Gallery later, right? Till till dawn. Kim, you and I, we we live in the same neighborhood. So, we you can come to my Speaking of which, I want to read a dedicated donation. Yes. that uh anyone whose neighbor is going to give uh put money where their mouth is. And it's not easy. Yeah, clearly you've been taking the recycling out and maybe even some of theirs. Um now I lost it. Okay, it Oh, come on. Ellie Stern, $360 in appreciation of the best nextdoor neighbor. Is that nice? And by the way, if you're a member of the five towns who uses Robbie Tab's backyard as a shabas shortcut, and if you're from there, you know what I mean. This would be your time to pay some uh to uh pay some thanks. Yes. Um Okay. All right. Two. I had a dollar for everyone to cut through the backyard. Okay. Yeah. What's going on? Testimonial or is the camera on our guest? Want to the guest? Live in studio. We have Sarah Blau. Can I give the proper title? Extracurricular director of Bass Rifka because we want to mention we had two guests from earlier. So we want to mention all the the me and we want to make sure that acknowledge Brifka. Okay fine. So so first of all just to sec the record my kids are sleeping. 10 o'clock would be a little late. you just use that in a crafty way to get us. Um, but what I really want to share, Rabbi Ta, and to the audience is a little bit of the impact going a few years back of some of the teachings. And I want to go back to the recordings that you made for the JLI soul maps course. Those six recordings, I remember listening to them. I listened to them on long car rides like to Berfka Shabaton and stuff listening to them and it was like a light went on. I like understood things for the first time and I remember I was thinking back to like in seminary when Mrs. Kutra gave us this like exercise to do where she wrote a full sentence like the zappies zonked over the zent. And then she asked us questions like what did the zappies do? They zonked over what the zens. and she was showing that you can really literally spit back information without having any idea what it's talking about. And I felt a little bit like that. I was like, "Oh, I finally understand what the zappy is and the zon and the sense like I'm not just spitting out words and the you crystallize the ideas." And then when I taught that soulmaps course, I taught it to the high school girls. I taught it to women and suddenly I was finding that it was resonating with people. And I don't know if you even know this. One year you leave, we made entire workshops based on that course. So we had six rooms and each room, you know, it was Oh, I remember it was like a test fair, like an exhibit and it had exhibits and Yeah. And Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I that does ring a bell, right? And and it was already made because you titled it. There was a flow. It was smooth and it was really relevant to and they went from room to room. It was like going through the Tanya. Yeah. Exactly. the and the and I think that big picture view was the first time that I understood it because you know you learn whether it's inas or in high school you learn it but under you know that zooming out and really understanding the flow and you know I saw every level it resonated it and and like you know remember the example of the rubber band. Yes. The outside and the inside that if you keep pulling the rubber band it's gonna you know and and that it was such a good visual a rubber band could rip. So if we're only gonna, you know, work on our outside so to speak without working on our insides, the the tension will get too much. So these examples were like just English like talking to all of our animal sos so to speak like understanding even by the way the words outside inside are very simple words. Yeah. outside inside but like that like it just explains in English you know like so if you translate literally you say soul powers and soul garments okay I mean that's barely better than right but the outside inside rubber band like these words you know and and I also want to say that it structured my understanding of of Tanya and and and the psyche of a yid that my book Close to You was also based on the same divisions you know it it was a you know like I it was those recordings in from the JLI but it's the Tanya map it's the visual visualizations it's you know all that really was the foundation for my further being able to understand it and then give it over and then teach it whether it's you know like in the exhibits or in the Tanya book Um and and it's through my lens, you know, it's filtered then and and that's the amazing rip, you know, ripple effect, so to speak. One person's understanding the Tanya and giving it over and then just continuing with this unbelievable spreading of understanding. I said last night, and I'll say it again because it's exactly what you're saying. I said, "Nobody should be afraid to teach things in their own idiosyncratic words." Meaning the words that are peculiar and quirky to you and your way of thinking and your experience. Don't be afraid to teach that way because it you're afraid that no one else will understand. The truth is that's exactly when they will understand. And then what they'll do is they'll take it and repackage it in the words that are unique to them. Right? The waiter. I mean all the examples, you know what I'm talking about later, the waiter that Yep. Chapter 35. Sure. Yeah. So all those examples, they they were helpful. I still use them. I still explain it. I still um you know understand it. Even the concept of how right impulse control like neurological like English words I was like oh that's what it is. Yeah. He says I mean he says it's neurological. Yeah. Right. except that by me it was the the the zappy over the zen over you know so I just want to thank you for that and and really you know we're so grateful to have said this in such an you know in such an accessible manner we're lucky we're a lucky generation that we get to have it and you know who hasn't listened to a podcast or a class or you know been a recipient in some way most recently Rabbi Tab just came to Berkf to do a question and answer session um onat on with Rabbi Shimmy Winebomb who's one of my great heroes, right? Who also is involved in making the deepest truths accessible to everyone. He talks to an even tougher audience. He's talking to kids. I I can't bring it down that far. Yeah. Um Yeah. Or I mean, you know, on every single level, like whether it was the high school students, the women, or coming to speak to the about Hakal and trickling down into their programs. So, I guess that's really, you know, the theme, translating it into language people could understand. so that people could then go and translate it further. Yes, that's it. Translating it so other people can go and translate it the way they translate it. Yep. Yep. So, thank you. Thank you. Amazing. Thank you very much, Sarah. While you were having a conversation with Rabbi Rascin, or I should say uh with our guest earlier, Yankl Rascin, um I wanted to do this in preparation for tonight's segment. I wanted to do some roleplay with chat GPT. Oh. And I was like, I didn't have time. And you know what? It was a lot. By the way, if you want to check it out, I made an account and started corresponding within like a minute and a half um during that thing. And I want to there's a whole bunch of while I was talking to Yankee, you were creating a chat GPT account and creating Yeah. So, we don't have enough time to go through all of it, but I was sort of asking it. Why is it that people mistaken you for a therapist? You asked chat GPT why mistake me for a therapist? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of like us theorizing, this guy's probably got Ask the Oracle. Okay. Is Rabbi, this is what I asked. Is Rabbi Shayab a therapist? You asked chat GP. I just started the Yeah, a few minutes ago. All right. Rabbi Sha Stab is not a licensed psychologist. Oh, he got it right. Yeah. But he is having said that he is a renowned speaker, author, and teacher. If we could do a screen share, I would. Maybe I'll share some screenshots, but anyone could probably do this. I assume they'll get the same uh responses. Um he's a renowned speaker, author, and teacher on topics related to mental health, addiction, and spirituality. He has written several books on these topics and has given numerous talks and workshops on them. Although he does not have a formal degree in psychology, he has studied and written extensively on topics related to psychology particularly in the context of Jewish spirituality and by how accurate this is. Yeah. Um and then I asked why does why do so many people assume he is a psychologist? Oh wow. It is possible that some people assume larvae is a psychologist because he often speaks and writes about topics related to mental health and addiction which are areas commonly associated with psychology. Additionally, his approach to these topics incorporate a deep understanding of Jewish spirituality and mysticism which may lead some people to assume that he has training in both psychology and Jewish studies. However, it is important to note that while Ray Stab is highly knowledgeable and experienced in these areas, he is not a licensed psychologist or mental health professional. It is always important to seek out the advice and guidance of trained professionals when dealing with issues related to mental health and addiction. Then I asked, is that to suggest that Judaism and spirituality is separate from mental health? No. No, not at all. Judaism and spiritual No, hold on. He said, no, not at all. No, not at all. Why are you assuming the gender of chat GBT? Just Yeah, good point. Chat GPT said, "No, not at all." Yeah. Okay. It just sounds very emphatic. We can put it on. Can I look at it? Yeah. I just I want to make sure you're not making this up. No. Okay. No, not at all. Judaism, Judaism and spirituality can certainly be an important part of an indivi individual's mental health and overall well-being. In fact, for many people, spirituality and religious practices can be a valuable source of support and meaning. However, it is important to recognize that mental health issues are complex and often require specialized training and expertise to address effectively. While spiritual practices can be an important part of a person's overall mental health care, they should not be seen as a substitute for evidence-based treatments. Could we have to censor that for the CO? Uh as a substitute for evidence-based treatments such as therapy and medication when needed. It isn't also important. So here's what okay there's a lot to it's so meta because you were talking with the ankle about the idea of seeing and you shared that anecdote from Dr. Turski of appreciating therapy or as a tool rather than a source or Victor Frankle put it, there is the how and the why. And when people turn to a therapist for the why instead of the how and not ironically, you see the same pattern of some the same person then turning to the rabbi for the how. and you deal with that and that's why we're talking about this. He who will turn to the therapist for the why will ultimately turn to the rabbi for the how. You heard it here first. I don't even know, by the way, I should just major disclaimer. Don't memeify that or anything. I don't even know if I agree with that statement. I was just you say it and I just smoothed it out for you. There is a book that statement was about as um int no intelligent as chat GPT meaning chat GPT is that's the level of creativity that it's capable of chat GPT is good at one thing speaking in a smooth convincing way but it doesn't necessarily have any meaning behind it you know what it's like it's like slam poetry chat GBT is sounds great but it doesn't mean as soon as you like break it down right and take out some of the like sort of rhyme. It's like actually that made no sense. I'm not even sure why I applauded just now. Uh no, pick that mic right back up. Do not drop it ever again. That was terrible. But this is interesting. So, so I was okay talking to the tool about why we associate why we attribute ultimate meanings or spiritual meaning to people or things that are really only in the business or ought to be in the business of how and I would love to delve into how and why we often confuse those two. There's a great book. If I had to predict, we I we did a segment last time about um books that might have been found in the TA household bookshelves. And you were pretty much wrong on nine out of 10 of your guesses. I got some of those. Yeah. 80s. My brother D was on and you Yeah, you had to guess. Well, let's What about this one? Carl Meninger. Whatever became of sin. I'm not familiar with it. the the theme of the book is the Mener Institute I in Kansas City and the he was making the point in the book that you know if rabbis would be rabbis then not there wouldn't be as many people coming to his center and to him for uh his services you so anyway the vacuum sort of thing that was created so I want to get there's a lot I wanted to get get to there's some really interesting of chat. I'm see two minutes. Two minutes. I can't read all my pages of chat GP. You were doing that all while I was talking to Yenko Rasim the whole Okay. And then Yeah. All right. So, what's some of it is repetitive, but it's actually not. Okay. There's some funny stuff here, but it's going to have to wait. I do want to say this. There's something heavy that came up before and uh I never shared this story with you. I only shared it like maybe I'm not sure with who but and you're about to share it with like a thousand and it's maybe answers the rhetorical question of why do why are people surprised to hear that you're not a therapist when you say certain things okay and it directly dovetales with some of the parenting stuff that we start with and I think it brings it full circle maybe eight or nine about nine years ago, I attended a retreat and a support group for um and it was uh yeah, it was another would say like a someone from an Orthodox family. he was in his early 50s and um in the group he shared about sexual abuse that happened uh by a sixth grade teacher and he said he either shared about it once before with a therapist but never in a group setting and I won't go into some of the details of what was shared but in like a very sort of muted uh voice he was like mumbering thing and then once he repeated it, he kept saying, "And I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't tell anyone. I couldn't tell anyone." and um over the course of 40 minutes or so, but what he shared a bit later and obviously um from what we know about abuse and so so much of it is in the more than the event itself, the uh shame and the isolation shame and isolation from not having where anyone to tell um Yeah. So he explained a bit more what he meant by I couldn't tell anyone. He said um he was uh a child of a Holocaust survivor who remarried after he came to America and sort of had a child later in life. and um his uh he didn't really have a that much of a relationship with his with his birth mother. He lived with his father and he his father was uh deaf and dumb. If I'm not mistaken, he said as a result of what he experienced in the camps. And it was a very uh revealing story, I thought, because it wasn't um a figure of speech when he said, "I could I couldn't," right? He literally couldn't um and couldn't tell his father. His father couldn't even hear him. Right. Wow. So, they're talking tonight about a community that's healing in so many different ways and individually, collectively and parents trying to become better parents learning. Um uh but it like starts with just like the acceptance of So can can I just speak to that because it's very heavy but I I just want to I don't have the ability or desire to actually and and I can't I couldn't even fathom I can't hear everybody's pain. I can't I mean even the amount that I already hear takes a huge toll on me. But what I do try to do and I believe it helps and we can all do this and it'll help even more is sometimes just the way you talk about something when you make it mentionable when you take away the shame from it. You take away the whole secrecy and you just talk about it not like it's no big deal but rather like it is part of life and therefore it's okay to talk about that itself makes people feel heard. Meaning they didn't actually go tell you. They didn't but they know that if they did have to tell you you would be able to hear them because it's you've already put it out on the table and made it a fair topic of discussion. So I think you know what I do try to do and it's not a tactic and it's it's I'm not doing this to to to to create a certain effect. I do it because this is the way that I learn. When I'm learning this is how I think and that's why I teach this way. Whatever we learn in Torah, especially inidis, it has to shed light on on all of the human experience, including the most deep and dark aspects of of of being an embodied soul and everything that that that brings with it and all the the difficulties and the the the real challenges. And and when my point is when we're capable of speaking about that deep dark stuff in a way that's not sensational and it's not, you know, we don't make we don't make it um shameful. We can when when we can speak about all of human experience with dignity that itself just that that type of discourse alleviates a lot of the burden that people are carrying around with them. So words. Yeah. Words. Yeah. Yeah. Literally that the words that we use and the way that we use them lightens people's load. It takes the the the weight off. It takes the pressure off. We're gonna go to Bert Backarak and then we have a special guest in the studio. Okay. Yeah. All right. We're going to Bert Bakarak. Well, I think we should the outro with some Bert Back. I'm going to ask Chat GPT, by the way, if Bert Bakarak and Hal David wrote an extra verse of what the world needs now is Love, Sweet Love about the coming of Messiah, what would it sound like? And I think Chat GPT would do it. I have it. Or I could ask G. When Jews write music about love, do they really mean? Do they really mean Msiah? Yeah. Is it code? Um, this was a really big hit last night that we decided we asked them to come in again. Could we send can we put camera four on our special guest? Aram Abatab, you're back. I'm back. Now, Abba, uh, you surprised me last night. And by the way, some people were cynical enough to think that that was set up. No, it wasn't set up. It was totally spontaneous. I did not know you were going to come here. Um, he says, "Get closer to the mic." Closer to the mic. Closer. Close enough. No. No. Closer. Like an inch away from your mouth. Yeah. Very good. Um, David, you're going to have to learn how This is This This is not such a polished show over here. You could just scream out, "Get closer to the mic. It's okay." Um, so some cynical people thought that that was scripted. Then we would do it again. We could just do the same thing again. Do what again? The surprise. I could be surprised again. If I could have faked being surprised the first time, I could have faked being surprised the second time. But tonight, I knew you were coming. But now, I'm going to surprise you. What's the surprise? I'm going to expose something you told me in private. Don't get too nervous. Okay. Last night after the show, you expressed some regret. I think Yol, your brother actually uh kind of planted this seed of doubt in your mind. You said I shouldn't have said something. You asked me what do I study in yeshiva and I said uh various Judaisms and I made it sound like there are multiple Judaisms and I and I shouldn't have said that. Do you remember that? Yeah. Yeah. Have you been thinking about it? Thought about it. Yeah. Did you come up with a way of redeeming that? Cuz I did. It's your way. Your way. Did you come up with a way? I did, but it it would be too technical to share. It's too technical. I bet you what I came up with is along the same lines as what you came up with. I just will probably be able to say it in a way that doesn't sound so technical. Okay, tell me if this is what you thought of. So Ram Aba felt bad that he said he studies various Judaisms and it makes it sound like God forbid there are multiple Judaisms. Um which is not the case. Which is not the case. There's not there's there was to a there was one tora one Hashem and one Tyra. But I thought about like this here. Here's what I'm going to say. Um, the first letter of the oral law, meaning the first word of the first Mishna of all of Mishna is what? It's a mem. It's a me, right? From the word, which means when when do the when do you say the the nightly schmma? Yes. Very good. And the last letter of all Mishna at the very end of is what letter? Is also a me from very good. Very good. So the first letter is a me. The last letter is a me. Now me. What number n you want to do a little numerology? Yeah. Okay. What numerology gamatria if you want to be from is me 40 40 is the 40 days that Moses spent on Mount Si receiving the Torah. 40 is connected to Torah. Okay. So the first letter of the Mishna of the oral law is a me. The last letter the oral law is a me. But the difference is the first mem is an open mem. The last mem is a closed mem. The open mem represents nigla de toyra the revealed aspects of toyo when tora is speaking about accessible ideas like laws of damages and stuff like that that are physical things he could relate to the closed mem represents to hanist the concealed mystical dimension of tro when tra is speaking about uh souls and and spiritual stuff so there are two tas there's tra of the the nigla and there's traist there's the revealed and the concealed that's why I have the the open mamm and the closed mamm each one being 40 represent the 40 days and 40 nights and uh there's your Judaisms those are my Judaisms I believe I said that my Judaisms were I don't know if I made it clear enough but and by the way the alterab the balatana's name was and is two lights the light of nigla and the light of and yeah and also I'll tell you another thing which one of the 12 tribes was renowned for his intense Torah study you no he started the okay he started and would had a partnership with Zulen Zulan would do the business and pay for okay so was scholars um they knew how to do kesh kesh and all that technical stuff is spelled in a funny way. It's spelled with two sins and some people even pronounce it yasar. And it actually happened in 770 in Paris Viet when they read the the the tribes the names of the children of Yankee Vainu that the Balka pronounced it yasar with two sins and the rabb told the bala the one who was doing the public Torah reading no you don't pronounce it yasar even though there's two sins the letter sin uh you pronounce it yakar because the first sin the first letter sin is pronounced count the second letter sin is silent and the rebba said in the name of his father that's to indicate that inra is the tribe that studied a lot of you have the pronounced and the silent the pronounced means the revealed legalistic and the silent is the hidden mystical interesting you mentioned is that's what we're doing you're doing the this is the zulan very good so we're looking for a few good zulins out there there could be more than one zoolin yeah there could be more than one. That's right. We're looking for That's a good tie in of Raham Abba. That is good. Okay, we need some Zulins to step up and do some big donations. Yeah, some big zoolins. Some big zulins with some big donations to make our Torah study and teaching uh possible. Yeah, that's awesome. What's happening tomorrow night? You going to be with us tomorrow night? You going to pretend to surprise us again tomorrow night? I could surprise you again tomorrow night. Yeah. Okay. Should I wear like a red hat or something? That would be surprising. Don't tell us cuz then you'll diminish the surprise. Uh what's what's on the agenda tomorrow night? You have the schedule? I do have the schedule. Okay. Tomorrow night you're doing an ask me anything live Q&A. Wow. That could be crazy. Ask me anything. Anything. Wow. Okay. Interesting. Anything. Yeah. Okay. Which is Rabbi Ta takes your real questions and shows you the art of answering. So, it's not only that you're getting asked questions, you're showing how to answer asked questions. Teach your man to fish. Yeah. Teach your men to fish. And yeah, feed a man to fish. Yeah. Yeah. Teach a man to fish. Yeah. And the second showing how to answer the questions, right? And the second one, which I noticed was quite similar actually. The treasure of Kadesh. You know that it's similar. I know that it's similar because you understand that ultimately the methodology for answering questions properly is the Debb's methodology in Igoskesh. That's right. So you understand that the first topic is connected to the second topic. Assuming you're going to mention that. Of course I'm going to mention it. Yes. Which is studying the Labavich's letters as a source of clarity and guidance which is really the answer to the first to the first topic. But I'm not going to spoil it. I won't spoil it. That's fine. People won't get it. It's fine. You know, it's interesting. One of the insecurities I have often is that I think I've said things too explicitly. That it was too heavy-handed. It was too on the nose. Um, and rarely is that insecurity uh rarely does it prove to be correct. In most cases, it's the exact opposite. I think I've said things very clearly and people are like, "No, you should have said that." Well, I thought I did. So, it's okay. You could say it and say it again and say it again and say it again. Okay. How are we wrapping up over here, David? Just tell me. What? We're saying good night. Okay. So, listen everyone. Soulwords.orglive org/live campaign still going. We're trying to raise $500,000 to continue the work of Soulworks and to expand. Please uh give generously and we'll see you tomorrow night at 8:00 p.m. Eastern uh here again. Okay. And we want to thank again our co-host Kaim Conn and Aram Abba and all of our guests who are here with us uh tonight.