5 Calamities of The 17th of Tamuz - 5 Symptoms of Trauma: Parshas Pinchas - Rabbi YY Jacobson

good morning everybody and welcome today's class is dedicated by Dr Michael and Liz Michelle in loving memory of Rabbi no Michelle in honor of his ninth yard site on the 18th day of Tas he fled the kic city of uh tarov in Poland in 1939 as a young teenager where his community was destroyed he was exiled to Siberia made it to America and dedicated 60 years here to educating and inspiring Jewish children's and families in mon was one of the founding fathers right do you remember huh your principal yeah one of the founding pillars of this community here in and may his memory remain an eternal source of light blessing and inspiration to the entire family and to the entire community and to all of the Jewish people and we should have the Fulfillment of a thank you very very much so everybody knows that today in the Jewish calendar marks what we call shivas the 13th the 17th day of the month of tamas and it begins the era or the period known as the 3 weeks that continue for 21 days from the 17th of tamos throughout tab the nth of of in the First Source sheet in the First Source in your Source sheet we have the source in the mishna for what happened on this day and let's take a look inside because we're going to go through these five things and understand their deeper significance so this is a mishna in trus track dedicated to fasts it's the fourth chapter P mishna you have it both in the Hebrew and in the English the mishna says as follows it wants to understand why this day has been established as a communual fast day for the Jewish people what happened so he gives the history [Music] five things five calamities occurred to our forefathers to our ancestors on the 17th of tamas and another five things another five calamities occurred on the ninth of of and because of these five events on each of these days it's been established as a day of remembering a day of commemoration and a day of fasting for those who can and he goes through the five things B on the 17th day ofas which is today number one the the tablets were broken and this is of course referring to the story in in in the book of Exodus and it's the story of it's very hot no should we put on the air okay it's a story in the book of where the Jewish people stood at sign they receive the Ten Commandments God reveals himself face to face and then mha goes up to the mountain for 40 days 40 nights and in his absence they build What's called the agel the golden calf and this was on the 16th of tamos mosha came down on the 17th of tamos and when he saw the idol that was created the statue the golden C that was created he broke the L he broke the tablets the tablets the L had within them in engraved the the 10 sayings The Ten Commandments and M breaks them that's what he says these were broken they were shattered that was event number one on the 17th of thas event number [Music] two but means the daily offering was nullified by the Roman authorities and never sacrificed again what is this referring to in the bikes in the Sanctuary first in the mishkan in the desert and then in the b mikdash in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem in Yus there were many offerings that were brought animal offerings and also meal offerings made from grain but the most consistent one was called the T Ted means always Perpetual consistent right tamid tamid means forever because this was a daily offering that was brought in the morning and in the afternoon every single day 365 days a year seven days a week Sunday through shabas regular days festive days no difference this was T and we say it actually many say it in the morning before they start daving in the carbus and the offerings we speak about there's a sheep a lamb in the morning a lamb in the afternoon this is called T because it was Perpetual it was consistent on this day this routine was nullified it was obliterated the authorities did not allow allow the Jewish people to do it anymore and for the first time the Ted came to a halt that happened on the 17th day of thas event number [Music] three the city walls were breached hka means breached ha is the city you the old city of Jerusalem had a it had a fortress it had a wall surrounding it protecting it on this day the Romans managed to breach the wall they still didn't destroy the city but once the wall is breached now they have breached broken into the wall is a very powerful wall and it provided tremendous protection from an enemy and they besieged it for a very very long time in fact The Siege began months earlier on the 10th day of Tavis which is also a fast day and the reason it's a fast day is because that's when The Siege actually began so from the 10th of Tavis you have shat niss SAS it was more than a half a year past and finally after a long Siege of more than a half a year where nobody was allowed to go in nobody was allowed to come out because they surrounded the city they finally managed to breach the wall on the 17th of tamas from here it took 3 weeks until they burnt the bik that would be 3 weeks later but once the wall was breached now the Roman Legions the Roman troops had access to go into the City and ultimately Reach the harabas the Temple Mount and burn the bdes so that's the third thing that happened on the 17th day of Tas it was breached number four the a general by the name of apus publicly burnt the Tyra he took a Tyra scroll to say and he publicly burnt it also on the 17th of thas number five a fif thing that happened was and this happened actually by manasha manasha was one of the kings of the he was a Jewish King the son ofia M manasha he placed a salum he took a salum which is an idol a pagan Idol of idolatry and he didn't just worship it he put it into the the was the inner roofed sanctuary of the B M right before the holy of holies where the daily incense was burnt and the Mana the Candelabra was lit and the inner a of the was done and he brought a Sal of this Pagan Idol into the in order to worship it this he also did on the 17th day of Tas so the mishna and SM enumerates five historic five calamities that occurred in Jewish history on this day and because of all these five events the sages and the prophets established it the prophets and the sages established it as a communual and public fast day of the Jewish people which as we know is observed till today thousands of years later so again the first thing is the lus were broken and that's of course number one because it's also the first in terms of chronology because this already happens right after the Jewish people receive the even before they enter the second thing he says is the tmid the daily offering came to a halt and it was nullified number three the walls of the city of Y were breached number four Aus burns the T number five Masha places AUM a pagan Idol in the then he goes into the five things that happened on Tish another five things on the nth of of which is the reason that that was created as a fast day that's not going to be our Focus today but I'll just read it so you get the full picture of this mishna and he says on the first thing that happened was there was decreed on our ancestors that they would all perish in the wilderness and not enter into the land this was after the debacle of the spies the second thing is the first bikes is destroyed number three the second B Mikes is destroyed number four betar is conquered by the Romans and defeated this was the last stronghold of bar and his armies after the destruction of the second base 60 years later he staged a revolt against the Romans and the last stronghold was beter and beter was conquered and defeated and the last thing is he says which means the city of Jerusalem was completely plowed it wasn't just the homes were destroyed or burned but the whole city was plowed as a symbol that it would never be rebuilt again and that's the fifth thing that happened on T now it's interesting that when the mishna mentions five things that happened on the 17th day of tamas you would think that it would mention it in chronological order but it does not the first thing is that the were broken that's chronological order but then the second thing is that the carbon tmid was nullified that happens in the bik then the third thing is that the city was breached and the burns the andha who lived during the first Bas of M put AUM in the so in terms of History the events are mixed up so obviously he's referring to a certain pattern of the events progressing not in terms of chronology because it doesn't follow the chronological order but in terms of themes and this brings us into really understanding what these five events are about on one level you could think it's just five bad things that happen really tragic historic events that occur to the Jewish people but they were obviously extremely significant to the point that they were chose this day became chosen as the beginning of the three weeks and a fast day so it's not just five tragic events but five events that represent the beginning of a new era they represent a unique level of Destruction they represent the ushering in of days of sadness of the three weeks and that's why these five events are singled out because of what they represent and because of that it's in a particular order now when you look at it you could look at it in two ways you could see it simply as events that happen in history or there's a deeper way of looking at it and that is events that reflect patterns that exist in every person's life and that's what we're going to address today everything in t could be understood always on a level of goof and on a level of n the Z says in every part of T there's the body and there's the soul just like in a human being when you understand things on the level of the body you understand it more from a physical concrete P perspective when you understand it on the level of a soul you go back to the root of the symptoms to the source we all know in a person when a person is suffering whether it's physical illness or emotional there's always looking at the symptoms which is good and very very important and is even alleviating the symptoms but it doesn't necessarily deal with the underlying cause of the pain I don't have to say to explain it to this educated and sophisticated and enlightened Crown enlightened audience some of you well-versed in the area of healing that sometimes you know even Professional Medical practitioners are good with symptoms but not with causes because to know the causes you have to have a whole sometimes a whole different set of uh a whole different appreciation and understanding that people may not be trained in so people see things from their perspective and it's very valuable and sometimes it's life-saving and extremely valuable but sometimes I'm only seeing the tip of the iceberg and when I see the tip of the iceberg that may be sticking out of the water so very that's what hits the Titanic and it's important to address it but the tip of the iceberg is only a tip of the iceberg and the entire Iceberg may be miles long but the problem is it's underwat so nobody sees it even the tip of the iceberg that was on top of the water they didn't see but when it's under the water it's very hard to see so that's why the Z says in everything in there's the body and there's the soul there's the Goof and there the Goof is the element that's revealed it's concrete it's physical it's practical and it's extremely important a soul without a body can't do anything can't live but on the other hand a body without a soul is missing its life force its inner animation its vitality and therefore it's vivaciousness it's depth it's it's pus the same is true with t t has two Dimensions they're one like a soul and a body they become one but one is what you would call nigla of Tyra the revealed body of T the concrete manifestation of T and then you have the soul of T everything has an underlying inner Rhythm an inner theme that connects to the inner core of the human emotion of the human life force of human drives of human growth and of human challenges together it's a full picture because we know if I address only the symptoms without the root causes the symptoms oops thank you Jim how do we do this okay is it better now okay maybe make it a little lower oopsie okay this might be good fine you can hear in the back now yes okay thank you is make it a little lower the volume or no where's the source so just make it a little lower that way [Music] where's the speaker what is it what is it because of this this I can't take care of because that maybe just make it [Music] lower [Music] uhhuh maybe I'll just speak louder oopsie [Music] okay now it's not so easy to look at the pus to look at their Roots because that requires sometimes a level of courage and a level of awareness that is hard to cultivate and sometimes even if a person wants to they may simply not have the toolbox to be able to go to those places cuz those are very very deep places so my whole life I could be chasing the symptoms and I go from one this from one one remedy to another remedy to another I'm speaking up your up your alley I can go to one thing and another thing and may be sometimes very very helpful and if it's working for somebody that's amazing but very often we all know that things persist because as long as I don't tackle and confront and I'm ready to look and steer at the underlying at the Nish behind it at the soul behind it so then at best I'm eliminating or really numbing symptoms but not addressing the core issue those who went to my wife's Tanya class yesterday I see quite a few so you know that she quoted my son who's in Vietnam with a few boys and he sent uh he sent us something he saw and the line is those who don't move never notice their chains those who don't move never notice their chains and uh think about it I may be in Chains but if I don't move I'll never notice those Chains It's the movement that allows me to observe the chains and that's why we'll see in life that sometimes the people who move most notice the most chains if I'm just moving you know once a month or once a year so even if there's a chain and I'll notice it it's not so dramatic but those who grow most are those who notice much more chains than others and that's why there are people who feel acute pain and they shame themselves and it's really the opposite the reason you're feeling acute pain is because you're growing you're expanding you're expanding your horizons you're challenging yourself you're going into territory that may have not been that may have not been cultivated before in your heart and whenever I do that I'm going to notice my chain if I never stretch I'm never going to notice the situation of my muscles that my muscles are tight if I stretch I will notice that my muscles are tight and if I really stretch it's going to be much more painful so it's not a reason to shame oneself on the contrary there's a celebration in that it's a celebration of growth it's a celebration of awareness it's a celebration of healing because all types of awareness bring Much More Much More awareness of the challenges as well there's an expression in says the more the more perception the more awareness y the more pain why why it should be the other way more Das less pain and you know Das is really the expression in tanak for intimacy and it says they had children together now from knowing people we don't have children Y is a euphemism for connection Adam was connected to he became one with so Das is not just uh abstract knowledge you know my computer has more knowledge than me Google knows much more than me artificial intelligence knows much more than anyone sitting in this room and the entire planet combined you put in a question and within a second you have answers that no human mind can come up with what what what artificial intelligence does not have and that's why it cannot replace human beings even though some people think they can is Das they can have tremendous amount of knowledge and information but Das is visceral knowledge it's intimate knowledge Das is the knowledge that affects me in every five of my being and my bones and my kishkas So when you say it means the more Das the more intimate knowledge there is the more pain not bad pain pain because for those who move they do notice their chains those who don't move never notice their chains so whenever we're addressing things on a root level we go to deeper places and it requires sometimes a different skill set anyone involved in teaching in mentoring and parenting and healing needs to always have the humility that growth is infinite because it's rooted in the source of infinity and whenever something is infinite the worst enemy to Infinity is smugness complacency arrogance the belief that I know it in the early 1900s I once read an article there was a scientist after they came out with they already had the Telegraph and the telegram and the radio and the photos it was incredible and somebody wrote I think in 1903 everything there is to be discovered on Earth was already discovered there's not going to be anything else no progress from his arrogant point of view it was very obvious this is it how can we get better of course little did he know that in the last 100 years more has been discovered and developed than in 5,000 years before that who knows what this world is going to look like in 20 years I don't know if anybody's going to recognize anything and in 50 years I mean what' you say yeah yeah well depends what you talk about new it says there's nothing new Under the Sun because it's ultimately a development he meant you know we're not going to discover anything yeah because it's yeses so it's not yeah depends what level ofes it is that's true discovered yeah there's discoveries and there's inventions and he thought whatever we could discover we discovered whatever we could invent we could invent so when Whenever there is this whenever you know whenever a person puts other people in a box and this is what it is you know sometimes uh I was once talking to a therapist he's very very respected and really successful and I asked him what's your success and he said something very interesting he said very often practitioners they have a textbook of what is illness what is health and then when a patient comes they have to fit them in into the narrative so I could fit you in and now I have a description for you and now I know what to do but very it's not supposed to work that way he says I work the opposite and that is you know I try to tune into who this person is and I try to use all the knowledge and information I have and most importantly the humility that I want to have in order to try to figure out who how I could connect to this person best so it's the humility of understanding that things can never be defined and contained in one particular box and this is the story of it but rather there is a dynamic and there's a flow because ultimately there is so much mystery and therefore there's so much growth and every chain will contain that will will curtail that growth and therefore when we talk about this type of level of awareness it always requires a tremendous amount of humility because you're dealing with a territory that is so profound and one can never capture it and own it within their logic so we want to go through these five things we know what happened happed in history but today I want to discuss these five Dynamics within the psychological and spiritual psyche of a human being when our sages say that five things happen on it represents not just five things in the outer world but also five things in the inner world as we said everything in TOA has a body and has a soul we want to discuss what these five things are in the inner life of a person why is it so important because when a fast day is established in Judaism it's not just to remember that something negative happened and that's it it's much deeper than that it's an opportunity for healing it's an opportunity for correction it's an opportunity for repair we don't go into 3 weeks just in order to be able to flex the muscles of sadness we go into the 3 weeks in order to be able to confront all those things in our life that may be broken to be able to figure out how we can bring more awareness more love more wholeness and more healing to them in that sense these days are very powerful they're very potent that's why the rambam says that when M comes all our fast days will become festive days will be a may we see it today will be a y in fact say that comes the biggest y will be TSH the question is why I understand Messiah will come there'll be Redemption the world will be a beautiful place there's no need to fast but why will the fast Day become a holiday the fast day is a sad day you don't have a reason to fast you don't fast anymore why is the fast day becoming a if something tragic happened on a certain day even if the tragedy is eliminated so it becomes like a regular day we don't say it's a regular day we say it's going to become a the reason is because in all Brokenness there is a treasure of healing that is under it every wound covers something that is very very powerful it's very very positive there's a reason that Brokenness happened there's something that's protecting there's something that's covering there's a secret message over there and when we uncover it it becomes a greater day than other days that's why Shas is not going to be a regular day it's going to be a y in fact theel says something amazing when the Jews built the golden calf it was at the behest at the suggestion of iron he saw there was chaos and he told them okay give me gold and they molded this calf from fire and iron says tomorrow is going to be a holiday for God so Rashi says he was trying to postpone them to delay you know to procrastinate we'll wait till tomorrow he was hoping mha will come down from the mountain and indeed they woke up early in the morning and they began all the festivities around the golden calf the dancing and the ecstasies and the the idolatry and everything else that they were doing over the the promiscuity so the says but Aon his words are sacred when he says tomorrow will be a holiday for God it's going to be fulfilled when so that reason say is going to be one of the biggest so when Aon said it's going to be a holiday forem tomorrow he meant it that which is the day after they built the camp that's the day M comes on it's going to be a big it's going to be a big big and the reason is as I said because when we confront darkness and we trans form it we don't just get back to a regular place we go back to a much much deeper place in ourselves everybody knows this from experience whenever I face adversity and darkness and I penetrate it I breach through it so then the light that you reach is not the light that you had before it's a completely different level of light it's a completely different magnitude of light because when darkness is transformed into light it's a completely different type of like it says in the greatest light is the light that comes from Darkness it doesn't only mean that you see the greatness of light when you compare it with Darkness but that the greatest light is the light that comes from the transformation of darkness when we also understand the inner rhythm of these five things we'll also understand the order and see that the order is actually very very precise and very very meticulous so let's go through these five what they mean in every person's life and I want to thank my brother Rabbi Simon Jacobson wrote an ESS on this a few years ago which I used as well so I want to thank him for that as well so now let's discuss the first one what's the first thing that happened at he says the were broken now what does that mean that theas were broken what were these lus the lus as the T says they had the words engraved on them engraved in them there's a difference between letters words that are written on parchment and letters are words that are engraved in Stone when you have letters written on parchment like a scroll they become one when you write on a piece of paper some of you are taking notes the ink and the paper becomes one but they're not Inseparable it's two separate entities that become one and that's why you can erase it you can take an erase it sometimes it may be a little harder a little easier but you could remove the ink from the paper you can even remove the ink from the parchment or the papirus whatever it is because essentially it's two entities when you have letters that are engraved in the Stone the letters are made from the stone itself it's not that you added a separate entity and you brought it into the stone you engrave the letters from the stone so they are in the stone and made from the stone so they're Inseparable I cannot now just remove these letters from the stone and remains intact there's no such a thing because it is one and one one entity with the stone in Hebrew it's the difference of and are letters that are written letters that are engraved the the says in the words and the letters of the were engraved in the that is what was broken on that day what does this represent in a person's life there are things that are written into inside of us there are things that are engraved inside of us things that are engraved inside of us are not additional they're not things that were added to me we have things in life messages in life that were written inside of our brain as our neural neurons develop and neural pathways are created as we know today in Neuroscience we pick up stimuli from everybody and everything especially in our formative years when a infant is just trying to navigate a crazy world and an interesting world that's let's hope it's more interesting than crazy for the infant but it's always interesting and new so the brain is always detecting everything already in the womb of its mother the baby's brain is open the fetus's brain is open to detect anything both in terms of bliss and danger and these become ingrained memories in the brain that we sometimes have to deal with years later certainly as we're born and we grow up the environment the mood of mom the mo the mood of dad the Ambiance in the home the safety the level of Joy the level of Sadness the dispair these are all messages that become written into the brain literally like written into the brain this is the Brilliance of the brain which can detect all of this this is called things that are written that which is engraved is that which is the very very fabric the very essence of the stone itself not just written on it and when we talk about a person's what do then the lus represent the lus represent the Innocence the Purity that is engraved in a person's n in a person's psyche in a person's soul because the truth is that the the soul is a as it says in t the soul is a piece of Hashem it's a derivative of infinite Consciousness that's not written into the soul it's engraved in the soul engraved means it's essential it's it's intrinsic the two are not separable that's what means is when that gets shattered what does it mean it gets shattered when a person becomes fragmented they become separated just like when something is broken all the pieces are going in different directions they're fragmented it's not whole anymore in a person's life when a human being becomes somewhat disconnected or often deeply disconnected from this engraved innocence this is what the broken luus means and that's why it's the first thing of Shas because the first Calamity in a person's life is Brokenness the Brokenness is when I'm not any more aware of my inner innate intrinsic wholeness and this is what a fragmented person means this is what it means I'm scattered this is what it means different people are disassociated are disconnected from each other when Theus are whole it represents a state where a person sees the wholeness in their life even if there are challenges it's in the context of wholeness when the lus are broken now I just see fragments and every piece is on its own isolated even though it's really part of the whole and this is the first step in a person's life of Brokenness of sh because it's this awareness that is the beginning of healing the famous line of the Kat and other great Masters he said in yish he said I'll say it in yish and then I'll translate it he said hard to translate but I'll try there's nothing as straight as a crooked ladder which means if you want to get up you know the ladder has to be slanted there's nothing as crooked as uh a g veral as a as a con artist deceptive Sly innocent line there's nothing as black as the white shrouds on the corpse and there's nothing as whole as a broken heart what did he mean by this why is there nothing as whole is a broken heart and the answer is he didn't mean that a broken heart is whole what he meant is Brokenness is the ability to be able to begin sensing the pain behind the Brokenness which is always a result of the love behind that and that's why it's the humble heart that opens itself up to seek real connection to seek real attachment there was a Jewish singer who once said when I was young I worshiped Perfection I looked for whole things today I search for things that have cracks and side of them because it's the cracks that allow the light to come in it's the cracks that allow the light to come in when there's no crack there's no light coming in so Brokenness has two sides to it Brokenness is very sad but the feeling that it's broken is the beginning of wholeness you know the old story about the woman it's a very good story there was a Chinese woman who would go every day from her home down a slope up to the river to fill up two buckets with water and bring it back to her home and that was the water that she had for herself for her family to drink to bathe to wash to give her animals that she had she was very very poor so she had these two buckets you know with a stick and she would put it on her back and one bucket was on this side and one bucket was on this side and she would carry it like the old water carriers in the pictures that you see the problem was the one buck ET was whole the other one had holes so by the time she got home one bucket was still filled with water the other one was half empty but she had no choice this was the only bucket she had it was better than nothing so the old Legend goes that one day you know the second bucket started to cry and said L you know it's not fair I look at my colleague here comes home with a full bucket of water and I'm like half empty I feel like such a loser like such a neb case so she tells this broken bucket she says tomorrow when we go back home up the slope I want you to look out from yourself and look what is under you and when they're going up the next day she takes a look in this beautiful beautiful flowers roses and lies and fragrant flowers that were planted along this path and she's like wow and she says to this bucket you know when I purchased you I knew about all of your holes I knew about your floors I knew about the cracks inside of you so I planted flowers along your path and every day as we go home you water them and because of that we can enjoy such a beautiful fragrance and odor and Aroma in our home thank you for watering this flowers every day and of course it represents a very profound idea in life people are sometimes so ashamed and embarrassed because of their cracks because of their Brokenness but it's exactly what allows the light to come in these are not mistakes when God created this bucket when God conceived you he knew about everything that will happen in factal say the gamar says in explains it it's a very intense idea and I know it's not easy to say it and sometimes it's not easy to hear it and it should never be said uh without tremendous amount of empathy and understanding but every soul before it comes down to this world it's told everything that's going to happen to it and if it doesn't agree it doesn't come down to this world in other words the soul deep down understands what its mission is so my body may have not yet gotten the message and that's the work to work with the body and communicate what the soul knows but the Divine Soul sees every event in life as part of an incredible journey towards wholeness and even the Brokenness even the when the L is break which is which is not a good thing it's a fast day but from the Soul's perspective it's this Brokenness that is allowing flowers to be created that could never be created without it and therefore the soul enthusiastically embraced this Mission you can't force a soul to come down without its consent doesn't work whenever you Force somebody to do something you know it uh how long does it last you know how long does it last it lasts as long as you can force them so the soul has to completely Embrace its life's journey this doesn't make it easy but it means that the soul is not here as a victim it's as a it's a messenger it's a and it embraced this this Mission with enthusiasm so sometimes I could look at cracks in my life I could look at flaws and challenges and things that I would have loved to get rid of you know I said was asking my classes if you could press control all delete on three stories of your life you know take three stories that happen in your life and press control all delete what would they be so you know sometimes people have to think but very often at least at my classes at least some people they don't have to think it's like three things you know give me a list of 20 but when you think about everyone has you know things if I wouldn't have had this if I wouldn't have experienced this if I wouldn't have done this if I would have had this whatever it is every person you know yourself I don't have to elaborate every person has their own Story and there's a truth to that and it's important to grieve that because if we don't grieve it we don't honor the pain we just repress it and we hide it and then it just leaks out in Dysfunctional ways and it usually creates a lot of deep pain and anger and resentment but it's not conscious when I can grieve it when I can pay respect to it when I can pay tribute to it then my body with its magical mechanism that the Creator gave it can process it but but then something else can happen and that is as I grow I can ultimately look at all of these things and say wow this Brokenness has allowed me to achieve what only I can achieve and become the person that only I could become because there's only one person like you whoever was and whoever will be when the M say the person is supposed to say for me the world was created it's not a joke it says every single person that means there's something think about it the person that you are never was and never will be so you'll say yeah but who am I I'm just a simple person well from our sages perspective that's not true it says Adam was created as one person to teach that every person is like Adam if somebody would have destroyed Adam a whole world would have been destroyed it wasn't one person so kazal say this and you know what they used to tell this to every witness in every Jewish Court any witness that would come to speak about issues that can have a capital punishment this was the introduction remember that if this person is going to die because of you you are destroying an entire universe just like if somebody would kill Adam that's how it is this is how our sages they took it very seriously but it doesn't seem to make sense let's face it there's almost 8 billion people who even knows about me the answer of course is that from the perspective of the Creator the the person that you are never was and never will be and every journey in my life and in your life is indispensable I to make you the person you could become and the light that you can give to the universe and that's why we see an amazing thing and that is after M breaks theem tells him to thank you for breaking Theus and in fact the whole Torah ends that way the whole ends with M's passing and then the tah eulogizes him for everything he did and what's the last thing the last words in remember what you did before the eyes of all of Israel so rash says what did he do before the eyes of all of Israel when he went to par nobody saw it it was a private audience when he was on the mountain nobody saw it what did he do that everybody saw and what's the answer he broke the tablets the question is you have to eulogize this is the climax come on this was a horrible thing he had to do it but it's a horrible thing we see we're fasting because of it that's how the whole Torah ends the whole conclusion of the whole Torah is what mha did not that he took them out of Egypt not that he gave them the T not that he split the seed not that he brought the temp plagues not that he gave them the Mana not that he fed them not that he nurtured them not that he helped them Reach Triumph and reach the promised land that's all before what was his real accomplishment he broke the he broke the it's very hard to understand but now we get a glimpse into it because the breaking of the lus is not just the beginning of a tragedy it's the beginning of the healing it's the awareness of the Brokenness that allows me to see what was broken why is there pain that it was broken and that's always the beginning of of of the of the the rupture awarness of the rupture is always the beginning of Rejuvenation of transformation of healing they tell a story there was a a Jew who survived the Holocaust himself he lost his family and this Jew Mah was a GID in Poland and he was AIC Jew so he had a long beard he had p and he was a Jew he lost his entire family in the war and he also lost something else he lost his God he lost his faith he came to is he didn't have to cut off his beard and his payers cu the Nazis did that for him but he never put anything back on and he remained a very very secular and he was very very bitter like so many he was very angry and bitter because of what he saw he was a gas now the GB was the his name was the Imus M alter Al is known as the Imus he passed away in 1948 but he himself survived the war not his F part of his family also but he himself survived and he came ter now this man heard that his Reb survived so he wanted to go see him but he wasn't going to go fake it you know put on a yam and you know put on U like an Fiddler on the Roof put on one of these beards he wasn't going to do that so he decided he's going to go as is he's going to go as is he didn't know if his rebba would recognize him cuz he had a big beard or not but he wanted to see him he loved him very much and he went to see so he went into was already a very old man he died in 48 and he was he wasn't feeling well he was broken and he comes into his room and he looks at him and he saysa MOA he saw right away you survived says yeah I survived so he says tell me the whole story I want to know the whole story and he tells him the whole story from the day the Germans came into their town and what happened with his wife and his children and uh for the first time since the war thisa started to cry he just began sobbing you know for many people who go through such calamities they stop crying because once you put on the foret of Tears you know it never ends so you just shut off you know when there's a water leak in the house you shut off the water the problem is when you shut off the water you can't have water for anything there's no leak water there's also no shower there's no sink so a lot of people you sometimes shut off the water cuz it's easier to navigate life so he never cried I once asked rabinin used to say here you supposed to cry so I said what type of ridiculous thing is imagine a comedian gets up and says okay everybody now you're supposed to laugh or a Storyteller says now you're supposed to cry it's ridiculous either they're crying or not crying but now everybody should cry so he says you don't understand cuz you're an spoiled American he says these Jews could cry 24/7 but they usually were told you you got to live not cry here it said here you could let go it wasn't a big deal they had what to cry about so that moment with his Reb Imus he started to sob they say the Imus was also crying and he shared the whole story and the Imus listened to him and then he said to him I want to tell you something you lost a family I lost family and I also lost 300,000 students remember there were G were very big before the war and it was completely decimated I know 200,000 300,000 but a lot of Polish jury were so he said how do you think I wake up in the morning he asks this he says I don't know so he says I'll tell you and this is what he told them this is what he told his Jew he said when M turns to the Jewish people and tells them the story of the breaking of the L he uses the words I broke them before your eyes and the asked the question why does he have to say before your eyes he could have said I broke them what's the difference if it was before their rise or not before their eyes let's say m would have taken the lus and turned around about face and broken them and they wouldn't have seen Theus when they were broken the tragedy was the same it was broken it was broken if somebody takes your most precious piece of jewelry and destroys it whether it's before your eyes or not before your eyes it's lost but says I did it before before your eyes why does he say it this is in and you see at the end of the last words are is before everybody's eyes so the IM says I'll tell you what it means and he gave a completely different interpretation he says I broke them before your eyes means I broke them only before your eyes I broke them only before your eyes from your Vantage Point they have been broken but there is a deeper reality in which they would never broken in front of your eyes before your eyes Theus were shattered were destroyed but there's a deeper place there's the third ey as we call it the third ey I as in ey Yee and I as in I where the lus were not broken and then he said every Jew is one of the luas before our eyes from our vantage point they were all destroyed but I just want to tell you there's another space in which nobody was destroyed and one day the curtains will be removed the veils will be removed and we'll see that the lus were never broken and that the Jewish people were never destroyed before our eyes destruction happened there's a deeper space deeper than our eyes where the look are still whole and the IM said to him that I want you to know that there's a space in which every Jew who was killed because he was a Jew from Masia is completely intact that's what he told his Jew he gave him back his soul now because these were two survivors so they could speak like this to each other someone else saying this to a Survivor it's sometimes foolish and sometimes cruel but with tremendous awe towards a generation that saw so much so much horror I want to apply this also because his words are very meaningful in every person's lives when we speak about the Brokenness of the engraved lus it can only happen l if the Innocence if the Purity is truly engraved in your soul then nothing can obliterate it so when we say I was shattered I was broken I was fragmented it's only from my perspective now my perspective is powerful because my perspective is what I have in life I see things from my perspective I can't see things from another person's perspective why is it relevant to know it's relevant to know that very often there are Realties that are real but right now I can't see them whenever anybody doubts their wholeness whenever anybody doubts their inner wholeness they have to know that doubt is coming from my vantage point from my perspective and I need to know that I need to honor it and I can't deny that but what he was saying is there's an inner inner inner core and when I find the tools to open myself up to that the luas were never broken they can be broken because that which is engraved in the soul the fact that it's a its relationship with hashem's infinity and love is not superimposed it wasn't written into your soul it's engraved it's through and through and through it's a it's one thing and therefore it's in Inseparable if somebody wants to destroy your soul they first have to destroy God nobody can destroy God and just like Hashem is the source of all Bliss and love so that soul is a derivative of infinite Bliss and love and when a person realizes this they know that the Brokenness even though it happened it occurred it's on the level of the brain that sees things according to its tools and very often I could live my whole life that way and if I never move I'll Never See My Chains when I start moving I'm going to see my chains I'm going to see that my vantage point is flawed but that's the beginning of healing to say wow why is there such a disparity between what I see in me and who I am because what I'm seeing in me is the way my brain is interpreting who I am and we always do that I come into an event I come into a class I come into a I come into and the brain right away has what to say anybody relates to this is called inner mental chatter right you go out of a meeting you go into a meeting you go in for here you go in and the brain has what to say anybody relates few people are smiling okay I want to make sure I'm not the only muga let's face it it has nothing to do with reality I know what everybody is thinking they're not thinking first of all they're thinking about their own insecurity you think you're the only one who has anxiety on this planet you now we start imagining oh you're thinking this you must be thinking this I came late cuz I came ear they got their own issues they got their own issues trust me they don't even have the mental space to think about your issues ask them you don't believe me ask them what are you thinking about if they'll be honest with you but our brain hijacks our soul and the Brain creates all this endless commentary and that's what Brokenness looks like become a fragmented personality before the breaking of the lus that innocence was obvious and absolute the Brokenness of Theus represented that something was broken when something is broken it's it's still here it's just fragmented when you put it together it's all there what was teaching the Jewish people is that even in your Brokenness it's still you're still part of that Oneness and that's why it's interesting in the holy of holies in the Arin they put the second set ofas that were whole but the says the broken fragments of the first were also in the ark both of them were why would you take the broken pieces and put them in the Arin and put them in the holy of holies because the broken pieces themselves were sacred because Brokenness when it becomes the beginning of awareness and of growth that itself is sacred and as I said the Brokenness brings you to a place that's even deeper than the wholeness that was there originally cuz if not why would there be a need for Brokenness why would all good something that comes from the source of all goodness want to go into Brokenness only because from that place I can reach a much deeper place of holess so that's the so in summation we have the first event of representing the disassociation from the awesome wholeness that exists in a person which is engraved in you [Music] engraved I'll tell you an interesting story it's a kabat story there was uh there were there were uh the previous La R his name was the rebat so he was saved from the Holocaust from mors and then he came here in 1940 and he passed away 10 years later in 1950 he was the father-in-law of the seventh so he would send in those years in America he would send emissaries that's where the network began all over different cities to encourage Jews to inspire them so there were two Elder and they came to a city and there was a secular Journey he said what are you guys doing here you came to schar which means you know oh you came to raise money they said no we didn't come to raise money said what did you come here for so he said we're traveling scribes he said what does that mean you're traveling scribes he said you know sometimes in the olden days not every can afford a cipher can afford a scribe so they were traveling C they would travel from City to City for a week here a week there and they would check out the C the T Scrolls and see if a sa needed to be fixed if fan had to be fixed if M had to be fixed they would travel to the next city that the cities can afford so he said every Jew is a letter in the every Jew it says that's what the writes but sometimes the letter gets a little erased so the connection of the Jew to the so we're traveling scribes they Eis sentus to be traveling C to check out Jews and see if the letter needs a little fixing we could fix the letter the guy was very very impressed and created a relationship with them when they came back to the to the previous they shared with him the story and they told him what he said and they were very proud of themselves and theb looked at them he said you made a mistake you made a mistake you're comparing the Jew to the ink that's written on a and it can get erased and you came to write it he says that's not the case the relationship of not they're engraved in the they're not written on the so it can't be erased what could happen is this what could happen is when letters are engraved in a stone Pebbles could fall in or dust could fall in so it eclipses the clarity of the letter CU in the hole where the letter is engraved it gets filled up with a little dirt so your job is to blow away the dirt and reveal the letter but you don't have to rewrite the letter cuz the letter can't be erased he says that's the metaphor you have to give it's not letters on the scroll it's letters engraved in the stone that's the Theus represents so it represents a much deeper level of a relationship and when that's shattered it's very very sad it's very tragic CU When that's shattered when that innocence that is engraved in you is shattered is the most painful thing one of the most painful things I would say that happens in life is when innocence is shattered and it sometimes happens at a very very young age and the people who experience the shattered innocence what's even more painful is that they don't know how innocent they were so they don't even know that their innocence was shattered cuz as they grew up they grew up in a world that was not innocent they grew up in a world where they don't even know about their innocence because they had to protect their innocence from being shattered again and again and again and they may have created Crazy defense mechanisms to protect that innocence so worse than my innocence being shattered is that I don't even know that I ever had innocence that was shattered so I can't even grieve for my innocence that was lost that's why we commemorate the bre do you understand what I just said this is very very important that's why we grieve the breaking of Theus to know that the in is an innocence that was engraved in you it is engraved in you and it's shattered it's shattered because of all types of golden calves that people create and everything that that represents but because it's shattered it doesn't mean it's not there it means that now I have to bring together the pieces and when I bring together the pieces pces I'm going to reach an innocence and un wholeness that is much much deeper and therefore you should never ever you should never I I I I spoke yesterday I got a call from a 17-year-old girl across the ocean from another another continent another country and uh unfortunately she tried to take her life a few times so I asked her why she said because my soul is worthless my life is worthless and I've harmed other people so at least if my soul is anyway worthless my life is anyway worthless why should I continue to harm other people so therefore if I take my life I won't harm other people and I thought to myself you know look at a person here in all of her dispar about herself why does she want to die so she shouldn't harm another person how did she harm other people she harmed other people like you're harming kangaroos in New Zealand she is so sensitive and something whatever all is she's dealing with she thinks she harmed the world but it represents to you how sometimes the innocence causes such barriers to go up why be because the innocence is so powerful that it creates much deeper barriers if I could quote my brilliant wife from yesterday's Tanya class who said that the people who love most I heard the recording I wasn't there but I heard the recording the people who love most the people who have so much love in their heart sometimes protect themselves more more than other people CU if I don't have so much love in my heart I'm more of a tough person so even if I get hurt I don't have to protect it so much cuz I'm not so sensitive when you have so much love in your heart now if that love is not reciprocated or that person feels vulnerable now I may put on a bullet proof vest and I won't let anybody get close to it because I'm too vulnerable I'm too soft I'm too authentic and when I'm so authentic and I'm so filled with love I have to protect myself in extreme ways that other people don't so sometimes you look at yourself and you shame yourself and you guilt yourself for all these protections when really it's just a demonstration of how profoundly my coping mechanisms had to develop in order to be able to protect this pure innocent lus that were Shattered by this golden calf by this Idol that was created and when we begin to recognize it with compassion and empathy did I repeat it correctly what she said is that what she said okay I'm a gooder so when when we when we begin when when we be especially if it's my wife when we begin to acknowledge that that's where all healing happens so that's the beginning of the foundation we now go what's the second thing that happened sh the second thing that happen is very interesting the word tamid means consistent always carbon right you say always this was the consistent offering that was brought on a daily basis and this is very interesting this is the second Calamity what happens is when people lose the power of consistency in life we are all or at least many of us at least I could talk about myself we have moods and our moods always shift sometimes I wake up in a amazing mood sometimes I wake up in a lousy mood usually depends on what type of dream I had the night before or other factors but we're Moody inconsistencies I had a friend in class he would tell me he would tell me why why the only predictable thing about me is that I'm unpredictable he says the only consistent thing about me is that I am inconsistent he knew himself he says that will always be you can always rely on me to be unreliable and be [Music] inconsistent you'll see a very interesting thing throughout history and that is the most creative people are very very often the most consistent people if you'll take some of the greatest composers take a person like Beethoven or other great great composers or artists they had schedules that were extremely extremely consistent and there was a reason for it you would think artistic people are creative it's not about consistency it's not about nine to5 it's about unpredictability it's about creativity it's about being artsy but it's the other way around consistency is the soil in which creativity can blossom that's a good line and the reason is because when people are consistent when we have a consistency there's things that are unbreachable unbreakable in a person's rituals and a person's commitments and a person's dedications it's what allows my juices to flow if not my chaotic self can take the best of me and It ultimately eclipses even my creativity and here we come to the carbon T the second tragedy is there was no consistency anymore there was no T anymore the med says this is an introduction ofy that the sages debated which is the most Central in one said great one said God is one love your fellow like yourself one said human being is in the image of God and then Ben said bring a lamb in the morning bring a lamb in the afternoon and the rabbi got up re re got up on his legs and he said py the Lord is like been py question is why I understand God's Oneness I understand love your fellow like yourself I understand the human being was created in God's image but bring a lamb in the morning and a lamb in the afternoon I mean come on so the maral of PR says something amazing it's the power of consistency a relationship is about consistency it's of course it's not only about consistency we're not talking about consistency that's devoid of a soul but every person knows when I want to get my life together there's a carbon t a carb means I wake up in the morning and I Define myself I am a channel for Hashem I'm an evidem in the morning and in the evening in the morning and in the evening why in the morning and in the evening because sometimes the sun is shining and sometimes the sun sets but consistency means that regardless if it's nighttime or daytime regardless of the sun is shining or the sun is not shining there's a commitment there's a dedication in a marriage also rituals that are based on consistency are extremely helpful for relationships you would think what does it have to do with romance romance is about creativity and spontaneity and let's I don't know let's suddenly go onto an air balloon right or let's go visit Antarctica tomorrow and the truth is there something a lot of very fun about spontaneity and where somebody once said now we're going to have spontaneous dancing everybody knows you know spontaneous parties and spontaneous EV events are sometimes the best but in a world where it's so easy to get distracted and I always tell parents create consistent times with your children I told a father once when you come home spend I don't know make 45 minutes that's dedicated to play with your kids he said 45 minutes my whole life is for them 45 minutes it was like humiliating I said your whole life is for them but when you come home you're on the phone from 6 to 10 so it ends up that in your mind your whole life is for them yeah if they end up in the hospital you'll go I know that but in reality they don't know who you are consistency looks like very menual it's like it's very me it's like small it's what's the big deal come on I want to be creative I want to give you my whole soul what this consistent ritual but there's something very powerful in that because it's the Daily Grind it's the commitment it's the dedication what was the power of that's what theal is saying is a grand idea God is one is an incredible idea humanity is one is a powerful idea we're created in God's image that means the Dignity of a human being is non-negotiable but these are ideas and as powerful as ideas are you could get up at a lecture at a convention and thunder these ideas and people say that was amazing that was amazing but what made a nation so unique is that for thousands of years they brought a lamb in the morning and a lamb in the afternoon or today it's replaced with davening what's that idea I wake up in the morning and I say I wake up in the morning and I know I need to spend a few minutes in my connection with My Soul connection with my God connected with my connection with my relationship and it's consistent sometimes it's easier sometimes it's harder but that's the power of consistency and ultimately it's the soil in which creativity can blossom you'll see one of the first symptoms of trauma is there's no consistency in life anymore it's just pure chaos because I'm being driven by drives that shlep me so now I have this distraction I'm looking for distractions I don't know who I am I don't have an inner Compass when I'm looking for distractions depends what the distraction is there's a party here I go party oh my phone is available my phone is available there's this there's this carbon Ted means no every morning this is what I do no matter it's not a distraction this is a commitment that I already knew a month before and a week before and even a year before so that's the second thing that happens when the Contin his daily offering seized this was the T of the daily offering that was brought each day the ups and downs and the vicissitudes of life could not take away the carbon tet nothing it was nothing can take it away because it was Ted that's the powerful force of consistency and that's why when B when this happened when the Buttle when they manag to get rid of that tmed already Things become chaotic Things become shaky in a person's life you always have to ask yourself in healing I want to find out about my Brokenness and my innocence and now I want to create a tmid I want to ask what are those things that are consistent in my life that I will never give up for anything I once heard from a doctor his name is Dr Ira Weiss he's a cardiologist in Chicago he shared this recently over the years he couldn't share this cuz he was supposed to be confidential but recently you know after everybody's already in the next World I guess he could share it as a doctor so I once heard from him his name is iise he's a cardiologist very very very famous cardiologist and the the had a heart attack suddenly middle of aus in SCH so he flew in from Chicago the next morning and he treated him and he made from his room hospital till he recovered so he was he once shared years already after the Reb's passing he shared he was once talking to about his schedule CU he wanted to see what adjustments he could make to his life that had an impossible schedule I mean I don't think you ly possible he would sleep two or 3 hours a night and it was so he was trying to convince the reab you know to go easy on life so he was asking about a schedule now rebba was a very very private person so almost nobody knew about his schedule because he was extremely extremely private even his own secretaries and gab they had their times they came in but he was very private he would walk home alone he would come back alone shabas he was Al it was very very private but he was this was his doctors I guess you know you got to be open with your doctor so he shared with his doctor he says that never had children him and his wife never had children they were married for 9 or 60 years but they never had children and it's interesting that Friday night chabas day he never had a meal with anybody besides his wife you think a big reab you know there's a Tish there's a lot of people this was what something he had his with wife 60 years only with his wife unless they were eating by her parents when they were alive but in any case so he told them that every day he goes home for 20 minutes or half an hour and he has tea with his wife he has tea with his wife every single day and uh and Dr why says and how important is that to you he says that time is as precious to me as the time that I put on thin that time that I can give my wife is as precious to me as the time I put on fing and therefore I do not want to give up I do not want to give up that time and I thought it was it you know it was so fascinating he knew that this is what his spouse needed he was busy with the whole world he was a re for the whole world and this was very very powerful so in each person's life when we create that tumid we know what is that carbon Ted in our life spiritually physically in our relationship with ourselves and our relationship with Hashem you know sometimes people feel guilty like they're sitting down you know some people were made to feel very guilty for sitting on the couch and relaxing there's nothing else to do in the world how you sit on the couch and relax there are people that they shame themselves like but it's really a question of what's behind it if the relaxation is I'm just distracting myself you know with another clip from Rabbi W okay but other Clips I don't know then even working could be a distraction but if somebody is is it's all part of a connection of a relationship then it could be very very holy time so this is where we claim our Ted the next thing that was that was destroyed on Shas is the city walls were breached now that's interesting when the walls are breached the city wasn't destroyed yet the city was intacted but the walls were breached and this is the third symptom of trauma we have no walls anymore walls here are not a bad thing they're a good thing sometimes we talk about walls you know there's walls that separate us here we're talking about healthy boundaries of protection when a person does not have those healthy boundaries of protection and the walls are breached it's the beginning of aan everybody needs boundaries the moment There's No Boundaries it means you have no self-respect all the all the of are based on that for men and for women all the of all theas think about think think about the whole all the movements that have sprung up in recent years which accus people of violating boundaries how much heartache how much pain would be eliminated if people understood how to protect the Divine given walls that protect youim from being desecrated and violated and whenever anybody thinks I am smart enough I am good enough I could violate those boundaries they're making a cataclysmic mistake SCH himself said I could marry as many women as I want want it's not an issue I could marry as many women as I want not an issue either T says no Med says that the it says the king shouldn't have many women so the yud of Y came to hasem and said violated me so says the says SCH and a thousand like him will go down but one letter of Tyra won't be nullified why do you have to say it's so harshly the answer is sometimes it takes a thousand brilliant SCH to lose their moral Morality In order to see you shouldn't play games with AUD from the T sometimes that's what it takes brilliant skilled interesting charismatic people but they allow the walls to be Bri and it's true in every person's life it's true in a marriage it's true especially in our relationships with other people it's true in every aspect of our life self-respect is Divine respect the boundaries I spoke last week in our sheer about people who allow others to uh defecate on them because we don't have an ability to say no if I'm saying no out of Cruelty then it's a bad thing but if a person is saying no because they respect who they are and what their mission is at this moment then it's a form of self-respect when the of Jerusalem was breached by the Romans by the Babylonians it was the beginning of the end nothing happened yet but now everything is open once everything is open the vulnerability is of a different level of course we have to know when to take down our walls the walls are there to protect us from Roman Legions who want to destroy us when somebody wants to come into your shim to come close to you then I have to know how to open the walls if we can't open our walls and we just live behind walls it's a disaster but the point is in every situation we have to have look what happened to Israel because they did not know how to protect their boundaries and you know why didn't because they didn't know where their boundaries are because they weren't convinced about their boundaries because they were busy doubting themselves are these are boundaries are these not our boundaries is this our land is it not our land maybe it's our land we should split the land the moment you don't know your boundaries it's even worse if at least I know my boundaries I could say these has to be I don't know my boundaries and this is what happens emotionally the people sometimes don't know their boundaries they don't know who they are and therefore they don't have respect for who they are this is very important when my luas are broken my consistency gets destroyed you know what else gets destroyed I have no self resect cuz I have no self and when I have no self how could you violate my boundary I don't even know what they are at least if I know who I am I you know this is not a good place for me this is a good place for me this is a good time for me this is not a good time for me this is a place I can hang out a place I can't hang out this is a conversation I should be part of if I don't know who I am so I don't know what's what's not so I ask other people for their opinions you have to have everybody understands what I'm saying this is important stuff very important stuff it's a it's a real form of it's not arrogance people think it's arrogance it's not arrogance on the contrary it's humility I'm not trying to protect my ego I'm trying to protect my soul I'm trying to protect my god-given mission it's like we all know when it comes to Children their boundaries need to be protected what happens when V boundaries are violated it creates chaos in the psyche and then you'll forgive me when they develop as adults as young adults puberty Etc the levels of self shame and guilt and Loathing could beyond what anybody imagines unless you studi this so you have experience with this and the reason is because God's boundaries are sacred the of have to be protected we come to number four apus burns the T apus burns the t is the fourth thing that happens on sh what does it mean that the T was burnt the t is the Mandate the blue print for life that Hashem gave the Jewish people in the world burning it is not just I didn't do it it's a desecration of it it's the destruction of it you know burning some somebody's possession could be one of the most painful things there was a German poet he was Jewish he converted because he wanted to get a job in University his name was H you ever heard of him hinish H and they were burning then books in Germany and he said where they burn books they will one day burn people that's what he said in the 1700s it's a desecration of somebody burning somebody's identity burning somebody's belief the says Romans burnt with and his students asked him he was one of the 10 Martyrs his students asked him what do you see and he said I see I see the the parchment being burnt and the letters soaring away that's what said people think they can burn ideas you can't burn ideas ausus thought if he'll burn the he'll burn the Jewish faith he'll burn the Jewish religion you can't ideas you can't destroy it works both ways by the way negative ideas and positive ideas there was once a teacher and and the teacher was talking during Shas and he had the he had the crowd he had the boys and the he had the class build from cardboard a little B Mikes and they built a little B Mikes and then he had them sing songs about the B Mikes and learn ideas about the bikes and then they went outside and he took a match and he said bring your cardboards and he burnt it and all their little cardb bikes is were burnt and then he said and now I want to burn the songs in your head and the ideas in your head can I do it they said you can't so he said that's what our enemies didn't understand could burn the physical but you can't burn ideas you can't burn a soul all of our enemies they thought they'll destroy this T they'll destroy the body of the Jewish people you can't burn these things I was in Israel a few shabas ago shabas three weeks ago I went to Israel M for for shabas and the reason I went was because I told you I was going there was an organiz there's an organization Yi they made a shabbaton with survivors of the music festival Nova survivors themselves 150 young boys and girls in their 20s mostly or young 30s who survived the music festival s in the morning they came together for a shabbaton in the David Citadel Hotel in Jerusalem my dear friends yosf and leita sponsored It Ralph and leita sponsored it and they came with their some of their children and SEL Schneider is a woman in Israel who runs an organization called K Yi a a woman her husband is a rash in the Yesa where somebody just had a baby at the age of 88 you remember RAB kki so so so one of the rashash there his wife his name is Rabbi Schneider so she runs Casi and she made a shabbaton for these survivors 150 all of them survived it was a very very intense shab as you can understand so I came from America to speak to them now what am I supposed to tell them so more than I spoke I tried to listen but each of every one of them saw either friends or relatives or family members massacred in front of their eyes every one of them little kids little kids and close to half of them came from religious families close to half of them and they left and they left religion they ended up there and a huge amount of them came from what you would call kedi families which means very religious families in Israel I saw over shabas how they knew all the songs they knew everything and uh it was a very very intense and overwhelming shabas but every one over there experienced a miracle because logically they shouldn't have survived they survived one person was sharing that he was wearing a jacket that was green and it was 6:30 in the morning and he was hot it was a whole night of dancing you know you get hot after dancing whole night so he decided to take off his jacket and then he said you know what he can get L I'm just going to leave it on at that moment Kamas came in and he began running but he ran the wrong way instead of running towards Israel he ran towards the direction of Gaza so he's right near Gaza and he sees a tree so without think he climbs up to the top of the tree because he's wearing this Green Jacket he's camouflaged and for8 hours this boy is holding on to the branch of a tree for8 hours the branch of a tree making sure not to make eye contact with anybody because you could see eyes and he would be killed immediately or taken hostage so he's looking but making sure nobody's sees him he's green and after eight and he says he saw he saw everything because he was near Gaza so he saw everything imagine what this person saw over eight hours he saw everything a young little B innocent kid a boy and after eight hours the Israeli Army comes and he screams save me how they supposed to think he's Jewish they're about to shoot him so they one of the sold says say so he says so they slept him down right that moment they suddenly hear is on other trees were other Jews who clowned up on top of trees they all started to say sh they were all saved imagine they heard him say it they started to scream and they all got saved so so so we were for bringing a whole shabas together and shabas after during lunch somebody came up to speak also a actually his name isab is goldwaser he's a historian and he gets up to his speech with a little sa gets up to speak with a little sa he's speaking to the whole crowd there and he says to them I want to tell you about this sa so what he says to them this sa comes from the Nazi concentration camps there was a Nazi camp known as chest not and they brought in there and they would read it on Monday and Thursday and chabas and they were caught one day and the Nazis started to whip the Jews who were reading it so that the blood went onto the sa so this parchment is filled with the blood it's 150 years old to say the German confiscated it there was a Jew who helped the Nazis over there because of his talents so he had access to the storage place and he got it back and he hid it in the Barrack and on Sim they danced with the sa in the Barrack this Jew his name was adist he survived and he brought a SE with him to Israel he passed away in the 60s so Rabbi goldwaser says in the morning I was dancing with this Marshall and that's when we heard what's happening usually we never allow the sa to leave the sh because it's so fragile it's 150 years old but I told the rabbi where I'm coming for shabas to the Nova Survivor so he let me take the sa so he says you guys danced a whole night at your Festival we were dancing H in the morning everybody's dancing was interrupted your dancing was interrupted with rockets and bullets and atrocities I want now that you should con complete and continue your dancing but this time with and this time to do theas that you didn't do on he says that's why I brought the sa so you had 150 survivors everybody got a turn to hold the sa and dance in yam together there was not a dry eye there including the boys and the girls themselves as they were holding this and he said I want you to know that this literally survived the Nazis who few feet away murdered tens of thousands and it survived them it'll survive Hamas too what this did for those kids was so moving so astounding ausus understood this so that's what he wanted to burn and that's what happens what is this in a person's life when we destroy that which we hold most dear when we when we destroy our blueprint for life when we destroy our gift of life when we destroy when we destroy that which kept us that which preserved us in a person's life a philosopher once said we sometimes destroy what we love most instead of cherishing it and celebrating it we become so worthless we become so valueless in our own eyes we take our most preci prous item and we could destroy it we finally come to the last and with this we finish he took AUM and he put it in the he took a Graven image and it was placed in the sanctuary what does this mean you want to take a pagan image put it somewhere no he went into the into the and put it there a true enemy likes to strike at the heart of his enemy of his adversary in order to demoralize to humiliate the yipper war happened on yipper for a reason the Sim War happened on SIM for a reason exactly 50 years later to the day October 6 October 7th I don't know if you know October 6th 1973 October 7th 2023 50 years to the day literally one was Yip and one was at as I said then the enemy was trying to destroy the Jewish the way you respond is by creating the deeper by creating a deeper Joy deeper connection deeper camaraderie but they want to take the salum and put it into the what does this mean in a person's life the ultimate insult and humiliation is not one when somebody takes a pagan Idol and puts it somewhere in my house that's humiliating enough but in the means you go into the Hol place you go into the most sacred Sanctuary you go into the most vulnerable and pure place and that's where you want to destroy it every one of us has a every one of us has a comes from the word like the container we we are all a I will dwell among them it doesn't say in it because every person is a bik and this is the very pure place in your heart and soul is the most beautiful spot in your life it's the the was the most beautiful part of the that's where the inner was the man was the was that's where they burned the incense every day which had the most delicious smell in the world this part needs to be cherished and protected nobody can desecrate it this place is the key to our Redemption it's your it's your inner inner core you need to respect it you need to cherish it you need to celebrate it you need to adore it and you need to make it your best friend the last of the five causes of trauma of Shas is the desecration of your most intimate and precious core this could mean on a physical level I don't want to be graphic here but on a physical level it means what happens with certain forms of abuse that have wreaked havoc in our generation and the reason they wreak havoc in our generation and people wonder why the answer is because the most sacred part of a person's life is the part in which we are like hashm where are we most like Hashem the part where we create life God creates life we create life when I speak I hope I give a little life but I can't create life when I paint I hope it's a not not me but other people paint it may be beautiful but it doesn't create life everything we do as brilliant and talented and amazing and stupendous nothing creates life there's one part of the body that Hashem has given the ability over there to be like God and create life when that is desecrated when that is denigrated when that is abused when that is touched inappropriately the Havoc that it creates is deeper than any other Havoc it goes into the calls it the holiest of the Holy that's why in the most precious part of a community is you have to sell even a and a if there's no m in most religions the synagogue the church the ashram that's the place by Judaism the bedroom is Holier if there's no money for a you sell the and you sell a nobody has a nobody has a why because that's connected to the bedroom that's connected to the inner Sanctuary the is called in the room of the beds it's a funny name for the bedroom and the image in the was the the two cherubs which was a male and a female looking at each other like children and theor says in y when the enemy came into the kadash they took out the cherubs and they said look what these people are thinking about in their holiest places and from this stams Christianity versus Judaism celibate or family life because if the Kim are a desecration of Holiness it means Holiness is about running away to heaven but in Judaism it's not that way it's the relationship that is holiest so inash you had the relation between hasem and the Jewish people replicated in the image of a of a of a boy and a girl a man and a woman is and Isa like the whole means you want to bring in into that so when a person when that space is compromised it creates havoc on every level but it exists also in different ways that's in a very very extreme and radical way whenever I allow my innocence and Purity to be compromised by the tum it's a very very profound place of Destruction and that's why the fifth thing is and that's the order here the first thing is the Innocence the L are broken what does it mean the lus are broken the part that's engraved and a person does not recognize that wholeness that innocence we become fragmented but you have to remember it's only broken before your eyes so that's the the engraved innocence that's engraved through and through I don't recognize my the second thing is the consistency goes the third thing is the wall is breached the fourth thing is Aus burns the the fifth thing is I allow Salem to be brought into my and in a person's life it is when I have to be able to completely protect and clean it up from any foreign Gods from any foreign influences your inner Sanctuary our inner Sanctuary must remain clean pure of foreign gods and what does a foreign God mean it doesn't necessarily mean a physical statue what it means is the moment I compromise it with not realizing how beautiful it is how filled with love it is how much Holiness is there now I need to look to others to fill it that's and that's what happens when people Soo them soothe themselves with stuff because they don't recognize their Holiness the deepest validation you'll ever get in your life is from your soul your soul being your best friend but if I don't have it I start soothing myself maybe I begin binging or maybe I emotionally disconnect or maybe I get into toxic relationships that are unhealthy what am I doing I'm taking foreign things that I don't need because I'm not protecting my innocence my Purity my love my Infinity those are the five events say happen on those are five forms of breakdown in the inner soul the purpose of this notification is one and that is to heal the five to bring the lus to their wholeness to recreate the T to build the wall to bring back the T to celebrate the to as we did the dancing and to get rid of the salum from and then when we bring it together as I said becomes a it doesn't just become a regular day it becomes a festive joyous holiday it becomes transformed because when we work through all of this we reach a light that is infinitely greater even than the light before the Brokenness have a wonderful week and may we see the transformation of already today next week we have a class