Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser - Jewish Thought: Don't Be Afraid to Be a Yid

what we'd set up was the the question that had to do with change and what gets in the way of change and we spoke about various things about how we can integrate something that's new to us that leads to change which could be anything it really could be anything it could be a style of playing guitar where you learned a better style but you're going to have to implement that it could be a principle in life that you want to incorporate but because we're here in jerusalem we're just and kind of the subject is judaism and torah so we were going even more specific straight to the jugular of what do you do when judaism is the thing you're actually um putting under the microscope and you're gathering evidence on the veracity of torah you're trying to figure out the veracity of torah the claim of judaism the claim of sinai the claim of the rambam the claim of rebellion the claim of hill the kingdom of shama the claim of all of the jewish sages for thousands of years is that sinai actually happened that the torah is real that um our history is as it has been uh written and tr and carried down the tradition like through the thousands of years through the millennia and that basically this is the real deal so we're gathering evidence on that because we're trying to be scientific about it and we want to know if something's if you want to know if something's real it's got to hit some threshold of evidence now you could you could not have absolute evidence because you weren't there so you're going to be relying on what kind of knowledge not absolute knowledge but you better answer this i'm gonna walk out for everyone who was here yesterday two types of knowledge no notes no notes absolute knowledge and what oh you just saved the entire class deductive knowledge now none of us were there so we got to already knock out absolute knowledge because we weren't there so we're left with deductive knowledge and so we gather evidence and gather evidence gavin evans and and and when we say evidence it's not always going to be empirical evidence like asia tour is really good at offering but it could be intuitive knowledge sometimes you just intuit something and it's real to you and that's it it could be intuitive as well for example pixie you might be impressed by and maybe intuitively know something's real if you can tell the stories of it to the three-year-olds you can read the stories with the five-year-olds and see their eyes light up to the stories and then see the 18 year olds reading it but obviously going into depth in the laws of it all and then you can find people in their 60s 70s 80s 90s just their eyes already spinning from the incredible light there they are extracting that they're extracting from the same story that the three-year-old was reading do you see how that's an intuitive knowledge like hey there's something here for everybody no matter what age you are there's a universal thing going on here for someone else another intuitive example would be uh and this happened to my wife this you want to hear how my wife became observant nothing with god nothing to assign anything with any of that stuff it was simply she went to a class while she was at hebrew university where it took modern issues and let all the all the university students fight out the issues with all their varying majors and degrees and they would fight out the issues and then the rabbi would present the torah's take on that particular topic which like right now i'm studying tome and i'm studying break and entry and the use of lethal force that's a talmudic passage and so you know different states are going to actually google the different states and their different laws regarding lethal forces it's an issue that people especially in law and criminal law would like to know about and write law based on the state you're in you want to write law about that figure out what the right laws are so they the pro the rabbi would bring the issues up let them argue it out and then in the end of the class and don't forget there was hot rugalach which is why my wife came in the first place she just wanted the hot rug luck you know what rug allah it's a little chocolate pastry it's kind of a wrapped fila dough thing you know yeah back to our business why are we discussing chocolate regular oh because my wife was eating the chocolate rug at this class this is way out okay back to business after a few weeks of this class the next thing my wife knows she is keeping shabbat kosher and everything no concept of god no concept of tariff from god none of that stuff she just realized that this rabbi had such an angle on every single modern issue whether it was euthanasia whether it was abortion no matter what he what they were dealing with that he always like way trumped the students and really cut through it all like really cut through it all but it wasn't the rabbi cutting through at all it was our sages cutting through it all so my wife just figured hey if this if the sages kept shabbat if rebbi akiva kept shabbat i'm keeping shabbat if the ram bomb kept kosher i'm keeping kosher every name the rabbi threw out from the tradition of rabbinic literature they were all keeping shabbat they were all keeping kosher they were all wearing to fill in if they were men and they were all living the life if they were you know they were all living the life of a jewish jewish observant life so my wife said i'm in no concept of god none of that business no prayer no none of that it was only a long time after that she was standing actually at an asia tour event which you're all welcome to we do a very big event that's coming up today's the twenty fifth day of the home or sixth day today today is the 25th today's the 25th day of the omer so another 25 days we're exactly midway today's 26 i hear much locus 26 is tonight no tonight not today last night was you have to clarify this no don't check right now i got it right here it's on my calendar today is she might be right it is let's see it's the 26th day of the overt you won one good job so it's the 26th day of the army in case anyone was spaced out please say after me it's the 26th day of the over try that together it's the 26th daily when you say that you get a mitzvah because our mits was to count so you just counted you did a mitzvah just like boom mitts was never we're so easy anyway 24 days from now we'll be holding hosting a special event it's all night learning in this lobby right here and we pack the place people come from all over town and tell your friends like it's really a couple hundred people usually come and there will be classes all night long and she came to that class the she came to the all-night learning but it wasn't until sunrise when she stood overlooking the western wall with 80 000 people down there in total silence can you imagine getting 80 000 jews to be quiet at the same time 80 000 years in total silence and she stood there and she kind of got this moment of there is a god and then she became a god person but she was fully observant do you get that was there a proof at all of sinai was there proof of god in any of that story zero and now she's here 25 years later you know with like fully dedicated never veered never veered from that epiphany that she had it at the hotel on chavo at night and never veered even from wanting to be like the rabbis the rabbis are doing i'll do it i mean how am i supposed to say i know more than them they cut right through it all and always get right to the core of things they understand some they understand things about some of the most modern issues that we're just barely able to get our heads around and they seem to have cut right through it so if they kept kosher i'm keeping kosher or am i somehow smarter than them someone was smarter have you ever thought about that can i just share with you guys this is going to be a little harsh not for essentials but it's a parenthetical have you guys ever thought about have you ever thought about the move not i'm not talking about someone who never kept shabbat never knew about shabbat but you ever thought about the move away from something like shabbat or kosher meaning i know no one ever did it intellectually it's purely emotional but just think of it from as if you were being intellectual you're basically saying you know more than the rambam rebbe mayor the vilna gone rebbi akiva you know the like the list goes on and on and on and on of the greatest greatest minds that ever lived that plumbed the depths of all of creation and they all kept the shabbat they all kept kosher and so what i'm saying ultimately is i am i i must know something they didn't i'm purely obviously no one would ever not keep shabbat except emotionally meaning they had some other issue but if you went purely intellectual it's like you know something they didn't you get that like there's oh the rambam what'd he know you know i know better than rambo no one lives in a purely intellectual mode though if you look at it scientifically it's basically we're saying we know more than them okay back to our business there's knowledge that is evidence gathered and there's knowledge that's intuitive and that was a long discussion on intuitive knowledge back to us whenever you're trying to figure something out you have the issue of fear there might be fear like if you're afraid of flying no amount of evidence will ever get you on that plane if you're really afraid of flooding and you can gather evidence you're still not getting on if you're afraid of having your heart broken because you've been hurt before so there's no amount of evidence that the person you're dating is the right one you'll just keep pushing it off and pushing it off because there will be no amount of evidence because you don't get hurt again if you've ever lost money big in an investment there's no amount of evidence that there's a good investment that will get you to invest again unless of course you're going to be very courageous and there are people get married and been hurt but they're being very courageous and there are people who invest after losing money it may take them some time they'll skip a lot of good investments and kick themselves for having skipped them but eventually they'll they'll invest they'll get the courage they're going to invest their money but the fear factor takes away our intellectualism meaning meaning we'd all like to pride ourselves that we're intellectual people but whenever it comes to gathering evidence for something that has a fear factor we suddenly become unintellectual and the question is why why does the fear factor make us intellectual or that's not the question the question is what is the fear what's the fear no it depends on the thing is it flying is it getting hurt is it losing my money what's the fear and so yesterday matan we listed all the different possible fears with judaism but what we discovered was the number one fear in regards to in regards to judaism the number one fear is who remembers it what will they say that's the number one fear is what will they say which is pretty wild because nothing would change or anything like that here you're like it's a full lifestyle shift but that's not the issue i mean you could have all kinds of lifestyle shifts that would be fine with you you know if you suddenly won a billion dollars you'd have a lifestyle switch you'd be happy about it you'd enjoy every part of the lifestyle switch we don't have issues with lifestyle switch our issue is what will they say if i have a lifestyle switch well if you win the lottery i'm just shaking i'm not nervous i'm trying to get the ink into the pen um if you have people like what happened seems really nervous about this point so if you have if you have a lifestyle switch that had to do with you winning a billion dollars they will say a lot this can be good stuff or bad stuff good stuff if you have a lifestyle switch that is toward observant judaism and you were raised hasidic and then you bailed and then because of all the evidence you decided to come back what will they say they'll say baruch hashem he's back hashem she's back but if you're raised secular and your parents put all their eggs in the secular basket and that's where they've invested their life and their education and their own kind of delivery of right and wrong to you and then you suddenly like win the judaism lottery what would they say and what would the siblings say what would the friends say what are they going to say well what they should say is what what does it take what does it take to be someone who integrates judaism from from having not been raised that way and we spoke a little bit about those different attributes we spoke about being strong stroke rap being committed spoke about spoke about being independent in your thinking independent we spoke about what are some other ones which i was sorry about and the number one what was it integrity because a lot of people heard those same classes and it didn't stick they did not integrate the information whereas you heard the information and you became the information a very rare character trait to me not too many people become information these days just get to illustrate that i used to be a little bit jealous of high school dropouts in yeshiva life because because i just noticed in the students that the high school dropouts integrated much better than the university students the university students had had many years of non-integrated overload information that they had to somehow get onto a exam which would be an essay or test of some sort they had to take information and quickly kind of mesh the the numbers and then quickly pop it out onto some exam and and if there was ever if there was any time to integrate it it would already be in a new semester and new information and more exams and not to mention the party environment which means you're cramming a lot even if you're not a crammer you're definitely going to be cramming up quite a bit and so you're cramming the information which means there's no way you're ever going to chew you're not even going to chew on it to digest whereas the high school dropout or the guy who never went to university but finished high school is used to sitting on ideas like chewing on it swallow it digest it see how it works see what it means to you maybe implement it for a few weeks see where it goes i've noticed over the years just watching students who didn't go through those four years of rammed in information compared to those who got to have it nice and smooth and then came to hear about judaism and noticed there was a correlation with them that they were able to their integration levels or integrity was higher and it's wild to think about because the ones who went to university had many more classes on ethics and sociology they had much more history on like the evils of his of you know humanity on you know in history and the wars and the you know they of any one should have been more integrity the university graduates should have the integrity they had heard much more about what could go wrong with human civilization than the high school kids but they displayed a lack of being able to integrate the information compared to the high school kids it's interesting just a thought about life and integrity now are families going to say these things about you best friends are going to say these things about you parents are going to say these things about you siblings they're going to say these things cousins aunts uncles are they going to say these things no way they're not going to say any of that about you they're going to say we always thought you were a little odd you were you were always looking for something weren't you yes you were weak you were you had he's having a weak time meanwhile you're meanwhile doing something like of jewish observance it's kind of like uh when we grew up the boys had to do pull-ups and the girls had to hold themselves up on the bar anyone go through any of this stuff the girls had to hold themselves up and it was just a matter to pass the physical thing you had to like hold yourself up for a certain amount of time do any women have to do this you had to do this would you have torah schools or something you grew up in tourist schools yeah so you probably didn't know you guys grew up you didn't have to do that growing up you didn't have to do that you grew up in a tourist school yeah everyone here grew up in tourist schools we have one woman here who didn't grow up in a tourist called do you grow up in a tourist call and they didn't make you hold a pull-up for a long time i just asked a group of women this like two nights ago and like half the room said they had to do this anyway but can you imagine being told you were weak while holding yourself up for like weeks months years at a time holding fast to jewish values in the middle of a river going the opposite direction all the time like every single every single piece of media every billboard every every new style is going directly against something you'd wear to a chat you know it's like you're always going against this river and you're just holding that pull-up up and somehow friends and family are considering you a little weak right now right so when in fact these are this is what you're doing so from now on for the rest of this class we're going to discuss why you should never ever worry about what anyone thinks of you and i'm happy to hear more ideas than the ones i'm going to share um first of all i'd like to just make a little visual just to get a picture of what we're talking about here um make a kind of a chart here not sure how to do this but see one two three four five six seven one two three four five six so that might work is there a center here one two three one two three i have to make one more row maybe i need a center here is this the center was this just a mathematical thing that it had to be even it probably had to be even can someone tell me where the center is is this the center here okay i put an x there that x is you okay you're in the center and around you are your immediate friends and family like your immediate family here and a best friend let's say okay so they get an ex too because you're from a certain neighborhood with a certain scene and a certain way of doing things it's like a culture that a little micro culture of where you're from i mean think about it your parents didn't name you some weird name like moon unit or dweeble or something like that they gave you a name and when they gave you that name it fit into some kind of a culture in your neighborhood your community something but it wasn't like totally out of the blue that's why you'll notice like for example my persian friends when they first started coming to america so i got to immediately have persian friends because of our synagogue and they they had english names that were really funny i don't know where they got their names but no one was naming their kids these names like one family alone there was not a single kid i knew with these are their boys three boys not a single kid i knew in a giant public school had any of these names came in there was george manny and claude what and they choose that on the airplane over from iran or something and there's nothing wrong with the names they're great names and i know george i had a george here yesterday the nothing wrong with claude cloud's kind of cool name manny it's my dad's name you know but just you know how generation have names used in generations use names you don't use all three of those names were just way out of a hat for west la you know but they that's not the way it usually goes what usually goes is they give you a name that fits and there's choices of schools they're going to send you to a school that fits also and they're going to go to a if you're jewish they're going to go to a synagogue that fits there's a lot of choices in the synagogues and they're going to choose the one that best suits the lifestyle that they're raising you in but not only is your family all exes so are your friends and your cousins and your uncles and your aunts at least if they live somewhat nearby and the and then the community and so it goes i'm really getting tired of doing this now of course when you go further out you know like you know you drive 100 miles or something you're going to get a different style and i can tell you where i was raised i was raised in probably one of the snobbiest places in the world maybe just below beverly hills just below beverly hills it goes beverly hills bel air brentwood i grew up in brentwood and we probably had the largest house and largest property in all of brentwood and our house was worth some two times any home in beverly hills that was part of the regular south of sunset boulevard beverly hills not the big estates but the regular plots and if you even drove from my house five minutes you were already in a different culture than what our culture was and we may not play with you and if you're from the valley forget it we're not even going to talk to you if you're from the valley but basically even being south of sunset i i was you know sunset sunset boulevard brent only has a few blocks north but if you were south of sunset it was like that's okay you know pat him on the top of the head yeah even five minutes from our house was a totally different world compared to the x-land we lived in in all of our relatives in those neighborhoods and stuff that's what we lived that's where we lived that was our world now you had the same exact thing it may not have been this kind of fancy place but wherever you're from is x right or wrong where are you from daniel whereabouts had an x probably similar to a lot bigger an area than we had in brentwood were you from nice lady toronto in what part what part of bathurst and there was a style there wasn't there that's that was different than uh yeah so it's different than thornhill right yeah thornhill's got thornhill is z or something you know uh where are you from ben which town lawrence has a style and lawrence is not cedars it's different it's different not very not very different but yeah it's different my time where you from jerusalem so jerusalem's definitely got a style that you're not going to find in ramat ghat or or did you say that right got kirat got it's not going to have the same thing certainly not tel aviv as much as the shook's gotten really cool right you come to party at the shook sometimes yeah you come to the party i live in the shook my neighbors are not happy about the party i'm happy about the party i like the party it's just a little interesting when they walk by shaking their heads and all of a sudden they see me holding a half a liter beer just going like this is amazing how did this come to my neighborhood yes they're walking by gun the past there goes the neighborhood anyway the um yeah but i mean it is incredible five minute walk from my house there must be over 20 types of boutique beers from israel alone not to mention the ones from all over the world that are being served there and a five minute walk from my house and i grew up i grew up loving beer from the youngest stages it's the whole shook every single place in the show okay if you win if you win no no it's not you go to any of those even the restaurants like the fish and chips place remember the fish and chips place in there so if you look in there you'll see they have i think they have two different varieties from alexander which is in uh brewing bay chemish so you know the person who doesn't know what they're doing says give me a gold star and a macabe but anyone knows what they're doing is just like i'll take the pale ale i had one from ramallah you drank that the tybee beer yeah it was the bottle or the untapped um yeah don't drink on bottles yeah from now on only on tap only on tap so let's just say let's just say that you you have some experience is have some experience where you leave the world of x you left the world of x yeah it happened to me i went to europe i traveled through europe 17 countries for several months the first few days i was you know enjoying a smoke and a beer with uh europeans and they were always talking badly about americans and i would always kind of pipe in and say i'm american can we change the subject or just like please stop doing it and they were like you're american can you explain why you never fight a war anywhere near your country and i was just like no yeah and they would just like as soon as they'd find out i was american they would just go in on me you know and and this was going on for day after day and by the end of the week of my very first week i was no longer an ex from brentwood i was a backpacking why i became a why who suddenly it took a week but suddenly had an open mind about where i'm from and what we consider normal as americans is not necessarily normal it's just what's normal for us but it's not normal in the rest of the world you know like europe's fed up with google's infiltration into our lives americans would never even think of such a thing we have such a like we're so like classified by placated by no one would ever try to harm us because we've never dealt with such things and europeans are just like get out of my business and they're making lawsuits against google which the us the us is printing it in their news but no one in the us would ever think about such a thing which is really wild because the whole point of the us was what was it life liberty and the pursuit of happiness but liberty part of liberty is the privacy to to fulfill your own destiny without everyone having to know about that and europeans don't like that anyway i became a why when you hear new information or go to an environment that is not your own you become a why you can't help it you may fight for a few days but eventually if it's logical if it makes sense if it's realities that you just never considered before that you're saying i think this is real you become a why and in order for you to be a why for most people they need to be around wise for a while but sometimes you got to come home and so you come home no longer an x and now you're a y does that look like a y yeah i'll make it better you come back as a y and how's it going over there how's it going being a y amongst all those x's look at that does that look like fun is everyone would be like hey here comes the y we're making a parade for mr y coming off the airplane back to wherever you're from they're all gonna be really excited about your you being away no one's gonna be excited about that no i mean you might have someone who's like very evolved and like they're an evolved person and they're like really you know they're curious they'd like to know what what happened and stuff like that most people are gonna be freaked out you wanna hear something the further they are away from you like these people do these people really care that you came back as a why not really maybe someone will like gossip a little on a phone call about you hurt you hear who freaked out when you come in tighter these people yeah they'd raise more of an eyebrow it's a little uncomfortable around you but okay not a big deal but once you start closing in the closer you get the harder it is for them that you're a why and the more likely you're going to hear about it they're they're not going to be able to help it stuff's going to come out about you being a why and they're going to be very uncomfortable very unhappy and they may even attack not necessarily physically but at least verbally now you guys tell me what's their problem you see it up there what's what's what is this group here let's go the for closest x's what's their problem what you're affecting the x's around okay what do you mean by that there's a y in i mean you're you're like the flying the ointment you're yeah you're different you're bothering them someone else just be creative whatever comes to mind what's bothering them about you okay we're good enough stuff we taught you stuff we were all about you know you obviously found something else out and now you've kind of thrown our values into the waste basket maybe they because in this case let's say it's judaism that's go on the table here so they're like uh this is a little too close to home here because i'm also jewish maybe i'm supposed to be doing this too yeah look in the mirror like maybe i'm supposed to be doing this stuff somewhere deep and hard they feel that you are right yeah maybe you're right and no one wants to be wrong and deep down probably a lot do feel you're right because if it's your parents they remember their bubbies and zadie's and their bubbies and zadies were shaking their heads watching them assimilate they're bubbies and zadies and it's not easy to have your parents shake your head i don't care how much you think you're good at like not caring about your parents shaking their head you care when your parents shake their head it's just the facts so they saw their parents shake their heads as they assimilated and now they're kids shaking their head you know you know they got it from the outside now they're getting it from the inside someone's shaking their head and and it's real uncomfortable real uncomfortable but none of you got it yet i mean you all got aspects of it but not it okay i'm looking for i wouldn't have drawn it all up there if i it's something else yeah they're concerned that you don't respect their values okay and they might be feeling disrespected and probably are feeling judged judged that you're judging whether or not one sec one second picks whether or not you are judging they're feeling judged right you could come back like so not judgmental and they're just by the very fact that you're living a lifestyle that has integrated jewish life yeah they're just like feeling judge well the guilty conscience but they're also feeling judged by you pixie yeah like you've you've changed you've grown and they stayed the same that's another one very good you guys got a lot of excellent ones i mean you also changed the whole um mathematical equation like they see themselves in relation to you you switched around everything all the angles so you're so i forgot your first name sure is much more on it much more on it let me go let me go a little further remember how i said that from wherever you're from five minutes drive later could be another whole thing meaning if you're from if you've like made it in manhattan upper west side of manhattan and then we somehow like kidnap you by a helicopter and airlift you and then drop you in new guinea with no way out you're you're a fish out of water now it's a whole new society all around you and you're like uh you start watching the way they walk and you're like now you're kind of doing it after a while you know okay you know i guess i'll learn this world here and if you drop a new guinea person in norway there can also be a fish underwater because wherever you're from listen carefully wherever you're from is a fictional agreement wherever you're from is a fictional agreement and it's an unspoken agreement so if you're from west l.a it's a fictional agreement if you're from west l.a or did i say westerly or brentwood if you're from brentwood you're from there's a fictional group if you're from west l.a is a fiction agreement if you are from arizona there's a fictional agreement if you're in tempe arizona that's one agreement and phoenix has another agreement if you're persian there's all these agreements that i'll never figure out i grew up in all my best friends persian home i i don't know understand those agreements but there are agreements wherever you're from is a fictional unspoken agreement now listen carefully for you to be who you are in that fictional agreement for you to be who you are meaning your own identity you know maybe i'll preface this with something human beings are very fragile i mean think about it clark can i use it as an example clark you were born where from where in london uh what n what meaning where did you grow up what neighborhood perhaps so so hamster garden suburb yeah you would agree with me 100 that if you were somehow born like a little too light-skinned in iraq you'd have a totally different head space yeah for sure right and if you were born on the north shore of hawaii as a hawaiian you know just tattoo like caucasians and you were just raised surfing and smoking wheat yeah so would you agree you'd have a totally different headspace human beings in their identity of who they are are extremely fragile and because we're so fragile it creates insecurity and therefore human beings grasp onto stuff for identity that's why for example i think everyone in this room knows they have certain negative attributes we all have issues right but if you notice you keep those around why do you keep your negative attributes around if they're negative get rid of them shake them off why would you keep your negative attributes because you're like at least i know who i am i'm not proud of the fact that i have the terrible temper or this that or the other but it's part of our fragility is that we'll even go with our negative stuff in order not to be no one anything not to be no one and so all these fictional agreements are going around with whatever place you're from whatever culture your parents raised you in they're all fictional agreements you have to play the game unless of course you don't play the game and if you don't play the game it's a little scary because for a moment you don't know who you are but chances are the reason why you're not playing the game is because you're finding out there's alternatives for who you could be that maybe hold more water than some fictional agreement like for example the information you hear usually in this room is an amazing alternative and it's not a new fictional agreement asia tour is not offering a fictional agreement my black vest in black pants black keeper and black coat and black hat and on shabbos the furry hat that's all fictional agreement that for sure is just an agreement that certain people made and that's a fictional agreement but the actual mitzvahs that i do and the torahs that i study and the general dedication in my lifestyle is hardly a fictional agreement this is a major departure from a fictional agreement i grew up with in this fancy area of los angeles this is my departure from it not because i wanted to depart from it it was just that when i got here i realized oh my gosh i'm just totally well i already realized that in europe but i knew already that wherever you're from is so random i mean your whole identity based on where you're from is the most random thing ever a totally unconsidered undiagnosed un um uh uh what's the word for it investigated reality where you're from it's an uninvestigated fictional agreement and when you learn something that's real and you integrate that thing it takes strength you got to be committed you can have to be independent you're going to have to be courageous but when you internalize and integrate that or those values that you are learning you're no longer playing the game and when you're no longer playing the game so you're a y amongst all these x's and you're actually doing fine but what is the problem i know you guys all told me what the problem is for all these x's but maybe you got it better here and now what is the problem is that they listen carefully these little final moments here this class ends and another begins in a short break please look at this x right here and look at when you used to be an x just imagine who are they surrounded by x's it's very easy to be an x when you're surrounded by them but when suddenly on your inner core you got a y hanging around there you don't know who you are anymore people have been needing you to play certain games to be who they are again it's a subtle point but it's very deep and when you stop playing the silly game of where you're from because it's a silly game proof is 100 miles away they're playing different games so it must be silly i mean it is arbitrary random i can't come up with enough adjectives of how silly it is when you stop playing that game they've lost a key ex partner they don't know who they are and no one likes that feeling so they don't embrace the new why thing they must they can't help it they react they have to react and they'll do anything to get you back to being an ex not because they think it's better for you but because now they can live with themselves because we don't know who we are human beings are very fragile when it comes to identity people latch onto all kinds of random things sports teams i grew up going to all the eve sporting events and people would punch each other's lights out because the guy was wearing another shirt in the crowd from the opposing team they would talk about not knowing who we are and that we've taken on a sporting you seen people actually i went to a sporting event first one in 20 years my dad gave me laker tickets when i was in l.a two a month ago i went to lager again there were people wearing lakers outfits like they're on the team or something in fact i think i was only one without laker paraphernalia in the whole place this was full identification gotcha we're fragile and therefore our job is to be real is to have integrity strength and all the stuff and us rabbis around here and all the rabbis in jerusalem and even where you're from we'll hold you up we'll do our best to support you but in the end you got to be the one with the strength but you stop playing the game not only for you do you stop playing the game but for them because you see what the average person who leaves this classroom and goes back to kansas or goes back to wherever part of jerusalem they're from or whatever part of new york they're from the average person winds up developing an appendage when they get back to where they're from why why why do they do that for them they don't want to hurt anybody they don't upset their mom they don't accept their uncles they don't accept their dad their grandmother they don't accept their siblings for them they become exes again when think about it ladies and gentlemen right now this is my final point you were the last chance in an absolutely devastating dying generation to turn them around before they completely wash out into never never land from the greatest tradition and the greatest common destiny that's still right we're right on the edge of it look where we're having this classroom right outside the holy of holies we're back there's only a few things left to do but people are dropping like flies and you can either be have this trip be irrelevant when you get back for them because oh it's really freaking everybody out or you can be someone who lives it and is part of this destiny for them because you're their last hope either way it's for them do the right thing for them and be be an oxygen tank when there's no more oxygen left be a flashlight when there's a power outage in people being able to see anymore what's real and what's not make sure your trip to jerusalem just sinks in full like you're just you're a sponge and you're just absorbing every last word every last experience absorb it all so that when you get back there you can be a why for the world of exes out there thank you you