For WOMEN: Beyond Mashpia/Mekabel PART 1

good evening this is a very special occasion it is yud dalid kislav the 14th day of the Hebrew month of kislave and that is the wedding anniversary of the rabbit and the rabbit and uh rabbitsen in the year tafresh Paytas that was uh 1928 last months or even days of 1928 the winter of 28. um and there's a famous Hasidic discourse a mimer that was recited at the wedding festivities by the Reba's father-in-law the previous rabbit he recited this mimer at the cabalis Putnam and it became customary many grooms at their own wedding will recite this same mimer at their Cabela's Putnam that's the the ceremony that takes place before the khopa um furthermore in the year dalid so we're talking about the 1954. the rabbit as that often did said a discourse of his own which was an elaboration upon the discourse that his father-in-law delivered uh interestingly the previous debit delivered the original discourse at the Reb ison's wedding and when the Revis had his own version of this discourse the date was yud gimul which is the wedding anniversary of the previous rabbit so one good turn deserves another so to speak um and it has become customary actually I was just thinking that when I got married back in tuftshin samach it was still sort of like a discussion people were talking about well do you say the previous rep is and then some people were even saying both and I wasn't ready to do both but I I just did the Reb is you have also the previous episode because the style of the discourse is that it's an explanation of and an elaboration upon uh the the previous episode I keep saying what is Hebrew words uh come my beloved what's it referring to it's a Friday night prayer that we say it's the famous uh him how you like that yeah I'm trying way too hard to speak English right now who says him nobody says him h-y-m-n him anyways it's that famous Friday Night song uh composed by uh schlem Alchemists the uh the kabbalist he was one of the the kabbalists from svas he was actually originally from Salonika from Thessaloniki but he uh he lived in Sofas in the times of the arizal along with many other kabbalists and he wrote poetry in one of his great poems was the poem come my beloved let's greet the bride and um these are the opening words of the discourse my beloved let's greet the bride we will received the Shabbos um so what we're going to do tonight is talk about some of the major themes of this mimer but specifically I've been asked by my partners in this event this is a special partnership with mikvah.org and I was requested to specifically speak about how the the mimer is applied to brides and Brides to be and I guess Brides that were meaning wives who have already been married and uh you can always continue learning we can always go back to the basics and uh and and I liked that idea first of all I like that idea because my oldest child my daughter table is a Kala right now so I figure if I can't help her pick out the centerpieces and the floral arrangements at least I can maybe record a discourse that will help her to prepare um but I I liked the idea of presenting this mimer specifically with an emphasis on how it applies to to women because personally I've been involved in teaching this discourse before to men either to bakram to young single men who are getting ready to be in a marriage mindset or to guys who had just been married or even to men who had been married for a while but um I I never specifically presented it to women and and it occurred to me that women are are an important part of marriage how you like that for the truism of the night yeah so men learn this mimer and they don't just recite it I'm saying in Chabad the the culturally the customers they don't just recite it at the kabbalah's panum it's um that's the guidebook that's the manual for the spiritual preparations for marriage so so the men are learning this as their preparation for marriage um wouldn't to be a good thing for the women to be on the same page literally the same page of the same discourse so that's what we're gonna do um I think anyone could benefit I hope anyone can benefit from what we're going to talk about tonight but if it's okay I'm gonna make a special emphasis on how women can internalize and apply these ideas so that that's that's the plan tonight with with hashem's help okay so I'm just going to go through a little bit the structure of the mimer very briefly um and then we'll unpack it slowly okay so just very briefly there are seven chapters in this mimer it's not a very long minor it's not very short it's not very long sort of medium there are seven chapters in the first chapter the rubber mentions that this is uh an elaboration upon the Mima that his father-in-law delivered and as I mentioned that his father-in-law delivered his own wedding ceremony and the the the major idea is that you have bride and groom which correspond to the Jews and Hashem and in kabbalistic terms we'll unpack this slowly so I'm not going to go into defining each of these terms uh very carefully right now I just want to go quickly through the structure of the mimer okay and that these different relationships um they're all iterations of the same Dynamic just on different levels um they Unite with each other through a process of first connecting in a superficial way and then uniting in a deep way that's the first chapter in chapter 2 that ever mentions that in the previous rabbis mimer there were two examples given to uh illustrate the concept of The Giver recipient dynamic the first example was a teacher and a student and as we mentioned in order for the these these two entities to merge there's a process where first they they find common ground on some superficial level and then from there they move into a deeper connection so the first example is teacher student and the way that the teacher student find a more superficial um common language is first through telling I mean I I don't like to translate it as a joke often it's translated as a joke doesn't have to be funny though and if anyone has heard my jokes you probably know I'm kind of biased in believing that jokes don't have to be funny it's not the point of a joke remember my comedian what would stand here and tell jokes to you is uh just a way of opening up a rapport and then from there the teacher can say some deep stuff and then actually what ends up happening is the teacher ends up receiving more than what he originally delivered because as we say I've learned much from my teachers even more from my colleagues but from my students I've learned most of all the teacher receives more from his students even than what he gave in chapter 3 that ABBA mentions the second example in the previous web is mimer of a giver receiver relationship and also how it begins with a shallow or superficial uh connection but then it goes deeper and the same Dynamic repeats itself where through the deeper connection The Giver ends up getting more than what he started with and and that in that example is a father who bends down who Stoops down to pick up his small child so he can lift them up so that they can be face to face and then they can play together so the stooping down is just a practical thing it's a superficial thing If the child were already on the father's level he wouldn't even have to stoop down but that's what enables the child to come up to the father's level and then once that superficial Act is is complete then they can play together and that's the the deeper connection that's the deeper Bond then if of course there has to be something gained from that that's even greater than what the giver in this case the father came into the interaction with and the rabbit there mentions that the original source for this uh Parable is from the Magid the music's description he mentions that the father's beard the father has a beard and that the child plays with the father's beard we know kabbalistically the beard represents it's the 13 strands of the supernal beard which represents the 13 attributes of Mercy which is an incredibly high level in the chain-like progression of World building and The Devil Makes a point of saying and yet whatever hap that's only The Superficial uh connection whatever happens in the internal connection the real bonding is even higher than your digna again stressing this this pattern this pattern that give a recipient come they find common ground on a superficial level they bond on a deeper level and then the giver ends up receiving more than what he came into the relationship with okay chapter 4 of the mimer explains this this is very interesting giver and recipient in terms of Prayer and the rest of your day when we pray this is counter-intuitive but remember we spoke about the process the process is first something superficial and then something deeper when we relate to Hashem through prayer that's called a superficial relationship that's a warm-up Act when we discover Hashem in our in our day in our regular pedestrian mundane activities Ah that's an intimate connection it's counterintuitive because normally you think of prayer as the end-all and be all that's the ultimate goal and and no no prayer and that's why we pray in the morning and why it's so important to pray before you check your phone before you answer your emails before you do any of the mundane stuff because prayer sets the tone but it's first also because it's it's the it's the preparation it's the priming the pump so to speak and after you do that then you can get into the intimate connection with Hashem which is spending the rest of your day with Hashem doing all types of seemingly mundane things but discovering the spiritual experience in it okay that was chapter four chapter five goes more into depth explaining how the relationship between the giver and recipient ends up benefiting both of them um obviously it benefits the recipient because the recipient is receiving that's an obvious benefit but a little bit less obvious is what we mentioned earlier The Giver is also ending up receiving he ends up getting more than what he came in with and and that explains here in chapter in chapter five the reason why this happens the reason why it's not a zero-sum game the reason that it actually ends up having a a uh a net gain is because the recipient which in kabbalistic terms is called malchus comes from a higher source than the giver who is called Za and is her higher source that's being revealed when that net gain from their interaction emerges and that's the idea of Ashes khayala teresbyla that a woman of Valor is the crown of her husband that really she comes from a higher source and that's what she's revealing when they they bond and there's that uh added um Dimension that wasn't there before where did that come from well it's really the revelation of the higher source of the recipient who actually turns around and becomes a giver in chapter six the dev explains Shabbos as a paradigm of this recipient that from one end you can see Shabbos as a totally passive day you can't do any work everything the Shabbos has is only what was prepared on the six work days so in that sense she's totally a recipient on the other hand all blessing comes from Shabbos so the ensuing Work Week gets all of its blessing from the Shabbos that preceded it so that's that that uh sort of paradoxical uh identity of Shabbos or femininity or macabul or malchus they're all the same concept um they receive but in receiving they end up revealing more than what they were given and then in chapter 7 the Rebus says that uh ultimately the greatest expression of this is the physical expression and uh the physical expression at least allegorically can be described by Sage words offer everything comes from the dirt everything comes from the soil right everything lives on this planet all life exists because of energy that we consume from the soil you can't at least unless you're a plant and can photosynthesize you can't eat the Sun but the sun grows the crops and then we eat the crops or the animals eat the crops and we eat the animals or however the food chain works but everything comes from all life comes from the soil you put the seed in the soil and life emerges and uh that's literal but it's also figurative because it's a parable for human procreation and that the ultimate revelation of how the recipient becomes the ultimate Giver is in literal biological pregnancy gestation and childbirth where a woman creates new life and a new generation so that is and that's chapter six that is I'm sorry chapter seven that's chapter seven the final chapter and that's that's the the the structure of the mimer okay so let's talk a little bit more about these ideas in both in a conceptual sense but also I a a a a practical sense and I want to do both in other words I want to explain a little bit more what these ideas mean as ideas but at the same time I want to talk about what it looks like in in everyday life so I think the first thing that's important to understand is how these um paradigms are sort of like fractals repeating themselves you know like an M.C Escher painting where you have the same image sort of repeating itself in in patterns or in nature you find fractals you know like the shape of the tree is the shape of the leaf you ever notice that like a pine tree is the shape of a pine needle an oak tree is the shape of a Oak Leaf you ever hold it up yeah you can if you live in Canada you can probably picture what a a maple leaf looks like and that's the shape of a maple tree yeah those are fractals in nature and um these patterns are repeating patterns so we have different by words to describe one in the same relationship it's the same relationship reiterated on on different levels the general categories are mashpia and macabo which we will translate for now as giver and recipient but I'm going to revisit that definition uh a little bit later this evening uh because I don't think it's a helpful definition once you really understand what these ideas mean so we have mashpia macabo which is given recipient and um they can be expressed in many different ways so in in terms of uh spiritual energies in the world of atsilos the world of emanation it's called Za and malchus giver and recipient is called are the six emotions which are the building blocks of creation uh and and malchus is the spiritual womb so to speak which receives those energies and turns them into Worlds at Silas is not even a world because it's so transparent it's so uh it's it's it's it's it's it's so uh nullified to Creator can hardly be reckoned to Creation but from the union of zombies it gives birth to Worlds that can be properly described as creation because they do have enough of a sense of of selfhood so that's that's how that must be a macabo relationship is is described in the world of atsilos but in time for instance it's called the six work days and Shabbos but it's the same Paradigm again the six work days in Shabbos the six workdays give to Shabbos she receives what they prepare for her and then she ends up creating something from that that's greater than what she received um and in in people the same Paradigm repeats itself again you have a a husband and a wife so all of these ideas are interchangeable and sometimes we flow rather uh seamlessly from one level to another level a lot of times this throws people for a loop when they're learning to say this because like hold on a second are we talking about men and women or are we talking about zon malachas or are we talking about the six work days in Shabbos and what's the answer yes well no which one yes it's all of them because these are just different ways of describing the same thing there's a letter in the egress that that responds to someone who asks why are there not so many Michelle I mean which is a mashallah means allegories Parables which is a funny question because there are so many allegories but what he means he could tell this from the context of the devil's letter um you don't see the person's letter so you have to sort of imagine what they wrote but you can kind of figure it out from from the devil's response what he means is not a little short little um metaphors um that we use all the time like uh the the world is nullified to hashem's creative Force like the sun beam is nullified within the sun okay we have metaphors like that but what he meant is extended metaphors like a whole long story with characters and a plot there are other Hasidic uh books teachings that have that style metaphor where it's like like a fairy tale almost it's like a long story where a bunch of stuff happens and conflict and resolution and then you find out this character represents this and this character represents that okay so that's what the person was really asking today why don't we have so many stories like that so it's very interesting when they have a response the Reba says that a metaphor in general is used by communicators as a rhetorical device um meaning to say it's an effective mode of explaining something unfamiliar by comparing it to something familiar a metaphor builds a bridge between the unfamiliar and the familiar so in other words if there's something that's unfamiliar to you and you don't have a reference a reference point for it it's not helpful for me to continue talking about it because you're just getting more lost so what do I do if I'm an effective Communicator I'll think of something that you already know something that's familiar to you that has some properties in common with the thing that I really want to talk about and I'll use that familiar thing as a model to get you to then understand that thing that was heretofore unfamiliar so the number says normally when metaphors are used that's how they're used they're used as an effective mode of of communicating and building a bridge from from the uh the unfamiliar to The Familiar or the familiar to the unfamiliar um that episode but that's not what a mind that's what not what a martial is in a my Mercedes that's not how Chabad uh the theim of Chabad use use my mother the number says in in Chabad we we have Les mashallum because are extremely precise inasmuch as they are not merely rhetorical devices for communicating an idea but rather when a rabbi of khabad uses an allegory or a parable he is not comparing one thing to another thing he is describing one thing as it coexists simultaneously on multiple planes of reality in other words we're not saying that the Nullification of the existence of the world to the absolute existence of Hashem is like the way a Sunbeam is lost within the sun we're actually saying much more than that that the properties of a sun being a Sunbeam being lost within its source in the sun is a lower level manifestation and derivative of a higher archetype which is the manner of nullification of the created world to its source in the Creator so when we say going back to our discussion at hand that a husband and wife are like we're not saying they're like they bear a resemblance we're saying they are down here in the terrestrial realm with people it's called a husband and wife in time it's called six work days and Shabbos but it's the same concept reiterating itself on multiple planes of reality so I think that first of all very important to understand and we have to realize that this specific Dynamic this mashpia macabo dynamic not only reiterates itself throughout every plane of reality but in some ways it is the most uh essential and definitive uh Paradigm within existence itself because ultimately when we speak about Giver recipient we're speaking about Creator creation so existence itself is the manifestation of a must be a macabo relationship foreign furthermore our Jewish identity is only understood within the context of a mashpia macabo relationship Hashem is the mashpia his people are the macabul which is why alternatively we refer to Hashem as the groom and the Jews as the bride because all of these terms are interchangeable all of these terms are are really just different uh different words for describing the same phenomenon as it repeats itself in different contexts so when we understand the relationship between Hashem and his creation we also understand the relationship between a husband and a wife and when we understand the relationship between a husband and a wife we understand the relationship between Hashem and his creation it works both ways it's called the two directions they both work there's uh you know the constructing and deconstructing I have shot the to be math means to strip away the trappings the lower level trappings of an idea and to extract the pristine archetype from it in other words to lose the concrete reference point and to go to the the abstraction so that's called half shata in other words like good old job said that that phrase from the book of e of is off off often used to see this to describe the idea of of that for my flesh I perceive godliness that sometimes say this will explain for instance let's say in Kore in The Human Experience uh the relationship between pleasure and will just to give an example tinegan rothsine and we use that oh I relate to that I know that because I'm a human I relate to The Human Experience but then we'll do some hafta and we'll say yeah but really forget about the trappings of How It's experienced in in on the human plane that's really describing high levels within says we're talking about Divine pleasure and divine will so that's called half shot but then there's albash Albasha is the the opposite direction to be malbish to invest the abstract idea within a concrete example and again like I said those examples are not random examples they're not literary examples those examples are are not literary they're literal and not literal the way everyone uses the word literal now he literally had fire shooting out of his eyes I mean he really did no I mean literally literally means he really when something exists on a spiritual plane so like it says in chapter three of Tanya that it comes down everything as above so below it trickles down and then it becomes manifest on a on a lower level as well that's called halbasha so we can go both directions here um we can learn about our relationship with God in order to be better spouses or we can become better spouses to learn how to serve God better but it works in both directions and actually it's a virtuous circle because one always leads back to the other keep keep on going back and forth now let's speak a little bit more in detail about this particular relationship and I said I'm going to focus on the female perspective the feminine perspective so I mentioned earlier that mashpia macabul is often translated as giver and recipient and and I'm guilty of uh using those same translations as well I've done it right here in front of you this evening but I did say when I did it I want to revisit it and have a chance to to redefine those those words so I don't like giver and recipient and and I'll tell you why because to call femininity a recipient is misleading and demeaning unfortunately it's a very common misunderstanding it's ubiquitous and Universal unfortunately throughout the ages feminine femininity has been perceived as being synonymous with passivity weakness uh lack of agency and um that's an absolute mischaracterization and it would be a terrible mistake if we were to think that that's what giver and recipient means and is reinforcing okay so then what's a better way of translating machine well let's visit the metaphors that we've been using you know like teacher student so we said the teachers The Giver the students the recipient okay that's pretty obvious to understand why they're being characterized as such the teacher knows something the students don't know which is why the teacher is the teacher foreign so the teacher has something that the students don't got it it was a badkin at the famous uh Asana that United the families of the altered the balatanya and ravalavia this comedian speaking of he said what's the difference between me and the rabba not so much think about it everything that I know that Emma also knows everything that ABBA doesn't know I also don't know the only difference between us is the stuff that the rabbit knows that I don't know so uh obviously the teacher is the teacher because the rabbit knows something that I don't know and I want him to tell me and yet as we mentioned in the nightmare me tell me the yes the teacher ends up gaining more from the interaction than what he came in with a specific example it's a Clarity it's a sharpening of the mind it's insight that really only happens when you're teaching and I can vouch for this as somebody who spent my 10 000 hours teaching that the greatest Clarity that one can ever experience in trying to understand an idea is within the relationship of an Engaged student uh receiving a a lesson there are simply insights that I believe are impossible to tap into otherwise so who's the giver and who's the recipient here you hear what I'm saying or let's let's look at the example of Shabbos and the work days where the dev explicitly unpacks that and speaks about that rather in depth the two dimensions of Shabbos the two faces of Shabba so to speak that on one hand Shabbos is a passive day that if you don't prepare food on out of Shabbos you can no longer repair it on Shabbos so if it's candle lighting and all of a sudden you say oh you know what I really should have gone to the grocery store and bought some potatoes and peeled them and grated them and baked them and made a kuggle well Coulda Shoulda Woulda it's too late it's now Shabbos and Shabbos can't make potato kugel Shabbos can't make anything Shabbos is a day of absolute cessation of productivity well Shucks look at that now we're completely out of luck we're on this passive day this week pathetic day that can't even make a kuggle well yeah that's half a truth you're not saying the rest of it which is that the six work days give Shabbos a Kugel and she turns around she turns it into something incomparably greater they give her a kuggle they give her a challenge they give her whatever it is that you prepped and made and he went out and you worked and you made a You made a paycheck and you went grocery shopping and okay great those are all physical things but you give those to Shabbos she turns around and turns it into meaning a reason to go on living for another six days so six days going into Shabbos give Shabbos some food and some cleaning and some you know getting a house physically prepared for for a day of rest but and she takes that flips it around and gives to the six days to come out of her an absolute infinite upgrade an incomparable upgrade a reason to go out into the world again and to find meaning so you're only telling half the story when you only speak of Shabbos as a recipient yes it's true she is a recipient but she's a recipient that ends up giving back more than she received and the same thing is true with the with the physical examples that the rabbit gives in the end of the moment how come may not offer the the idea of of the soil being an embodiment a literal embodiment a physical manifestation of malchus you put the seed in the dirt and you grow a tree which grows fruits with potentially an infinite amount of seeds think about that in terms of Roi return on investment right they say anyone can count the seeds in an apple but only God can count the apples in a seed because there are infinite potential apples in every seed but in order to reveal those apples that are hidden in the seed you have to put the seed in the soil in the earth which is which is femininity so if you only take a snapshot of putting the seed in the ground oh giver and recipient the seed is the giver the Earth is the recipient yeah but you're only looking at one slice of a continuum look at how the process unfolds when that seed unleashes that infinite potential for growth in the form of that tree with many fruits which contain seeds which grow many more trees with many more fruits with many more seeds and so on and so forth that add infinitum um so who's the real Giver who's the real Giver so that's why I wanna revisit the whole Giver recipient translation of Kabul and in fact in the minor the Rebus says it rather clearly uh in in chapter five the Rebus says that the macabul becomes a mashpia that malhas is so you're defining malchus as a recipient but yet she ends up giving to her to her Giver which is up and which we mentioned earlier is expressed by the idea by the idea of Ashes byla when the when the woman becomes a crown of her husband so the crown means she's on top she's Superior what's her superiority that she ends up being The Giver to The Giver so here's how I want to translate having in mind that mashpia macabo are are by words for masculinity and femininity masculinity is a giver must be a giver and femininity macabo is an even bigger Giver so much we're not going to call it any more giver and recipient it's not accurate it's not the whole story macabo masculinity and femininity is a giver and an even bigger Giver because what she gives to him is greater than what he gave to her and of course the ultimate example is childbirth and that's also mentioned at the very end of the mimer that her ability to create something out of nothing to reveal the call the power of of infinity by bringing New Life brand new life into the world that is uniquely feminine that's something that he cannot do she can give that to him he can't give that to her so mashpia macabo is not given recipient it's it's giver and an even bigger Giver okay now if you're an intelligent uh woman and you're listening to this you're probably thinking to yourself that's very flattering it's empowering I like that I like hearing that femininity isn't just passive but I'm now concerned I'm concerned about now that you've given me greater clarity about my role as a woman being an even greater giver than my husband um what's his role in other words everyone's a giver but she's a greater Giver okay so then what do you need him for and if you're an intelligent woman you're going to ask this question at least at the very least you're going to ask it practically like so then why do I why do I have to get married what do I need a man in my life for but uh if you're if you're compassionate then you might ask the question same question but you'll ask it for different reasons you could ask it on a deeper level like oh my goodness what's his identity like I feel bad for him what what purpose does he serve if at the end of the end of the day I'm a bigger Giver so it's it's a it's a serious question and and I want to explain something to you from a from a male perspective um this male identity crisis is very real the the question that a husband has as to his value like what am I here for like what do I do you know at the end of the day what am I providing really I I you know I can't bring life into the world and I I'm not the one who's really raising these children the way that a the way that a mother can in a ketusa bias it's her home she's the Mainstay of the home you know I'm just a guest here I'm just working to pay the bills and if she also works and brings in an income then my role is even less unique right like what am I doing here and I and I hope people listening don't think this is any sense don't don't sense for me any any hyperbole or dramatization for the sake of uh uh being performative uh this is a real issue and some even would call it a crisis and you know there's a whole men's Rights Movement that's that's emerged from from this real existential uh crisis uh particularly in in the Modern Age where the the marriage contract in in in not just the ancient world but just pre previously to to to the very very modern age it was more clear the necessity of of a male because the world was a much more unsafe uh place and uh and also having to do with with the oppression of women so women needed male protection so it was my the point is in the past it was much more clear what the function of a man is and and how he's necessity how he's of necessity and what what function and purpose he feels and today it is not a joke and if you're a woman and you're marrying a man it behooves you to understand this that many men question what value am I even bringing to this relationship and rather than dismiss the question and say oh don't say such don't don't say such things don't doubt yourself I I want to lean into the question I want to double down on the question I actually want to use our understanding from Sid this to to make the question even stronger and to say yeah you're right man what is our purpose because Sid this says where must be in we're givers and she's from a couple she's a recipient ah but then you learn a little bit more and you find what macabo means an even greater Giver so I'm a giver but she's a greater Giver so this is even is is is is is is intensifying the question you understand me so remember I said earlier that it's very misleading when you look at a snapshot like I said if you look at just the moment where the meshbiya is giving to the macabul you would think she's totally passive and has no role but if you come back later and you see where she returns whatever she's received in an in an upgraded fashion in an incomparably upgraded fashion um then you realize oh oh there is something to her something quite indispensable um I want to do the same thing now regarding masculinity I just want to flip it if you look at the end result yes it's true she's the final Giver she's the bigger Giver she culminates the process she finishes the job she makes it real she she brings it down to earth both figuratively and literally and and in that sense we are in awe of femininity but here's what you have to remember about masculinity he gives first and that is what makes him indispensable and that is what makes him unique and that is his role that cannot be denied it cannot be taken away from him he gives first so we're not arguing that she's uh not a bigger Giver she is a bigger Giver but she gives big by giving back she doesn't initiate the process she culminates it she finishes it wonderfully marvelously but she finishes something she doesn't start it and that is so incredibly important understand that a male role is to be an initiator maybe it'll make it more disarming uh less triggering as it were if I could discuss this Paradigm in really lofty realms in other words before our highest iterations of this of this relationship was those of you who are kabbalistically inclined if you don't mind I'd like to go up a little bit higher and say they're stouseless because there's another uh masculine feminine pair in atsilos even higher than zaw and malchus and for those of you who have learned a little bit of Kabbalah uh no doubt you're familiar with of the aim Ava father and mother being by words for and BINA is the initial flash of thought Baraka Maverick Bina is elaborative thought to build the function of is masculine it literally deposits a colonel or germ of an idea withinbina and the function of Bina is feminine it is quite literally quite literally a womb a conceptual womb within which a a very fleeting and uh unarticulated concept is given dimension breadth depth and details begin to emerge sochman BINA are masculine and feminine and like I said I I'm I want to talk about them those because I think it's a little bit less threatening uh we'll get to we'll get to the actual human manifestations of this but sometimes I think it's a bit it's a little bit uh easier to talk about it in uh in loftier terms that are a little bit less threatening that don't they don't hit home so much sometimes that's an advantage so think about it like this without Bina is an absolutely useless idea it has no practical application there was a guy who he came to Churchill during the during World War II uh and he said he has an idea what he's going to do the big problem that the the British had is that the German U-boats submarines they were sinking all of the ships that were sailing in the Atlantic so they couldn't figure out how to find these U-boats and to stop them so some guy got a meeting with Churchill during World War II and he said I have an idea how to get rid of the U-boats so that we can safely uh navigate the Atlantic so Churchill says what is your idea he says well it's quite simple we heat up the Atlantic Ocean until it boils and then all the U-boats will boil and they'll rise to the top and then we'll torpedo them so Churchill says okay how do you boil the Atlantic Ocean the guy says look I gave you a concept develop it okay that's without being up so without being a the idea is just so abstract it's it's it may not have any bearing or any relevancy in real life it's it's just it remains totally theoretical and that's why hochman needs Bina in order to be to be made real on the other hand Bina has to have something to develop you know you have to give me a first draft in order to edit it you gave me a first draft I'll clean it up I'll make it nice and pretty but you got to give me a draft so yeah in the end bino's the one who's gonna deliver this beautiful polished final product that is nice looking and practical and it works in real life gorgeous but she's got to have something to work with she's got to have something she's got to have raw materials so giver and recipient here really is describing a chronology it's describing stages or phases of a process when when you don't understand it in a linear linear a linear or temporal context it becomes very if you look at it in a static uh with us from a like a static point of view it doesn't make sense because you're seeing the mashpia is a giver but the macabul is a greater Giver so like what's his role but then once if you look at it as a process if you look at it as a as a film instead of as a photo then you realize hold on a second yeah she does the final work but he had to give her something to work with he had to give her something okay and then maybe his original idea wasn't even a great idea you know sometimes when you're brainstorming which is brainstorming just throw out ideas don't censor yourself don't filter we'll write everything on the Whiteboard and later on we'll work it out okay that's all that's that's and look at each one of these and and figure out what it would take to actually do it and how practical it is and what it would look like how much it would cost so that's hochmanbina okay if you can grasp that and remember I told you earlier that we're not talking about multiple ideas we're talking about one idea we just keep on describing it and we flow back and forth between different levels so we describe it on different levels this is one idea we're only speaking about one idea here the couple dynamic so I just described how it works um let's now let's try to bring it down a little bit closer to home in fact literally to a Jewish Home there's a discussion among our sages regarding who's a bigger uh bounce duck-up or ballasts DACA as it were who who's who is More instrumental in giving charity in the Jewish Home and of course in this discussion we are assigning and assuming traditional gender roles that is assumed in this discussion so and you'll understand what I mean momentarily uh the sages say um the poor man comes to the door the Pauper comes to the door and he asks for food I know today everything is currency it's not even currency it's all electronic but uh Once Upon a Time people asked for actual food um so the poor man comes to the door and he asks for food now the husband again traditional gender roles is the breadwinner he went out and he earned money and he went to the shook to the marketplace and he bought flower and he brought home flour but say our sages the poor man cannot eat flour candy flower you'll die of malnutrition it's very interesting you take the same flower you mix it with water and you bake it into bread and it's the staff of life but if you eat flour God forbid you can't absorb the nutrients so the poor man can't eat flour and I'll just add how much more so he can't eat the money that was used to buy the flower but he can't even eat the flour the woman takes that flower she needs it she bakes it she turns it into bread the poor man eats the bread and he lives thereby so who who is the bigger Giver of charity and it's it's it's a deep question it's not a silly question because the metaphor is is revealing very important ideas about masculinity and femininity and again you can decide to reject the traditional gender roles as as a social construct that's fine and I'm not going to debate that what I will say is that as a as a metaphor even if you reject the the the the the literal uh application of it as a metaphor it's speaking about masculinity and femininity as Concepts as Concepts as what they represent spiritually so the husband brings home the flower but the poor man can't eat flour the woman turns the flower into bread the poor man eats the bread and thereby lives do you understand what this is describing it's not just talking about flower it's not just talking about traditional gender roles which you can argue are a social construct and I don't know how to win that argument it's talking about existential truths that are undeniable and that is that masculinity and I'm stressing the word masculinity because I want to say something pause we know that human characteristics exist along a spectrum so I don't say a man and a woman I say masculinity and femininity because we all know that it's not black and white there are masculine aspects of women and there are feminine aspects of men and they exist they exist to varying degrees no two people have the same degree of masculinity and femininity to the extent that you have some men who are more feminine than many women and you have some women who are more masculine than than many men hopefully those two don't marry each other and I'm not saying that to be humorous at all but what I'm saying is masculinity and femininity not a man a woman obviously you're speaking about any given man and any given women the woman the the then it's very hard to speak in such rigid black and white terms because people are human nature is is is nuanced okay but if we're speaking in terms of the concepts of the categories the ideas archetypes so masculinity brings home flower but no one can eat flour femininity turns flower into bread which people can eat but she can't bake bread without the flour that masculinity gives to her does that make it very clear we're speaking in metaphor we're talking about emotional energy we're describing the currency of the relationship what a woman gives to a man is greater than what a man gives to a woman no argument but without what he gives to her cannot give back to him in upgraded fashion a thing so picture if you will a husband and I don't say the following to cause Shalom bias problems to the contrary God forbid I'm not trying to cause problems I'm trying to uh hopefully preempt problems or if the problems already exist at least to give perhaps a vision for how to get out of it imagine a man comes home he works he comes home and even if his wife works which Unfortunately today is very common and yes I did say unfortunately and I meant it I do think it is a blight that two income families have become normalized but that's a discussion perhaps for another time we'll see maybe we can elaborate on it further tonight um a man comes home from work and even if his wife also works she also came home um and he is feeling downtrodden he goes out into that dog eat dog world and he gets absolutely uh torn to shreds and he feels completely depleted and he walks through the door and all he wants is to be the king of his castle all he wants you know what's my vision of being a married man is I'm going to come home and and let my wife nurture me let her comfort me a little feminine warmth a little sweetness after being out in that harsh World why not what's what could be so wrong with that and uh in many ways this is this is a paradigm that men all men bring with them into into marriage based on their pre-existing experience with with intimate relationships with with women and or to be more accurate with a woman uh speak speak I'm speaking of course of um one's mother and uh you know you you can be Freudian about it if you wish but uh even even the Bible speaks about the idea that marriage is an act of a man abandoning his uh family of origin his his home of his his parents and and cleaving to his wife to become one flesh so it does use that term of abandonment early in the in the Bible in Genesis and parishes bodacious so a man has certain expectations of what femininity uh what role femininity plays in his life and it's based on being a child while a child obviously is completely uh receptive a child is not able to take care of himself or herself so that's what parents do parents tend to children they take care of children and so this man comes home he walks through the door and he immediately goes to his wife for Solace for comfort and the whole thing blows up and he can't figure out why and he resents her and she can't figure out why and she resents him what happened what in the world happened foreign he tried to get Shabbos to bake kuggle that's what happened it is a violation of Shabbos to have Shabbos be the day that makes Google can be material can be procured and prepared and made Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday all the way up until sundown but once the holy day of rest is ushered in you can't make kogo Shabbos doesn't make kuggle it is Hillel Shabbos it is a desecration of the Sabbath to ask femininity to be the initial Giver that is not how she works she is a recipient not because she's a passive loser no her power is magnificent but the way her power works is by upgrading raw materials so when she's given raw materials she can upgrade them incomparably so she can take what she was given and turn it into something that's not only 10 times as good or a million times as good but infinitely better so that that it cannot even be Quantified like we're saying before you give Shabbos a kuggle she turns it into meaning how many kugels does it take what's the ratio the critical mass where kogel equals meaning on its own never it won't happen it takes the feminine energy of Shabbos to create that transformation only she can create that infinite upgrade so whether you're speaking about biology where she takes that tiny packet of genetic information and she turns it into your child with with a with Limbs and ten fingers and ten toes and a smile and a face and a personality and a soul and a name that's called an infinite upgrade or or on a more pedestrian level you as a husband come home and insert emotional energy into femininity she takes it develops it expands and elaborates upon it and returns it in an upgraded fashion so here's what we're saying we're saying that femininity needs to have something to work with she needs to be given raw materials to work with and if she provides her own raw materials if she steps in to be the initiator the initial Giver it is a desecration of her own femininity of her own sabbath-like role and it is an inversion of say the richest it turns the entire flow of Creative Energy in the universe on its head and then everyone ends up feeling frustrated and out of their element and they don't know why now I mentioned before that men have femininity and women have masculinity and there are many contexts within which a man can express his femininity the main form within which a man should Express his femininity is in his relationship with God because we collectively the Jewish people are God's wife and there are many feminizing rituals that we have to remind ourselves of that role but I'm trying to focus right now on the application to women so I won't elaborate upon that um women have context within which they can express their masculinity and that's fine and depending on the degree to which any given woman has masculine qualities which is perfectly fine she will find healthy outlets for that what I'm saying is in marriage between a man and a woman it is incredibly important that at least in that context the man plays the masculine role the woman plays the feminine role and when I say masculine and feminine I don't mean blue or pink or fire trucks or ballet slippers that's not what I'm talking about not talking about do you want to watch the football game or do you want to go to the Opera that's not what I'm talking about I'm talking about something much more Elemental I'm saying that in an emotional interaction between a bonded feminine masculine pair otherwise known as a marriage things will be healthy and things will be right when femininity can work with what masculinity provides and without getting into a message for the men because I'm trying to focus on the women men will be much more satisfied when they allow their wives to give back to them than when they try to take from their wives a man who tries to take from his wife will always be frustrated because he's not supposed to be a taker he's supposed to be a giver but when he gives and waits and gets back what he gave in upgraded fashion he will be deeply satisfied and so so will she be so both be satisfied so let's talk about the feminine role here what is a woman to do this really puts you at the mercy of this guy because he's got to make the first move what are you supposed to do you understand the Dilemma if I've adequately explained or made my case you understand then the feminine dilemma she has this incredible power but it can only be Unleashed if he initiates so what do you do that seemingly places the woman into a very difficult position she's waiting for him to make a move and and what if he doesn't what if he's passive or worse yet like we described earlier instead of not only he doesn't take the masculine step of being the first Giver worse worse still he comes in and he tries to take from you he tries to be a macabo to you he tries to be feminine take from you which will never work just like he can't be pregnant and carry a child he can't become a recipient of your emotional energy that is initiating from you he can only receive in return emotional energy that he deposited within you and that you developed through emotional gestation and gave birth to and returned to him so what are you supposed to do woman this is a problem you appreciate the The Dilemma so remember we spoke about the fact that a woman is able to give back greater quality incomparably greater quality than than whatever she receives because she comes from a higher source that malchus comes from a higher source than saw let's talk about that a little because this is important here what what is this higher source that malhas comes from it's higher than saw so we said zaw are the six emotional energies the building blocks because I decide that's why there are six days of creation six days of creation error lower level manifestations of those six uh emotional energies we said that malchus is the recipient she takes those energies she becomes impregnated with them she gives birth to Worlds but uh malhos although she is the last of the ten sphere ice last of the ten uh Godly emanations there is a principle of uh foreign the book of formation based on the teachings of Abraham our patriarch one of the uh most ancient kabbalistic texts in other words when you finally go to the end of the line you come full circle back to the top which is why just parenthetically the Ultimate Experience of a soul is not to climb to increasingly higher levels of paradise but the Ultimate Experience of the soul is embodiment or even more accurately re-embodiment in the resurrection when the physical world will become perfected and holier than heaven in the era of mashiach because ultimately when you go so high you come back low and when you come low you come back High the whole thing is a circle so malchus is the end of the process but it's a circle she's the beginning of the process as well so she's the 10th Sphero but she's also rooted in the top sphere and by top I mean um not number one but above number one off the charts these amps go to 11. we spoke about earlier is the first that's one two three and then Za is acid which is number four and which is number five and feres which is number six seven eight is is eight and you say it is nine so that was six and then you have malchus which is ten but maujos is also means kingship kesser malhos means the crown of kingship so she actually if you go all the way back up to the origins above is a crown kesser and that's what it means ashes Kyle a Terrace Baila a Terrace means the crown it doesn't just mean that she's higher but a Terrace Baila means a crown in the sense of kesser kesser being the proto-sphera so to speak which is so lofty that it cannot be categorized among the 10 sphere ice there are different configurations obviously there's those who are versed in Kabbalah will will mention that there are Max model kesser is one of the spheroes but um which Chabad is based on we we count Das as the third Sphero and number one is off the charts like I said these amps go to 11. so cancer is off the charts hence its name casser the crown the crown is on top of the head it's not part of the body it's on top of the top of the body so what is kesser yeah I know it means crown but remember I said earlier that by examining the various phenomena of the human psyche which are created in God's image we can understand the archetypes on high so we've spoken about the original kernel of thought Bena is the elaboration of that thought we didn't speak about Das but it's the bridge between those two faculties and the emotions which ensue the emotions are different uh motivators it's the same same word emotion motivation uh in other words they push us in a Direction either towards something or away from it that's why the emotions are on two axes right and left which is attraction and repulsion so all emotions are either a desire to go towards something or or get away from it um and then malchus which is expression either through speech or through action or or even internal expression which is called thought thought is a form of expression um so that's what what we've just described in other words we described the model that begins with an initial idea hmm let's make a peanut butter jelly sandwich and then the elaboration on that idea oh okay how are we gonna do it and uh what kind of bread are we going to use what flavor jelly and then it goes into emotions about oh maybe I don't want to do it because uh it's a bunch of sugar I don't need oh but I do want to do it it's nostalgic and then the system you finally you make the peanut butter jelly sandwich and you eat it don't forget to wash make a bracha bench beer because Amazon afterwards uh so that's a whole self-contained process there from the initial Inception all the way down to malchus which is the uh carrying it out but there's something behind that process that sort of lurks behind the curtain that um is the engine of that entire process in other words that initial idea didn't come out of nowhere relatively speaking we call it nowhere we say comes out of nowhere but it's not really nowhere we call it nowhere meaning subjectively we don't relate to it well so it's as if it were from nowhere but really what is the nowhere from whence the initial idea emerges it is called rot sign will and will is Supra rational it doesn't have an intelligent reason it's just a desire it's a drive a proclivity I want it because I want it it gives rise to the idea then through Bina and Das I'll come up with reasons either legitimate or otherwise explanations rationalizations um or you know I don't want to cheapen it and make it sound like uh the idea was was not a legitimate or valid idea let's say in in in a in a context where where the idea I came up with was a positive thing so I may have a sudden idea oh I'd very much like to uh go give charity to the poor okay so that's a great idea um but I don't really know why I can't really articulate it yet so the articulation the giving it a reason of the explanation comes after comes after but what came before is the desire the drive to do it the ratsing so malchus is rooted in cancer caser malchus the crown of kingship in other words the final product that malhas delivers and the initial desire to have that thing are in some ways one in the same you've come full circle the actual performance of the will and the will itself are almost like just two dimensions of one of one entity and there's a very simple way to I know these ideas sound extremely abstruse but there's a very simple way of of wrapping our heads around that concept and that is that if you have a will or a desire the will will not be satisfied by conceptualizing it or having strong emotions about it will only be satisfied by having it done having it completed to the contrary the more you intellectualize and emotionalize about a desire without actually following through practically uh the more unfulfilled you feel not less unfulfilled more unfulfilled so you see there how will and actual uh deed are sort of one and the same and that's why if you don't do someone's desire you haven't done it at all you haven't done anything for them at all think about it in the Divine Covenant if God tells you his will and that's what Torah is God's will which is why by the way there are 613 biblical Commandments and seven rabbinical Commandments which is 620 which is the numerical value of kesser again kesser being the crown the will so when Hashem expresses his will as the 620 Commandments rabbinical and biblical and that's why also there are 620 letters on the tablets that Moses carved Ten Commandments are composed of 620 letters for that same reason so when God expresses his will the only way to really satisfy that will is in actual deed not by meditating on it but only by doing it physically performing the mitzvah so you see here how the end of the process and the not even the beginning of the process but that which begins before the beginning of the process are are really one and the same they're really one in the same and for that reason we say like this shadow who is a proper woman creators from the word kosher fitting proper who is a proper woman the one who does the will of her husband sounds pretty sexist sounds like uh we're saying that a woman only has value what she does what her husband tells her to do okay if that idea strikes you that way I'm going to ask you to automatically assume that you're misunderstanding it if it rubs you the wrong way then you're misunderstanding it okay great how am I misunderstanding it I'm glad you asked okay you gotta look at the whole concept the word in Hebrew in the Holy tongue the verb can mean both to do as well as to make it means to do and to make who is a proper woman who does the will of her husband who makes the will of her husband she is not just malachos she is she's not just the one who gets it done she's the one who triggers the desire to begin with that that should be the idea that's getting implemented and getting done she creates within him a will so we make all types of jokes sometimes misogynistic jokes about husbands asking wives tell me what I think honey but that's a cynical way of representing something that's an unavoidable existential truth because the truth is that a proper woman does implant within her husband the desire which gives rise to the idea which then gives rise to the emotions which then finally give rise to the performance and the follow-through in actual deed femininity has a special power to elicit a will a desire so remember our dilemma that we were discussing the unique dilemma of femininity seemingly she's trapped she can't make the first move and if she does we called it proverbial shabba's desecration if you recall she can't impregnate herself excuse the very Vivid but quite accurate imagery so what is she supposed to do if she can't make the first move foreign she has to realize there's a move before the first move there's a move before number one and that is the power of femininity it is to create a will within the masculine so that he can initiate she can receive cultivate develop perfect and give back and both be fulfilled but in order to do this she needs to understand that she is working with tiny little instruments she's working with a watchmaker's tools not with a lumberjacks whipsaw because sometimes to get to elicit a will a new desire requires working with absolutely microscopic nanoscopic scales of otherwise undetectable emotional energy I hope I don't sound like I'm I'm satirizing this entire idea because I mean this in complete earnestness you have to be ready to work with tiny tiny amounts Trace Amounts of raw materials you can't make something from nothing that's right we said that he's got to provide raw materials you can't make something from nothing but we can have a very liberal definition of something that's why much of the art of femininity is identifying even the most subtle amount of energy labeling it reinforcing it giving attention to it feeding it and causing it to become uh more Amplified um and again I said the femininity masculinity doesn't strictly mean male and female all of us act in a feminine way in this sense whenever we um whenever we choose to be grateful you know you can wait until the situation is exactly as you've envisioned it and reserve the right to be thankful only then you can you can choose to do that um but what we understand about the spiritual mechanics of the universe is that type of deferred uh gratitude actually causes a uh it causes the flow of energy to dry up and in in contrast when we Express gratitude even for the little amount that we're getting it causes the pipeline to open and the blessings to flow so that's why quite often the most powerful prayer isn't please it's thank you I love this it will be sure swell to have more of this more of this even if it's a tiny amount that you have women um are in a in a position [Music] to expand upon energies that their husbands would otherwise allow to lie dormant or or barely expressed and the Art of femininity is to take notice of these microscopic movements and to encourage them and certainly not to reject positive motion even if it's even if it's tiny and and and and that's for the reason I I was mentioning about the lack of gratitude causing the flow to to subside or to even to to cease the worst thing that can happen for a for a masculine um Giver is to have what he's giving refused so a man comes up with a silly idea um let's go to Yellowstone National Park for this coming school vacation okay now you know that it's completely impractical he's not taking into account a lot of different things that if you would think about the situation of this family right now and and your needs and and what the kids need and like it's it's not a it's not a good idea it's not a practical idea okay but remember you know like we're talking about hakuma being masculine it's just brainstorming and if you shut down brainstorming it's very easy to shut down brainstorm it's very easy to make people self-conscious when you're brainstorming and say well that's a dumb idea okay so I won't talk anymore it's very easy to to shut down creativity okay so in a case like this and I'm using this as a metaphor but also as a practical example he comes up with some kooky idea like let's go to Yellowstone on the kids school break now you know practically speaking it doesn't suit you it's not really appropriate for the needs of this family right now but the art of femininity in this case would be to receive that idea and to turn it into something that actually is appropriate for this family see you could stop it and you could shut it down and you know what happens to a mashpia who put himself out there and it's very vulnerable for him I should be able to put him up and put himself out there because that's all he is all he is is what he can produce and you throw back in his face what he produced okay now I feel shame self-consciousness that's it and then you the the wife wonder where has he gone well he checked out because he doesn't want to be vulnerable anymore to have whatever he's offering shut down or rejected so the art is okay we got momentum well he's thinking about taking a trip well it's a totally wrong destination but let's work with this we can work with this okay it's a little we got some momentum going here so we'll turn Yellowstone into uh the Poconos whatever it is we have to do but work with it receive it develop it that's the beauty of it see when the genetic material is deposited within the womb it has the potential to be articulated in in many different ways but depending on how she unpacks it that's how it's gonna actually come come into being and and by the way I'll tell you even more I'll tell you how how an incredibly powerful that feminine capacity is not only could she take the Yellowstone suggestion and turn it into the Poconos if she needs to she could take the Yellowstone suggestion and turn it into staying home we're going to stay home and make a tent in the backyard and she's going to say thank you tati this was all your idea and he's going to beam with pride yes it was and I'm not joking how many breakdowns in in in trust and in Good Will occur when the feminine partner in the marital Union shuts down something that the masculine partner has offered and she doesn't even understand how devastating it is for him so what I'm suggesting is that instead work with what you've got develop it expand upon it really if you're good at being feminine you could turn it into anything you need to turn it into now having said that I want to make a major disclaimer and I've probably lost some people who were Disturbed that I haven't said this clearly yet and if I've lost you already I don't know if you're going to know that I ever said this if I'm about to lose you please don't go away because I am going to address this question of well hold on a second are you suggesting that basically women got to take whatever they can get and they can't really choose what to receive and my answer is no God forbid I am not saying that I would never suggest that anyone a man or a woman should volunteer to be mistreated or disrespected if you feel that you are being treated in a way that compromises your safety certainly or even more so your human dignity then you do not have to and should not be available to receive that because in addition to the very clear moral implications there's uh there's a practical side of this as well and that is in any case femininity a true macabo is not going to be able to do her thing when she's not feeling relaxed and safe you see I spoke about earlier that when a mashpia gives it's a it's it's a supreme Act of vulnerability and it is and that's why if he has his what he's offering he has it shut down he will he'll shut down and you know no one can sulk quite like a man they say Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned said Shakespeare could be but nobody can sulk like a man scorned um and and the the that's there's obvious reasons for that you know when when you're a giver and you're an initiator and you have what to give but nobody wants to take it so where are you supposed to go with that so pity party that's what happens you go sulk so I mentioned that when a man gives and what he's giving is shut down that's a he's being very vulnerable and that it's very painful when he's rejected in that state of vulnerability but at the same time I want to say explicitly that there's such a thing as feminine vulnerability as well and this is not a vulnerability contest we're not seeing whose vulnerability is greater but uh there are certainly different types of vulnerability and in one respect at least the vulnerability of receiving um is riskier than the vulnerability of giving the the risk that a giver stands to uh the the the risk that a giver is running by giving is that he'll end up being embarrassed he'll get shot down but the risk that a recipient has when she opens her herself up to receive if God forbid things turn South she stands to be destroyed the violation and the encroachment of being given to an unwanted unwelcomed unsafe ways is devastating and many times once that line is crossed it becomes almost impossible I don't want to dash anybody's hopes and call it impossible but it becomes incredibly difficult to ever restore the feeling of security that femininity needs to exist within in order to function properly so I said earlier that women should not just accept any old emotional energy that their husbands present or any old idea that their husbands present if it's toxic disrespectful invasive um it should be shut down and and and this is what I'm saying first of all because you have a moral obligation to respect yourself but secondly just from a practical standpoint when too much of this happens eventually the recipient builds up walls and those walls can become almost impossible to to ever enter it's almost impossible to put a door a doorway into those walls once they're put up um that's why very often you see that that women who grew up with some type of traumatic disrespect of their boundaries especially in the form of a betrayal by uh by uh by a by a primary caretaker um they build up walls which become incredibly uh detrimental to marital intimacy and I don't just mean that in the in the physical sense although that too um so it's incredibly important that femininity is safe because it's inherent in her role as a recipient that in order to receive I have to feel that whatever it is I'm taking in is not going to hurt me at the very least it's not it's not going to hurt me and and ideally it's it's going to it's going to help me it's going to nourish me and I I just want to clarify because I don't I don't want to sound Bleak when I say this I don't want anyone here listening to me to say well I've been violated in my past or I've been violated in my present relationship with unwanted uh emotional energy and therefore that's it the wall is up and it will never come down I don't want God forbid anyone to come to that conclusion what I think would be more helpful is to recognize that if you're feeling disconnected um there's a reason for it and it has to do with safety and once you understand the problem you can pursue a solution and that is that when you're able to have the proper boundaries that will make you feel safe then slowly you will be begin to soften those those boundaries which are too rigid you will begin to ease up off of your hyper vigilance and you will be able to receive emotional energy from the masculine figure in your life and uh if you need extra help with that that's an incredibly important thing to do for you for your home for your children for your children's marriages it's very very very important now I want to just talk about one other concept you know we've been going on for a while now um and by the way I do appreciate the comments in the chat which I am glancing at um I do appreciate them um I haven't been reading them out loud but I do see them um I want to just mention one other thing and that is one other aspect of the masculine feminine dynamic um we described it as mashpia and macabul which we first defined as giver and recipient but then later we redefined as first giver and bigger Giver you see they're both givers and they're both exceptional givers they're just exceptional in different ways he's the first giver and she's the biggest Giver how you like that okay so there's another way of describing these categories and the devil speaks about this in chapter five of the my matter um the rabbit is in chapter five describing the superiority of the feminine and her higher source that we mentioned and the way that he brings that idea out is by saying that if you look at Zohan malhas as always delivering the emotional energies which are the building blocks of creation and and malchus is just sort of receiving that and and and they develop within her and then they're born from her so like her role is almost kind of automatic almost almost passive and his role his role is much more active and at first glance that can that can appear to indicate some type of superiority in him he's the doer and she's just sort of along for the ride um but that ever brings out something that it's a very deep concept and that is that masculine and feminine in this case uh to be specific is not um doer and passive participant that's not the right way to categorize it it's doer and beer I don't even think beer I'm not talking about beer like yeah I'm talking about a beater there's a doer and there's a beater there's doing and there's being so we know what a doer is or like we're saying get stuff done yeah but there's also a bee or someone who knows how to be and it is far deeper to be something than to do something Shabbos is about being as opposed to doing the six work days are about doing as opposed to being doing is performative and to a degree inherently superficial but being is something that is of the essence it goes to the Core this is what I am I am being not just doing six days a week we go out and we do on the seventh day of rest we be and if we didn't have a day to just be there would be no purpose to go out for another week and to do we need to reconnect with being in order to have a reason to go back to doing masculinity needs to check back in with femininity to have a reason for everything he does because I can go out and I can make a living and I can bring home a paycheck and if it's just a bachelor pad then what's the purpose of it all to distract myself while I meet my biological needs have enough Recreation to forget about the fact that I work to eat to eat to work latherance repeat without a home without something infinite going on meaning the manifestation of infinite potential through bringing Generations into being then there's no purpose to any of my doing so what the feminine is giving to the masculine again she's a bigger Giver is so essential now this this distinction manifests itself in various ways but I just want to address a mundane example and and it may sound silly but I think it's something that's relatable and perhaps addressing it now in in light of this distinction of being and doing we might understand this better a woman speaks to her husband to connect you know in the Holy tongue there are different words for speech Amira and siha so debor is a command an imperative statement like the aceres The Ten Commandments are called debris so Deborah yadabra is a command Amira is informational it's to convey information is not to convey a command or information but rather for the purpose of bonding it's not practical it is about a relationship it deepens bonds very often a woman will engage in this type of speech known as and this is what our sages tell us women are prolific in they have a lot of sikha uses specifically that term and we make misogynistic jokes about women are always talking that's not what it means it's not talking about how many words they use it's talking about the kinds of words they use and the reason they use words not saying women talk more although there is that old joke about the woman uh sitting in her kitchen getting ready to leave the house and her husband's reading the paper and he says look at this article I just read it says that women say 5 000 words a day and uh man only say 2500 words a day so women say twice as many words a day as men and the wife says to the husband that's because women have to repeat themselves when their husbands don't hear them the first time and the husband looks up from the paper and says what did you just say okay but at any rate it doesn't mean that women say more words it means that in general and of course we're painting with a broad brush obviously when we speak about these categories these are these are generalizations and simplifications we don't mean every woman and every man but we mean that women use words for different reasons than men very often so sometimes a woman will will come home she'll tell her husband about something that happened to her that day and the man's like well what do you want me to do about it well nothing it's not debor or well why are you telling me this what am I supposed to know nothing it's not a mirror I'm sharing my life with you so that we can have a shared experience and be bonded well that's a weird thing to do if you need me to do something tell me if you need me to know something tell me but you don't need me to do anything you don't need to you don't need me to know anything you just want me to be there for you that's weird so you do have to understand that from a masculine perspective men know how to do there for you they don't know how to be there for you and it's frustrating and confusing as a man to be asked to be and depending on the man it's really confusing you know depending on the man the the whole idea of bonding that's not practical that's not like results driven or agenda driven is is confusing you know that's why a lot of times you'll see a group of women sitting around and chatting even if they don't know each other well and a group of men who've known each other all their lives and they have nothing to say to each other because I'm not going to sit here and make small talk what's the purpose of that in fact not only won't make small talk but I'm not even going to talk to you about deep important things that are that are heavy on your heart because that's just we don't do that unless you when hey look I I'm your bro you need me to do something for tell me I'll do it for you I'm there for you give you the shirt off my back but you just want to talk to me what's the point of that so here's what I want women to to understand two things about this one is it's hard for men two is it is so incredibly necessary for men hard for men because we are doers not beers and it's hard for us to relate to just being but it's so incredibly necessary because you can't just keep doing and doing and doing and doing and never check back in with your being you can't be working like the six work days over and over and over and over again without a Shabbos it is absolutely soul-crushing so as much as we resist it as much as we are bad at it and it feels awkward for us to engage in it we need to come back to this state of cessation of doing and revisiting our own femininity in the form of our other half our better half who can allow us to just be through bonding without an agenda not based on any task when we don't have that we go insane so yeah this is this is tough of putting a lot of onus on the women basically telling you that your your husband's uh well-being depends on you coaxing them into an activity well it's not even an activity it's a non-activity it's not a doing it's a being that his well-being depends on you coaxing him into a state that he's reluctant to enter into but that's what it is that's what it is and let me just describe this a little bit more um you know Aaron's two sons who died remember iron a kind moshe's brother he had four Sons two of them died they were very spiritual boys that's why they died they entered the holy of holies and they became subsumed in in their their spiritual Bliss rapture um so the the sages give many different explanations for why that happened and of course the the mystical explanation as I as as I just said that they become attracted to to spirituality and they didn't want to return to their bodies but there are other explanations they're given like they weren't wearing their full Priestly uniform um another explanation is that they were drunk another explanation was that they were unmarried they were bachelors and exidis explains that really these are all saying the same thing all of these explanations are saying the same thing in other words they were spiritually sensitive they weren't wearing the Priestly uniform they were drunk and they were single it's all saying the same thing you know what it all is one common denominator they were ungrounded untethered they lacked an anchor and that's why they left their bodies and didn't come back to them see the fact that they weren't wearing their Priestly garments that's what do I need I gotta wear a uniform I'm spiritual not religious it's okay I don't have to wear the I have to wear the get up also uh metaphorically garments in Tanya in chapter four of Tanya garments are are Mitzvahs when you do a Mitzvah it's called putting on a garment so they were those like these spiritual people no meditate on feeling I don't have to put on film I have to do it I just have to think about it so they weren't into the physical stuff which is why they were drunk they wanted escapism they wanted to numb themselves out from experiencing what their physical senses would otherwise experience and that's why they weren't married that's why they weren't married because what is marriage for a man it's being grounded it's being forced to live in the Here and Now it's being forced to come down to earth the misogynistic way of saying it is the old ball and chain okay is she a ball and chain or is she your anchor does she keep you tethered to the world where your soul has to do its mission because without his feminine component meaning his wife a man will become untethered and he will take flight Peter Pan syndrome Neverland and if he doesn't understand that Hashem only created us for Hashem only created in order to have this physical Earth become holier than heaven so a man could become very resentful of that Force that's pulling him down to the physical world why are you pulling me down either if I'm a real spiritual guy let me go meditate all day or if I'm not so spiritual I have other ways of tuning out self-medicating distracting numbing escaping escaping but the feminine role is to be the reality check and to pull him down from there and to say come home that's why a high priest onyim Kippur on the holiest day of the year when he would enter the holiest place in the world the holy of holies he could not enter unless he was married now there are technical explanations for why or how we know that it's because he says a confessional prayer and he mentions that he's asking for atonement for himself and his home and his home refers to his wife that's the technical explanation but that's not a contradiction it only enhances the deeper explanation his wife is his home literally she is a housing she is a container that pulls him into the world where his soul needs to be to do its mission and if he doesn't have that he can't enter the holy of holies on the holiest day of the year because to do so will just cause him to fly off beam me up Scotty and he ain't coming back so when a woman tells her husband I need you to stay home and play with the kids she's saving his life she's not saying it because she's a wimp and she can't manage and she needs him to come take the pressure off of her I mean maybe that's also true but that's not really the point not that she's a wimp God forbid but maybe practically also she needs some help but it's much deeper than that when she says I need you to come home and and have supper with the kids it's because his tendency is to escape the here and now the mundane The Pedestrian she is the force that brings him back into it foreign she comes from malchus those are the spherotic terms for it there's also Shameless Divine names that correspond to those paradigms kuch the six emotional energies is called it's an Aramaic phrase the Holy One Blessed Be he Kadesh doesn't just mean holy though kadish means separate aloof in fact that is what Holiness means in in Jewish mystical thoughts something's holy because it's designated and separate and set aside that's why by the way marriage is called kidushin because it separates a an exclusive relationship so means the aspect of divinity which is aloof he's up in the heavens he's not really interested in in the physical plane foreign she dwells within the shrina is hashem's femininity which dwells within creation so kuch as hashem's masculinity which is aloof from creation is hashem's femininity which dwells within creation and not only does Shekinah dwell within creation but I feel about some the shrina follows the Jews even when they're in a spiritually impaired State even when they are in when they're defiled and impure because femininity gets down and dirty in the nitty-gritty like a Mommy changing the soil diapers masculinity wants to go up femininity is grounded the two opposite extremes that's why Hassan and Kala in order for them to meet in the middle Hassan groom is dargah let's go down because he has to come down to her kala bride is close enough exploration of the Soul because she goes up she goes up he comes down somehow they managed to meet she is his container and his anchor to keep his soul in a body and in the world where his schlichus were his divinely appointed Mission can only be the only place where he's divinely appointed Mission can be carried out I'll say more about that and that is I suspect that certain patriarchal influences are so ubiquitous that even when I'm describing this right now there's a certain assumption even though I've explicitly said that the feminine role has a unique superiority both are essential masculine and feminine are both essential but even though I've said that the feminine role has a unique dimension and a unique in some respects is superior you may be hearing this and you're still thinking in terms of well at the end of the day you're calling him spiritual you're calling her material come on I mean that's just code words for he's Noble and she's crass he's uh he's a prince and she's a little uh Cinderella and he's coming down he lowers himself to come down you know you're dressing it up you're making it sound nice dressing and euphemism but uh the end of the day what you're basically saying is she's dragging him down and she's uh she's into material things and she just wants his credit card and that's it and he wants to think about philosophy and she wants to spend his money I I know it's the same old misogynistic tropes I know what you're really saying just fancying it up okay so good all right I'm glad you called me out great all right so let me respond to that if you're thinking that or if now that I said it you're you're now thinking it where do you get the assumption that the physical and material plane is somehow any less intrinsically valuable than the spiritual plane where does that come from why do we believe that because it's absolutely not true um God created the physical world because this is where he wants to be at home foreign he doesn't want to reside in the heavens he wants the physical world to become perfected so that it is holier than the heavens and he took our pristine Souls which resided in the heavens and plunged them down into physical bodies so that we could accomplish this this task and that the ultimate Perfection of all which we refer to as the Messianic era will be this state where the physical world is so pristine where the physical world is so refined that even souls in the highest levels of paradise Souls that who passed away 3 300 however many years ago and every single year on his yard site he's going up another level he's up 3 300 some odd levels in Paradise but when this physical world will be refined and perfected the only way for his soul to continue going up will be to take a U-turn and come back into a body in the resurrection because the physical world will be higher than the highest heaven that's the ultimate paradox that the infinite one wants to be expressed within the finite so really the idea of valuing femininity as a as a grounding Force isn't that secondary it's not uh it's not ancillary it's actually the essence of everything or to State it in terms that we've already used recently it is being as opposed to doing as opposed to doing souls in heaven do they they make Alias they they do uh elevations they're moving but a soul in a body is able to be in other words this mammalian their faith The Filling light and the encompassing light so in heaven they experience the filling light they have a pyrotechnic show it's Gilliam Revelations of godliness that's God as a doer but in the physical world where we can actually surrender ourselves to Godliness and become an extension of his will by doing his Mitzvah we are able to be with God not just to be an observer in heaven a soul is a subjective Observer of godliness on Earth the soul in a body ironically enough with the buffer and impediment of the body enables the soul to finally be with God to be an extension of godliness to have an objective experience as opposed to a subjective one merely a subjective one so the role of femininity here is uh not just important to understand the context of marriage it's important to understand the context of the reason for all of existence the point of it all foreign what did we say that ultimately femininity is a recipient who's really a bigger Giver than the initial Giver what happens through the embodiment of the Jewish Souls down here in the physical world the Jewish people are described as hashem's wife that's the entire running metaphor of the song of songs of King Solomon and as his wife we give him a home we draw him down here where he will feel at home and we end up giving to him cover Yahoo something greater than what he gave to us now we're nothing without him he's everything he gave us everything he gave us our existence he gave us the Torah so we could navigate our existence he created the world and he gave us the form with within which to to follow the the the the rules of the Torah he's giving everything and yet we take that back to him as a true wife does with a husband we give it back to him and that's what it means to truly be a a bride the art of receiving and returning what you've received in a in a condition better and more meaningful than how it was given to you at first that's what we do we come down to the physical world and we give it meaning by doing our Mitzvahs Faithfully even with all the difficulties of embodiment as in the microcosm so in the macrocosm and vice versa in order to make this world a home for God and his bride the Jewish people we need each Jewish Home to be a representation of this Unity the unification of the Holy One and his indwelling Force the energy which is loftier than the physical and the energy which reveals how the physical has a greater sanctity even than the spiritual realms we have to unite those two you know where we're coming up to the the weekly readings Torah readings about Joseph and being a slave in Egypt and then eventually he becomes reunited with his family and uh there's a an episode where toward the end of Jacob's life he's on his deathbed and he he asks Joseph who's the Viceroy of Egypt to promise that he will only bury Jacob in the Madison the the cave of machpela in the holy city of of Chevron and there's a whole discussion that they have which is recorded in the oral tradition but the gist of the conversation essentially is that Jacob says to Joseph this is incredibly important that you bear me in this holy sight and although I did not do this for your mother Rachel rather I buried her along the way essentially where she passed away that's basically where I buried her and I did not bring her to the holy site but I'm asking you to do this for me and is this begs the question why didn't Jacob do for his wife his beloved wife we worked seven years for in order to to have her hand in marriage why didn't he bury her there and there's much to be said about this but I just want to share with you one thought this is the difference between doing and being this is the difference between the spirituality and the Holiness of the material Jacob is our patriarch Patriarchs are masculine he needs to be buried in a holy site just like a man needs to go to shul and he needs to Daven and if he doesn't do these things he doesn't feel Jewish because his Judaism is about doing but a woman's Judaism is much more essential it's not about the revelations that come about when you do it's about as opposed to Revelation it's about Essence Revelation is in flux sometimes it's more revealed sometimes it's less Essence by definition is a constant it is what it is what it is so therefore wherever she is buried becomes holy Jacob has to be brought to a place that's holy Rachel is buried and the place is revealed as having been holy a man has to go do things that already have a a value assigned to them as being holy go to go to go to schul and dominant a minion and go to a Torah class and he puts on his his whole his gear his Talus and his filling but a woman's spirituality is more essential she can be doing things that are seemingly mundane and and have nothing to do with spirituality packing lunches and and sorting clothes and lining up backpacks on the pegs by the front closet none of this sounds overtly spiritual or or religious and yet this is the essence of spirituality this is where God wants to be God wants to be in the home in the physical trappings of the home in all of its mundane Glory and this is what femininity provides for masculinity in the same manner as we provide this for God himself wrap your mind around that we sanctify the physical world we reveal the underlying sanctity hidden within the physical world so that God the Holy One can come down here and be at home that is a feminine role and in that sense everything that we do as Jews is homemaking everything we do as Jews whether we're male Jews or female Jews is is is feminine is is is is a wife's Duty to her Divine husband to Hashem and lest you think again that we are relegating us to a we're rather we're relegating femininity to to secondary status because oh the male corresponds to God and the female corresponds to God's people so clearly you're assigning higher value to the the masculine Paradigm than the feminine paradigm stop thinking that way that's not correct God wants to be down here I know it's very hard for us to think that way but the fact that we all that we automatically assign greater value to Creator then create then creation is is is a is a mistake or just for clarification let me ask you a question is God creator or creation neither he can't be defined or locked in either box both Creator and creation are expressions of his infinite essence just like is a person a male or a female neither a person is a male and a female together um on this very auspicious day of the rabbin the rabbits and wedding anniversary may we all receive extra blessings to devote ourselves with sensitivity and care to our marriage with God and our marriage with our spouses where each one informs the other and the other informs the one and may we very speedily see the complete Revelation and culmination of the courtship the the marriage that was begun at Mount Sinai which was the betrothal may we see the the wedding party the great great wedding party that will be with the coming of mashiach