A Generation of Healing: Marriage & Moshiach - Rabbi Shais Taub

I saw recently a letter that the Reb wrote to a and the letter was addressing the shak's personal life as well as his public communal involvement and uh that EBA said schalom bias is exceedingly important in this generation important and difficult wouldn't you know it ironically just the thing that's so important is also going to be the thing that's extra difficult in this generation why why is Shalom Bas more important than ever and more difficult than ever in this generation so so the Deb explained it in a way that's just so if you're an observant Jew and you hear this explanation it's like of course totally clicks makes perfect sense any observant Jew knows what Friday afternoon is like if you've ever brought in chabus in a Jewish Home no matter how late chabus is it could be could be the summertime when we're lighting candles well after 8:00 and it's always hectic in a Jewish home on Friday afternoon and tensions are running high and people are running from here to there and now I got to go out again I got to get this I got to get that and it's a time when a lot of things can uh go wrong people are stressed and they're not as careful as they should be and maybe maybe they end up arguing and of course wouldn't you know it like I said when something is the most important it also tends to be the most challenging when's the most important time of the week for peace in the home is Friday night when chabas comes in first of all when chabas comes in the superal husband and wife are uniting could the masculine energy of Hashem is uniting with the the feminine energy so on high there's a there's a merital union happening and also here every Jewish Home Friday night is the time for family to come together it's a time to be in each other's presence no matter what was happening during the during the week and especially husband and a wife it's a time of reconnecting which reflects the reconnecting of the masculine and feminine and divine on high so Friday night is the most important time for there to be peace in the home and in hashem's infinite wisdom and wonderful sense of humor he puts Friday afternoon the most stressful time in the Jewish Home right before Friday night the most important time for there to be peace I mean come on you're going to have the most stressful time and the most important time for there to be peace at least space them out so you give us a fighting chance and yet we all know that this is the rhythm of of Jewish life this is the way that it is and you have to get through the stress and the intensity of the last minute rush of Friday afternoon precisely in order to be able to enter properly in into the Peace of Friday night okay so that's the same thing in the macrocosm we are living in the Ed of shabis of History it is late Friday afternoon in the timeline of History what is it 5783 so that's Friday afternoon the year 6000 is when chabas enters for the entire world y shabas so we're about to head into Y shabas which is precisely why everything's so crazy right now and specifically why sholom bias is so challenging so we have to try harder we have to focus more we have to prioritize it more we may have to do things that our not only our ancestors didn't have to do but even your parents your grandparents maybe they didn't have to focus this much but we do we do every time is unique every time has its special Mitzvah special emphasis so as we head into a time of world peace in the macrocosm in a time of peaceful homes in the microcosm we need to really focus on peace within ourselves in our family our community and ultimately the world and we have to know it's going to be extra challenging it's always stressful Friday afternoon right before you head into chabas but once chabus comes in you can breathe you give that sigh of relief it's here we made it we're good okay so let's talk a little bit about getting ourselves and our homes ready for peace for the chabas of mssiah the rebis said many times many times that this is the last generation of GIS and the first generation of gula labers back me up is that true that have used that expression many times and it's an interesting expression generation I mean why did the debba speak about it as a generation when when the rabam talks about mssiah he calls it a zai in that time in that era that Epoch why does uh the ever referred to it as a doer as a generation so I'll tell you what I think this is just my humble opinion based on my experience based on what I see it makes a lot of sense to me a generation means literally parents having children and raising them that's what a generation is a generation isn't an amount of time a generation is a relationship it's a situation parents have children and raised them that's a generation so when the debus said this is the last generation of Gus and the first generation of gula here's how I understand that this is the last time that parents will be raising children in a gas Paradigm and the first time that parents will be raising children in a mesiah paradigm now the tricky part is it's the same generation it's Friday afternoon preceding Friday night so we have to uh be versatile we have to be flexible we have to be ready to to bridge this Gap to be the last parents who raise our children with the gullis Paradigm and the first generation of parents who are raising our children in a in a Gula Paradigm okay but th those are lofty words what does that mean what does that mean it means like this a gus Paradigm means well Gus is is insanity it's so crazy that when we're finally out of it we'll look back on it and we'll describe it as dreamlike we will have been as as dreamers it's a crazy time GIS is crazy it doesn't make sense and when you're in an abnormal situation for centuries and Millennia you figure out how to survive you ever heard of a normal reaction to an abnormal situation okay so Gess is the ultimate abnormal situation and we do our best to adapt to it and to survive and so your ancestors did what they thought they had to do to survive the horrors and the brutality and the confusion of Exile a world that looks completely disjointed it where it looks like there's no justice there's no plan there's no there's no order a world that's just crazy A crazy world and so throughout the generations we figured out ways of surviving and we developed these defense mechanisms that made us feel safe that made us feel like we won't be murdered we won't be attacked in our home if I can figure out how to do this then I can survive and various different people develop various different adaptations some of us come to believe that if we're tougher and meaner than anyone then we'll be able to survive then we won't die some of us come to believe that if we're sweet and charming and we get everybody's approval then we won't die some of us come to believe that if we can make ourselves invisible then no one will find us then we'll survive we won't die and you got to think about this we're not just talking about one generation of these adaptations we're talking about the compounding effect of generation after generation after generation because what happens is one generation comes to believe in a certain adaptation or defense mechanism or coping skill and then they internalize it and knowing or unknowingly hand it down to their children through their parenting style and then that adaptation becomes transmitted from parent to child and parent to child and parent to child so we're dealing not only with our own coping mechanisms that we picked up when we were confused little children trying to feel safe in our home but we are the inheritors of Millennia of coping mechanisms so think about how messed up we must be but it makes sense that we're messed up because the situation is messed up and we're just trying to survive in a messed up situation so you get to a point where there's a lot there are a lot of layers of these adaptations and they're not authentic to us it's not our true self it's not my pure n my Nish is not neurotic my Nish is innately healthy but the ego the survival mechanism the god-given survival mechanism learned how to do things that it thought it needed to do in order to survive and I'm carrying that stuff and in previous generations perhaps they did not have the luxury of addressing that garbage because they were in survival mode but in this generation the last generation of Galis the first generation of gula now is the time to address all of the baggage that accumulated over the Millennia and to set it down and to say I don't know when it first appeared in my family but I know when it's being set down I know when it's ending I will be the cycle breaker I will be the last one to carry this false sense of security that this coping mechanism gives me I will be the one to expunge the AA Zora and I call it a for two reasons first of all because any coping mechanism other than Amun and in Reliance on Hashem is a but I also call it a because it is foreign it is Zar to us it's not my authentic self it's not my Nish it's my survival mechanism my god-given survival mechanism known in cidus as the nef shab Bahamas that does what it needs to do or thinks it needs to do in order to not die but that's not my authentic self so it's a z it is Zar it is foreign to me and I have to recognize it as such and let it go and just because it was handed down to me by somebody else to whom it was foreign doesn't mean that I have to make it into a family heirloom if my great great great great grandmother was traumatized I have to realize she didn't want that survival mechanism adaptation it was foreign to her she didn't want that put on her that was the wound of gullis that's not my great great grandmother that's the KAC who violated her and I'm not going to carry on that survival mechanism just because my great great grandmother gave it to my great-grandmother gave it to my grandmother gave it to my mother no she didn't want it in the first place why should I carry it on and give it to my kids we have to recognize it is foreign to us it is not in sync with our Nas and just because your great great grandmother had it doesn't mean you have to nostalg ISE it and turn it into a family heirloom not everything we inherited has sentimental value some of it is garbage they didn't want it so why should you keep it why should you hold on to it and this is the generation when when all of this is happening it's a unique time it never happened before certainly not on a whole on a wholesale level the way I see it happening right now in every community in every home so I have a monthly group of alumni of my parenting course we have a men's group we have a women's group we get together on Zoom once a month these are all people who have taken my six week online parenting course some of them have taken it twice some have even taken it three times it's a very high level group do we have any people here who are in the monthly kit group anybody yeah one person no oh Tanya class you're in my Tanya class weekly Monday oh also yeah Mrs pezner for sure weekly Monday Tanya class and Five Towns 11:00 a.m. at the Le y Library on Central Avenue everyone's invited we just finished chapter 43 of Tanya but anyone here from the monthly uh group the alumni of the parenting course anybody here took the the basic six week parenting course okay about 10 of you okay okay I highly recommend it um so we have this monthly group and the format is basically at the beginning of each monthly meeting I'll talk about a topic that's of interest to me and then I open up the mics and people can comment on what I spoke about or they could bring up their own parenting issues so this month for I wanted to talk about mesiah so I said to them this is last week I said to them this is the last generation of Galas first generation of GAA this is the generation that we're getting rid of all of the foreign stuff that was picked up over the generations and we're we're going to set it down we're not going to carry it forward we're not we don't know who picked it up and brought it into our family line but we know we're the ones who are going to let go of it so it disappears from our family line we're not going to be the ones who hand it on to our children that's what it means the last generation of gas last generation of gas just means the cycle Breakers the people who are not going to hand it on to their children and and I started describing how should you feel when you encounter this this a Zora I said uh there are different reactions sometimes people become very preoccupied with the Schmutz and they start to talk about it a lot and they identify with it and it becomes like a new preoccupation it becomes a new Focus which is an interesting pendulum swing for Generations nobody had personal problems didn't exist everybody's normal and then all of a sudden the floodgates opened and we realized that we do have problems and we do need to heal but then it went to the opposite extreme where people started just getting really really enamored with their problems and it becomes like a focus it becomes a constant thing I'm revisiting rehashing I said when you discover the AA Zora just drop it just let it go in fact I told them you don't even have to fight with it it's foreign to you anyway you just have to purge it and even the purging can be gentle you know we get rid of toxins in a lot of ways but it doesn't have to be violent it doesn't have to be vomiting I said you know how the the main way you get rid of toxins is through breath when you lose weight the main way that the weight leaves your body it's wild is through is through breath so our ancestors were up against a massive Juggernaut the clippa they were fighting was this dark looming Tower this this wall so wide you can't see one end or the other and they couldn't even crack it with a massive sledgehammer and they were strong Mighty great people they were spiritual Giants our ancestors but the clippa was formidable and they couldn't put a dent in it and today we're weak puny Little People we're fragile people but you know what the clip of today is like so much dust it's brittle and all you have to do to expel it you just blow on it and it it flies away there's nothing left to it you just have to recognize that what it is it's clip it it's not me it's not authentic it's not my true self I don't want this and then you just blow on it and it flies away no I'm not fearful I'm not manipulative I'm not a people pleaser I'm I'm I'm not angry I'm not full of Rage these are the overlays these are the adaptations to the wounds of Gus that that accumulated in my life and in my ancestors lives but it's not me and I don't want it and I'm sending it away so I said to them this is what I'm saying to the monthly uh we call it thek group to the mon monthly mothers so I said to them I don't know why I made up this silly mush I said imagine a family is cleaning for pesak the night before pesak the night of baset and they look under the couch and they find a Salem I just sat at as a silly msh I said what do you want them to do now and they're freaked out what's going on on here and it's not like they bought the house from non-jews they built the house so they can't figure out how did this Salem get here who's is this right so he said one reaction is they could take the Salem they could put it under glass on the mantle they could shine lights on it and we could all stand around and stare at it and be revolted oh look at this terrible thing that we found and we could revisit every day and just be disgusted and shocked over again look at this salum that we found in our home right I said that's one reaction or you could put it with theet and burn it in the morning fight the gangan oh I found this thing it's obviously not mine I don't know who picked it up I don't know who in this family brought it in here but it's not us and now that I see it we're getting rid of it boom simple as that so I said it's a silly mush huh it's a weird musall well no I just made it up no I made it up on the spot but I liked it so I said it again maybe a few minutes later and I was like from family is cleaning for PES and they find a salum under the couch what do you want them to do put it on the mantle shine lights on it put it under glass and everyone stands around and is revolted by it and shocked by it every day after day after day or should they just put it with the humet and burn it in the morning and move on with life and then I said it a third time a from family's cleaning for PESA I didn't say it like back to back to back to back it's a 90-minute format so I waited a few minutes and I just kept looping back to this Marshall I don't know why I just felt it really conveys the attitude of the cleansing that has to happen in this generation so I said a from family is cleaning for PES the night before pesak they find at Salem under the couch oh no everyone's horrified what do you want them do they should all stand around and look at it day after day after day or they should put it with the and burn it in the morning and finally this woman on the group it's a zoom meeting she says Rabbi hold on a second you keep saying this you keep saying this I don't know why you keep saying this but I have to say something I said go ahead she said I have a Salem I know this woman she's a very very FR woman so I I thought she's speaking metaphorically she says in my car right now for the past three years doesn't sound metaphorical anymore so I'm like what's going on this is a very FR lady so she tells the story her great-grandfather was a Moroccan Jew in gibralta that's an island in the Mediterranean south of Spain north of Morocco and in fact they are descended from thees prominent Jewish Family and uh so her great-grandfather moved to Brazil not even to the big cities where there were more Jews but to the Amazon there was some type of commercial opportunity there shortly after he moved to Brazil so this Moroccan Jew This Woman's great-grandfather his wife passes away his young wife they have a little daughter and her mother passes away I'm talking about the great grandmother of the woman speaking so she says my great-grandfather didn't know what to do how's he going to raise this girl so you know the Catholic church is very very strong in well all of Latin America but certainly in Brazil so the Catholic Church came and they said we'll take your daughter send her send her to us and he didn't know what to do he sent her and she went to a Catholic school this little Moroccan Jewish girl orphaned lost her mother and the nuns used to scream at her they would even beat her when they would prepare food they would tell her you stay away keep your filthy Jewish hands away from the food and this is what she was subjected to day after day and one day she was home she was at the dinner table and uh she picked up a fork and a knife and she made an image an image that she saw every day hundreds of times a day at the Catholic school where her father sent her she made the she took the fork and the knife and she put them together and she made the the image and her father was horrified and I'm sure full of self-hatred because he was after all the one who sent her to the Catholic school and he beat her so she was sent to the Catholic school with the nuns beat her for being a Jew and then when she came home and she imitated what she saw in that Catholic School her father beat her for not being for not having the strength for not having the ability to find Clarity and to make sense out of an insane situation that even an adult would find deeply confusing how's a child supposed to make sense of it I mean this is the gas this is how profoundly maddening the Gus is you have this sweet girl a descendant of thees and she's confused and she's she just doesn't want to be screamed at she doesn't want to be beaten and berated well what do you what do you expect what do you think happened you want a miracle story you're not going to get one at least not in her lifetime because she became a Catholic she was baptized and she married a Catholic this little girl and she had a daughter you want a miracle story you're not going to get one in that generation either because that daughter also was baptized and married a Catholic and that daughter's daughter had a daughter and the daughter's daughter's daughter was discovered by a of the and told that she was Jewish and went to Seminary and got married and lives today in Brooklyn and raises a an incredibly a from beautiful wonderful sidisha family but you see if you would look from the outside you'd say what a wonderful nice family but what you don't realize is this woman is carrying wounds you wouldn't know that of course you wouldn't know it but she's carrying wounds because her mother's mother the one who was orphaned and sent to Catholic school was wounded and her gulus adaptations her defense mechanisms were that she went so far as her a was literal a she embraced the religion of her oppressors in order to feel safe in this Insanity called Gus now she passed away the grandmother passed away and when she did pass away this woman her granddaughter confiscated her literal Idols she had literal Idol statues she told me she described she said her grandmother had literal Idols little statues fig figures and she said she used to make clothing for them and dress them and when she passed away I want to tell you how confusing this Gus is when the schak wanted to make sure that this woman is Jewish he said take me to your grandmother and he met the grandmother the the practicing Catholic Grand grandm mother the baptized grandmother who has statues and makes clothing for them and the meets the grandmother and says tell me what you remember from your childhood and she makes aam for him and he laughs and he says I've I haven't heard such authentic Moroccan pronunciation of a ham I haven't heard in Generations I mean this is the authentic old school in the middle of the Amazon right that's how confusing this Gus is thees has an anle who's this deeply confused so the granddaughter confiscated the idols she got rid of them but the grandmother was also uh she sold jewelry so the granddaughter inherited a bunch of the jewelry a bunch of different pieces and one day the granddaughter is going through the jewelry and she discovers a piece that is at Salem and obviously she's not shocked she knows what her grandmother did she knows what things she was into it wasn't shocking but it was upsetting it was upsetting and she said I don't want this I don't want this in my house so she called her love and she said I have this piece of jewelry and it's at Salem and I'm just it's my grandmother's and I I I don't want it I want what am I supposed to do with this so the dove spoke to her and it wasn't one of the pieces that she actually worshiped that's a different din that's dealt with Hally differently it was ornamental there's a difference if it was actually an object of worship or if it was just a decoration so this was just a decoration so the RV told her you don't have to destroy it but you can't hold on to it so sell it and you could even keep the money so she said R told her to do this so she's got the Salem in her house and she's like well I don't want it in my house so she said I put it in the car and I figured next time I'm out driving I'll go to a jeweler and I'll sell it she said well every time I was in the car and I thought about selling the Salem I got I froze because I thought to myself how I'm going to walk into the Jeweler and I'm a recognizably Orthodox woman and I have this crazy thing I can't do this she couldn't do it she froze she couldn't bring herself to walk into the Jeweler and sell the tum so instead what happened it sat in the glove box for a day and a week and a month and a year and finally three years for three years it's sitting in the glove box and she says to me intermittently yeah I remember that it's there and I say I got to get rid of this thing what if my children my sweet sweet little children can you imagine the trauma these sweet little children if they would accidentally open the glove box and and happen upon this salum and they would be horrified and confused and shocked what's going does mommy secretly worship I mean you understand the the game she's playing the risk she's running but she couldn't bring herself she couldn't physically bring herself to bring this piece of jewelry into the shop and to sell it and get rid of it she couldn't do it she couldn't do it she couldn't look at it she couldn't touch it she couldn't she couldn't do it so instead of purging it she's carrying it and she's carrying it and carrying it and running the risk that her children are going to discover it I told her I said that's what happens then when we're afraid to purge the aaor that was picked up in our family so instead we hold on to it we run the risk our children will Discover it and think we worship it think about that for a second the a Zora the sickness the adaptation that you're carrying whether it's Rage or fear or lust whatever it is whatever your distraction is your coping mechanism is you know it's not you you know it's not clean you don't want it but your child doesn't know that and they'll think you're holding on to it because it has value to you they'll think you're holding on to it because you worship it so if we don't cleanse these Idols our children may actually learn a false religion from us God forbid how am I doing my two of my daughters are sitting in the front row raal and Esther are you guys following are you into this okay I'm checking in with them you you already heard the story as it was happening right they were there while it was unfolding so uh told this lady we got to get rid of this thing it's time to purge this it's time to cleanse it from your family line your grandmother didn't want it she picked it up as a defense mechanism to the nuns who were beating her it's not her and now it's made it to you she couldn't Purge it she couldn't get rid of it but this is the last generation of gullis you will Purge it you will get rid of it you'll be the one to get rid of it and you'll set your grandmother free so she's the next well actually we called the r again because it had been three years since she got the pach what to do so I actually called the r and I said I know this sounds like a very impractical question you're probably not rushing to answer this and it was the beginning of the nine days and he said I'm dealing with all these questions of Mikvah andif and like nine days questions I can't be dealing with you know weird questions about uh a I said it's extremely practical and the healing of an entire family and family line depends on the Swift answer of this question so to his credit he uh fast-tracked the Shila and he got back to her told her he told her the same thing he told her 3 years ago which is she didn't worship it it's just ornamental so sell it okay so he told her the same thing he told her three years ago anyways I get a a WhatsApp she's saying I'm in front of the pawn broker and I can't go in she's freezing again same thing same story from the past three years I can't go in they're going to look at me what am I what am I going to say what are they going to think do you understand the how brilliant the yahar is and I want to stop everyone right now and I just want to check in with you this is not a story about this woman this is a story about everyone here and if you don't know it's about you think harder we all discover something horrifying that we don't want and we innately know is foreign to us and doesn't belong in our lives and doesn't belong in our family but precisely because it's so horrifying we can't even go through with taking out the garbage because we don't want even to look at it long enough to spell it and so what do we do instead we hold on to it I told her you're going to go in there right now and you're going to set your grandmother's Soul free she's waiting for this you're the one who's going to end this you great grandfather did what he thought he needed to do and we can't judge him he was in a foreign land a completely he wasn't prepared he wasn't her great-grandfather was not prepared he was going to go halfway across the world move to the Jungle in South America and his young wife was going to die and leave him to raise a precious daughter he wasn't prepared for that we can't judge him and we certainly can't judge the grandmother who was beaten and bered by these nuns but you know we're we're we're in an unusual situation thank God we're in a situation where we're not dealing with the real life or death issues that our ancestors dealt with instead it's quiet enough that we can start to do the spot cleaning that they didn't have the luxury to do people always ask why do these issues all of a sudden come up now maybe if you had a more traumatizing life you wouldn't be able to think so much about your problems which is really a cruel and absurd way of responding to the uniqueness of this generation the reason that our ancestors didn't have time to deal with these issues like emotional healing is because they were dealing with life and death is because for many of them it was a reality that they may put their children to bed tonight without any food and they didn't know where they were getting food from the next day so no they didn't have time for emotional healing but we who can go shopping with a credit card you're going to tell me that's stressful yeah it's stressful APR is stressful but it's not as stressful as putting your children to bed night after night without food so now where the coast is relatively clear and we're not in life and death mode we're not in survival mode yeah of course we are doing the cleansing the previous generations didn't have the luxury to focus on so I told her you go in there right now and you get rid of this and you be the one to cleanse it and end it in your family line This is a cleansing I told her it's a purification so she comes back out a minute later she says the Jeweler gave me 40 bucks she tells me Memaw 40 is the measure of units of a kosher Mikvah she says this is a Mikvah this is my grandmother's purification I told her you're 100% correct and I also advised her that you should take them the money now and take it to the Mikvah and donate it to the Mikvah which she did she sponsored ATA for whoever the next person who can't pay for it so it's covered now so that's a story that happened last week and it's an interesting story it's I mean there's a reason why I told it obviously it's story worthy but don't be mistaken to think that that story is unique it is not unique at all every single family in this generation has the same story it may not be a literal tum but it is some form of a Z meaning some adaptation that is foreign to your Nish some coping mechanism that you or an ancestor picked up to give you a false sense of Safety and Security in a crazy world and you are the one not your mother not your grandmother not your great-grandmother you are the one with the opportunity to address it and to do the emotional healing and to say it end with me I don't pass this on to my children I don't even keep it hidden in a glove box in the car where my children may find it I release it I get rid of it it's not mine it's not my grandmother's it's none of ours it doesn't belong to us get rid of it and I when I'm doing the breath I'm literally talking about breathing we're holding this stuff in our bodies okay so expunge it expel it that's how you get rid of toxins breathe it out it's not a wrestling match we don't have to Grapple with it and allow it to make us dirty we don't have to identify with it we don't have to turn it into a constant topic of conversation we just have to spot it to identify that this is not authentic to us this is not our n and to say I don't know who pick it picked it up I'm not judging whoever picked it up but I'm the one who's going to release it so my children will be the first generation in my family who are free from it first generation of gula so let's talk a little bit about marriage how does Hashem so perfectly orchestrate that the two people who have exactly the wounds that will trigger each other's wounds end up living together and trying to raise a family it's uncanny you'd have to be Hashem to orchestrate it that perfectly in other words we all have wounds but we can figure out how to put ourselves into situations that will be less likely to trigger our wounds Hashem somehow figures out how to put you with the person that you really can't get away from without completely upending your whole life and that's the person who has the wounds that trigger your wounds and you have the wounds that trigger theirs uncanny every time so the lady let's say who's obsessed with planning Hora is planning I have to have a schedule in writing or I feel terrified I feel life is chaotic and when I have a schedule in writing that's my getcha it makes me feel calm it makes me feel at peace then I feel like I'm okay right that's her Gess adaptation so she'll marry the guy who has the exact opposite adaptation for him if I have to commit to any plan any time I feel boxed in I feel suffocated the only way I can feel alive the only way I can feel safe and free is if there's no plan right so then Hashem will take that lady and that man and mil now go try to run a home go for it go for it try to run a home and try not to trigger each other so you gotta think that maybe marriage is not exactly what we thought it was we thought that marriage was a relationship and that a good marriage is a good relationship a successful marriage is where the relationship works well we thought and I'm not negating that having a deep connection with your spouse has value but I don't think it's the essence of marriage I think the essence of marriage is what our sages tell us that when you have ish and Isha so then you have the you have the H and that every marriage is about making the world a little bit more Godly every marriage is about making the world a little bit more Godly some marriages are that one of the ways they make the world more Godly is that they have a wonderful loving trusting intimate Bond with each other and that certainly brings the into the world but that's not the only way that marriage brings godliness into the world a much more basic way that marriage brings the into the world is by forcing each and every one of us to get rid of our Character defects AR and to allow Hashem into that place and other words forget about the relationship for a second this is not about anyone else this is about you this is a solo project this is not about communication this is not about expressing your needs this is not about sitting at the negotiation table with the marriage counselor this is a solo project this is totally internal I have have my own work to do work that I would never be forced to do if I could have stayed single my whole life think about it if you could just avoid marriage then you would never have to really deal with some of the deep dark stuff because you would just avoid situations which trigger that stuff but then Hashem puts you in a situation where there's another person who just like you can't help but to be triggered they can't help but to trigger you because their wounds are exactly the corresponding or opposite wounds to yours and whatever it is that you think you'll die without is the opposite of what they think they'll die without and now you have two people sitting there and thinking I have to be this I have to have this if if I don't then I'll explode and you could you could say well you know what we got to do we got to sit them both down and we have to we have to talk them down we have to negotiate a piece okay you could do that but that would be such a shame because then you'd be for fitting an opportunity a unique opportunity for growth instead of figuring out how to get your spouse to accommodate your triggers how about you address those triggers yourself and maybe when you purge the Clipper theora and you get healthier and you get cleaner and lighter maybe then afterwards you could reengage you could go back to the negotiation table and you could try communication when you're in a less DES in a less desperate mode when you don't feel like you'll die let me let me explain what I mean so each of us was raised in a family and that family was imperfect because as good and great as your parents may have been they raised you in GIS and the Gus is a crazy place so each one of us picked up certain defense mechanisms that make made us feel safe some of us learned how to be mean and nasty and to scare away the threat some of us learned how to be invisible how to hide some of us learned how to be eloquent to Dazzle people with our words and that made us feel safe some of us learned to be pretty and charming and that made us feel safe and of course it's a an illusion it's a false sense of security because really our safety only comes from Hashem but in Gus we think these things can give us safety some of us began to believe that if we'll be financially successful if we'll have money then we're safe or if people like us then we'll be safe and again these things are AA Z because I for two reasons like I said before they're not God so why do we rely on them so that's why they're a z but also aod literally means it's foreign it's Zar it's foreign to me it's not the real me it's an it's an overlay it's an adaptation it's something I picked up and what's more maybe even it's not my adaptation maybe it's my mothers or my fathers or my grandfathers or my grandmothers or maybe it goes back a hundred Generations I don't know how far back it goes but it's just a line of people good people trying to feel safe in a crazy world and coming to believe that various different things are the answer we could have carried that stuff Forward Forever if we had the luxury to avoid triggering situations but in His Infinite Wisdom what does Hashem do he pairs us with somebody who's going to push our buttons not because they're malicious and they want to push our buttons but because just like we can't help but to be triggered they can't help but to trigger us because and and again think about the self-justification that we have no I'm not trying to be mean but we have to whatever it is whatever your addiction is we have to plan we have to talk we have to not plan we have to not talk we have to have money in the bank no we have to spend our money whatever it is these are compulsions these are beliefs deep deep beliefs and they feel like you're going to die if you don't give into these beliefs because they come from the survival mechanism the god-given survival mechanism called the ne Bahamas that's how Tanya calls it the animal soul and just like an animal it is chiefly involved in self-preservation and it only knows one mode life and death so when it starts to believe that I need money to survive or approval to survive or I need to be pretty to survive whatever these things are that it comes to believe in it's always life and death it only know there's no Nuance in the in the animal Soul Everything feels like life and death that's what it's programmed for so then you think or you're not you your false self your ego your animal Soul thinks I'll die if I don't have money in the bank I get married to a person feels I'll die if I do have money in the bank we have to spend it and now go try to have a peaceful home together don't you understand the opportunity Hashem has given you if this is the generation of cleansing if this is the generation where we finally get rid of the gullis adaptations and we only rely on Hashem and we finally get in touch with our true authentic selves our nishas then marriage is the most valuable laboratory in which to do that work because nothing is going to force you to do the work like marriage so if there's a source spot if there's a stress point if there's a place that keeps getting hurt let's set aside for a moment the other person set aside for a moment well what they did was wrong it doesn't matter that's not going to help you to figure out whether they were wrong I don't care if they had to break through a hundred Commandments in order to get to a point where they hurt you and touched your Source spot that's not relevant for your work what's relevant for your work is where does this sour spot come from why am I sensitive in this place why have I come to believe that this is what keeps me safe and that if I don't have this I'll die and I'm not saying that whatever your complaint is isn't a valid complaint maybe it is valid but let's lose the intensity Let's Lose the life or death intensity of the of the animal soul and then come back and revisit from a rational place where you can actually make a choice whether whether it's something you can live with or not and maybe you'll choose that no I can't live with it okay but then it'll actually be a rational choice not a compulsion not a defense mechanism not a reflex or an instinct of an animal and then another thing happens a wonderful thing happens when you can lose the intensity of turning these defense mechanisms into to idols and thinking that they are your salvation and your safety a wonderful thing happens you get to revisit these character traits in a sober way see I remember during the OJ case and they asked the toxicologist if something is a toxin he said toxicologists don't talk about toxins they talk about about toxicity he said a toxin is a thing it's a noun it's a name of something he said anything can be toxic water could be toxic there's something called water poisoning I mean you'd have to drink so many gallons of it that probably physically you wouldn't be able to do it but there is an amount of water you know water poisoning is when you dilute the bloodstream so much the there's no more electrolytes and the synapsis can't carry an electric current and a person has seizures just from water too much water so he says anything can become toxic if you have too much of it so don't ask me is this a toxin anything can become toxic it's a matter of degree so when we talk about Character defects Character defects are not a what they're a how the the what is just a way of being it's just a certain quality the defective part of it is when it exceeds its functionality and then it becomes toxic in other words let's say that when you were little in order to feel safe you developed a certain skill you figured out that being smart would make people like you and make you safe make you feel safe so you became a precocious little know-it-all Little Professor they call it always showing how smart you are and when that becomes your survival mechanism you can't stop doing it because you'll feel like you'll die if you stop and then it becomes a character defect because you can't stop and then you start doing it when it's inappropriate you start doing it even when it's bothering people you start doing it even when it interrupts intimate relationships and people you care about say will you stop already stopping I know it all and you hate it and I want to stop but I can't stop because this is what I came to believe keeps me safe so I can't expunge it and that becomes a character defect but the wonderful thing happens is when you start to rely on Hashem for your Safety and Security this ego which had over extended itself as a grab for Safety and Security this ego which had spread itself out which is why by the way we compare the dysfunctional ego to ketz as opposed to matah matah is flat and manageable it's a healthy self kit is puffed up sticking out it's too big so this quality became too big in an attempt to grab Safety and Security and now what's it doing it's bumping into people and it's getting bumped into the part of you that's sticking out too far is the part that keeps getting jostled and broken and scraped a guy once went to the third and he complained he said everyone in sh steps all over me and theed said what should they do when you spread yourself out over the whole sh everywhere they step is on you he wasn't saying it to CH him he was giving him loving counsel when you're coming into Sho and you're spreading out your ego to get your emotional needs met you will always leave hurt you walk into any room with the anticipation of meeting your emotional needs you will leave that room hurt because people are not going to have your rules to your game they're not going to know how to walk and tiptoe around your idol and they're going to mistakenly bump into it many times with their Character defects which they think our live or die so what happens is when we stop overextending ourselves in an attempt to grab Safety and Security from places that can't offer it to us because only Hashem can offer US Safety and Security when we stop doing that the ego shrinks back to a manageable size and then wouldn't you know it that character defect it's still there but it's there in a healthy side so if I learned how to be smart as a defense mechanism when I stop relying and relying on it as a defense mechanism and I Rely only on Hashem I'm still smart I still have that quality it's just now I get to use it by free choice I don't have to use it it's not a compulsion it's not I feel I'll die if I don't use it I won't won't die Hashem has me but I have this ability now I get to choose whether or not it's appropriate to use it and when I'm in my healthy mode where I'm relying fully on Hashem you know what is the sole Criterion that I use to determine whether or not to use a character trait or not if my defense mechanism is I learned how to be perseverant and then it exceeded its functionality and I became domineering and I just steamroll everybody okay when I stop worshiping that character defect as a as a gka as a AAR and I start believing in Hashem Hashem has me and I don't have to steamroll people in order to feel safe you what happens is I'm safe I'm calm I'm sober but I still have that character trait but now it's now it's a useful character trait now I have what you call um stick tutiven determination the the trait's still there it's just not dysfunctional anymore and now I get to go back to it and use it in a healthy way which means I told you there's one Criterion when I finally become healthy again there's one Criterion one question I ask myself before I make use of any particular skill or gift or resource or trait you know the one question I ask myself before I use a trait is will it benefit my maker or his children and if it does then I use it and if this and if this situation is one where it wouldn't benefit my maker or his children then I don't use it and I'm perfectly comfortable with that I don't have to use it I can sit here and be calm I'm I'm okay I'm safe so this is it this is the generation the healing happens now the cleansing happens now you want to know what to cleanse you want to find your Salem whatever is the recurring issue in your marriage that's the first one and I'm not saying that everyone is uh is is innocent in other words maybe your spouse is doing something wrong maybe they are that's not relevant right now what's relevant is why is it affecting me the way it's affecting me let me become emotionally sober and then I can revisit the issue why is this a weak point why is this a sore spot maybe it's something I picked up in my childhood maybe it's something that the people who parented me picked up in their childhood maybe it's something the people who parented the people who parented me picked up in their childhood and on and on and on and on it doesn't matter when it started this is the generation that we release it the anger and the fear the people pleasing the lust for money for the false lure of Financial Security for physical Pleasures the distractions all that stuff which is not authentic to us we just leave it we leave it and when it crops up it rears its head you identify it for what it is and you expel it again this is the time this is the generation and don't say to me why was it never done before that's like saying why didn't mesiah come earlier this is the time when it happens it's a unique time a fascinating time to be alive and an even more fascinating time to be married and to raise children this this is the call of the hour it's Friday afternoon it feels intense but really we're about to go into some incredible peace and well-being we're about to go into a state where we can just let go and feel hashem's abundant love and security ready is lunch ready Lunch is ready okay so we'll eat is there let the people eat and then we'll okay okay