Body and Soul 2023 Not all Heroes Wear a Uniform- Josh Body

um okay so I I often find that I usually end up speaking it towards the end of of these you know convention shabbaton whatever it is and in some respects it's often very easy in a certain way because we've all had an incredible uplifting shabas and you know like I'm not the the rabbi right I don't need to be necessarily the inspirational guy it's much easier for me to just do my thing as the lawyer and try to be very practical right and that means that I don't need to speak in a different accent and try to tell everyone you know and ask you for like ask for the words I don't need to do that I don't need to I don't need to say things twice twice I can I I can just say it once and you know it's pretty and my clients understand this right because you know as a lawyer right I get paid hourly they don't want me repeating myself you know which is which is a hard time which which is actually hard when you want them to actually listen to you sometimes you need to tell them something twice and okay so whatever you know you deal with it but so for for for for a shabbaton a weekend like this normally again it's it's a little bit easy it's like I kind of see my role as trying to package everything that we've experienced over the weekend and figure out what we're going to do with it come you know this afternoon tomorrow and and onward we it's a little bit more challenging right now is there is a certain I think duality of emotion that we're all feeling which is it was really amazing and was uplifting but people are suffering right now our people are under attack we're at War it is hard and I don't know about you sometimes I even feel a little bit guilty if I'm in a good mood or happy because everyone's nodding right I mean it's not just me thank God right it it's it's hard like people are suffering and it's difficult and we we are doing everything that we can to try and identify with what our brothers and sisters in Israel are going through and then on top of it we want to feel like we're doing something right it is one of the most core elements of what it means to be a human being made in God's image is that you feel a very very strong innate need to help to be necessary right you know you have to have a job that pays you really really well but it's like nobody cares what you're doing it's just totally meaningless but you're making a great living but you won't last at it because ultimately you're going to feel like I'm not nobody cares and that need to feel needed is a core part of who we are and you can't just sort it doesn't matter and so you kind of have all this going on where you're coming to a shabbaton and you're feeling inspired and you're feeling amazing and then you're feeling but I shouldn't feel so amazing I should be working harder to help other people and I should feel sad but I don't want to feel sad because I need to you know work on connecting to Hashem and be T inherently some respect means being happy it's just unbelievably challenging and then to make matters worse I want make matters worse but you know like you're listening to for example you know by fanger yesterday right he was blew everyone away right but there's a certain aspect of the things that he was talking about that I'm a little bit removed from I don't know about any of you I'm pretty sure I will never end up in some ashram in India Never Say Never right but probably not well okay that's great so what I mean know you know he was fantastic and said lots of wonderful things but you kind of walk out and feel like okay that's great but I'm going to go back to you know living in you know Long Island New Jersey wherever it is and go back to my regular life and it's not necessarily something that's easy to to connect to and feel like it's doing doing something for you to make matters even again sort of take it a step further you know we hear and see some unbelievable stories of people doing unbelievable things for the Jewish people right now right the stories are just non-stop you know whether it's the the guy standing at the L counter in JFK just you know swiping his credit card for every soldier that that showed up right I'm curious how often it took MX to call and say are you sure another T okay are people who are you know even just the sending of the duffel bags or people who are traveling there to to help and and for a lot of us we feel like again I want to do something but that's not really me and it sometimes can make us feel a little bit hard on ourselves feel a little bit almost almost inadequate and for whatever reason just that's just not me I'm not doing that and I but I want but I want to but and so we disconnect from it and it kind of ends up pushing us further back it doesn't really do anything guilt that doesn't drive you to do something is just guilt now the reality is this is not something that I you know just encountering now for the first time personally I we've all seen this but I've been in a couple situations where you meet somebody who's so unbelievable but it's a little bit hard to really connect to them so one of the trips to Israel was on SE it was 2021 and they they had brought a few um Israeli dads on the on this trip and so I'm sitting on the bus next to a guy named yon some of you guys know met him guy yon and we about the same age and you know what you sit in you're you know we're sitting on a long bus ride we're sitting and talking about just the stuff that guys who just met who were the same age talk about right you know career and kids and life and you know Israel versus America and that kind of stuff and we just you know good guy you know we just connected whatever like seemed totally you know normal for an Israeli and should not have said that okay anyways so so then one night we did a camp out at the base of Mada and it was which by the way when Israelis tell you they're going glamping they don't mean what you think they mean okay so we're out there camping and we're doing this this this uh well you know it's like a bound fire whatever and yon gets up to speak and we're just you know all sitting there sort of like you know having a you know relaxing time and just connecting and yon starts speaking and he starts telling us about the time when he was in Gaza in I think it was 2006 and he had a period of time where for 45 straight days he had a direct encounter with a terrorist somebody died every single time of those 45 days now he of course was still telling the story so you know he made it through he twice had to run back to base because he had been shot bullet removed back to the front line and this was his experience and I'm sitting here listening to this like I just sat in the bus with this guy two days ago you know talking about like you know challenges with raising kids I'm just it absolutely blew my I mean like are you kidding me then then of course he tells over this story May many of you may have heard of a guy named roey kleene so Ro kleene who was yon's I know best friend very very close friend who died in Lebanon in 2006 how did he die he had a he was he was a commander of a unit and at one point they were encountered some some some terrorists they were under attack from a grenade attack grenade rolls into where yon and and where Roy and his unit are standing Roy jumps on the grenade clears everyone out says sha and it absorbs the explosion I mean can you imagine I mean I can't even I I can't even and like Roi became the most popular name in Israel for a little while there are schools hospitals named after him I mean just an incredible incredible sacrifice and we're listening to this story and again you're talking about you guys who been in the room who've been on these trips no we're we're sitting around this there's like I don't know 35 40 guys in this group listening to this story all kind of just I me Blown Away the next morning we were hiking up Mada and I was hiking up with another guy and I was we're kind of recounting like oh my God that story that we heard was incredible and the guy says since joshu I it really was totally was amazing I mean really so inspirational but I'll be honest with you the guy said the story was unbelievably inspirational but I'll be honest with you Josh like what am I going to do about it what what what in the world does it have to do with me I'm never going to find myself in you know some war zone countering terrorists I'm never going to find myself in a scenario where I need to act in that sort of heroic way it just doesn't really do anything for me moving yes practical impact on my life not so much and it's made a really really strong impression on me because I kind of was struggling with it a little bit too because I mean again I'm not going to find myself in that kind of scenario and that's like you know next level you know Judah mentioned last night you Superhero level that's Superhero level plus to sacrifice yourself like that and one of the things that you know if you're paying attention to to to some of the stories that are coming around not in the news so much right they they don't report this stuff of course but if you're paying attention WhatsApp feed or whatever it is you're seeing stories of people who did things like this and what's been going on in Israel in the past few weeks one of the things stories I just again I just saw this recently was story of a guy named anir Shapiro maybe you've heard of him maybe not he was at the music festival they were they found their way into one of the shelters that was there and he was there with a bunch of friends and other people and Hamas knew that there were people in this shelter and they tried attacking and they started throwing in grenades and anir tells his friends I'm going to stand at the front every grenade that comes in I'm just going to throw it back you guys stay here right he made it through the first seven the the eth one God you hear stories of unbelievable heroism and it moves you how can it not but then what do you do with it like how do you how do you inculcate that make it part of your life to make sure that you're actually changing and growing and and living a life like that because when when all you do is hear about it you know what ends up happening it starts to fade right and part of the challenge we have is we're all trying to do stuff and we're we're saying to Hill him every day and we're and it's unbelievable and it's fantastic but it doesn't feel the same today like it did on October 8th it just doesn't and there's that disconnect and it's like and then you start to feel guilty about it again right that's where the guilt comes back in and you want so much to grow from it make sure you're doing something but it just it's hard it's very hard to do because you it's hard to keep it with you and you just feel like it's just you kind of going going through this you know almost emotional roller coaster and then you part of you know again you at one point you start to feel guilty like why do I feel bad look what how good I have it it makes it work it's it's a challenge so the reality is this concept of feeling guilty of feeling disconnected from awesome things that people do it's not new it actually goes back all the way to the beginning of us Judah talked about this a little bit last night I want to focus on it Abraham is told by Hashem sacrifice your son yok and he goes through with it and it's in unbelievable the self-sacrifice the willingness aam had to do this is just awesome but what does it have to do with me I'm I'm not in that position I'm never going to I'm probably never going to be in a position like that and so you see something amazing happen and it's just like okay and again we all have these situations like this my my grandfather was born in Chicago in 19 08 this is one of the reasons that I speak no Yiddish whatsoever is because my my grandparents were all born in the states and their parents you know spoke yish in the house only when they didn't want their kids to understand what they were talking about so it didn't really you know drop down um but that mean 1908 I mean think about that my grandfather was basically a young married man during the Great Depression and somehow he was always Shar shabas something we didn't really talk about that much at home I I don't know exactly what it was how he did it but the fact that he did that is I mean again I I I can't relate to it I don't have these problems right I hang up on clients on Friday afternoon all the time and yet here he was he just we never talked about it just that's just what he did if you have you know if your parents are unbelievably accomplished it can often feel like a little bit challenging to step into their shoes and fill your own purpose because you just feel like what do I have to offer and it's it can be so almost demoralizing what are we supposed to do and obviously when you go back to to a in the AA stories are not in the Torah just to tell us what happened that story is there right a we know had 10 tests they're not all there the Torah does not explicitly talk about all of them so if this one is being talked about there's clearly something for us to learn and like okay so what is it how do I take that lesson and make sure I'm living with it every single day I think that for a lot of people when you first hear the story of the AA of what abah what Abraham did there's a certain I think almost superficial perspective that we tend to take when we think about what that story is and it's superficial but it it's obviously very deep I mean Hashem told AB sacrifice your only son and ab said okay I mean as a parent right obviously it's unbelievably challenging and it wasn't like yuck was not a good kid right it's not like he was you know misbehaved all the time and everyone's like well you know I guess maybe God maybe ask me after he misbehaves again it'll be easier right none of that but the reality is it's much much deeper and much much more challenging than just give up your son Abraham's entire life everything he lived for one worded now it wased in order to teach the world about Hashem but it came in the form of his was something that was just I mean can't even be compared that's what he Liv three days after he had his bris Milo after circumcision he's running out to have guests can me there was no like you know good Ambulatory Surgery centers back then right he was doing it in the desert sand everywhere right this is not exactly the kind of thing right that we want to even imagine not simple not comfortable right sorry sorry okay right thanks three days later trying to be Aid picture here right too heav I guess 3 Days Later leaving Hashem behind he's running to bring in some guests that's what he lives for and Hashem says to him okay so I gave you a son that you've waited for your entire life I want you to sacrifice him hard enough but you know what that also means it means that the entire purpose of your life everything else that you have you got to give that up too if you sacrifice your son do you think anybody's going to ever pay attention to a single thing you have to say ever again especially about doing for others I mean could you imagine the the pitch of was like running to bring in guests people would look like you want are you crazy I'm going to come into your house after what you did everything he lived for gone his wife I mean probably would never talk to him again everyone he knew AB was one of the most famous people in the world right before social media before any else he was you know if he if there was Instagram back in Abraham's days he would have had 50 million followers okay he was huge and to go and do something like that simply because Hashem says so and give it all up me what an incred inredible Challenge and abam says okay in fact we'll talk about this a little bit later but as aam was traveling was walking to where the AA was going to take place the sutan tried to stop him tried to convince him not to do it and the first thing the sutan says to him is old man have you lost your mind W I mean it's it's almost impossible to Fathom but yet Abraham went through with it why because he said Hashem wants something from me I don't do all this I'm not into I'm not into teaching people about Hashem for myself Hashem wants me to do something I'm going to do it I will give up everything I've worked for I will give up everything I have everything I've ever wanted I will give that up because that's what Hashem wants it's the ultimate self sacrifice you know Hashem abam was willing to give up his life one of his earlier tests was hasem put him in a position to give up his own life and he did that no problem this was more than that he'd have to live with what he didn't have anymore and he said okay Shem that's what you want I'm in I will do it I will sacrifice who I am because that's what you want you ever be in a situation where somebody says or does something to you especially in public that's embarrassing that's like hurtful imagine you're standing around with a bunch of friends and one of your friends just decides to take a pot shot at you just because it's funny at your expense and what do you want to do you want to react you want to give it back as good as you got and what do you do instead imagine if instead say you know hasem put me in this situation he obviously wanted this to happen to me responding in kind like that is really not what Hashem wants from me I'm going to hold back I'm not going to do it I'm going to sacrifice my sense of self my own confidence my ego because Hashem that's what you want you know it may seem like a smaller scale but it's actually the same thing that Abraham did it may seem weird to us like how can it be how hasm said Abraham I want you to give up everything AB said no problem Hashem gives us an opportunity he says you know what I've put you in a situation where you're dealing with something that's painful that means you're giving up a little bit of your sense of self your sense of control because that's what I want you to do and now you have the opportunity to say okay you're doing the same thing Abraham did Roi Klein jumps on a grenade made because that's what he needed to do he needed to sacrifice himself to save others you're in a situation where you're about to explode because somebody upset you in a meaningful deep and hurtful way and instead of exploding and letting it go you're jumping on your own grenade maybe it's figuratively but it's actually the same basic concept it's self-sacrifice because that's what Hashem wants from us you're fighting your battle you're not over there for whatever reason Hashem wanted us here but we're going through something that is a smaller scale but it's actually the same thing and these opportunities actually come up all the time and so for each and every one of us we can look to Abraham we can look to Roy kleene we can look to aner Shapiro and we can say I've got my opportunity to but we have to be thinking about it but the fact is these moments are here for us throughout our lives throughout our day to self sacrifice say Hashem I'm with you now again it seems like a little bit of a smaller scale like not you know not not that big a deal right no nobody's posting on Instagram that you oh my gosh I was with somebody and they didn't lose their temper amazing real that's that's if you meet somebody like that by the way make them your friend but we're not going to see that and so it feels like it's actually maybe it's not such a big deal although it could be that actually because because of the type of test that we're talking about that maybe we just have our perspectives a little bit skewed beginning of last week's par the first test that we see the Torah explicitly talk about with Abraham Hashem tells Abraham to move and the words that he uses are and you all the commentators Rashi kind of has to jump in like what exactly isem talking about when he says so Rashi gives explanation because it's kind of an interesting choice pH interesting phraseology this last week's part we read yesterday when hasem tells AB to go to the what does he say to him he says again f one of his earlier test last test Hashem uses the same words to introduce to Abraham I want you to take this test I want you to show me your commitment so the medish asks what on the surface seems like an in insane question this test said this test said which test was Hashem more impressed by that Abraham passed seriously that's the that's the I don't understand the question Hashem tells Abraham go sacrifice your son give up everything you have but maybe moving was harder really I mean I I know like there's a list of like the top five things that are like challenging a person's life you know like moving you know getting married that kind of changing jobs you know sacrificing your son is not on that list right for for an obvious reason like I don't understand what and the Menor answer is yeah by the way it was actually sacrificing Abraham's son that was a harder test but really you had to ask that question I mean that seems pretty simple what exactly is the medish even getting it why would you think that moving as hard as it may have been but how could that have been harder than sacrificing your son so R Mel torski he should live and be well has what to me is a lifechanging idea we tend to look at challenges in life from an objective point of view when you look at two things two challenges two difficulties you can sort of decide which one is harder sacrificing your son clearly is harder than picking up and moving going through a war being in battle where your physical life is constantly at risk living in a place where you're constantly under a rocket attack is harder than living somewhere where you have to wait online in Starbucks but that's actually not the right way to look at it the reason the medis asks this question it's not asking objectively which one was a more important test which one was harder but you know the Abraham who was asked to move was not the same Abraham who was asked to sacrifice his son the Abraham who was asked to sacrifice his son went through nine other tests was constantly growing was constantly moving up in his life in his spirituality for that Abraham sacrificing your son obviously difficult but but for the Abraham who was asked to move there was much earlier in his life much earlier in his you know spiritual growth his journey his his career for that Abraham moving was incredibly challenging see From hashem's perspective every test that he gives us is tailor made for who we are in that moment takes in account everything we've been through everything we've done everything we've accomplished every time we failed every circumstance in our life completely taken into perspective and hasem says here's your moment and so the medish has to ask the question but which one was harder not objectively but from hashem's perspective knowing who Abraham was in each situation we which one is more challenging and the med timately answers that it was the AA that was harder and why that's true not for now but for us what's so important is we have this sense of the difficulties and challenges that we have in our life yeah I me know yeah okay like big deal so I had to get stuck in traffic today or you know like last week I'm you know they the Long Island Railroad finally runs into Grand Central which is like a life-changing moment for me by the way CU my office is on top of Grand Central and you know I'm sitting on the train and all of a sudden the announcement yeah we're stopping at Jamaica you're going to have to change trains to go to pen I'm like H and then I'm like I'm getting upset about this really this is so dumb it's dumb it's dumb and by the way think of what our brothers and sisters are going through in Israel but there's a little bit of a of a mistake in that mindset not boohoo W was me but okay Hashem gave me this challenge in this moment when a client is making me absolutely nuts and they're driving me to want to drink and I have to deal with it okay this is my challenge this is my moment and you know nobody's going to post it on social media nobody's going to make cool videos about you in fact nobody may even ever know about it Hashem knows I know I had my moment to control myself say I'm not going to let this get me upset I'm not going to lose my temper I'm not going to let it Loose I'm going to stop and say Hashem this is what you've given me you've given me a grenade to jump on it's my turn and I have to stop and think about our brothers and sisters and the things that they're doing and you know how I stay connected to that because I recognize it in some small way I'm going through the same thing I have the same opportunities I'm self-sacrificing I'm giving up the emotions that I have that sense of sometimes who I am you like can you imagine like you know you're you're sitting with a bunch of friends or with clients or with co-workers or whoever it is and like somebody starts giving you orders and you feel like you're going to tell me what to do but instead of pushing back you say you know what I'm not going to think of myself as being all that important okay no problem I want to sacrifice because I want to do my part I'm not a soldier in battle nobody's going to name their kid after me but in some respects because nobody May ever know about it I'm like the ultimate lone soldier nobody knows and these moments come up all the time I mean every day I I I'd say hundreds of times a day but I'm not even sure captures it we go through things all the time every one of our relationships there are going to be moments where I I have an opportunity to jump on a grenade I have an opportunity to control myself to sacrifice and you know what I can actually take it even a step further because you know I don't only need to look at it in the realm of controlling myself in sort of negative situations that come up and that I have to stop Positive Growth can work the same way I can actually take on things and say instead of I want to relax now okay you know what I'm I'm I'm going to learn to for an extra five minutes is it a big deal no but I'm taking a positive step where I would rather do something else and instead I'm going to do what Hashem would prefer that I do something that's that's better for me and little things because the little things actually in many respects and this is going to sound crazy are harder so we mentioned ago Abraham and Yak are traveling to to go to the AA and the Sutton tries to convince them not to go and he tries a variety of different arguments and he goes to Y and he says you're going to do this I mean you're going to give up your life your mother is going to be beside herself and Y says I I I hear you I know but and the Sutton says to him you know you have like a closet full of wonderful clothing if you die you SCH is going to get all that stuff funny right y paused when he heard that and he was a little bit like and he turned to his father because he need his father to get a little bit of inspiration and his father kind of helped push him along but was laughing like it seems like a ridiculous argument right I mean I think if if my mother knew that upsetting her didn't bother me but the fact that my brother was going to get my stuff was that put me over the edge I don't think that would go over too big right who can blame her so why why was you clck reacting that way human psychology is kind of interesting big things we often Step Up big in big ways somebody needs a kidney someone I've never even met I mean somebody cuts in front of me a line while I'm waiting for my omelet no why why is that because the big things we see them is big and maybe it's because we think that people again you know we write books about us and we'll tell stories about us or it's just because we recognize the enormity of the moment and we want to step into it but the small stuff because it's so common we we don't think of it as important and we pass up these constant opportunities to be awesome you can jump to the end and the big stuff and that's that's great but the little things along the way you miss out I I had a teacher and I was in Yeshiva many many years ago who was a Survivor um and he used to tell I forget which which concentration camp he was in and he used to tell over this story that his was from a little town and there was one guy in the town who Not only was was was not observant but he was incredibly hostile to all the Orthodox people in the all the observed people in the town and they all ended up in the same all the men from that town end up in the same barracks in this concentration camp and as often as the stories that we hear the the observant men from the this town in these Barracks they tried their best to observe what they could which obviously you know can't even fathom The Challenge and this one guy who back when they were in their town was difficult in the barracks he was just insufferable I mean he was giving he was just could not for the life of them understand why they were doing what they were doing he would never never stop letting them hear about it one time there had been apparently a pair of Fillin that was sort of floating around and during an inspection one of the Nazi guards found it and so he asks who's filling are these and everyone in the barracks knew knew who it belonged to including this guy and everyone in the barracks is like this is not going to go well because he's clearly going to give us up God doesn't respond and call this hashem's hash the Nazis grabbed this guy tell us who it was he goes no I don't know they took him outside and they beat him left him alive and they brought him back in as an example and everyone in the barracks could not believe it like this guy spent his whole life that they've known him just basically ripping on them for being observant and here he has this opportunity to to do something about it keeps his mouth shut because they asked them afterwards what what what like they couldn't believe it what happened said I'm not going to give up another Jew never I'm not going to give up I'm not going to give up another Jew which is unbelievable it's I mean incredible but you know what he also missed out on tons of little opportunities every day like that big stuff will step into it but the little things whether it's controlling our ourselves or the little things that we can do to grow positively we just don't often do it because it's not that important we don't see the benefit in it we don't realize that by the way you do these little things every single day they add up in a big big way but if we don't take advantage of the opportunities both to control ourselves from negative things and to do the positive we go through life and we miss out and what's crazy is especially when it comes to the negative stuff you're going through it anyways you're having these challenges there's nothing you can do about them happening but if you take advantage of them to growth through them it actually starts to make everything else way easier one of one of the best bits of advice I ever got from one of my mentors so I was working on a deal I told a story before I'm working on a deal which to this day this deal was in 2014 to this day this was the most challenging deal I've ever worked on my client was was crazy um the company he invested in was the disaster and nothing was going well it just it was it was terrible and I'm sitting in my mentor and partner's office it's probably 11 o'clock at night and I'm I'm sort of like beside myself I just I just don't know what to do anymore and so my mentor says to me Josh let me tell you one thing don't forget this moment because I'm telling you you have a long career ahead of you and this is going to happen again and every time this happens you can tell yourself I've been through this before I've done it I can do it again and and part of the reason that was the hardest deal I ever worked on is because I've had harder deals since then but I try every time okay I've been through this before it's challenging I can stop crying now and it'll be okay I'm not sure you're laughing that's actually not a [Laughter] joke we go through these moments they're there they're happening no matter what and we can either take something from it and grow from them and sacrifice and jump on our grenade or we can live through the explosion and go through it again and that's just I mean candidly it's why would we do that to ourselves so so why is it why is it actually that we don't take advantage of these moments of these opportunities to grow it's like for some reason something tends to hold us back to make us not want to do it now there are a couple of possible reasons for it one is we then we don't really realize what the opportunities are okay hopefully we've solved that this morning thanks but there's other reasons I think why this happens that actually are a little bit more challenging we're GNA call [Laughter] you so I think one reason is that we don't train we don't prep we don't do the work in advance to do those things that we need to do to rise to those challenges and to work through those difficulties and grow from them you can be the most thoughtful person in the world if you don't have a plan it's gonna be tough to get through it you I think this is a I probably shouldn't be doing this I think this is a Mike Tyson quote channeling Sun Su right Everybody's Got A Plan till I get punched in the face right you can have the best idea the best thoughts the knowledge I know what I need to do but if you're not working and preparing yourself for it you're toast and part of that is just mental preparation I mean can you imagine if you spent five minutes every morning telling yourself and telling Hashem okay I'm going to have challenges today I'm going to have difficulties I can't control them I can control my reaction Hashem help me do that and now I'm Ready the more you do that the more you prep yourself the more your instincts will kick in when things are not not going well and you'll have times where you get it and times where you don't but at least you're ready at least you're you're in the game right you put your uniform on and you're out going out to battle and you know what you're heading into but if you don't prep you're not going to be able to get there I think there's one other really important concept that we need to just be mindful of especially in the area of positive growth if you want to really help yourself to take the things that we've learned over the last you know two days and actually Bring It Forward you have to be honest with yourself and here's what I mean so Abraham y they're traveling to the AA the Sutton says to Abraham old man have you lost your mind says no I know exactly what I'm doing I'm doing it anyways and then the Sutton says something really fascinating to him so let me get this straight you're you're going to take your son now and kill him okay what's Hashem going to ask you to do tomorrow are you going to be able to do that aam says yeah but what what's the Sutton asking him I mean who cares about tomorrow he's got something crazy in front of him right now why would he worry about tomorrow but he was getting at something that goes to the core of our psychology which is I have something in front of me now I I can do what I think but you know if I do that what that what kind of person does that make me going forward like I'm not this like super religious super growth oriented person you know I could spend five minutes learning Torah that I wasn't doing yesterday oh you know if I do that that means I'm one of those people person who learns Torah or a person who you know learns Torah on the the train or a person who spends extra time saying to hilum I'm not that kind of person well since I'm not that kind of person why would I do this we get in our own way from growth because we don't stop and look at what's in front of us now we look at what's down the road I'm not that person right it's like you know you go to the gym and you think to yourself okay I want to exercise and you see some guy lifting weights and he's lifting you know 200 pounds I can never do that so you know what why bother with the 20 I'm not going to do the 200 I'm done and you you know stop at the juice bar and go home right we prevent ourselves from growth because instead of focusing on the minute that's in front of us the moment that we have the thing that we know we can accomplish well what's that what's that going to make me and I'm not that guy I'm not that woman why am I doing that and so we do nothing step by step there's a story that's told of one ofishas that he saw his grandson outside playing with a bunch of friends and his grandson was destined to be a Reba himself and there's like a plank of wood laying against the wall it's like on an angle and the boys are taking turns trying to run up and get up as high as they can and all of his friends got a few steps up and then they fell and his grandson gets there and goes straight to the top and so afterwards he ask his grandson H how did you do that he said well all of my friends were looking up at the top and they got kind part of the way there I'm never going to get all the way up there and they fell I looked at one step at a time one step at a time till I got to the Top If We Grow one step at a time and not worry about where it's going to lead I don't know I don't know what kind of person it's going to make me I have no idea where I'm going to become but I know that right now I can do this I can overcome this challenge I can spend a little bit extra extra time doing something that I haven't done until now that's where growth comes from that's where we change ourselves how where why where is it going to lead I have absolutely no idea and you know what I don't need to know it doesn't matter but the reality is like we're sitting here in this room and we've experienced something incredible something inspiring and we can take that inspiration with us and we don't have to feel guilty or worry about what's going on in Israel at the moment we have to worry about it but we don't have to let that hold us back we have a role to play you know part of recognizing that Hashem created the world and runs the world is that as hard to imagine as as this sounds when Hashem decided for whatever reason this war needs to happen now he had every single one of us in mind and the impact it would have on every single one of us and there's a job that every one of us has to fulfill that's different than anybody else's and the people who are soldiers who are fighting over there they're filling their job we've got a job to fill too and whether that's controlling ourselves or it's positive growth that's the role we have to play and I just end with this a blessing for every single one of us that we have the clarity to recognize our jobs the clarity to recognize we've got a role to play we have something we have to do and if we do that we play our part that will be the thing that helps bring us Victory and Hashem brings peace to the Jewish people thank you so much