Naftali Horowitz - You Revealed: Uncover Your True Self

What is to be here tonight. First of all my whole thank you. Where are you? For being my chauffeur. Finding out that I'm in the home of my dear departed Havruta. Aaron ben Moshe. I could just tell you that when I started in the new Yeshiva in Torah Temimah, I came late to the Yeshiva. I transferred from another Yeshiva. When you come to new Yeshiva, you're you're walking into a new society. It's like moving into a neighborhood. And everybody sort of clicked together for many many years. And here you the outsider are transplanting yourself in. I remember the first day how daunting it was to come into this new Yeshiva. It was a very very close-knit group of boys. And it must have been three or four minutes into my learning session in the in Beit Midrash. And somebody with the warmest smile comes over to me. And he says, "Shalom aleichem. My name is Aaron Walkin." And you know, we we have love at first sight. It was love at first sight between me and Aaron. I'm not going to tell you stories about Aaron because then everyone's going to see an adult cry. But um I became like a brother to him. We I spent Shabbat in his house. He spent Shabbat in my house. I just told my whole he taught me how to dance. He we just spent so much time together. I I I have never met a man with a greater neshama, a greater love for another Jew as my friend Aaron. When Aaron passed away, I was quite sick with COVID. And nobody would tell me that he had passed away. It was uh something they were trying to keep from me. And I just lost my rabbi. And I was not in a good place. The last day of the Shiva, my niece called me up. Not knowing that they were keeping this from me. And she said that Aaron's mother, who I was I am very close to, was wondering why I hadn't called. And I said, "Why would I be calling?" And he said, "To be menachem avel her." I said, "Menachem avel her? Her husband passed away?" And she was quiet, my niece, for a few moments cuz she realized that I hadn't known. And then she told me. And I have no recollection of what happened the rest of that day. I couldn't even pick up the phone and call his mother. That's how sick I was after hearing the news. So, tonight's lecture should be in the zechut of Aaron ben Moshe. And as I was telling my whole, I lost um two very very close rabbeim in my life. It's a very difficult thing. It's I could say that in many ways it's more difficult to lose a rebbe than it is a parent. Um a parent leaves a certain gap in your life. But for some people when a rebbe passes away, it's like the whole foundation of your life is stripped out from under you. You literally find yourself standing there with nothing to stand on. I've experienced this twice in my life. The message from Hashem is that there is going to be another one. We have to seek one out. We have to find them. And we have to graduate. And when a when a tzaddik leaves this world I'll tell you just an unbelievable thought that I saw on Shabbat. It's an unbelievable thought. I didn't start my lecture yet. The Chovot Halevavot tells us that if a person does actions in this world, mitzvot, maasim tovim, tzedakah, it's not guaranteed that they're going to get any reward in the next world. This is the Chovot Halevavot in in the fourth perek of Shaar Habitachon. And he says, "Why?" He says, "Because number one, Hashem does so much for us." I was just talking to my friend my whole and I was telling him how we graduate through life in terms of our relationship with Hakadosh Baruchu. We we start life. We do mitzvot. We think Hashem owes us something in return. We keep track. I did this. Hashem didn't do this. Hashem did do this. I did do this. He did this. We think that we're having a a give and take with one of our friends. As we get older, we begin to appreciate that we know Hakadosh Baruchu everything. We owe him the fact that we're here today. We owe him our lives. We owe him our spouses. We owe him our children. We owe him every single thing that we have. And even when we do something with Hakadosh to for Hakadosh Baruchu in our minds, we have to realize that Hashem needs nothing from us. Hashem doesn't lack anything. The Chovot Halevavot says a person does a mitzvah, right? And he counters that with how much Hashem gave him. He realizes that all he's doing is taking away one little ayota of a deficit that has been built from the day that we were born. It's like a person who pays back a man who owes a billion dollars $1. And he thinks that somehow now he's made a dent in this in this deficit that he has. When in actuality he doesn't. The Chovot Halevavot says the only way that a person is guaranteed to have reward in the next world is if he takes what he knows and he shares it with others. He impacts other people. He is mezakeh et harabim like the people of this organization do. And he brings a pasuk. Pasuk says that matzdikei harabim ke kochavim le'olam va'ed. They are like stars. And that their reward goes eternally. Listen to this unbelievable thing that I that I saw on Shabbat. And with this we can understand why those who lost their baron as a rebbe did not actually lose him. If you Google the following question, "How long does it take for the light of a star to appear on Earth?" It's a fascinating concept. When you see a star, when you look up at a star, you see light. You're you think you're seeing a star. You're not seeing a star. You're seeing a star how it appeared in the past. It takes light time to travel. It's called a light-year. A light-year is how fast a a light will travel in 1 year. A star that's 1,500 light-years away. There are stars that they can measure with telescopes that are 1,500 light-years away. When you see the light of that star, you are seeing that star 1,500 years ago. It took 1,500 years for that light to travel. The closest star, I believe, is 4.3 light-years away. That means that when you look up and you see the closest star, you are seeing that star 4 years ago. What does the pasuk say? Matzdikei harabim ke kochavim le'olam va'ed. A rabbi never dies. Right? My rabbi is the Chovot Halevavot. I learned more from him than I learned from anybody else. The Chovot Halevavot lived in the year 1032. It's 1,200 years ago. I ask you, is the Chovot Halevavot alive or dead? He's a star. A star, even if it extinguishes, right? The star that we're seeing that gave emitted light 1,500 years ago could have gone out 1 minute later. But the light is still appearing on this world and will continue to appear on this world 1,500 years after the star extinguishes. That's why the Chovot Halevavot says that when a person's on this world and he's accomplishing, but at the same time he's building a deficit. Because Hashem is giving him bracha and hatzlacha. And he has a wife and he has children. He has everything that Hashem gives him. He continues to build a deficit. So, yes, he pays back a dollar here, a dollar there, but the deficit continues to grow. Plus, the Chovot Halevavot says that sometimes we do aveirot, unfortunately. So, that also diminishes it. But when a person leaves this world and what he left in this world that he helped others, he brought other people back to Judaism, he helped other people with parnassah, he brought shalom bayit between husband and wife. Whatever he did, even after he's not here anymore, and he's not building a deficit because he's not receiving from Hakadosh Baruchu because he's no longer on this world, he continues to build s'char. And therefore, he's like the light of the star. And therefore, the s'char from that is going to be reserved for him forever. So, they want me to speak about the crazy title that I gave this book. When I brought this book to ArtScroll, their first impression was, "What's with the title? We don't like it." I said, "You don't like the title?" They said, "No." I said, "But that's why I wrote the book." I started with a title and then I wrote a book. I didn't write a book and say, "What should I name it?" And they really didn't think that the title would resonate with people. And I said, "So, I won't sell any books." It seems they were wrong, baruch Hashem, because as of now we're going into a seventh printing. And it seems that people were intrigued with the title. But let me tell you what the title meant to me. And what I want to share with you regarding this title. Every person comes to this world in a state where they are not revealed. And certain aspects were revealed. We have gifts that are apparent to everybody. We went to school. Oh, she was always very, very warm. He was always very, very smart. These are revealed gifts. Hashem gives us things for free. We got a present. Every single person got gifts the day they were born. The parents they were born to, the siblings they had, everybody in their situation. And some people grow up and they think that they don't fit into this category. They were shortchanged. They didn't have the upbringing that other people had. They weren't endowed with all of the gifts and characteristics of others. I wish I was as smart as this person. I wish I was as funny as him. I wish I was as pretty as her. And we somehow think that if only that was who I am, I would be different. I would be better. There's a you in each of us which is without capital letters. And that's the way we come to this world. Our job in this world tells us the Ramchal, the Chovot Halevavot, to many others, is to reveal the greatness that lies within. To reveal the capital Y O U. And that's all we ever need to do. I was always fascinated with this idea growing up knowing that I had certain things going for me and many things not going for me. And always wishing that I had more going for me. There was nothing particularly special about me. Hashem endowed me with a very good head. But other than that, I was never very good at sports. Most of the kids in my class were taller than me. And I didn't make friends that easily. And I struggled. I struggled like many, many children struggle. Wishing I was different. And then one day I realized that we don't really know who we are. I'll tell you an interesting story. It's an amazing story. One year on the holiday of Shavuot, my parents went to my sister who lives in Monsey. I was in Yeshiva and I didn't want to go. I wanted to spend Shavuot in Yeshiva. And my father said to me, "We're grandchildren of big rabbis. You can't just, you know, as we say in Yiddish, dreizel in Yeshiva all Yom Tov. You can't be in Yeshiva. I went to Litvish Yeshivot. My parents were Hasidish. You have to spend Shavuot with one of our holy cousins." I said, "If I have a choice, I'd like to spend Shavuot with the Rebbe of Belz." Rebbe of Belz, Rebbe Yisrael Spira, was a great tzaddik who lived in Boro Park. He passed away probably about 25 years ago. He survived many death camps. And it was at the Shavuot that Shavuot lunch that I heard the following story. The Rebbe told the story that happened to him in the Janowska death camp. It was the evening of Yom Kippur. Several inmates came to the Rebbe and they said, "Rebbe, tomorrow's Yom Kippur. How is it possible that we're going to go out on a work detail? We're going to be mechallel the holiest day of the year." The rabbi said, "What What do you want me to do?" He says the kapo, the head kapo of the camp at the time was a man by the name of Schneweiss. "Rebbe, we know that you and Schneweiss went to cheder together. You went to school together." The Rebbe says, "Yes, it's true. But do you know what happened to him? He left completely the Jewish nation. Not only that, he became a hater of Orthodox Jewry. And the last thing I want is for him to know that I'm in the camp. He'll have me killed instantly. I'm trying to avoid him since I've come to the camp." And they said, "Rebbe, but still, maybe if you go to him and you beg him and you plead with him, maybe he'll let us get out of work tomorrow." The Rebbe looked at three holy Jews who wanted to spend Yom Kippur praying. And he said to Hashem, "Let me go." So he goes to Schneweiss. He enters the barracks, knocks on the door. Schneweiss says, "Come in." And Schneweiss doesn't even look up at him. And he says, "Schneweiss, look at me." He looks at the Rebbe. The Rebbe's beard was shaven off, so he didn't even recognize him. He says, "Do you know I am?" He says, "No, I don't." He says, "It's me, Yisrael Spira." He goes, "Ah, the rabbiner. I didn't know you were in my camp. I would have made your life miserable." He says, "Listen, Schneweiss. Tonight is Kol Nidre. Tomorrow's Yom Kippur. There's four people in the camp who are begging you, we shouldn't have to go out to work tomorrow." "Are you crazy? Are you nuts? Arbeit macht frei. You have to go to work." He said, "Schneweiss, listen," he says. "You walked away from Yiddishkeit. You are mechallel Shabbat. You eat non-kosher. Maybe this is your chance to redeem yourself. Please, let us not work tomorrow." Schneweiss says, "Get out of here. I never want to see you again." And the rabbi leaves, goes back to the barracks. He says to the people, "I tried. I can't tell you. I don't know what's going to happen." The next day, by roll call, Schneweiss calls the rabbi and he says, "Rabbi, step out." The rabbi steps out. And he goes, "Who are the other three?" And he didn't know at that moment if he was sending them to the gallows or he was saving them from work. He had no idea. Hashem put the thought in his head and he pointed out the other three. And he said, "Come with me." He took them to the other side of the camp. He opened up an empty barracks. On the floor were some rags. And he says to them, "Here. I know that even on Yom Kippur without water, you can clean a barracks." Closes the door, he locks it. They couldn't believe it. It was Yom Kippur. They're in a room, four Jews together with dry rags. And they prayed that day like they never prayed before, the prayers of Yom Kippur. It was about 12:00 or 1:00 in the afternoon. All sudden, the door ba- explodes open. And there's two SS guards standing there. With a cart with steaming hot soup. "Not just soup," the rabbi said. "Meat, potatoes. This is not the way they fed Jewish inmates in concentration camps. The guards knew exactly what was going on over here. And he says, 'Juden! Time to eat! The Fuhrer needs you to be strong to work for the Fuhrer!" And the Rebbe looks at the man and he says, "Today is Yom Kippur. Today Jews don't eat." He says, "What? I'll kill YOU RIGHT NOW! EAT!" And the rabbi says, "I'm sorry. Today's Yom Kippur. Today we don't eat." So the guard co- tells the other guard, "Bring Schneweiss right now." They bring Schneweiss into the room. And they hand him a bowl. And they say, "Schneweiss, show the Jews that a Jew can eat on Yom Kippur." Schneweiss looks at the guard and he says, "Today is Yom Kippur. Today we don't eat." And the guard puts a gun to his head. And he says, "I give you one more chance to eat." And he looks at the SS and he says to him, "Today is Yom Kippur. Today a Jew doesn't eat." And with that, Schneweiss returned his neshama to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. The Gemara tells us three times in the Talmud that Rebbe cries. Each time Rebbe cries, it's for one reason and one reason alone. The words of the prophet A person can grab the next world in one second. If Rebbe was there at that moment, he would have cried because a man who had left Judaism who gave it all up who ate pork was a Sabbath made many many Jews suffer while they were under his care. Sacrificed his life in the last second rather than eat at the instruction of an SS guard on Yom Kippur. The Torah tells us in the Torah There was a man by the name of Rabbi Eliezer ben Durdai. The Torah calls him Rabbi. Rabbi Eliezer ben Durdai. The Torah tells us he was such a sinner that there was never a man who sinned as often as he did. In the worst way. The Torah says that he heard about a certain woman that he wanted to be with. She was on the other side of the world. And he risked his life and he spent fortunes of money to go be with her. And while he was with her, she said to him you will never repent. You are a lost person. And the guy got a wake-up call. He got a wake-up call. He said, "What? What did I become? What have become of me?" And he started pleading. The Torah says he pleaded with the heavens, he pleaded with the earth, he pleaded with the sun, he pleaded with the moon. He said, "Somebody help me return. Help me return." And they all said "You're a lost cause." He put his head between his legs and he cried out to God. "Please take me back. I want to do repentance." And at that moment his soul left. And Rebbe cried and said the prophet Who was Schneeweiss? Who was Rabbi Eliezer ben Durdai? Who were they really? Were they who they were up until that moment or were they who they were at that last moment? Who were they essentially? How could a person live one way his whole life? I had a friend. His name was Steven. He was very close to my wife. My wife made his daughter a Jew in school. She My wife taught her in a school in Manhattan Beach. And through that she My wife became very close to the parents. Steven and Judy. When I was dating my wife, I had to go through a series of interviews. First I had to pass my in-laws. That was the easy part. Then I had to pass all the other people that felt connected to her. And the last test was Steven Mandel had to approve of me. I went to his house, a Jewish guy with my hanging out. My wife warned me in the car. She said, "I'm just telling you right now he's a professed atheist. He doesn't believe in anything." I said, "Okay. I've met worse." I spent 2 hours with Steven Mandel. It was the most delightful 2 hours. We debated. We talked about infinite regression. One of the arguments of atheism. I taught him some ideas from the why infinite regression cannot be. He showed me his library. He had every single book ever written by an atheist. One after another. He was so proud of it. There wasn't a book on atheism that he didn't own and that he hadn't read cover to cover. So it was until he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And he called me. He called me to his bedside. It was 5 years later. He was very very weak. He could barely talk. Bent down to his ear and he says to me "I regret it all. I regret the way I lived my life." His words were, "I want to die a glad kosher Jew." He said, "I want you to take care of my body. I want you to tell my grandchildren to live a life that's different than the way I lived. And I want you to burn my library." I want to tell you that he had a good He passed away on the Sabbath. I got a call right after Sabbath was over from his wife. She says, "Come quickly. He was in the memorial. The doctors don't know why he's still alive because they gave up on him 4 hours ago. He has the faintest heartbeat. He's holding on. He's waiting for you to come." I ran to the hospital Sabbath. I said do you with him? I said with him. And the second I finished with him, his heartbeat went flat. Who was Steven Mandel? Was he the atheist? You tell me. HOW COULD A PERSON SWITCH in one second? THE PROPHET TELLS US HOW. We look at our history. We had Jews who were Sabbath in public who were willing to be baptized openly. And then were willing to be burned at the stake when they had to denounce their Judaism. You had generations of people who had almost no connection except when they were forced to choose. And when it came to there, they did the ultimate act of self-sacrifice. The prophet says that every Jew has inside of them this flame, this power that cannot and never will be extinguished. And when a person is sometimes faced with a decision do I put that out? Do I turn off that pilot light? Do I openly denounce my Judaism? Am I willing to eat on Yom Kippur because an SS guard forces me to? When a person realizes that it's almost over that flame comes alive. And it overtakes the person and they die a saint. Who was Schneeweiss? He was who he was at the last second. HE LIVED A LIE HIS WHOLE LIFE. MY FRIEND Steven Mandel realized he lived a lie his whole life. He lived in darkness. He lived in constriction. He never lived a day of who he truly was until he realized that his days are numbered. Why does Rebbe cry? The prophet says Why does he cry? Should be happy. What a turnaround. 180° turnaround. He went from this to this in one second. Every time this happens in the Torah, Rebbe is crying. Why is Rebbe crying? Rebbe is crying because a person could get one second. Imagine how much a person could get if he lives his whole life that way. Imagine. A person who buys one share of Amazon at $30 a share and he turns it into 3,200 and he says, "Oh, if I would have bought 10 shares. I would have bought 50 shares. 100 shares. 500 shares. Where was my mind?" A person comes to the next world and he realizes what a means when you pick up another Jew and you make him feel good, what that's going to mean one day. We're going to realize we had diamonds laying in the street. Success in life is living in a state of revelation. It's connecting with who we essentially are with the that we have inside of us and we must not wait until a big wake-up call. If we haven't had enough wake-up calls in the last 2 years a person could start living that way. We are so fortunate. I remember as a child I was so uncomfortable during the I was so nervous, so stressed. The was stomach like I would get knots in my stomach. Forget it. I dreaded Yom Kippur. I literally my father would sit there. He would bless us before we went to school wearing his kittel and his tallis and crying and crying. Well, I remember his crying and a lot of crying and I was like, "This is so sad. This is so depressing." And then you come to shul and everybody's crying and I was like, "Oh my gosh, get me out of here. I mean, Purim, bring Purim in. Come on, we need Chanukah now." Seriously, where's the latkes, matzah? I can't handle this. Then I got older and I started appreciating what would life be without a month of reflection, without a day of complete cleansing, a day where you sit down and you take stock of your life and you say, "Where am I? And how did I get here? What's wrong with me? What's right with me? Make a kabbalah for the next year." Imagine life without that day. Imagine a week without Shabbat. Some people look at Shabbat as "What? I can't use my smartphone? Can't go to the theater?" And I say, "If I use my smartphone on Shabbat, I would hang myself. I can't handle it. It's enough 6 days confusion and sucking the life out of me. Imagine without Shabbat. Imagine life without Yom Kippur. Imagine life without a month of Elul where we're shaken and said, "Hey, life's flying by. You were just this big and now you're this big. Your hair is turning gray. Life is moving. When are you going to start living a life that reflects who you essentially are?" We're in such a beautiful time now. It's not a time of mourning. It's a time of rebirth. It's a time where we can actually sit down and decide how we're going to live the rest of our lives. The pasuk tells us ki amitzvah hazot, this mitzvah, lo nifleisi mimcha v'lo r'chokeiha, it's not beyond you. Lo bashamayim hi, it's not in the heavens that we could say, "How are we going to get up to the moon to do this mitzvah?" It's not across the ocean where we can ask, "How do I get there to do this mitzvah?" Ki karov eilecha hadavar me'od, it's very, very close. B'ficha uv'livavcha la'asoso, it's in your mouth and in your heart to do this mitzvah. The Gemara tells us which mitzvah we're talking about. We're talking about the mitzvah of teshuvah. Teshuvah means to return. Who are we returning to? We're returning to who we are. We're walking away from what we've become in the areas where we never intended to become it. Life, society, stress, the needs, materialism, confusion, everything has turned us into something that we're really not. People say this all the time. "I don't recognize myself. I look myself in the mirror. How did I become this?" I had other aspirations, which is something I write about in my book a lot. This is a very powerful pasuk. The great Rabbinum of Pshischah says the first lesson of this pasuk is what we started with, that nobody has to remake themselves. A person could think, "If I can go to the moon, if I could move over there, if I could be close to that rabbi, if they were my parents, if I had more money, if I had this, I had that, then I can reach my potential." Says Rabbinum, "No, you're wrong. Ki karov eilecha hadavar me'od, it's in you. It's in you. You have it in you. You just have to reveal it." I once heard a beautiful idea. My son-in-law's father, my mechutan, Rabbi Ephraim Wachsman, once shared this idea with me. He says a person loses his keys, right? And he thinks they're on the moon. "I think I left them on the moon." And he finds them in his pocket. That usually doesn't happen. There usually isn't such a disconnect between where we actually find something and where we thought it was, right? I know I had my phone somewhere. Maybe I left it on my vacation in Florida 6 months ago. No, it never happens. You have some idea when you're looking for something in what vicinity it is. So, what's the Torah telling us over here? It's not on the moon. It's not in India. It's not in China. It's actually you're looking for it. It's in your pocket. It's right here. Oh, so funny. I thought it was in India. It's right here in my pocket. How does a person make such a mistake? The answer is simple. Cuz it seems that way. It seems that way. It seems that success, that living the life, the idyllic life, is so far away, so difficult. How can I ever become that? How could it be? Sure, the Satan wants you to think that. He wants you to think it's on the moon. He wants you to think it's going to require a complete re-engineering of who you are. So, that way he tells you, "Are you kidding yourself? You're not an astronaut. You're not going to the moon." Tells us the pasuk, ki karov eilecha hadavar me'od. Try. Start. Start. Make one step. One step. This Yom Kippur, take one step. Not 20 steps. Not 50 steps. One. Try one step. Stick to it. And then, next Yom Kippur, do another one. And then one after that. You'll wake up 5 years from now and you will ask the question that you asked when you began. Only this time it will be in a positive way. Wow. Could it be? Is it really possible? I'm like a completely different person than I was 5 years ago. How did this happen? It's unbelievable. I was so much closer than I actually thought. And then you take another step after that and you realize it was even closer than that. And each time you go a little bit closer, you realize it was right here all along. IT'S AMAZING. I THOUGHT IT WAS ON THE MOON. It was in my pocket. Reb Chaim Shmuelevitz tells us a very powerful thing in this pasuk. If that's the case, why don't more of us do it? We should all be all amazing success stories. We should all have worked on ourselves. We should all become the person we always thought we could be. Ki karov eilecha hadavar me'od, it's so close to you. It's so close to you. Why is it Why is our people finding it so elusive? He tells us a very powerful thing. A person has an innate ability to become accustomed to things, especially when they happen gradually. You read stories of the Holocaust, how people went from rags to riches in literally 1 day. They have everything taken away from them. And it's it's overwhelming. And psychologists say you go through First you go into shock, then you go into denial. There's a whole process with which a person gets used to something that they're confronted with that comes out of nowhere. There is no process to something that we gradually become close to. When a person is diminished drip by drip, one email by one email, one website by another website, one negative conversation by another negative conversation, one uns- one unpure site and another impure site, it starts to chip away at them. It's not like a person who lived a pure life and one day is confronted with something that's so offensive that it blows their mind. It happens gradually. And when something happens gradually, it you don't discern that it's happening. You don't realize that it's happening. Slowly but surely we get degraded. And therefore, we don't see ourselves as such because a person could become accustomed to anything. As long as it happens in gradual. It's like you're sitting in a room and slowly it's getting warmer and warmer. You don't even realize how warm it is in the room until somebody walks in and says, "Oh my gosh, it's boiling hot in here." Really? I didn't realize that. But if you come in from an air-conditioned room, you can feel it because the change is very, very pronounced. Chaim Velozhin tells us that this power of the Satan to gradually poison us and weaken us is one of the most insidious things. A wake-up call. Reb Elazar Dudi I am sure until that wake-up call never stopped and realized what he had become. Until something shook him awake. What have we become accustomed to? Well, the first thing we become accustomed to is that we don't believe in ourselves. People think that arrogance is the the plague of this generation. It's not true. Lack of self-esteem. 90% of the people that come to me for advice and talk to me suffer from a lack of self-esteem. Don't believe in themselves. They don't think it's possible for them. They think they were destined to either be a failure or just average. There are special people in this world. There are great people in this world. There are people that go on to impact multitudes of people. People that we said are stars. Right? Maybe that's where the expression came from. Except I don't think the pasuk was talking about people in Hollywood. There are people who were put on this world to become a star. Not me. I'm just me. I'm regular. I maybe if I was different. We don't believe in ourselves. It's insanity. I was speaking for a group of boys a few weeks ago. I asked them a question. I asked them what has more godliness in it? Reb Chaim Kanievsky or a rock? And the answer was obvious. Reb Chaim Kanievsky. Of course, no? Anyone disagree with that? But it's actually wrong. It's wrong. They have the exact same amount of godliness. What do you mean? Even the rabbi was sitting next to me want to throw me off the podium. I said, "Don't throw me out yet. Let me prove it to you. Very simple. Any mathematicians in the room? Anyone? Yeah? You're mathematician? You're familiar with math? Um can you break infinity into bigger and smaller pieces? No. We said that no with certainty, right? You can't. It's impossible. Cannot have a bigger piece and a smaller piece of infinity. In fact, you actually can't even break infinity into pieces, can't you? No, you can't. You can't. The Tanya tells us the Arizal tells us the Nefesh Hachaim tells us that every single thing that exists exists because it is living from a spark of godliness. It's called a chelek Elokai. And the words of the Tanya is chelek Elokai mamash. Now, what's that mean? That means that inside every single person is God. Lo bashamayim. You don't have to scream. You don't have to go up to a top of a mountain to find God. You are an emanation of Hashem or you wouldn't be here. It's not possible TO HAVE A BIGGER AND smaller piece of God. If a person believes THAT THERE'S A BIGGER AND smaller piece of God, they don't understand the concept of Ein Sof. They don't understand the concept of infinity. The Tanya tells us clearly that the same godliness that creates a rock creates the biggest TZADDIK IN THE WORLD. And there cannot be bigger and smaller. So the answer is the exact same godliness that resides inside Reb Chaim Kanievsky, the tzaddik gadol, is the same godliness that gives a rock its existence. What does that What does that have to do with me? I'm not a rock. The answer is it debunks this idea that he can and I can't. That she's great and I'm not. What are you TALKING ABOUT? THE DIFFERENCE between Reb Chaim Kanievsky and a rock is how concealed is the godliness. In a rock, which is a domain, it's more concealed. In a tzomeach, in a rose, you see life. It's more revealed. In an animal, which is animated, it's more revealed. In a gentile, it's more revealed. He speaks. And in a Jew, it's more revealed. And Reb Chaim Kanievsky, you walk into his room and you see IT ON HIS FACE. When you walk into a tzaddik, you see it, don't you? You see the shine. You feel it. It's the same godliness that's in you and me. It's just revealed. Self-esteem. It doesn't exist. I dare you to find me one mussar sefer, one, that talks about self-esteem. No one. Nobody talks about self-esteem. Because in those generations, they knew what a Jew was. They knew what a human being was capable of. And they knew that everything we do is because we are tapping into Ein Sof. We're tapping into godliness. And when you tap into godliness, anything is possible. All the stupidities of he's this, I'm that, I don't measure up. I don't measure up is kefirah. You understand that it's kefirah? Because if you're saying that measuring up is what brings success in life, then you're saying that you are what's doing it instead of Hashem. If Hashem is doing it, then anything is possible. Anything. This is why. This is what we become accustomed to. We grew up. We had a teacher who said, "One nasty remark, you'll never amount to anything." One friend who said, "Oh, if you were any smarter, maybe you would get someplace in life." And this stuck with us. This label. This is something that can literally destroy us. This is the Satan's worst poison. We sell ourselves short. We don't even appreciate what an amazing version of our self is right there in our pockets. This is the ergo that Reb Reb Chaim Shmulevitz is talking about. We become accustomed to this. We play it in our minds all the time. We also were brought up in a society where we think that we're here to enjoy life. We think we're here to have fun. That life is supposed to be easy. One big vacation. And it's not. Rachmana litzlan, how many people get divorced today? It's not what I imagined it to be. Of course, you watched movies when you grew up. You think that's life. Adam la'amol yulad. WE WERE HERE TO TOIL. REVELATION TAKES TOIL. The disciple of the Tanya he was known as the great Srishelyas says an unbelievable thing. He says everything that's valuable. Just talking to my friend Machal. He's He's the diamond business. He was telling me about lab-grown diamonds. How beautiful they are and you can't even tell THE DIFFERENCE. BUT EVERYBODY WANTS REAL DIAMONDS. RIGHT? WHY? You know what IT TAKES TO GET A DIAMOND OUT of the ground? My father was a diamond cutter. You know what it takes to cut a diamond? And then to find one that isn't flawed, that isn't cracked, that is the right color. Where's the value in a diamond? The value is IT TAKES TOIL and work to get it out of the ground and make it WHAT IT IS. THAT'S what gives it its value. To say yourself, everything. Think about it. Oil. You got to drill and drill and iron, you got to melt and smelt and chop. To pull marble out of the ground, everything of value is encrusted. It has to be revealed. Revelation takes work. But we grew up in a Western society. We're missing at Nefesh. Meaning working. We have a very very low threshold. As soon as we're uncomfortable, I can't handle it. I can't handle it. I'm maxed out. I'm stressed out. How many people go through IT? I'M BURNT OUT. YOU'RE 30 YEARS OLD, BURNT OUT. HOW CAN YOU BE BURNT OUT AT 30? YOU JUST STARTED LIFE. I'm telling you I'm burnt out. It's tough. How can you be burnt out at 30? It's It's It's It's an insane thing. Our plates are this big. I can't I can't I'm I can't I can't handle it. I got too much going on. You have too much going on? Do you realize what a person is capable of? Do you have any idea the capacity of a human being? That's why we read stories. We read stories about Gedolim and we say, "Wow. How do you do that? How's it possible?" And we say, "Oh, he He was obviously special. I mean, I I would never be able to do 1/10 of what he does." YOU'RE WRONG. YOU'RE ABSOLUTELY WRONG. YOU CAN DO everything that he did. YOU'RE KIDDING YOURSELF. REVELATION TAKES WORK. There's nothing more delicious. Nothing. More pleasurable. You think going on a vacation is pleasurable? You think getting a new piece of jewelry is pleasurable? You think driving out of a dealership in your brand new I don't know what with the new car smell is pleasurable? TRY FINISHING SHAS. TRY IT. I have experienced physical pleasure in my life, baruch Hashem. I've experienced other people who have made millions and billions and trillions and been inside their private jets. I could tell you that the experiencing of saying the last words in Maseches Niddah and knowing that you climbed a mountain for 7 and 1/2 years, night after night, snowing, raining, weddings, bar mitzvahs. It didn't matter. Tired, not tired, hungry, not hungry. And you're there and you did it. It's unbelievable. It's indescribable. It's the most delicious thing in the world when one day you realize, I changed. I used to get angry. I'd blow up at the small smallest thing. Look at me now, people say I'm calm. I used to be anxious every time something went wrong. And now I can't believe it. People say, "I don't recognize you." You know what it feels like when a person changes themselves and they make more of themselves and they reveal greatness that lies within? It's an unbelievable feeling. Nothing on this world compares to it. But we became accustomed to the thought that we're here to enjoy ourselves. And enjoying yourself while sometimes is required to recharge is a recipe for a life of mediocrity if not failure. Exertion and becoming addicted I'll use the word addicted to work to discomfort. You do not grow when you're comfortable. You just don't. It says "V'higisa bo." You have to toil in Torah. You can't sit with your feet up with your latte with your art scroll everything perfect and then learn Gemara. That's not the way tzaddikim grew up. There is air conditioning, there's no air conditioning. You have the art scroll, you don't have the art scroll. You're tired, you're hungry. It doesn't matter. V'higisa. And the more you exert your physicality, the greater you become. The last thing we become accustomed to is a life of distraction. It's terrible. It's absolutely terrible. It's happened in the last 10 years, 15 years. When I started teaching kiruv years ago you had 20 boys, 20 girls in a room. After 6 months, 70% were in yeshiva. When they came back from yeshiva, 100% were shomer Shabbat. And we saw unbelievable success. Ask any kiruv rabbi today who his biggest competition is. It's that thing on the table that belongs to me with the Apple symbol on the back. It's WhatsApp, Facebook Snapchat. I I I honestly don't know all of them. And none of them are on my phone. They used to be. LinkedIn. It's insidious, like we said. We get accustomed to it slowly, slowly. I remember my first Blackberry with the little Remember the little Blackberry with the wheel? Yeah. It was an amazing thing. I still love that keyboard better. I made far less mistakes. It started with email. Then became text. Then it became internet. Then it became WhatsApp. And slowly, slowly, slowly we lost our minds. We completely lost our minds. In my book I take apart the essential aspect of a human being which is called da'at. There is no English word for da'at. People use the word knowledge, it's not the right word. In Kabbalah da'at is the neck. It's what attaches mochin, which is intellect, to lev, which is emotion. It's the neck. It brings information from here to here. It allows us to feel what we know and know what we feel. Thank you. It's living how we essentially are. It's living in the moment. It's living in the present. It's seeing things for what they are. The things that rob us tells us the holy Baal Shem Tov of da'at put us into a state of da'at to be galut. Da'at goes into exile. A person walks around all day. He prays, he learns, speaks to his wife, does homework with his kids. But he's only there on some level. On some level. Depending on how much bahala, how much confusion, distraction you have in your life, that's the level of presence that you will have. And as the generations are going we're finding less and less da'at. We're finding people that are distracted. Some things we have no choice. We have to pay our bills. We have to go to work. We have to worry about our clients being happy. But that's okay. It's part of the nisayon. But then we bring all this stuff upon us. We don't spend 2 minutes alone. We don't spend 5 minutes reflecting on ourselves. When we're studying we keep checking our phones. When we're with our kids, people are texting us and emailing us and WhatsApping us. And somehow one of the said it to the bro says that if your phone pings and you don't answer it within 2 minutes, the world will go back to a state of nothingness. Look what we became. I'm talking to myself. Yes, we have Shabbat. I want to tell you something. A few weeks ago my wife and I went out for anniversary. And of course I bought a beautiful gift. And she said, "What I really want is less time competing with your phone." And I said, "What do you want?" She said, "Let's start with one thing. Motzei Shabbat don't turn on your phone." Right? Does anyone here not turn on the phone right after Shabbat? Anyone? First thing? Right? Watch the email number go up. 3 7 12 16 and then your text ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping right? Right? 2 seconds after Shabbat is over Shabbat is gone. It's forgotten. Is it not? Is it? It's like we went from there to here. And literally the time it takes to push that stupid button on the right side. And it's not quick enough for the four bars to come up. Come on already. Let's go. LET'S GO. AND those are ping ping ping ping ping right right and that's it. Shabbat's gone. Shabbat's gone. It's over. It's finished. You want to try holding on to Shabbat till Sunday morning? Do not open your phone until Sunday morning. I'm alive. Look. I did not break out in hives. It's 3 weeks since my anniversary. It's The first week was hard. Now I almost want to go through Sunday. That's going to be my next one that I'm going to go through Sunday without turning on my phone. I bought myself a flip phone and I'm going to try to transfer my calls from my smartphone to my dumb phone and see if I can get till Monday morning without turning it on. It's not because I'm some from holy tzaddik who knows what of a person. It's because it's destroying me. It's destroying our marriages. It's destroying our relationship with our kids. We spend time with our kids, but anybody a total stranger, somebody who means nothing to us can pull us out of that moment in 2 seconds cuz they decided to send us a stupid clip. It's true. And that stupid clip could be with me. DON'T WATCH IT. GET OFF WHATSAPP. SEE what happens to you. I got off of it 6 months ago. Everyone said, "Oh, he'll be back on." 6 months I haven't been on it. Best thing I ever did. I deleted my LinkedIn account 3 years ago. All I got was people driving me crazy all day. We've become accustomed to thinking that this is what we need. We don't. And one day we're going to look back and say, "What did I do with my life?" Thousands and thousands of hours which we would give anything to get back. But where did it go? To nothingness. Shtyot. Now it was a time to stop and say, "Where am I and how did I get here? And what am I buying into? What has the world convinced me is normal? When deep down in the shamash says this is sick. This is insane. What do I need it for? How much better would our lives be if we can go back to rotary phones and fax machines with paper that come on rolls and so much more time with our wives and children? And when we learn a gemara we're actually there and we're listening to a shiur. What happened to the kiruv movement is that the smartphone Rabbi Gershonfeld a very close friend of mine said an hour mussar goes away when the child when the boy goes to his dorm room and Facebooks with his girlfriend back in America. How can I stop that? 15 minutes of Facebook FaceTime, whatever they're doing. It's gone. It's over. It's like we're trying to build a building on quicksand. We keep destroying it each time. It's Elul. Hashem is yelling at us. For 2 years almost. For 2 years Hashem's yelling at us. Cuz he loves us. He loves us. He doesn't want us spending the rest of our lives in sleep and slumber and confusion and distraction. He wants us to look in the mirror and say "Is this all there is to my life? Is this all I could be? Is this why I came here? Is this why our forefathers were willing to be burned at the stake so we can come to America and enjoy life and drive fancy cars spend our days with so much emptiness? Can't be. It's not possible. Hashem needs more from us. Hashem needs more from the world. And if we're if we're not going to be the trailblazers, if we're not going to show the world how to live a more revealed inspired life, then who will? Who will? People in Washington? Who? Who's going to show them? Every one of us can be a star. Every one of us can light the way for somebody else like the great people of Chazak are doing. You can be part of Chazak. There are so many people outside this room who don't even know that this room exists, that don't even know what a Torah lecture can do for a person. They don't know how beautiful it is to spend a Shabbat with a family around the table. They don't know the treasures that we take for granted. Being a star means going out of your comfort zone. Doing something uncomfortable. Approaching somebody, inviting them. Volunteering to study with them. When you see somebody broken, somebody lost their job, somebody lost their husband rachmana litzlan you push yourself out of your comfort zone. Yes, some people naturally they're relationship people. We all have to be relationship people. Klal Yisrael needs everybody to look out for everybody. If we walk away tonight with the thought that when Yom Kippur comes one kabbalah just one. Not even two. One. You don't need two. You just need one. One important kabbalah. One thing that you believe right now is beyond your reach. One thing that you think others can do but you can't. Prove to the satan that he's wrong. Prove to the satan that you could do it. I guarantee you you will have unbelievably siyata dishmaya. Unbelievable you will become addicted to doing things that you always thought you could never do. With that you will begin the process of revealing the greatness that's within you. And if every person continues to reveal godliness comes closer to being Rav Chaim Kanievsky and less like a rock without a question Hashem will end this bitter galus that we're in. And we'll go together with this Beit Midrash to Israel Moshiach Tzidkeinu bimheira beyameinu amen.