Rabbi Maor Bendel & Rabbi Nissan Shalomayev | Revealing the Light in the Darkness

A few words on Kanuka. Since we're in Kanuka, there's a third night. Very hard as you see to get people to come out to learn on Kanuka. It's not such a easy thing to do. But the Sophair, there was a rabbi's name was Katam Sophair. He writes that there's a lot of not to learn in Kanuka. Why? He says because the secrets of the Torah cabal as we know, mysticism of the Torah was given on Kanuka and therefore the same thing is being given out again. So wants to tap into the mysticism of the Torah and the secrets of the Torah. It's being given on Hanukkah. So therefore he says there's a lot of there's a lot of uh prevention from the evil side to not to learn on this day. People are busy with parties. People are busy with going here and there. But learning is the last thing. But that's the whole thing. That's what the Greeks wanted to do is to make people forget learn Torah. Uh unfortunately there's a lot a lot of uh fighting that goes against it. So if [clears throat] you ask somebody what is mysticism? If you want to say what's mysticism cabala people know today can be defined in one word. If you want to define on one on one leg it's uh to know that there is something deeper than beyond the surface. Right? If you had to define one line what mysticism is. It's something that's deeper beyond the surface. So let's learn a little bit something about mystical aspect a little bit kaneka before the other rabbit comes and we'll um we'll finish with that. There is a song that the Arizal wrote. We don't have so many writings of Arizal himself. Aizel didn't write too much by himself. He wrote a lot of a lot of stuff we have from the Arizal is written by a student. But there's one song that is written that's by him that's recited that say also there's a line in there. It says Shabbat is screams and are resting on this day. So what are these things? Something is resting on this day. What's resting on this day? So his famous student Ra is Sarukq Disal had a very famous student that lived to that moved to Italy. Uh and he expounded cabala that we don't really have so much uh only he expounded that. So he writes as a explanation what does it mean? He says there is two types of impurities. There's two types of kipot as we want to call it forces of negativity. One is called isav and one is called. One is called asav and it says is rep represented by screams as we know that yakov and Jacob made scream and then made scream which is by and so screaming is represented with a negative side of we know today the western world the religion of Christianity and then there is the other one it says it represents the ishel represents the Muslim world he says these things are negative energies that are resting on this day. They're resting on Shabbat. They don't have powers on Shabbat. They cannot take control of anything on Shabbat. That's how powerful Shabbat is. So what does that tell you? So they tell you means that Shabbat is so powerful. There's so much holiness that's coming on Shabbat that they cannot tap into the day and suck off energy from it or uh anything like that. So that's why in order to make sure that they don't have energy, what do we do? We accept Shabbat a little bit early. You should try to accept Shabbat early to put a fence before Shabbat and put a fence after Shabbat to try to make Shabbat come out early. Now pay attention as the rabbis of Armour he said he pointed out. He says, "Pay attention. It's not for coincidence that the religions of the world have a holy day. The first holy day was introduced by the Jewish people. Shabbat was the holy day." Nobody argues on that. Everybody believes in the Old Testament. The Christians also believe, right? They believe that it says a Sabbath is the holy day. How can they celebrate as a Sunday? And also if you ask the Muslims they also believe that sab you know God did speak to Moses. Yeah he spoke to Moshe Saturday God rested on Saturday. God created the world six days he rested on Shabbat. So why you ask them why do you rest on Friday? Why not Shabbat? Why nobody pick Shabbat? The answer is because as we know that nothing happens for nothing. Every angel, every single nation in the world has an angel represents them and that angel sometimes influences them to pick certain things because spirit spiritually they also gain from it. So they gained they wouldn't gain anything on Shabbat because they could not they cannot access they can't tap into the energy of Shabbat as the reason writes. So what did they do? They both pick one side of the coin one side behind it. The Christians pick the day after Shabbat which represents the ending of Shabbat and the Muslims pick the day before Shabbat and they're all trying to suck suck out energy from the the Shabbat holy day. That's what happens. So that's why uh how do they how do we give them access to come and get energy from Shabbat? How do we get them access? The access is by we are introducing weekday which they do have some uh function by weekday by indulging weekday into Shabbat. When we talk about weekday activities in Shabbat, we introducing them to come and suck off some energy. They have now a straw. They have a straw that they can come and suck out some energy and that's what gives them. That's what gives them life force. So we see that Shabbat is a very very strong day, very holy day. God gave this day only to us and no other nation can come and take part of it because Hashem says this is a present I have for my nation. This is for the Jewish nation and I only give it to the Jewish nations. cannot have Shabbat gobad impossible. But they do have some energy they can tap in from either from before from the beginning or from the end. And that's what gives them energy. That's how they get some sort of life force. So therefore it's important not to give them life force not to give this energies life force by bringing in weekday activity weekday talk on Shabbat. That's why the way you walk on Shabbat has to be different. The way you talk on Shabbat has to be different. Not to introduce these things. And that's why we also pointed out that your person should try to two one minute or two minutes start Shabbat early and not wait till the sundown and also end Shabbat two three minutes later at the best. So that's what what we do. But how does this connect to Kanuka? Pay attention. Kanuka is very unique mitzvah. It's a mitzvah that usually all mitzvah are done private. There's no mitzvah to fill in in public. There's no mitzvah to put on in public. There's no mitzvah in the Torah that you have to do anything in the public. There's only one mitzvah that has to do something with the public and that is the Kanuka, the candles of Hanukkah. Why? What they have to do with Kaneka? Because this is what the Greeks are presented. The Greeks are presented outside and external forces, external beauty. Pay attention. Today you have you go outside and there's also other types of lights. You you you can notice other types of lights outside. You have these Xmas lights. Xmas lights. And people say, "Wow, so beautiful. It's so uh it catches my attention." But is there a difference between our lights that also put by the window and their lights? Maybe spiritually. Yes. What we just said above before. How? Because they uh Greeks represent an external. Jewish people represent believe in something. It's called you want a holiness, but it can only be contained in a container. Right? In a container. Uh for I'll give you an example. Mashallah. Let's say you have fire. You can have fire and you can start a fire outside and it's ravaging. It has it's uncontrollable. Anything can come and do it. The window can take it here and it can destroy. But if you have a fire in the gas stove and it's controlled and it's contained, it can be used to cook. It can be used to heat up the house and so forth. So that's why the candles are supposed to be lit inside the house facing outside facing outside because they say if you want to uh if you want to influence the outside, you have to do it in the within the border within confines of your home. And that's what represents the inside. You have the the walls around the house and that's what you why you light it over here. But you see the other religion has lights also. It's not for nothing. They just came up with lights. They also want to put lights around this time of year as well. But it's all outside. You go inside a house, there's nothing. There's no holiness inside the house. We are saying, listen, our holiness is inside the house. Jewish home is the holiest thing in the world. The holiness of a of a Jewish home is in the home. You walk inside the Jewish home, there is bra, there's muza, there is books, there's holiness and it's it's contained within the house. And that's the only way you keep it. You keep it when it's in contained and when not when it's outside and uh external. That's what Greeks are presenting. Greeks are presented external. They were very into beauty. Their forefather Yafed was blessed to become beauty. Beautiful. Hashem says Yaf. Hashem that's beauty. So they believed in making muscles and working out gym. That's what the Greeks were into it. But pimud inside something that goes in whatever is inside didn't matter. It doesn't really matter. They never paid attention to it. Judaism and other side on the other hand emphasizes the opposite. Judaism emphasizes inward inner the inside is the most important thing. Outside is not as important. The inside is the most important thing. You have to become the the true person on the inside. Holy on the inside. And that's what the holiday of Khan represents to us. It represents how we are supposed to be careful. We are a nation that is holy only because we have walls and we're containment. We don't just go and spread everything outside. We don't bring outside inside our house either. Therefore you have to realize interestingly by cabala for example where you supposed to put the candle supposed to put the candle on the other side of the mizuza. Why? Because you walk in between you have a tit inside if it's in the middle a person walks in he's surrounded by three mitzvah there on his body mizuza on the left and minor on the right on the other side on the right and minor on the left. Why? Because to tell you that if you want to be contained if you want to keep spirituality inside the house you have to be make sure that nothing from outside gets in. Nothing should get in through these doors. It's only holiness can come walking. So we have to be careful about that. We spoke about it again also on Shabbat. How we have to be careful not to let outside influences especially uncontrolled uh internet access and all sorts of outside influences come inside the house that wounds the Jewish house. The Jewish house is only predicated on holiness. Holiness is only whenever there's walls and there is containment just like a manora. Manura is contained and by the other side it is not. So hopefully this uh will illuminate and give you a deeper understanding what Shabbat is all about, what Khan is all about. We have a big bigoot, big merit to have Rabbi Bend go all the way down from uh from Brooklyn. He's here. He's sharing the light around not only during Kaneka but we're have the fork but giving. So thank you everybody. We'll get started right away. I really not really so much a history buff, but happened to be this Shabbat. I was uh sitting down and after the meal, you know, sit down and learn a little bit. And I opened up a seph on Kanuka. In the in the introduction to the seph, he went through the whole history of how we got to the story of Kanuka. And I wanted to just maybe just briefly touch on it, but I will as we go along I'll touch on a few different topics. One interesting point I want to see and I won't take too much of your time. Interesting point I want to deal with one of the he writes and it seems to be we didn't see this any of the we all know what the went to Greeks the ancient Greeks did to the Jewish nation. We all heard the stories. The primma comes with a whole different perspective that maybe we've never really thought about it and it needs a lot of introspection and thinking. The writes that the yeanim the ancient Greeks were jealous of the Jews were jealous of the Jews. Now if you ask me a question, how is it possible that such a people are jealous of the Jewish people? Let's just look at the history for a moment of Yavan of Greece. The Torah tells us in right that Noah had three sons. One of his sons were says the beauty of Hashem was given to what type of beauty wisdom. Later on the Torah tells us that had many children and his fourth son his name was Yavan Greek. His name was Greece and from there by the way from his name the whole city of Greece was actually built. The city that they lived in Europe at the time was uninhabited and people throughout the history started coming to the land and the one of the first people to colonize it. The Greeks were one of the first people to live over there and actually build colonies. Now if you ever seen Greek Greece on the map it's surrounded almost on three sides by water. What that basically means is it made it very accessible for them to go and to talk and to intermingle with different countries surrounding them, different steady states all over and be able to take from their information. So what end happening because of that is they actually became a very intellectually advanced society. They took from different countries, different people different things. For example, they learned how to read and to write from other people. They learned how to they learned astrology. They learned engineering, construction, building from different places of the world. From the mit, from the Egyptians, they learned construction. You can imagine that Greek, if you think about it now, just listen to the story, you think to yourself in your mind how beautiful the place was, right? If you can go back in time, you probably want to see the place, how beautiful it was. They had architecture and structures and aesthetics. Everything was very, very beautiful. And they even had the three major places. What are the three most famous places from Greece? You have Sparta which was known for its militia, strength, strategy, war. You have Athens which was known for its philosophers. The three most famous philosophers that came out of there were Aristo in Hebrew they call him Aristotle, Aflaton which is Plato and Socrates. The three main philosophers that came out of there who till today are probably known of the greatest minds in the world. So you have wisdom, you have structures, you have literature, you had an Athens theaters, the first theaters in the world were from Athens. You had a marathon for running. You had colosums. What did you have over there? The place is beautiful. What do they have to be jealous of the Jewish nation for? Think about this. The says that it takes the power of the person. It takes their body and it makes it weaker. And on the same side of talking we have we know the famous story that it says there that a woman one time came the daughter of a of a king came to one of the sages she told him look the Torah is so beautiful how could it be mit in such an ugly vessel he was a very heavy guy told him you're a big big learning guy how could it be the Tawa is sitting on such an ugly vessel he tells her you know what you're 100% right your husband probably your father probably has a huge winery you know she goes yeah cuz I want you to go home tonight and I want you to take everything out of those disgusting wood barrels and I want you to put it in gold. Everything in gold. She says, "You know what? It's a great idea." She went home. She told all the servants over there, "Put everything in gold." And what ended up happening to the wine? It all spoiled. She came back to him and she told him, "Hey, my dad is screaming at me, telling me what I do. I I ruined thousands and thousands of dollars of collections of wine. How did you tell me to put it in gold?" says, "Didn't you come over here and tell me has something so special? Was how is it possible that it's in such an ugly vessel that's continuing on such an ugly vessel? You have in your own eyes." She tells him, "What do you see? There's many sages who are good-look jumped over was doing flips and sal to get to him. How much beautiful he was." And he tells her, "You're right. But if they were uglier, they would be even smarter." Me used to not focused on beauty at all. The aesthetic is You're right. right you have to work at least half an hour I'm not talking about now I'm talking about simply aesthetic so what are they jealous of they are the epitome of aesthetics they are the epitome of what it is to look good they have all the statues and all the nonsense everywhere they have the art and the theater and the philosophy they have everything in the world and all of a sudden the coming telling us that they're jealous of us what's for them to be jealous of he actually brings out a nice push I heard this week and I learn to build on it. He says that the yeim the Greeks who are they known they were known to be the generation of enlightenment which basically means most of what we have today in the western society science all the techn whatever all these things were majority of them were started in ancient Greece they're called enlightening however the midash tells us init that darkness filled the land that's yavan yavan is the darkness that cover the Jewish people's They are the darkness. So contrary to everyone believes, everyone believes that they're the light and they're really the darkness and we're what? What are we? >> Real real light. We're real enlightenment. We're real. Oh. And therefore you you understand that these people, what were they jealous of? They saw something that was real for the first time in history of the world. Their whole essence is outside external. There's nothing internal, nothing inside of them. The Gw says talks about what you see in dreams. Huh? When I text me this week, I saw a snake in a dream. What does it mean? You think that a snake is a bad sign, right? Imagine you saw a snake in a dream. You think it's a bad sign. G says you're going to become rich. Everybody's going to be dreaming tonight about snakes. And if he bit you double, double rich. Olive, palm tree, dates. Tells you everything you dream about. all the signs and it says if a person sees an olive oil oh then he's going to be to the light of he's going to get wisdom in the Torah and what's the mitzvah what do we celebrate on uh on on do we celebrate the war what's a greater miracle that a few people were able to destroy thousands that the makabe went out and they were able to huh how's it possible that such a small group were able to impossible oh no you know what's the bigger miracle that the oil lit for eight Please, if you ask me, the war sounds like it's a little bit of a bigger miracle. At the end of the day, the she is the essence of Kaneka. The whole mitzvah of Kaneka is not just that we went to war and we won. Many times through history, the Jewish nation is what we call persevering always. We have every single time in our history people try to pers come against us. We spoke about this in the past why Hashem created anti-semitism. We talked about this. The hates us something in the something in their nature. They cannot help it. They cannot help it. But we always prevail. So it's not something to to celebrate the fact that we prevailed. So what are we really celebrating? The she is not just the embodiment of the fact that they lit for eight days. The she actually must cement something else. The Torah. What does Shabbat say? They came into the mash and they were they impurified the she let me ask you if you wanted me not to light what are you going to do with the she going to make IT IMPURE THROW IT OUT FLUSH IT DOWN THE toilet burn it I don't know get rid of it no I'm just going to make it impure why just make it impure why who cares you know what they say it's okay light but the important thing is going to be impure we don't care if you light light make the action make it look nice but the inside impure Rad that's exactly who they are. Aristotle is a famous story they say about him. One of the greatest philosophers in the history of the world moral ethic literature. They say a story about him one time his his students saw him eating. They saw him eating. He ate like a like a like a wild animal thing. So tell him, "Excuse me, are you Aristotle or not?" He goes, "When I'm eating, I'm not Aristotle. [laughter] Whenever I'm eating, I'm not Aristotle. So what's the point of all your learning? If all the things you do is learning and it has nothing to do with anything who you are, you don't take it anything to yourself. It didn't change anything about you. Then what did you do? Then what did you do here? What was the point of all of it? They just to show I know one cup, one family when I was growing up as a kid, there was one family in Brighton Beach. Okay. They had it's a real story. Three kids in a one-bedroom apartment in a tiny building. But the most important thing is to drive a BMW. Yeah, I know. We're going to live in a three three kids in a one-bedroom apartment. This one is going to be in the closet. This one's going to be over here. One kid going to sleep IN THE OVEN. BUT GOD FORBID, WE'RE not letting go of the BMW. Or I remember when I was a kid and when I was in the teenage years, my dad owned a furniture store in the summertime. Sometimes I would go and uh and work to pick a little bit of money in the summertime and he put me in delivery truck. I'm in delivery truck and I'm taking $1,000 of furniture and where do I go? section 8 housing. [laughter] They're living in. I have bar up windows. I'm scared for my life. I'm not joking. I'm scared. I got in the truck. I tell the guy, you know, Jamaican guy, wagwan, me brother, wagwan. I'm telling him, excuse me, I'm not getting out the van. There's no wagwan. No wagan. I'm not going. I'm not going. [laughter] The guy tell me I'm sick over here. Bars. I'm What is this place? How am I even getting the sofa in here? $4,000 sofa section housing. It's outside. that everyone sees inside. They don't care about nothing. Everything is false. It's all about the external. So look at the the Jewish nation. They say, "Wait a minute. These are people who are legit. You see that their children are changing their life, their this guy cannot corrupt him. Last week I had a situation. A guy came to the office. He was talking about kashiot. He was trying to sell his beef jerky. He was talking about kashiot. So he came to the office, would you eat it?" I said, "Look, I don't eat from this. I don't eat. whatever that I rely on not yes he tells me ah come on all you guys can be bribed he tells me I told him says bribery that it can blind the even the wise person but I told him you're right but the reality is a person's really a person who's really a person who has good meat worked on himself all the money in the world will never break the person so he tells me you give me a Yeah. So I was actually giving a class in office at the time and the guy who was the owner of the office, he screams out him all the money in the world you're going to give him, you're not going to break it. You will put down right now. Don't test me. But I'm telling you, you put down right now a suitcase $10 million and tell me to do something to lie, to cheat, and steal. I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't touch it. I wouldn't touch it. I told you guys a story that I went with my kid to the dentist. They gave me an extra coin for the toy. I went back and waited online to get back the coin. She gave me two coins to go get a plastic toy. 10 cents. I waited online. Three people are there making appointments. December 26 is available. No. Okay. What about October 39th? I'm sitting over there. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. I'm waiting. 15 minutes pass. My son's already done. I can't. You gave me an extra coin. You said 10-centent coin. Go home. This 10 cents. I'm going to have this 10 cents in my mind when I go back. like I need to worry about your 10 cents when it comes to take your 10 cents and if it was a million who cares whatever is mine is mine I told someone today my mother-in-law today she was telling me how my mother-in-law was from uh Ukraine she was telling me how her grandmother her grandfather they own the store in Ukraine and who killed them why they killed them they would give people in the neighborhood on credit pay you I owe you who killed THE ONES WITH THE IU CREDITS. They didn't want to pay them back. The guy came into the store, couldn't pay. Go in. Said, "Okay, you know what? No problem. I see you and your family. I know your mom. I know your dad. You guys are good people. Don't worry. Pay it back next time." And they came in one day, shot up the place, killed them, and the first thing they burned was the books with all the records of how much they owe. My my great uncle lived in Tim from my mom's side, Yemen. He adopted a three-year-old Arabic boy, Yeite boy. Raised him in his house like his own. And the kid was 17 years old. He saw my uncle opening up the safe. He shot him in the back of the head and killed him. Real story. Cliche. I heard it from my aunt. Shot him in the back. The guy raised him like a son. 13, 14 years in his house like a son. ONE DAY he saw his come take the money. Shot him in the back of the head. Everything's external. They'll show you a beautiful face. They'll smile to you. They'll tell you hello, but deep down inside they have an opportunity. They'll kill you. They'll kill you. Money will get in the way. They'll no problem cheat you, steal you. And that's they that's who they are. And don't think that that you have over there, right? One that came to me today said, "Rabbi, from last year into this year, last year I was sitting everyone who thinks about it the Kanuka is not just about light and that's sit down. Look at the lights. Pray for Hashem. There's there's an energy you can be on your neck on these days. There's a certain type of power in the world in the in the you can be your nick. That's why they came one year later because they saw this power came back in the world. This power is this power of growing came back again. Okay. Now we have to make every single year in this year at this time because this time is this is the time where where that power is in the world. She said me all right but last year I was sitting down. I was praying by the men of all and this year Kaneka came again and I realized that I didn't uh make any of the change. I thought that I'll be a different place and today I'm making a change no more. Today I'm stopping whatever and I'm doing something different and I'm going and I'm going to learn I'm going to whatever I promised myself I was going to do last year. I realized today that I didn't do it today I'm changing. I told him now you're finally being to fulfill the purpose of Kaneka. There's the mitzvah of Kanuka of lighting the of saying the of adding the extra additives and there's the purpose of Kaneka. What's the purpose of Kaneka? To work on the what did Javan want you to do? Stay alive. Be like us. Be external inside the light. be impure impure. We don't care that you light it. Everything is external. Everything today nowadays you're not walking in the street. Today you can't go to the Walmart. You can't go to the store. You can't go to the grocery store without hearing the songs. You go all of a sudden you start hearing these songs the season and this and that. Or you go shalom. You go to Manhattan. Don't ever go there. Yeah. They come and one person come from told me. Oh, see and trees and lights and they go and they have this big gigantic tree and they put it next to a skating ring and they put you lights and they put you all types of music and everything is beautiful from the outside. You really look inside the house, what do you see? And nothing is there. The songs they come out with, who's the one who wrote it? Uh, divorce 15 times, alimony checks the size of your yearly salary. You don't even know what's going on with the suffering. The outside all looks nice. Everything looks nice on the outside. What about the inside? And therefore, when a person likes the he needs to ask himself, okay, what what am I doing over here? What's the purpose of what I'm doing over here? What am I trying to do? I'm celebrating the defeat of Yavan. So, what did Yavan ingrain into me? What am I celebrating? They tried to ruin me. I'm alive. That they didn't want. They don't care with me being alive. What do they try to do? They try to make me tame. They try to make me into nothing and therefore I celebrate the that'sra because when a person learns to the right way he's okay to get to the higher places and he works that the reality of all your life is to work on yourself to be a better version of yourself inside forget what it looks like on the outside who are you on the inside says a Torah scholar who's not appropriate is not worthy cut him down like a tree cut him down can learn Torah You could see him but he does things that are wrong. Cut him down. Cut the guy down. Why? You got to learn to why he learn to matter. The Torah's whole essence is to change who you are on the inside. The whole purpose of the Torah is to change who you are on the inside. It's to make you a better person. And if it didn't do that, then you're like, everything outside is beautiful. You see, look at the suit. Look at the look at the car. What's going on in the house? How many people we know? Everything looks beautiful from outside. What's going on inside? What's going on the houses? And who hears the most? How many times you tell me, "Oh, that couple. Wow, I wish if you hear how they would fight when they're sitting in front of the rabbi, he would say you wouldn't wish there's a fight. I Instagram everything looks delicious. name. Oh, when the guys used to go, they used to go to the parties. What do they do with the parties? They take out the bottle, take the drinks, everyone's sitting down on the phone. As soon as the video camera comes out, they're having a good time. Two minutes ago, you're on the phone. You're not having a good time. Now, all of a sudden, the camera came out. Now, the camera came out. Soon as the camera goes back down, back to the phone. Everyone, everyone should see everyone. One guy I know he went to Turkey to get a hair transplant. You think he posted online that he went to get Turkey get hair transplant? No. He posted himself on a on a camel with the turban. I came here for vacation. [laughter] [gasps] They don't know what I'm here for. Yeah. The hairline is going. I went to No, I can't. Everyone's going to think I'm over here on the camel drink. That's outside. This is what light live your life. What did they find? One and it had a stamp on it one and this lasted for eight days. Everyone knows the miracle of he says this one p this one picture of oil is the in every single Jew what's it mean that person can find himself far away everything around him is but inside of him he'll have that picture of oil stand you're a Jew whether you like it or not that spark is inside of you whether you like it is inside of you so you're right you have but all you have to do is find a little spark and that spark will light forever But you have to land it. You have to find it. You have to step away from the t. How many pictures you think were? How many times have to dig through to get to the one a lot of challenges out there in the world. A lot of people try to pull you the wrong direction. A lot of people try to take you the wrong ways is about uprooting the ideologies from the every single one of them. This is one of them. But there's many more. And they all correspond to the places that they're from. Athens, for example. What's Athens? my wisdom, the way I think, my logic, my this, my that, the way I think over the way God thinks. Anyone who thinks, when I came to say, "Rabbi, I'll do it as long as you explain it to me. I don't need to explain to you. I I'll do it only if it makes sense to me." Why does it have to make sense to you, right? Why do I Why don't we do now? I want to learn. Okay, commanded me. That's what I want to do. Not my wisdom, my logic. Who that come from? From them, from Aristolon, from Aristo, from Plato, from Socrates and all of them are both all more freaked than the other one. Or you go to Sparta. They have the guns, they have the muscles, they're working out, they care only about the goof. Says, "Listen to me." Okay, no problem. Take care of the goof. But it's not the of life. That's what the reason you'll be over here for. And then Macedonia. What's Macedonia? You know, the two main places in in Greece at one time were Athens and Sparta. Sparta goes to war with Athens and burns them down. During the turmoil, a city in the north called Macedonia, whose king at the time was Philipe II used the opportunity to take over the whole land of Greece. And he had a son. Who was his son? Alexander Am Magdon. Alexander the Great. This guy, Alexander the Great was one of the greatest conquerors in the world. How old was he when he passed away? >> 32 years old. He didn't even finish 33 years. He didn't finish. What he accomplished? And what's his whole thinking? I want to conquer the world. I want to be in control of everything. I want to take control of everything. Understands, I'm not the one in control. I'm not the one in control. He lights candles. He said, "I know I'm lighting the business." He said this, he said that. I'm not the one in control. I'm not the one in control. You're the one who's in control. I have faith in you. I believe in you. I trust in you. And that's the holy over here to be okay all of these things that they try to instill in us. They try to break every single id of who you are. But you have to find the palm inside of you. You have to find a little picture of oil inside of you with the stem for the gad and light it and see how far it's going to take you. But don't let the influences coming from the outside. Doesn't stop with them. It doesn't stop with the Greeks. We may have beat them in the war, but they're still out there outside. They still have the trees and the music and the this and the trying to influence you trying to take you to externalities. But the is the is the inside is to be the not like them everything outside looks good but inside everything is everything is the premute therefore we like the she understand that because of this she able to make it take the word right everyone knows it's They rest in the cafe. Take the words beautiful. How many letters are in the word? 25. How much is 25? [snorts] Take the word. How did they win? gave them wisdom and they said they understood was in control of everything. They won the war. He gave them wisdom and they understood the what a person can accomplish to that nothing is impossible as long as he understands the source for everything in his life is what he the one the only there's no one else above him. There's no one else instead of him. He's the only one. And when we incorporate this into oursel and Hashem is the one who runs the whole entire world and we live our life with this notion and we learn the Torah and we go in his ways and we don't do the external work, we do the internal work. Guess what? Then was then another year of up of growing and then we got to I said other day there's a famous is the holiday for the someone to say that it's the holiday for the people so religious why for secular Jews why there's no limitations there's no way you can't eat you can't drink you can't do you can't so everyone is ah you know lie it's easy come to night I was one guy asked me that day I told her maybe it's better they don't even light I said why maybe they don't like she said why because the whole point of the reason you light them is to uproot the but if everything you're doing is only for the external Should people who had like the kanuka when the the wife is on the phone on the on the Instagram or on the taking a video I c everyone sees oh I have to get matching pajamas we have to get matching pajamas oh we have to get one of those floaties outside what the little you know I'm talking about have to get one of those floaty bears outside you know now they used to be that they only have for going now they have the gumpkin they have a bear with them again and tablet and then put us at the house take a picture get the matching pajamas Everything looks everybody smile. Click soon. The camera comes down. Back to the fighting. Back to the back. This one's screaming. This one is yelling. I caught the picture looks nice. That much important. Maybe it's better than online because the whole point of lighting one of the many is to be to work on the internal because that's the whole idea. him to make you impure to make you a person be like us come to our ideology and our thinking everything's external everything outside everything looks nice good inside it's okay we don't okay if it's impure but light anyways it's okay let it be impure that's what wants from you they want you to be a person who's impure on the inside external put on your watch put on your paddic put on your d put go to drive the nice car get the red interior get the car that you hear for 15 bucks the whole neighborhood has will wake up for me. That's what everyone wants to hear. The straight pipe, left pipe, o pipe, this pipe, lord, we hear you 15 blocks away. The what they care about, but the reality is that's what they want you to be. That's what they're trying to instill in you. When you step away from that and say, "Wait a minute. I'm a Jew and I have to work on me internally and understand that a is here that I have to be it's not enough to be I have to be I have to be pure on the inside that's so we're coming to this holiday right now every single one take the moment said to themselves who am I inside and just like the who came to me today and said rabbi I'm looking inside of me today who was I last year and who am I this Who were I last year and who am I this year? If something didn't change, then today the day to do it because is a time for you to realize these things. It's not just about lighting and sitting over there looking at the lights and enjoying. It's very important to also enjoy the light. It's also important to do the work to understand that the whole essence of lighting is to be a better version of yourself to do the things you need to do inside to reach the higher places you need to reach. And that's what is about that's what about The whole is to make you a better person to get inside your heart to get inside of you to make you a better person. Change who you are. Everyone should learn to and be worthy. And from that tree, what does it say? You eat and you learn for the rest of your life. You see a rabbi who has good midot and he's a good person and he's calm and he's patient and you see people yell at him and scream at him. People can tell you few of my can tell you the type of situation that happened to us. No, you can tell them a few times. [laughter] Sometimes we have situations people come and they scream and they love come and it's not because he was born that way. Some people have aud midnight and they learn until the morning, seven, eight hours straight and they sleep three hours. Don't tell me like says the majority of your wisdom comes from the night time. You know why? Because you're doing the work. You're sacrificing when no one else is sacrificing. Everyone else is sleeping, but you're awake. You're doing the work. And it's not easy. The more you're going to run after the goof, the more you run after the body, go after the externalities, you're never going to get into the internalities. You're never going to get inside. You're never going to be able to be better version of yourself. to run away from those things and the more you run away from those things you'll be able to build yourself inside be a better version of yourself and in that to really really really finish the war with not just with between us and we want to uproot them completely the same to remember to this erase over here erase this completely from the atmosphere erase ideologies all these crooked ways oh this what I want to They didn't leave the world. Their ideologies are still here. You're still going to go to Manhattan and see the trees and their music and you go over there and you have all that shows and Western society today is built on the foundation of everything you see social media just an advancement of their nonsense. So the more you step away from it, the more you enter the Jewish realm, the more you enter the realm of to uprooel every single day to do what we're supposed to do coming to every year, every year with another year of growth, another year of of up to uproot them and bring too.