Erev Tisha B’Av ‘26

In Musar, in Musar there's a there's a principle in Musar you have your straw basic I would say in a in a Musar Yeshiva I grew up by a by a rebbe, a giant of a person. A person who had from the biggest influences in my life. Somebody was about Musar, brilliant person a sophisticated, intelligent, thoughtful, giant of a human being. And he's rooted in the Musar movement. To talk about my rebbe, I could talk a lot about him. His story of Musar is a very cool story this My rebbe grew up, his father was his rebbe, his father was a tzaddik. I was zocheh to have seen my eyes, I saw his father. His father was a Slabodka talmid who was a rav in a community of Yidden that were very distant. Not in love with the word, we wouldn't call them from Yidden, they were very say distant distant clothes, they were beautiful Yidden, but they were Yidden who didn't know about all the beauty of Yiddishkeit. And and he was he was a rav of this community, a Yid at tzaddik himself. My rebbe wrote a book about his father to Kasei Med Haslad, a wonderful sefer, a beautiful book about his father and the gadlus of his father, very interesting book. In the book he doesn't have one miracle story about his father, zero. There's like it's it's a it's not like it's a cold solid sefer many You guys have seen that the sefer you see my shishis in the sefer, it's in the house. You wouldn't believe it. It's a Kasei Med Haslad. But it's there's no miracle story. I spoke to the Rosh Yeshiva of Scranton Yeshiva who grew up by my rebbe's father's house, by his table. He grew up in that community. And I asked him for some stories behind my rebbe's father. I asked him for stories. So he said, "I'll only tell you on condition you don't tell your rebbe that I'm telling you these stories." And he told me some crazy stories, like crazy. He said he was in the moment beneath him. But he said, "Don't tell your father you don't tell your rebbe he doesn't like miracle stories." So I never told him. I never told him the story. I never ran the stories by him that I heard. And it's funny you're writing a book it would be much more gishmakt to include the miracle stories. The book would definitely be a better seller. But anyway, he had his father as the rebbe. Then he met Reb Aaron Kotler. His father actually introduced him when he was 13 to Reb Aaron Kotler. And this American kid, my rebbe grew up in America, and he meets Reb Aaron Kotler, meets a giant Reb Aaron Kotler. And he becomes extremely close to Reb Aaron. Like I've heard from talmidim who were there, extremely Reb Aaron was mikarev him a lot. And he developed this close kesher to this prior giant Reb Aaron. And and one was able to see his whole life, his his his chesed and Torah, his eemunah and Torah, his rebbe Reb Aaron. And then he did something so interesting, he got married. That's interesting enough. Then he did something else, he took on another rebbe. Now somebody had clearly had a good machalah chaim. He was by He was by his father, he had a whole mesorah of Slabodka, Gadol Mesoadam. My rebbe respected human beings. The mailman, I have pictures in my mind a simple my rebbe was mechabed like no other. Not just mechabed, he wanted [clears throat] to like learn from them. The mailman, the policeman, these are interactions. I'm picturing specific interactions with these with with the people I just mentioned. The way he interacted, he had a curiosity and would ask the guy questions to like know about things. Yesterday morning here, there was a Roto-Rooter guy. It's hush that my rebbe would have gone up to him. I've seen scenes like this to like ask him about his trade and to to like learn from this person. He would have been mekhabed him like and you could see a person. That was like all from his father who was mekhabed people. And the yid, forget about like naira, yid was a big thing by him. My by my rebbe, by shalah shudis, was the most interesting group of yidden would come every week. It's a very small crowd. I tried never to miss the years of my life and it was a very eclectic. It's not this big shalah shudis guy. He was speaking to interesting yidden. Old yid from Russia that know background in Torah. Like an interesting yid from here and from there. He was very mekhabed yidden. And this was from his father. And then the limud haTorah of Aaron, the gadlus haTorah, the cheshek haTorah, and many other things from Rav Aaron. And then like again, I wasn't there. I can only from the rebbe I met see what happened. He took on another rebbe, which is remarkable. I don't know too many people who their wives' grandfather becomes their rebbe. He became his rebbe of Rav Rav Rav Avraham Yeshaya became his rebbe muvhak. To the point that the yeshiva he started is named Derech Eitz Chaim. Eitz Chaim is Avraham Avinu. And Eitz Chaim my rebbe said is Avraham Yeshaya Tuvia Navardik. He named his yeshiva after his next rebbe, which is a remarkable thing. You know a lot and you're plugged in and you have a mahalekh chaim. But but a person who was constantly willing to grow and add, he took on a new rebbe from Yasin and he told us much about his relationship. When Rav Avraham Yasin was nifter, his wife's grandfather, who was the son of the Lord of the Alter of Novardok, Rav Avraham Yasin's son-in-law, Rav Leib Nekritz, became his next rebbe. And he was very mekurev to Rav Leib Nekritz, had a very strong kesher to Rav Leib Nekritz. And he was very plugged in. Rav Hamish very plugged in to to Rav Nekritz. He would call him and Rav Nekritz spoke over Shabbos, he didn't want to miss his drashos. They lived in different cities, Rav Nekritz lived in Brooklyn, my rebbe lived in Far Rockaway. So Motzei Shabbos he would call his rebbe, what did you say over the right after Shabbos? He'd make Havdalah, then he'd call his father-in-law, what did you say? What did what what a topic he say? And he'd listen over like to the speech that he missed on Shabbos. He wanted to hear and he'd give him over every Motzei Shabbos the drasha. Such was his kesher to his next rebbe. When he was alive, I never said this part of the story in in in respect to my rebbe, he didn't like miracle stories and had reasons for it. But if l'acher misah then there's different minhagim, I said over I said over him he always called his Rav Leib Nekritz Motzei Shabbos every week. Tatti, what did you say? Tatti, what did you say? The week my rebbe had a gunman in the house and my rebbe beat up the gunman, the story is yadua. That week that the gunman broke in his house, right after Havdalah, instead of him calling his father-in-law, the family, I've heard this from the family exact with details, his father-in-law called him right after Shabbos. He was like surprised, he said and his father-in-law said, "Is everybody okay?" So he said, "Why are you asking?" So he said, "In the middle of the night, the pasuk that Hashem protects his Hashem protects those he loves came to me and I knew something happened to Rebbe Akiva. He called to make sure he's okay. Call first. Yeah, yeah. It's true. That's true. That's it. That's the fact that we're allowed to say it. So, me and Chaim, okay. That's why I say it over now. When he was alive, I didn't want to say I don't think the family would say that much when he was alive. You know, he didn't like those type of Yeah, yeah. The kids are I shouldn't say the kids. When you're going so long and I say the kids here, it's the The long story is is that his father-in-law, his new Reb Rebbe Akiva, his father-in-law, his grandfather gave a world of mussar and taught my Rebbe a world of mussar. In the world of mussar and I was raised by my Rebbe, I grew up as a little kid running around next to him and I was to a close kashrus to a Rebbe who was a tremendous baal mussar. And they're remarkable. That movement started Rebbe Yisrael Salanter and this was one wing and a branch of that movement, an incredible movement of of of honesty, of self-examination, self-awareness. A big principle in that world was daas atzmo, to want to know oneself. To be honest, to know yourself. It's a principle that's huge. It's a danger when somebody completely is a stranger to self and doesn't know oneself and there's a whole sugia in the world of mussar of self-awareness. Mamash to know yourself. Mamash. In Yeshiva, like we talk even the enneagram. I don't care about the enneagram per se. It's one system that's gradual has a lot of truth to it. A lot of a lot of There's a lot of truth there. But I don't care per se about that. I care about a world of self-awareness. A person is quite to me, it's very dangerous a person's not self-aware. It's very dangerous. There's There's tremendous dangers. I think being aware of oneself, I think. basic and my rebbe had a tremendous understanding of himself and understanding of people. I felt in my life in his presence you I felt that he momish knew me. Momish, like because he was studied and understood people, he had an awareness to people that was really remarkable. That's that's a sugya of self-awareness. And that's what mussar one of a big thing a big yesod of mussar the examples in Rebbi Yisrael's own life were examples of self-awareness and and that that was a big principle of mussar. The yeshiva certainly is was founded on a lot of principles. My rebbe is one of the founders of the yeshiva. And certainly a principle in yeshiva, it's a place of self-awareness. That's important. I want to describe I want to describe I want to express that there's a sugya of not not knowing yourself. But I it's it's not a not just not a contradiction. That's as mussar in discovering a quarter cassette this no it's it's it's a it's a word all these are words mussar sugya this is a words we use they're English words. Sugya and mussar are English words gematria. An English word is is not a shame or etzem. Table is just when we say table we picture there's not a table it's just so we have we have words to like a year is the deepest place is the shame or etzem and then there's like ways we can just ways we can communicate. So we could take words just in order to communicate are you referring to that thing? We say tables we're referring to this thing. It's not a table. So I'm using words like that. Say this these are just oh you're referring to that we're talking the thing itself is Hashem a year. In the world of Hashem the world to discover Hashem so we really Hashem. I am in shalom and sing I'm singing to the world every year you say Hashem every year is Hashem we have different is Hashem. >> Who says he's in the world? >> What? I think that he has because he is much more than just Hashem. He is just Hashem. Are you happy and much more than that? Yeah. >> We put top of Hashem. You see that there's a there's a person. But um but the good of Hashem is the world not to know yourself. And to know Hashem is like we're a lot we're a lot Adam is whatever you think my more than that he's a lot maybe I have the whole thing it's more it's more. Anybody who sees themselves and understands when Hashem and have Hashem understands you manage figured out your own Hashem you got it all. We're extremely extremely big and we touch and we feel and we experience parts with manage big Hashem here is a big thing that to say you have the whole thing is that is is very far from true. And we're so experiencing that aspect first that you don't know yourself. And I want to express that we're in a year of now we're in a year of like holding the So, you did weeks and nine days, and now era of Tisha B'Av, we're holding the Sugya of Galus. One of the great gifts of Galus is you don't know yourself. Travel causes people move around. A lot of staying in one place, you identify yourself. It's very like clear who I am, what are like a certain routine. You're very locked into who you are. Things are set. One of the joys about spending my life around youth. It's one of the most beautiful things is youth admit they don't know myself yet. It's like an admission. Because then they say, "What am I doing next?" It's a state. Even the young married couple, "What are we doing? Where are we going to live?" And there's like possibilities. There's a certain admission, "I don't know myself." And people get to states where they think they have a clear guide, they know themselves. There's a basketball player, my work mind, I asked the There's a basketball player who said, "I hate early season games basketball." So, I said, "Why do you hate it?" He said, "Cuz the bad teams don't know they're bad yet. They're hard to beat sometimes." He said, "Late in the season, the bad teams know they're bad, you could beat them easily. Early in the season, the bad teams are hard, they don't know they're bad yet." That's what he said. There's There's There's the early years, people I don't know who they are. This It's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful truth. And it's good to be around youngsters that to like to to tap into like And you get older, you get like secure by your routine, your job, your Things seem like so In the settledness, you could think you know who you are, and you think if you have it down, you're like clear. And it's like it's just totally not that way. It's not that way at all. B'chol mad, it's not that way. Rebbe speak and speaking a lot about the sham men uncovering deeper things. The guy is a selfish world. He like knows, he like sees You know you have the person down, doesn't matter there's a foolishness to that. It's like really foolish. It's we do it because we want predictability. We do it cuz it's nerve-racking. When guys come to Yeshiva I think other than correlates this, if not not then I'm just saying my thing. When I meet a new guy, I try to like like prepare him to somebody else. Makes it like safe for me. Oh, he's him. Like and I have like names, you have your and I try to like put I you try to like like fit him into something. It's never true, it's never close. A person is is it's never it's not it, but you do it to be safe. So you call his whole life up. Even the anagram could help. Okay, he's a four, he's a four or five, okay. That's Yeah, you like to be secure, you give it maybe a number, you compare him but it's not true. Person in the sham with his ain safe is is a coming out. It's a piece of a sham is is very very big. One of the tremendous benefits of gallus one of the tremendous gains of gallus and travel and journey is that is is you lose those things that give you like this is who I am and you could identify by and hide behind it's not true. It's literally not true and when you lose those things, you have to ask deeper who we are. But I I I mentioned earlier this summer when I saw that sign on the shul, I don't know who wrote it, the graffiti on the shul, where are you Yidden? That was somebody who saw like a Yid in a very specific We're here, you just can't find us cuz you thought we were that and only that. You thought we had a certain dress in a certain place. We're much bigger than that and deeper. So, you just lost cuz cuz of what you thought we are, you can't find us. I'm here. Hi. I'm here What What didn't expect you to show up here to show up there. The The neshama in the space of neshama is a world of There's a lot in us, tremendous amounts that you can discover and uncover and tap into my neshama. Tap in the different situations of our life, the different scenes allow us to tap in and find new spaces. My wife My wife discovered Together we discovered it It's It's a story I It's a It's an incredible story. We were in Poland and my wife suddenly had a chok like it inexplicable like I we were married 30 years inexplicably. She has this chok that she wants to meet her grand her elta zayda in Bialystok. We had no information but she has this chok I have to meet her. Like like this just the chok of She wants to I never heard her talk about it once in her life. Her She knew that her father They come from Bialystok. That's where his origin. She wants to meet her zayda in Bialystok. We didn't know any names. We knew nothing, zero. It didn't work like we were in Europe. She wants to meet the chok of could have just remember one time the neshama will run to Bialystok. Now we're armed with much more but she wants to meet them. This this urge to meet them. When we get back We got back on a Friday morning from Poland. My tzeishas out of the blue her father again 30 years and it's never happened. He sends the emails from dad from papa sends emails. Out of the blue he got an email that he said this might be interesting to the family. And out of the blue, on Motzei Shabbos, he came back Friday morning. That week, my wife has this choker to meet her zaida. And out of the blue, he sends us that this came to my email, maybe a 20 years before he signed up to something, ancestry.com or something many years before he had signed up. He said this might be of interest to you, and Motzei Shabbos, he sends to the family the tome, Mamesh the Matzeiva of the of his alter zaida. And he's from Bialystok. Included in it that he's a Mechaber Sefer, Sefer Minchas Dovid. His name is Reb Dovid Bryanski. The family's name is Brown, but we had known Brown as Bryanski. Reb Dovid Bryanski, and he wrote a Sefer, the Minchas Dovid. So, we got curious. She wanted his parsha, but she wanted to meet the zaida. Hashem said, "Oh, you want to meet the zaida? Okay. So, you don't have to come to you. You can come to you." And the zaida came to us. We met the zaida. He wrote a Sefer. His Sefer, in his Sefer, the Sefer Minchas Dovid, he says he had a very, very tough life. He had these yissurim, serious yissurim. And he writes about his yissurim. He said, "I was a baker." Said, "I always cared about Torah. I was a Yid." He said, "I learned every day. A Yid learns every day. Every day a Yid learns Torah." He said, "I learned every day, but I wasn't zocheh to be sitting and learning. So, I learned every day. I was a baker. I was busy with parnassah." Said, "I went through yissurim." He said, "The last 20 years of my life, I learned Yom u'Layla, I'm Mamesh soaked in Torah." His Sefer has a Hakdama, has Haskama from the only Yom Tov's son as one Haskama. One of the Gedolei HaDor, the only Yom Tov's son. The other Haskama is Reb Binyamin, who gave Haskama to the Chofetz Chaim. To the Chofetz Chaim, to the Mishna Berurah. that Reb Binyamin gives us commentary safer. Beautiful as comments they write about this sadik, Reb Dovid Bryansk. And he writes that the way I got where I got is through yesurim. He said yesurim are difficult and hard, and Hashem loves us, and I discovered my neshama from yesurim. He shows psukim in Hallel. He says sar avi emsa. Emsa's like a metziya. He says, why is it a metziya? What does that say? I'm made that I found through yesurim my neshama that I'm worth. Through my body being racked in difficulty, I was able to find that I'm more than my body. He said I discovered my neshama and it saved my family. That's what he writes. I saw I'm worth. What I found, and he said I'm writing this cuz I want the reader to know this, that Hashem loves us. And when we face yesurim, to know that Hashem just wants us to discover more, there's more of ourselves. And that's why he's writing it. And he wants us to know this. He wants the reader. He says, when he was a letter to the family, we took it. He was writing to his anach writing to us sugia and the parsha of yesurim. He knew his anach are visiting a place that you're going to come in touch and in contact with yesurim, with the challenges and the galus and the difficulties of our journey, that Hashem wants us to discover we're more. And that's mamish the sugia of galus. When you're not when we're not tied to different things, people discover deeper places in themselves. And it's a sugia. I I was talking to my children that Rebbi says to Rebbi says to talmidim not to date a girl once. To go out and there's no one and out in our world. You don't date. So, the question is, how do you have a second date? You know it's not you. You know it's not you. How do you have a second I mamish and no such thing as a date where it's not to me. Not even there's no such do a chesed. There's not There's no sug you that's not a date. Whatever. So, what does that mean to go on a second date? What does that mean? So, what I what what I just what my children and I I want to say [snorts] figured out what's wrong with shidduchim. A guy dates once, says she's not for me. Who's You know yourself you're out of your mind. You You're on that sug you like das as you know yourself. You don't You don't know anything. Stop knowing yourself. It's [clears throat] annoying when she's not for me. You You momish you You don't even Really? You're serious? Go out a couple of times. You know nothing and relate to a person momish. Meet somebody. See what happens. Stop being so stuck that you know yourself. You You're in a shul you have been with These are deep marriages. Two neshamos coming together. This guy like knows. That is such a strange fellow. It's annoying when a guy like knows. He's missing a whole sug you have not knowing. The The same guy you know is not to me has neshama. I can't do this. It will never work. I'm not shiyach to it. You know yourself? You momish know? Years ago I would learn certain s'farim that I would close right away and I couldn't relate to. Today I read those s'farim and they're like everything that talks to me. You know yourself? See See a journey. Meet somebody. Talk to somebody. That That alone a guy should go out more than once. Just If he feels she's momish not for you that for sure you need a second date. Then it's partial give. If you momish met each other and you say I have a sense this is not my bashert. Okay, then you You have to do Maybe do 10 to do I'm just like You momish stuck. Not to me. That's the guy who doesn't know himself at all. He should go out a second time. Just like his neshama should experience and like open up a bit and like see experience somebody. So, I want to give this subject this aspect of golus, this aspect of our yisurim, this aspect of our travels, this aspect when things don't like fit exact and go exact and we can access and find that we have deeper spaces and there's more to us. There's much, much more to us and I can find more. >> [snorts] >> I was happy Doniel and a couple of chevre, they went out of town. They did their own golus and when I spoke to Dovid Clark, I spoke to Dovid, we managed spoke, he wanted to from They Dovid described to me things he like felt is that he's a yid. Somehow like it's interesting that the hostages said the same thing. The hostages who are just me and you, the citizen, the hostages described discovering I'm a yid. Somehow when there was less predictability, they were not stuck in like the same monotony and the uncomfortability, they discovered deeper places. And one after another they wrote like I'm I'm a yid. They were looking into deeper places. They were in not having all the predictable things that make them just fall into routine, they all disc- discovered I'm a yid. Dovid and I discussed similar things with like getting in touch. Now he's he's might even go back as a shtickel rov these days. Is that happening Dovid? Are you You might be looking at the new rov of Utah. A rebbe or a rov? What's it going to be, Dovid? >> Rov. >> A rov of Utah. So much of the tire that we're hearing from rebbe this summer of like digging into deeper spaces of us that we could find more and there's there's much more, there's more in me and there's more to tap into. This is really the subject when people see where past this world. So, there's a world knowing oneself for sure. We live in a physical world. We live with a goof. Like Chaim says, we're more we're a neshama with the goof and other aspects. But, but also knowing there's spaces that we don't know. We could tap into more and we're capable of accessing more. Be ready for that all our lives, all the different situations. Hashem, why? What he wants us to access more. This segway of yisurim and of galus that helps you to find more, access more. The Sfas Emes writes that we know that when the kruvim were looking at each other, so it was man oisim tzelem makom pnei malabais. When the kruvim turned pnei malabais, was einai tzelem makom. The Sfas Emes says pnei malabais, they were looking to the externals. They only saw the physical. They didn't find those deeper places. That's That's That's the pnei malabais. And the opportunity of galus is to find those deeper places. All of our opportunity of galus. I'm hoping in in in our mourning, in our focus on the galus, in our focus on the yisurim, that we can we could start accessing and and being in touch with a deeper place of the neshama that's journeying. That's That's That's the hope of what could be over the next hours.