From Slavery to Freedom: The Inner Journey of Every Soul - Parshat Bo - Rabbi YY Jacobson

May she be an everlasting source of love and blessing and light and inspiration. Amen. >> Start the dedication. It wasn't. >> Sure. Okay. Sure. Today's class is dedicated by the Strasburg family in loving memory of Schulamis basu in tribute to her yardite on the third day of may her soul be an everlasting source of light and love and blessing and empowerment to the family and to all of us and all the Jewish people. Amen. It's also dedicated for a complete and speedy recovery for Basardana for many long happy healthy years. also dedicated by Diana and Oded Benari in honor of their grandchildren Azi Kaim and Yishi Ezra Balin for all good things and blessings. Amen. And finally dedicated by Ellie and Josie Sadis in loving memory of their child Israel Mayor Ben Aliyah who illuminated this world with a smile and love for six years until he passed away this year on Kaneka and today is his. So we honor this class in his extraordinary and loving memory with tremendous blessings and love to his parents and to the entire family. Today we want to address something that we all know about and yet we still seek to really get to the bottom of it because it's really the journey of life. Everybody knows that the most fundamental or certainly one of the most fundamental memories of the Jewish people as a nation is the story of Mitzim the Exodus of Egypt which happens this week in Parish boy. It's almost like we can't get enough of it. It's constantly remember it's constantly constantly thought about thought about. We recall it at almost every single Jewish occasion. and milestone. You sayingdesh Friday night, Friday night dinner and we speak about ines in our holidays and in constant Jewish life of course is the most celebrated holiday in the Jewish world even among secular Jews. But as the Torah says throughout all the days of your life, it says remember the day you left Egypt. And that's what we do. We remember it and not once a day but a few times a day. In fact, whenever one person says when a person says we see huge sections of doning are dedicated to recalling the story of the splitting of the sea and the Jews being redeemed in middle of Zimra and then later after again and again and again and one can ask the question the story happened 3,300 years ago and change it's been a lot of water came under the bridge And yet we keep on going back to that particular story. It's true. It's a foundational story. It's a story when we became a people, when we became a nation. And a nation that doesn't have a memory of who it is and where it comes from loses its future, loses its destiny. It's one of the great challenges that the United States of America is experiencing now. When you don't have a memory of who you are, why you were founded, how you were founded, what not to take for granted, what your forefathers and foremothers fought for, there's always the danger of not knowing where to go. So, it's important to remember. But yet the pivotal and indispensable place that Mitsim, the redemption of Egypt carries in Jewish, not only in Jewish law and in Jewish story, but in Jewish daily life seems so extraordinary and profound. Is it just a memory of an amazing thing that happened more than 3,000 years ago? That's what we want to learn about today. Because when we learn this story, we could learn it on two dimensions and both are true. We could learn it on the physical dimension. The Jews were enslaved by tyranny, by subjugation, by the Pharaoh, by the Egyptian bondage and suffer terribly. And this was the unique moment that they are finally set free by Hashem's direct intervention following the dramatic 10 plagues. And it became that itself became a source of inspiration. I think it's not an exaggeration to say that most freedom movements throughout history have gleaned their inspiration and motivation from the story of the Exodus of Egypt. Whether it's the slaves in the south or the Martin Luther King, I guess this week it's appropriate. Uh fighting for freedom of his people etc. So many movements their inspiration was as they say Moses and the leaders the the the liberation of Egypt standing up to tyranny and oppression. uh we're seeing now in Iran. Who knows how that's going to emerge. And you can also see the stubbornness of leaders who put their heads, they dig their claws into the earth and do not want to budge because they cannot see another perspective. So that in itself is very very powerful. It set an agenda for history. It showed people what their true destiny is, what they're capable of, what they should make peace with and what they should not make peace with. That's one dimension of the story. For the Jewish people, of course, it's an intimate story. It's a personal story. It's our collective story that we all share and we were all part of. Every one of us carries it in our genes, carries it in our soul, in our heart. But there's another dimension of its and the other dimension of mam is a very very personal one. It's also a collective one, but it's also an individual personal one. So this whole story is remembered every day because it's not really a memory. It's actually what it means to live. So, we're not just remembering something that happened a long time ago. And it's a beautiful story. It's an amazing story. And it shaped and crafted our identity, our priorities, our vision, our destiny, our trajectory. And it's something says pass on to your children, which is what we do. And the whole seda was constructed around that. But it's also a very individual emotional story of everybody's journey. And this is where we learn to appreciate that the exodus of Egypt is essentially a choice. Just like then there were those who didn't want to leave. It wasn't easy. Some of these no-brainer were you staying in this in this pothole? We're going to stay in this cesspool in this abyss. That's true. It's very nice to say that rationally. But anybody who knows about really challenging your comfort zone and really responding to life from a different way than I responded for many many years. It's not easy. Leaving Egypt personally is not so simple. There's a lot a lot of resistance to it because the familiar is always less shocking than the unfamiliar. And even if the familiar has challenges and difficulties and keeps me stuck and resentful and angry and anxious and despondent and all the other good words or bad words, nonetheless, I'm used to it. It worked yesterday. It worked last week. It worked 20 years ago. I'm still here to tell the story. I even came to the class today. Okay, how bad am I doing? My coffee tasted good this morning. So, it's weird. There's a choice. There's a deep choice. And the choice is not easy because the only way a person could choose to do something difficult is when they recognize the difficulties. If I don't recognize it, if I make believe it's nothing, it's nothing, it's nothing. Usually that desperation to say it's nothing will turn out to work against me because it knows that I cannot deal with the real resistance. Only when I can acknowledge it and say, you know what, it's not so easy to leave. Can I actually then realize the choices what's involved and then perhaps have the agency and that's why you see something fascinating that throughout the entire whenever there's a crisis there's a group of Jews who say let's just go back to Mitsay constantly and you would think what's the romance in Mitsay you would think life there was perfect they were slaves they were tortured there was slave labor there was it was a travesty it was a tyranny what are you asking what are you going back for and the answer is because in their own mind it was something that we could control. It was predictable. It was familiar. I know what's going on. I already this is it's not a comfort zone. It's not a comfortable zone, but it's at least something I'm familiar with. I adapted to it. I know the ins and outs. You know, it's my little space. I know the hiding places. I know the crevices. And here there's just this vulnerability of the unknown. And to be in this vulnerability called the desert. So, the desert is really a metaphor of the wilderness. I don't know where I'm going. I'm waiting for a cloud to tell me we're going here, we're going there. I don't know if there's water tomorrow. I don't know if my kids are going to have what to eat tonight. I'm waiting for food to come from heaven for a rolling stone to make sure that I have water. There's no the circumstances are circumstance that don't allow me to function and therefore I have to surrender and be vulnerable. It's very very scary in life. It's much easier to be able to say I have some form of understanding of the situation which in my own mind gives me a sense of control which in danger is the most important thing. I have some form of control in order to be able to survive. One has to recognize the vulnerability of redemption. It's a vulnerable and that far that's why whenever there's a crisis let's go back. Let's go back. Let's go back. You would think they saw such extraordinary miracles. Why would you even think of going back? But that's what's so important to understand that the nervous system has its own language, right? It's not necessarily in makes sense, but it's an internal instinct that I'm reacting to and I have to recognize it because I don't always have control over that reaction. I can't feel guilty about the reaction. The more I can recognize it, the more I have choice how much to internalize that reaction and either let it dictate my behavior or I could make space for it. I can hold space for it and yet choose the path of redemption. So hereas is not an event that happened. It's an event that I and you and all of us are choosing literally every moment of the day. Should it happen or should it not happen? Of course, we remember it constantly because this is the key to allowing myself to lean into the experience. It means I believe there's a opportunity for the exodus of Egypt. Now, what does this mean in a person's life? So today we're going to study it gets a little deep and nuanced but it's very really very very personal. This is a very emotional journey. So in terra you know there's two dimensions of Tyra. It's called nigla of terra and pmus of terra. The zya says it's like the body and the soul. The goof and the nama. To have a person on there's a goof and goof is our outer physical reality. It manifests the soul in a physical way. This is what we call the body. And the body is the temple. It's the mikt that channels the nama in a very physical fashion. And the body consists of the entire organism that hashem creates which is miraculous and extraordinary. Each one of its 50 or 60 trillion cells which make up the miracle called human life. The nama is the inner consciousness which vivifies the body. Then itself has so many layers is same as withra has also these two parts. They're really one just like a person. It's all one. It's not separate. But it's manifested in two ways. One is the goof of says in it's called. >> So when I'm learning a story is being sold by his brothers. Cen kills heaven. Jacob dresses up like his brother and gets the blessings. The Jewish people are enslaved in physical crushing labor in Egypt. There's 10 plagues of blood and frogs and lice, etc. There's the goof of that story. The goof is the physical manifestation of that story. The way it happened in history, the way it played out in with real people and real homes and real lives and real communities. But there's also the soul of the story. The soul of the story continues to exist. The soul of the story is the inner dimension, the inner consciousness of the story. So when we talk about mits, there's also two stories. There's the physical story and then there's the emotional, spiritual, psychological story where all characters represent something that exists inside of us. They exist in my brain. They exist in my nervous system. They exist in my heart. They exist in my soul. They exist in my consciousness. They exist in my psyche. And that's why you'll see this two dimensions in Yiddish. One is called nigla of which is very much connected to the physical the stories and the which are all the physical directions guidance including stories and history. And then there's the plyus of Tyra known as Kabala which describe the internal rhythm and music of the story. Today we're going to see what the Arizal the great one of the greatest cabalist or mystics of Jewish history who passed away on the 5th of 1572 buried in the old cemetery. Rabitura was his name known as the adenu or they called him the which is also the lion. And he has a safer called and parv he describes what is gullis and the exodus and the red the exile in the internal psyche of a person but writes it in very very cababalistic language which means code language it's code words I don't know how many of you are familiar with physics but if you ever tried to read mathematical equations which physicists use unless you're initiated and trained in It it's pure gibberish. It could be brilliant. It could be amazing. But it's like music sheets. If you know how to read music sheets, you look at the music sheets, you start smiling. Other some of us look at music sheets and we get headaches. You understand? It depends. If you could read the language, if you can't read the language, you can't read the language. Is the same way. It's written in code language. This piece of we have the bal has a discourse where he takes apart the words of and applies it in psychological emotional terms. So it really gives us a tremendous revelation into the light that is teaching what is the exodus and the exile of Egypt in a person's internal life. Let's see it inside. There's going to be some words that are mystical or abstract or transcendent. And hashem are going to try to demythologize the abstractions. You know what that means? That's not kabala. That's English. Okay, just for the record. I heard it from somebody else. Don't worry. And uh try to bring it down. I'll ask Hashem to allow me to be a channel. At least the way I understood at least parts of it that it's a very very you could see it's intense and comprehensive and it really deals with the you know entire array of human of human reactions and instincts and behaviors but at least we can glib some very powerful insights here. So let's see this is from the he starts quoting in his which is the para where Ysef is sold into Egypt explains the throat is what's called psychologically the land of Egypt. Why? Because the throat is the narrowest passageway, the narrowest space in the entire body, the head is more expansive. It gets narrowed down into the throat. And then of course the body expands downward. So that space between the head, the skull and the torso, the heart and the rest of the body that is psychologically speaking says that's called mit which comes from the word mar constraints confined narrow like you say is stingy, tight, more tight. The three faculties of awareness known as kma, bina and das are in the brain which is the seat of the mind. They come down as they extend into the body because ultimately the brain governs every single part of the body and is connected to every single other party. They expand and they expand in three dimensions. The right, the middle, the left from the which is right, left and middle. But when they're still in the throat, but before they extend and expand into the entire organism of the body, they have to go through the passageway called the which is the entire area which we call the throat. over there it becomes narrow to an extreme that's where the secret of lives and from the hind part of it that's where got its spiritual nurture the word par is made up of four letters the same letters like hey I and you know what is >> the nape, right? The back of the neck, the back of the gin. That's called the nape. Why is par the same letters like that's where he lives. What does he do there? When we're introduced to par and his dream, right? So it says par has a dream. He's standing on top of the river. Now, he wasn't really standing on top of the river. It's an expression standing near the river and he watches the seven cows, the seven fat cows, the seven lean cows, the seven lean cows swallow the seven fat cows. His entire dream Moshe meets par by the par has this relationship with the river. He's standing on the river says don't get scared of the words is known as the connective element of the mother which flows through the throat until the torso the breast where the emotions begin and that's where you have the means the faculty and the part of the brain that is called we'll see what that means. So par is literally stepping on the river stopping the flow. A river is like a flow. So there's the flow that comes from the awareness and it goes down and could expand into the entire body. is standing obstructing the flow. Literally like you're standing on the flow not wanting it to go. So what's getting out of that restrictiveness and allowing the awareness to get out of the restrictiveness that par wants to hold on to so it could be extended into the entire body. And then you want to go to which is called the good and expansive land. The opposite of because in the body it expands where the throat is still where it is it is it's narrow. This is what is teaching us about the secrets of Mitsay using this language which we want to decipher a little more what he means. So let's see here the Balatanya's explanation to some of these ideas. It's a very long discourse. I just took a few lines to give us some glimpse of what he's saying inside and then we'll elaborate. So he says this is again very precious the says to we say it in the morning after serve Hashem with joy. What does that mean? What does it mean to serve Hashem with joy? Life is not always perfect and impeccable and flawless. So obviously it's an inner state. What is this? This means that a person has a visceral there's a Gilu means revelation. There's a visceral manifested connection with the light of Hashem. So the glory of Hashem is manifested. It's revealed in a person's life. What does this mean in my own soul? When things emerge viscerally and in a revealed way in my heart, I can feel them. It says in the mother of the children is rejoicing. She's rejoicing from the children. What does this mean? The mother and the father represent awareness because they are the progenitors of emotions. Every emotion is fueled by an awareness. There's no emotion in the world, positive or negative, difficult or enthralling, that's not based on some awareness, some idea, some truth in my mind, that is fueling this emotion. So the mother is always the mommy of the child. Every child has a mother, right? No child, I don't have to talk about that already here. No child emerges in a vacuum. Everybody comes. We have a source, mother and father. Father is a little more remote as it is biologically and mother is more immediate because she's the one who carries the child, gives birth to the child. That's why we learned before that the the river is it's the connectivity. It's the connectivity of the mother that's connecting to the heart which is the child. The emotions are children born from their parents is when the mother sees the child. In other words, emotionally speaking, when the awareness comes into the heart which is the child, but when the emotion remains completely dormant only in the brain in the understanding, it doesn't translate into the rest of the body. The child is still impregnated. you're not yet called the mother is when the child is born. That's when there is the because it's felt before that it's still in pregnancy. What stops and obstructs the birth and the revelation of the light of Hashem to come out from concealment in my mind to revelation in my heart. This is the exile of Egypt. This is the constrainment of the throat. This is the bridge that I need to work through to get from my brain into my heart. Embodiment visceral experience. I need to find the bridge between my mind and my body in that space. Sim as you remember parro had three very important people working for him he had a butler he had a baker and he had a butcher two we don't know the name one we do know pifar wasab ysef was sold to pifar that's where he experienced the entire story the accusation of pifer's wife who was the saratab he was the chief butcher of par involved involved and in charge on the entire meat industry and it seems like the taram says Rafa Tallay was also in charge of all the executions was not only a butcher from meat he was also a butcher of people so he was yen at satska and his wife Pifar accused ysef of what promiscuity and he threw him and her husband threw him into prison in prison he meets another two ministers of parro the butler and the baker so ysef was intimately aware of all the three minister sisters of par and he dealt with each of them. Satim was his boss, right? And ultimately he would marry his daughter Ashnas. So he really had to engage with Pifer, right? And Sarah Mashkim and Sim he met in prison and he interpreted their dreams. So par has these three people. So the bal is saying you remember he sits in the nape standing on the river. He doesn't want the flow. He does not like the flow. He stops the flow and he has three people who work for him. One is in charge on the on the meat or tab blood butchery cuz it's not only meat as I told you he was par's chief executioner. So he's very into the blood. One is in charge on all the rugalak bkas, cheesecake, lasagna, danishes, brownie, chocolate cake, sprinkle cake, and of course seven layer cake in the Egyptian version, which I'm not sure what that was at the time. So that's Sarah. And then you have Sarah Mashkim, who was of course in charge for the liquid for mashk. Mashka means drinks. He was the butler. He was in charge for the wine, the alcohol, the vodka, the pina colada and all of the amazing cocktails that par enjoyed. So these are the three instruments that par is using it parallels to the vehet is the food pipe which is known as the esophagus. And you have vidden are the nerves and the arteries veins which channel the blood of course. And then you have the you have the windpipe, the trachea. These represent all the different types of thoughts, schemes, of fears, pleasures, distractions, addictions come up in this world that everybody uses according to their own chemistry and setup and they help par achieve the blockage between what is happening in my mind and the experiential embodied flow into my heart and the rest of the body. So that's why par sits there and that's what the Egyptian exile looks like. So I have awareness. It's in my brain but it's stopped. It's it's stopped there. It gets plugged. It gets blocked. Why? Because it's a magarin and it really can't get through. And as it doesn't get through there is a disconnect between the different parts of me. And that's what exile looks like. What is it? As he said before, when that opens up from m I go out into a midbar which is vulnerable and ultimately to the expansiveness in the body. So what are we learning here? What is that on the bal teaching us about and then we could see why we mention these so many times a day because it's not as I said a memory of the past it's a gift and an opportunity for the present the bridge between the mind and the body that bridge as they say is gerar And now you see the depth of that right pun intended in its full intensity a very very narrow bridge. It's the shortest highway on the entire planet and yet it has the most traffic in the world and that's the highway between the mind, the brain and the heart. probably only 13 inches or so. I guess depends everybody, but not much more. But as they say in Hebrew, the kakim, the combustion, the traffic, how do you say kakim in English? Um, >> huh? >> The congestion, right? Congestion happens on so many different levels. You know, you say, "I'm congested." And here we're talking about the source of congestion where there is so much congestion and to get through that passageway, it's only 13 in. You know, sometimes you're in Manhattan and to get from one street to another street could take you an hour. You know, you're looking at it be faster to crawl. The turtles get there faster. They get there a year before you. It's just one street, you know, but it's deceiving. It's like, oh, we just have to go around the corner. Good luck in Manhattan, right? That's what it looks like. So, it's not about how long it is. Could be in in, you know, if you go 3 in the morning, it'll take you 10 seconds. But if you go to another time, you're just not getting through. This is the concept of mitz and I can't force it. I beep and beep right your m. You ever do that in beep beep beep beep. You get angry. Some people they're cursing. They're swearing and they're curs. Then you get out of the car. So now I'll have control. I have to figure out what's happening. There's a policeman in a bad mood. So you got out. You got out of the car. Now I'm in control. You know I'm got out of the So now I see what's happening. What does that help? I'm not clearing up the accident. I'm not changing the policeman, but there's a desperation. I'm trying to somehow get out of the situation, and I think by understanding it, I'll get out get out of it. But the truth is, there's a real pak here. And I need to address that. I need to address that jam that uh jamness. Did I just make up a word? >> That jam. That traffic jam. Yeah. >> Gridlock. >> Yes. The gridlock. and addressing it may also bring me to the fact that there's things here that I'm not in control over. I can't just snap my finger. And I also can't blame my car for being lazy and sluggish and heavy and lethargic and uninterested and a couch potato and giving up. No, there's a real jam here. And the more I can look at that with compassion, with awareness, with curiosity, and most importantly with authenticity and honesty, not getting entangled by it, but actually observing it, the more I can actually address it. And there may be something, a crisis that has to be addressed or whatever it is in a traffic jam, it's one type of thing. And in our emotional traffic jams, it's other types of things. parro is the force that stands in the ay and is constantly creating a traffic jam. It does not want me to open up and the sashkim sim are the means the instruments that parro actually sends forth to be able to obstruct that flow. Now what does this mean in a person's life? How do we relate to this practically? What does this what does this what does this look like? Today we have more language. It's an amazing thing because we have more language to be able to relate to this in a very personal way and we can actually see at least part of the patterns and the processes that can help us in this area. The bridge literally between the mind and the body is the system known as the nervous system. And the nervous system begins in the mak like everything begins in the m that's the central nervous system that is like the home that's the center that's the base but the nervous system extends and there's no part of the body that is not connected to the brain through that system. It's one of the most fabulous, intricate, incredible, extraordinary systems that one can imagine. The meticulousness, the precision and the fact that through that the which is a command center communicates with every single last part of the body to the smallest smallest part all the way from the top to the bottom to my toe and every other part and the instructions are immediate and it's an incredible incredible system. So the nervous system is constantly getting cues from the may from the mind and that is the bridge to the body and because it's the bridge to the body if you get rid of the bridge there's no way I could pass from Brooklyn to Manhattan or I can pass from my if you don't go the bridge if you get rid of the bridge you say who needs the bridge I can't go through I mean I could swim if I know how to do that I can get a boat but you need to find a way to get through that's the bridge and on this bridge there can be a lot of congestion and this is the whole idea of mitz and what does this congestion look like sometimes a person thinks if I have all the right ideas I learned to write things I go to good shurim I read good books whatever it is I have good hashkafas I got a good education and so on and so forth I could just tell my body what to feel doesn't work that way many of of us have tried it. It does not work that way. The reason is you need to have a language. I need to understand the language of my nervous system because my body is responding to my nervous system. Today we know that our nervous system generally can be in three different states. One is known as parasympathetic, one is sympathetic and one is dorsal. Very very briefly, I'm not I'm no expert in this just uh on a very very basic level. So if I make some mistakes you forgive me. Parasympathetic nervous system is where the nervous system is in a state of relaxation, regulation and trust. There's a very very deep trust. Therefore the preffrontal for the pre in our brain we also have so many different parts of the brain. The amygdala which is circular and at the stem of the brain it's the first thing that develops is what alerts us to danger. that amygdala is a bodyguard, but it's not one bodyguard. It's like a thousand bodyguards that scrutinizes the world 24/7 and monitors everybody and everything to detect danger. It's here to help us. And it starts the moment we begin to form. It starts in the womb. It already learns who's dangerous, what's dangerous, and it adapts and it constantly incorporates new information. And as we're born and we're growing up, that amygdala is developing and constantly communicating and internalizing in its storage house which is incredibly powerful every every experience stimuli which represents danger and it doesn't do it in a brilliant meticulous way of analysis and scrutiny. It has its own methodology of how to pick up what is dangerous, what is not dangerous. It could be 30 years later, 40 years later, the amygdala tells the nervous system danger and the nervous system can't be in parasympathetic state. Now it either goes into sympathetic state or dorsal. Sympathetic state is when it is alerted to danger. It's very very uptight. It's very very scared. There's a lot of fear there. There's a lot of tension. Anything can happen at this moment. I can't trust. I can't relax. If I trust and relax, everything could be in danger. I need to be very, very uptight. I need to be very, very conscientious. I need to notice every single step and I need to judge everything. It changes the way we breathe. It changes the way our body functions. The prefrontal shuts down for a very good reason. The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain that is curious. It can make long-term decisions. It has the space to analyze, to dissect, to see things from different dimensions and perspectives. It can delay gratification for later. It's curious. It's inquisitive. It marvels. It wonders. It's in a state of wonder. It's very open. It's regulated. But when I'm in a in a when I'm in a sympathetic state, I can't go there. If, god forbid, your child runs into the street, your prefrontal shuts down because that those 30 seconds you're going to spend time on analyzing the situation could be so dangerous. If there's a tiger in the room, the prefrontal, what happens is now the entire body gets positioned to go into a place of whatever I need to protect myself. There's dorsal dorsal nervous state is froze, freeze, frozen, disassociated. Sometimes when a person feels helpless so they just like freeze. >> Shock. >> Yeah. We shock and froze. >> Yeah. Sympathetic. I'm very very alert and I'm very very uptight. Indoral. No, I'm fine. I'm actually disconnected, disassociated. Now, usually it's not one or the other. There's a mix of many. For example, a person you say, "Are you in dorsal state?" They'll say, "No, no, no, no, no. I'm fully functional." They learned how to act very very well but really they're disassociated. They're disconnected. This is a nervous system response to usually deep deep wounds where I live life from an external place. I smile. I'm popular in the community. I'm successful. I do the right thing. But inside there's a deadness. There's a numbness. So these are different states through which the mind communicates with the body and that's how the body responds. What we're learning here in this mimer is that what modern research shows us now here the reason is telling us that this is at the core of gulas and gulas mit if I do not address this mitz my problem is not the ideas your ideas you you know everything it's gavaldic but my nervous system was just alerted to a sense of danger or a sense of fear what that means in every person's life is completely different the way our amygdala develops and therefore the way our nervous system develops. So what happens is I go into a place of tightness and I can't experience things in my body anymore. I can't there is a disconnect. What happens? I have a sar mashkim and aim. Those are the three substitutes. Sim represents food usually carbs. usually carbs. Yeah. Sashkim represents drinks. You'll figure out what types of drinks. It's usually not water with lemon. Sabim doesn't only represent meat. It could also be steak. But it represents everything connected >> to blood. >> Anger. >> Anger. Very good. Anger, judgment, resentment, animosity, hatred, jealousy, passion. A lot of passion. These three are standing right there to hijack the situation. Oh, I'm hungry. Okay. Oh, there's a great Danish. Let's go. I eat and for 20 minutes, I feel good. Life is per perfect. 20 minutes later, I'm depressed. So, I eat something else. All addictions, all distractions connected to binging, connected to food, that's the sim's contribution. And he does an amazing thing. It could be kalupsus. It could be sourdough kala. I mean sourd kala is better than sprinkle cake. But if I eat 20 pieces of it, you know what happens there? It could be pizza. It could be something else. The point is not so much what it's what the intention is. Am I running? Am I distracting? The same is true s mashkim drinks and all that represents. And then those are the emotional responses because whenever I go into a place of anger, judgment, resentment, what do I do? I do not allow myself to really be in the place of das and this is what we're learning here about what das is because that becomes the key. Das is the liberating force. Das is awareness not knowledge but awareness. There'sma bina and dasma is the curiosity to new ideas and allowing the epiphany of a new idea to come into me. Beina is analysis and comprehension. Das is actually awareness. What's awareness? Awareness is that there's an eye observing everything that's happening without getting entangled in it. I can watch my reactions. It's hard to do that because there's an eye that's watching it and not becoming entangled through it. So, for example, your husband says something to you and may trigger something deep. Maybe your amygdala just told you there is danger in your house. It's called your husband. Forgive my bluntness. But for the amygdala, that may be very real. Your teenage child said something to you. That migdala said danger, danger, danger. We don't call it danger. That miga is smart. It calls it cuz danger, I'm fine. I'm a strong woman. I'm good. I got it figured out. We have other names. We don't call it danger. We call it kutbah. We call it obnoxious. We call it these are this is crazy people whatever it is a bunch of names. What are all these names doing? They are making us very hypervigilant usually very uptight and very restricted. You can even feel the heaviness. You can feel them in and suddenly what takes over now I become like a computer. I'm figuring out every step but from a place of restrictiveness. Every word I say is monitored and there's a heaviness and it's really I'm just trying to survive. What can I do at that moment? I can't just eliminate it. I can't just kill par. What I need to do is das das is can I watch what is happening without judgment? Can I say wow look what's just happening in my brain. There's like a circus going on there. There's like a hundred little children screaming at each other, arguing, and then it's like, "CIR, YOU SHOULDN'T GET UPSET. OH, RELAX. CALM DOWN. OH, YOU'RE SUCH an idiot. Oh, I'm such a BAD MOTHER. OH, NO. THEY'RE CRAZY. WHOA, WHOA, WHOA." That was all the survival template that I'm used to because this is the place I go into in order to be in control of the situation. Now, if you if we never did this in our life, it's very hard to do this because part of par is not to do this. Do not do this. Don't be aware of these things because if you're not aware of this, you're just autopilot and you're unconscious and you just do it again and again. Some of us do this for 40, 50 years. We just react. And it worked. It worked on some level. It works until it stops working. For those of you who had the fortune that it stopped working, you're lucky because this is an invitation to go into gulas from galis to actually be able to see my mechanisms. There's really deep fears. Yeah, I need control. I'm afraid of I'm yes, maybe I feel I'm being judged. Maybe I'm afraid my wife doesn't like me. My husband doesn't like me. That is my greatest challenge. I feel unloved. You ever find yourself doing something a mistake? I'm so stupid. That was an intern. And if it happens to anybody, I know I'm so stupid. >> It's like an instinctive thing. What just happened? What? Who said you're stupid? The answer is me. Me, right? And that's the most powerful person in the world. A billion people can tell you you're stupid. It's irrelevant if you don't believe it. If you BELIEVE IT, SEVEN billion people could tell you you're not stupid. It's irrelevant. It's completely irrelevant. This is what my amygdala learned. However, it learned it. It's true. It's not because of something happened, because of something. I think that happened. But that's what it that that's that that's where it goes to. And I need to protect myself from that. My nervous system, I'm going to protect you from that. So, if I could tell myself I'm so stupid, it means don't trust me. Think a thousand times before I say a word, social anxiet, whatever it means. But it's putting me in that hypervigilant state where everything is controlled from a place of survival. And that's the sympathetic nervous state or the dorsal nervous state. Dorsal is tricky because a person could be so disassociated that they don't know they're disassociated. They have so disconnected from themselves. They put on a show so well. I suffered from this for many years that it and they do very very well. They act and they're smart. So they know how to adopt and they're trying to do the best. They're it's not this is not bad. This is really survival. But what's happening is there is a disassociation that the nervous system says for you to be safe. Do not feel do not feel too much. And if your brain could compensate, this is where it's a curse to have a good brain because if your brain knows how to compensate, it does an amazing job. You don't have to feel. You know what to say. >> Huh. Exactly. Yeah. short breath and slave labor. I just don't even have the mental bandwidth to hear any of this. I'm just in that wrote and I can go on and on and on and follow this. And this is what it means to be in exile. It could be so difficult to understand because what happens is survival becomes redemption. If I never tasted what guula means, gullus becomes gula. I'm like, it's fine. It's perfect. But you do know symptoms. First of all, the people around you are suffering from you. They're not happy. Number two, there's a torture inside. There's an emptiness inside. Something is off. These are the symptoms that alert us to the fact that something is not worked out. I didn't really get this. I also see I'm distracting myself. I also see I'm angry. I'm jealous. I'm resentful. I don't have to live like this. But I don't have to. I cannot say I don't have to live like this if I don't even know how to begin to address this. And therefore, we need to understand how these messages are communicated. The best thing I can do is das. Das means curiosity with awareness without judgment. Just watching it. It's almost like I become an internal spectator, not imshed in the whole circus. And it's like, wow, I just got very triggered. Who just said that? Not the part that got triggered. That's your dos. Wow, I am overwhelmed. I can't have I can't have a relationship with this person. Okay. Wow. Who just said that? The part that feels a kind of a relationship, but I watched it. Wow, I am so overwhelmed. I am so I AM SO ANGRY. I REALLY WANT TO BURST OUT. OKAY. And instead of becoming it, you're like watching it. You're observing it. You're watching the process. Pyro never wants you to do that. Pyro wants you to be stuck in it to be in me. GO TO SARAH, GO DRINK, GO EAT, GO GET ANGRY, GO GET DRUG, WHATEVER YOU CAN DO. JUST GO INTO IT SO you could be in a false narrative of control cuz who wants to be in a vulnerable desert. Nobody wants to be there. But that's the only way to leave mitz. And what happens is I can actually watch the process and I can start communicating it and I can actually learn. So sometimes we need a lot of support for this and a lot of work and we need to be able to deal with it on different levels. We have nephesh, we have ru, we have nish. Sometimes there's a stuckness in the body. Literally the nervous system is frightened. Sometimes my belief systems have become completely contaminated, completely soiled. I need to work with that. I need to work with different parts. But the common denominator in all of it is that my internal state of awareness, which is divine awareness, which needs the prefrontal cortex to be open, can communicate to my nervous system, and my nervous system could bring it into the body. What happens at such a moment? You can't replace it. You know it when you experience it. What is the experience? Part of the experience at least is the nervous system goes into a state of deep deep regulation and openness and is actually channeling what he calls here Gilu. You see what's the truth of the person? The truth of the person is you're not alone. The truth of the person is you're not broken. You're not devastated. The truth of the person is you're not a loser and you're not a defect. The truth of the person is like we always say, you're a divine channel. My nervous system can get that message and channel it to the body. And when my heart or other parts of the body channel through this nervous system, the truth of God cruising through my veins, cruising through my nervous system, cruising through my cells, your heart and body open. They open to be in a state of full presence. The relationships that happen at that moment are not transactional. They're the only relationships that are not transactional. Transactional relationships are quit per quote. I do this, you do this. I say this, you say this. I go here, you go there. It's all part of a somebody's winning, somebody's losing, and there's always control. Those are survival languages. We talk always from the Tanya that we have a divine soul and an animal soul. All these parts develop from the animal soul which just wants me to survive. And therefore, the amygdala tells me what is dangerous. The nervous system knows when to go into a certain place. And it could be 40 years later, you meet a person, but that person reminds you of this situation that caused you to go into a sympathetic NERVOUS SYSTEM. YOU'RE RIGHT BACK THERE. It could be a smell. It could be a song that you heard in the car when there was an accident. When I was 14 years old, I was in a terrible car accident and a friend of mine, a classmate was killed. 1986 in the summer. I didn't realize this. My wife told it to me. I'm in a car. It's how many years later? Uh this is tough. Sov 40 years later. 40 years later I'm in the car and out of nowhere some the drive if I'm not driving if somebody else is driving they make a little turn. I go I go crazy. It's not rational. My body learned there's danger here. That's it. The nervous system works faster than analysis. It doesn't wait. Okay, Rabbi Wi, GIVE US AN ANALYSIS of the highway, please. It's not how it works because we wouldn't survive the way that boom boom. OH, THERE'S ROADS, THERE'S A HIGHWAY, THERE'S CARS, danger zone. And I suddenly became aware of it. I'm like, oh my god, I am very tense now. I am afraid that something is going to happen. I am afraid that something is going to happen. So if there's any slightest shortstop veering off, a car came by. Even though barashm nothing happened in my body, there's crisis. I am uptight. I am tense. I sometimes scream out. I go and my wife is like, "What? What? Relax. What just that?" Nothing happened. What's the the ha is I got a message. My nervous system got a message and it told my whole body at that moment I'm not meditating and I'm not breathing and I'm not relaxing. I'm not supposed to relax. If the fire ALARM GOES OFF, RUN. THE AMYGDALA serves a purpose when there is real danger. So, the nervous system works LIKE THIS AND RIGHT AWAY PUTS US INTO that state and then we don't even realize we're in that state and we just follow, we go down that rabbit hole and we just respond our instincts, our behaviors, our reactions, our words, most importantly our habits at that time. What do I do in order to survive? Pick your choice. Some of us do all three mahadra minahadran. We eat, we drink, we get angry, we get judgmental, we eat a little more. We get a little resentful. We get really really upset. WE GO INTO DESPAIR. WHATEVER IT IS, EVERYBODY with their own. And the bottom line is we kill the ability. We kill the ability to be able to be in flow with the divine energy. Now, I can't just eliminate all these things, but I could notice that's what Das is. Das is the ability to notice it with compassion without judgment. I don't know the full truth. Okay, my wife just said something, my husband just said something, my daughter said something. I could watch I could just watch what's happening. I can see how I am reacting. The right of the student of the par we learned this one year. Everybody asked a question. If Hashem told Mosha so many times, I will harden Pre's heart, I will not let him leave you. I will I will make sure he's stubborn. How could you punish him? It's so unfair. It's like punishing a lion for devouring a gazelle and rewarding a sheep for eating grass. Did they have a choice? Did they really have a choice? The lion has woke up one morning and said, "You know what? I want to be a cruel predator and kill animals." And the sheep woke up one morning. I said, "I want to be the sadar. I'm only going to eat grass." I mean, really, does the wolf choose to be a wolf? And the beer chooses to be a beer. And the crocodile really, really wanted to be an ant. And then it says, "No, I'm going TO BE A CROCODILE, AND I'M GOING TO DO WHAT CROCODILES DO." AND THEN I'LL cry with crocodile tears to make the make this. That's not what happens. So, WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM PAR? WHY ARE YOU PUNISHING HIM? It's not fear. And don't call him a Russia. You wanted this. You set him up. He wasn't really. You said you said he says it again. I WILL MAKE PAR. That's not fear. So he's not culpable. So he shouldn't have punishment and don't blame it on him. Blame it on you. It's a very very powerful question and it comes up constantly. So of Chernobyl says that there's a very deep answer here and I want you to understand this. The says in um says there's two paths before you the path of life, the path of goods, the path of death, the path of evil. There's two paths. You can go both. And I'm telling you, you should choose life. You see, there's something strange about this. First, you're telling me to choose and then you're telling me what to choose. Interesting. That's what we do with our kids, right? YOU CAN GO WHEREVER YOU WANT. MOMMY IS very open-minded. You could marry whoever you want. You could go do whatever you want until they actually do it. And then you're like, you're freaking out. This is crazy. He's destroying his life. No problem. So why'd you tell him to choose? Don't you know when you leave to a you tell your daughter, "It would be so nice if you clean up the kitchen. It would be so nice. That's not her version of niceness. Her version of this evening is doing something else. So if I instruct somebody to do something, okay, if I ask them to do it or I tell them you choose and then they choose what I don't want, why are you getting upset? So God wants to say there's two paths. YOU KNOW WHAT? I WANT YOU TO GO ON THAT PATH. OKAY, FINE. NO PROBLEM. I WANT YOU to choose. By the way, there's only one choice. You see these two roads? You can go wherever you want, but you make sure for your life. YOU MAKE SURE YOU GO THAT WAY, NOT THAT WAY. AND IF NOT, I kill you. I HAVE NO PROBLEM. DON'T TELL ME YOU'RE CHOOSING. DON'T TELL ME I'M CHOOSING. The answer to this is very profound. And that is he's saying like this. The only way you'll be able to be choosing your life, the only way you will actually have agency is if you find out what the path of life looks like. The other path you can go on, but you won't have you won't have choice. The nayam says as follows. What hashem was telling par is not I'm making par stubborn so I could punish him even though he really wants to let you go out of Egypt. He's actually explaining to Mosha why you would want to leave exile. A lot of people didn't want to leave exile. Just like it's very hard to change our internal systems. It's very hard. It worked. Was it torturous? Yeah. I don't think anybody in this room could say that if I stay in MY COMFORT ZONE, STUCK IN MY PATTERN, it's perfect. Everybody knows things are not always so gishmak. But you know what? I'm here. Why should you want to leave? So Hashem tells I'll explain to you why. As long as you live in the consciousness of mit where par is the king, you actually don't have choice. Your entire life is reactionary. You don't really have choice. You are constantly responding. Look at parro. He is watching the destruction of his country. Look at Iran. You are watching the destruction of your country. You can be prosperous. You're a superpower. It doesn't matter. This is this is what our systems do to us. A person is screaming at his child. You know what happened last week as a result? I can't help myself. I am overwhelmed. A person disconnects from their spouse, disconnects from God, disconnects from people. You know how special it was two days ago when you felt close. I can't help myself. There's danger. If there's a lion that comes into this classroom AND EVERYBODY'S AND RABBI Yway says, "Okay, women, relax. Close your eyes. Breathe. Meditate. Parasympathetic." You're like, "Rabbi Wi, you can meditate. You can breathe. You can GO INTO PARASYMPATHETIC. I'M OUT." And you know what? You're normal. We have to understand that sometimes when we hear a certain comment or we watch a certain scene, a lion came into the room in our own nervous system. And the fact that I don't feel it, it doesn't mean anything. You feel it. Of course you're going crazy. Of course you're hollering. It looks like a 50-year-old father, a 50-year-old mother, but really this is a three-year-old nervous system that is overwhelmed and anxious or goes into freeze. Froze. Some of us our game is so good we don't want to become violent and crazy. So what do we do? We learn how to go into dorsal state. We disassociate. We know how to remain calm and dead. Anybody knows about that? >> Okay. Some of us grew up in situations where there was rage and anger and abuse. And for some the abuse is so deep because there's nothing going on. smiling but there's no presence, no emotion, no embodiment, no flow, no connection. It's a tremendous, tremendous survival mechanism. Very, very helpful for survival because if I don't feel, I'm not messy. I don't get distracted. I don't get overwhelmed. The problem is there's a deadness inside. Par obstructed the flow. He cut the oxygen. So we need to appreciate all of this. So parashem says this is what golas looks like. He has he has no choice. The guy has no choice. That's what it looks like. I actually have no choice in my life. I am who I am because of forces that have shaped me and molded me through my genetics, through my inheritance, through my nurture, through my nature, through the way I adapted to life, through my dispositions, my physiological self and my environment. This is how I react. This is who I am. All I can do is within that little sandbox, I can, you know, choose to play with the sand on this side or the sand on that side. But I'm not getting out of the sandbox. Could it be only one way? Only if you can actually watch all of that and go into a place of das which is your divine eye that is actually not inshed in all of those templates. It remained always divine infinite and in that sense aloof from the entanglement with any kipus with any shells and I could simply observe it and watch it. That's the first step to then beginning the process of work of opening up things literally opening up things talking about the pain addressing it sometimes on many different levels on a somatic level on an intellectual level on an emotional level on a belief system level on different levels of addressing it. Sometimes it's real work with the nervous system. The nervous system is so shot it is so overwhelmed. It's so into its autopilot mode, it doesn't even know how to do anything else. Some of you know about this. There's a whole field of of of of science in this today. It's very very interesting because if I don't know, I don't even know. This is just how I live. So the only way you can have choices, if not, it's not going to be a choice. I'm hungry, I eat. I'm tired, I go to sleep. You said this, I get overwhelmed. I see this, I get jealous. I DON'T EVEN HAVE A CHOICE. I'm just surviving. guy and I use my brain to figure it out and I can even become a brilliant brilliant teacher, a brilliant mentor, a brilliant guy. I know how to do jigsaw puzzle. What's it called? Uh >> cross word puzzles with life. I FIGURE THINGS OUT. I STRUCTURE THEM. I even know what to say. And my brain could be so blessed that it even knows how to be empathetic, say the right things to the right people, and really fit in. And yet internally there's a sense of torture. That's gullis. Internally, there's a deadness. Internally, I don't even know what it means to be joyfully present in life, joyfully relaxed, joyfully regulated. I don't even know that there's such an opportunity because I grew up in gullus. I was born in gullus. I'm going to die in gullus. I don't even know of anything else. And I call that redemption. I have a good piece of kougal. It tastes good for 45 seconds. That's messiah. I get a new satska and I feel good for three days. Msiah, I don't even know that there's anything else. Whatever it is, it could be a piece of clothes. It could be a new computer. Especially if I GET A NEW HOUSE and it has a pool and an indoor pool and never mind a jacuzzi and there's forest in the back and THERE'S A BROOK OF WATER. WHERE DO you need more messiah? NOW THESE ARE FINE THINGS beautiful but that's my sashkim taking me away from the real pain so I could distract myself and in that template it's the best I can do and what happens is the energy is stuck what's the difference what's gulas mitz gulas mitam is I could notice all of this I become aware of this I could see the template I could see what my amygdala is alerting me what just happened to my nervous system? I could actually look what state I'm in. I could say, you know what, I don't trust now. I'm just angry. I just need to control you. You could see it in your marriage almost see what is happening right now in our house. What's my relation with my children? And I can't just flip snap my fingers and go out, but I could notice. I can observe without judgment, with curiosity, with compassion, with presence to be able to watch it. Because the more you can observe these things, the more you can choose. If I cannot observe it, I'm just in it. That's what par is. He sits on the he stops the flow and all that happens is I just react based on what I learned is the best way to react. Maybe I will criticize you but in a manipulative way to suppress my anger. You know what that looks like? I'll make a comment. Really? I'm trying to give a but ah >> yeah. What is it really? It's my way of getting back or releasing my anger. But I don't want to be called an angry husband. So I do it in a very smart manipulative way. But there's a torturous there. There's no openness. It's literally stuck like a lump in the throat. It's like an emotional lump in the throat. That's what emotional congestion is. Or emotional constipation. Forgive me. It can't come out. The baby's not coming out. And as a result of that, I'm engulf is the ability to be able to begin to notice this and address it. And then what can happen is other parts can open up. The prefrontal can open up. Am I really in danger? Am I really in danger? Is my wife really a danger? Is my husband really a danger? Maybe, maybe not. Is my husband really a danger? I know my husband has issues. Okay, not your husband, but some husbands person's wife. Nobody's perfect. I know that. But is my husband really a danger? Is my teenage 16-year-old really a danger? Is my 8-year-old really a danger cuz they're having a bad day and they came home from school? Do I really need to lock up? Do I really need to right away address everything and make sure they don't have pain to protect me from my pain? I was in Kesha Navi a few Shabbas ago. So, I was asked to speak to teenagers who are siblings of children who are struggling. So they made a whole separate of Shabbaton for the siblings in the home girls who are dealing with either brothers or sisters who are really struggling with life or Yiddish and all that. So their parents were there and they were there. So they had a special lunch. So I went with my wife to speak to them my lunch without their parents. So it's so interesting. I asked one of the girls, she was expressing how painful life is in their home because their parents are completely dedicated to one child and they mean well, but they completely neglect all the other children and how painful it is and so forth. So I asked her, can you have a conversation with your mother about this and your father about your pain that you're experiencing without judgment, without attacking, just to share your experience and your pain? And this girl looks at me and says, "What? My mother can't even feel her own pain. SHE WON'T ALLOW HERSELF TO FEEL HER OWN PAIN. SHE WILL DISTRACT WITH EVERYTHING. YOU WANT MY MOTHER TO FEEL MY PAIN?" My wife looks at me and says, "You know, 60 year olds go to therapy for 30 years and haven't figured this out. And these 60 year olds just get it. I'm telling you, the kids today, THEY'RE LIKE HUND THOUSANDS of miles ahead. She did. She didn't say my mother is selfish. She said my mother can't even feel her own pain. She does not allow herself to feel her own pain. That's a no no. That's another survival template. The nervous system SAYS NO PAIN. HOW do you do that? You can do it through disassociation, overintellectualization, whatever it is. You figure out how not to feel pain. And then the worst thing is when you see your kids feel pain because you love your kids. So you want to make sure THAT YOU ELIMINATE. NO, NO, NO, no pain, no pain. No, everything is good. Everything is perfect. What happens? But life has pain. Can I hold space for it? This is the beginning of of of the das of the awareness. And then things open up and we have a divine soul. And divine soul isn't trust. And then my prefrontal cortex can actually channel the wisdom, the the glory, the grace of the divine soul. And my nervous system when it's open can actually say, "Wow." And it channels it in. And it goes through. And you say to parro, I'll see you later. I know you're going to come back in a couple of hours. I'll see you later. The heart opens, the body opens up, and you're standing with somebody. You're looking in their eyes, and they could feel your presence. You feel their presence. You're open. You're trusting. You can actually really, really connect. There's a gratefulness. There's a humility over there. And there's an internal internal sense of deep deep serenity and tranquility which is called redemptive consciousness where you feel one. You feel one with yourself. You feel one with Hashem who is your essence. And then you could connect to people in a very real way. I don't have to judge. I don't have to put you down. I also don't argue. You're not arguing with people. I can actually somebody could tell me a perspective that's opposite of mine and I can actually look at it. I may not agree. It may not resonate for me. It may not be the way I function or I think about life. But I don't have to like put you into a box which is just a way of safety. If you could be in a box and I could make you whoever you are, then suddenly I'm I'm superior. I'm not superior. I'm not inferior. The the real thing is it's not a transactional relationship. Relationships that are not transactional are the blissful relationships. They're not transactional. It's not another business deal. It's not a business deal. It's pure presence. It's pure trust. There's nothing greater you can give your child. Nothing. Of course, food is a good thing to give your child. A little sar mashkim, a little sim, right? Try to make it healthy. But the greatest thing I can give in terms of an emotional connection is real real connection. not eliminate all their pain, not eliminate all frustrating things in life, but to be able to actually be regulated in their presence and openhearted. And they feel it. They right they'll feel it. They may not trust it right away cuz mommy is weird. She's doing weird things, but the nervous system knows the other nervous system. So now the journey of mitim is constant. It's literally every moment as I'm giving this class there's parts of me that want to hijack there's parts of me that want to hijack the class in any situation every telephone conversation every conversation with a family member conversation with yourself par is par is there he's sitting and par never gets tired that guy I don't know where he gets his but he sits whenever there's a flow boom SHAM I'M starving where are we going after the class okay what ARE WE ORDERING SARASHKIM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. OKAY. WE TAKE MY PHONE. THE PHONE is mashkim. Sim on steroids a billion times. Boom. You want this? You want this? You want THIS? OH, I GOT A TEXT. I got a text. What do you want? I'm not addicted. I got a text. DON'T BLAME ME. BLAME THE ONE WHO SENT ME A TEXT. YOU GET text like three and a half seconds. You get 100 texts. What's it with me? I could live my entire life in reactivity. And what am I even What am I doing? I'm shopping for the family. What do you think I'm doing? What do you think I'm doing? Watching Rabbi Y clips. That wouldn't be so bad. I'M I'M I'M BUYING SHOES. I'M BUYING THIS. I'M BUYING THIS. I'M THE ONE COMMON denominator is as long as I'm not present with what's happening inside. No self-awareness. Self-consciousness is not self-awareness. Self-consciousness is I'm busy obsessed with who I am. I'm this, I'm that. You like me, you don't like me. Selfawareness is das. It's the ability to be able to observe all of this with a freedom, with a liberation. It's hard because it means I have to be able to watch the pain or the confusion or the uncertainty or the need to go into this mode. I could I have to watch it and say, you know what, I can see it. So there's an eye that is higher and there there could be only there there could be as long as I don't go into that space I'm just constantly reacting to everybody and everything and again I can't get rid of my parro but I can watch I can observe and the value of that is priceless so now here I want to conclude here with one more paragraph Earth. Excuse me. Sorry. It could be par sits on the Vegas nerve. You know about the Vegas nerve. Paris sits allayar on that vagus nerve making sure everything gets stuck. And the mashkum because the Vegas nerve literally it's that amazing nerve that brings it all down. So he st stands there, stops it, stops the flow and works out another way of a person responding to what they just experienced in a different way than allowing the divine revelation to be able to go through into this >> limbic disregulation. >> Huh? >> Lyic disregulation. >> Lyic dysregulation. Exactly. Exactly. >> Yeah. And that's why sometimes you know people always tell me I make I'm making a resolution when I go home and this and this happens I'm not going to say a word or when this they make beautiful haklatus and cababala and then it doesn't work. So they go and they say you need another shia you need to go to another shia. No the guy does not need to go to another I mean I don't mind if he goes to another shar I'm fine with that. He could come to my sh go to somebody else's she does not need another shar he doesn't have to read another book. He has been by shirim his whole life. He actually means well. He's a good guy and he read it. He does not need another class. The information is not the issue. It's not this psychology that's blocking him. It's the biology that's blocking him. It's not the mind. It's not a weird. He has good ideas. He has beautiful ideas. But when push comes to shove, this guy becomes overwhelmed. His nervous system is shot. He goes into sympathetic state or dorsal state and disassociates or becomes so so intense and so overwhelmed. you really needs to have deep awareness of what's happening. And without that deep awareness, there's no way of getting out of my mitz. No way. I stay in that blockage my whole life and I just figure out how to work it in a good way. I was reading this morning, there's a new book on Tanya that came out by Dvori Nusbam. It's called living with an open heart. Tanya through the lens of a psychotherapist. And uh very very good book, beautiful book because my wife teaches Tanya and she uses that a lot. So her introduction she goes through this whole thing with the nervous system of be able to understand the whole system of Tanya which was very helpful. I was reading it this morning. Some of what I was telling you was from there. So uh I don't understand it fully but I think all of us in our own experiences you know we can begin to relate to these different states and once you even once get through that par blockage and something comes into your heart and to the rest of your body and it expands over there. There's such an expansiveness of consciousness. You're like, I don't want to leave this. I'm not going to go back into exile. Now, God may send me back into exile, but I'm not going to romanticize it anymore. I'm not going to glorify it anymore. I'm not going to call that redemption. I may be sent back into exile because life is in flux. You know, we go in. That's why we talk about every day. Life is flux. But the moment you feel what it is to live in expansive consciousness, in redemptive consciousness, in presence of relationship, of real love, real trust, you may go back, but there's no real going back. Even if I get stuck, I get slept down, I right away know, oh wow, this is pain. This is a painful place to be. We stop calling exile redemption. We stop calling a dark pit the space of presence of light. I'm just thinking about if I think about my own life, I'm just going to say this maybe a little too vulnerable, but it's fine. Um, I talk a lot about this and there's people who comment. I get feedback from my classes pretty frequent both via via email or text or or so some is very praiseworthy, which I'm very grateful for. I mean, my trauma uses that for for validation, but my soul is grateful for it. But some people I see give me feedback that they don't really know what I'm talking about and they think I'm obsessed with some ideas of healing and emotions and and and sometimes people get upset for me. And I can't say that I never get upset because I have an ego and I have my trauma. But I have a lot of compassion. I have a lot of compassion to those who don't know what I'm talking about. The reason I have so much compassion is you know why? Because I used to be there. So I really can't judge it. I really can't judge it. In other words, I always I taught for I'm teaching for many many years and I taught about the heart and I taught about emotions and I taught about empathy. It's part of what I teach. But a lot of it was still disassociated. A lot of it was very very disconnected. Even though I learned about it, I read about it. It made sense. It resonated on some level. I hope some people gained from it. But internally, I was just it was dis I was disconnected and I knew there was something bothering me and I could never put my finger on it. And it was only through a lot of work, a lot of awareness that I actually started to see that there's serious blockages. I h I personally have serious blockages. I'm learning. I'm trying. I wasn't It wasn't sinister. I was trying, but I really there was there was parts that were shut down. I didn't know they were shut down. As I told you, you could be so shut down that you literally don't know you're shut down. That's like dorsal with denial. I'm disassociated. I don't know. I'm disassed. This is what association looks like. And you don't even know that it is anything else. And you think everybody's like that, right? So, you just like almost copy and and and and you do it. But it's so brilliant and it's so sophisticated and you get away with it and people like you and you're successful and you even help people that you could really really get away with it. So it's really you know so much compassion but if a person but but there are so many symptoms and really what helped me most it wasn't my own ingenu ingenuity or creativity or even curiosity was really that people very close to me were not happy around me that made me so so aware something was off I was trying heart and people some people very close to me not people not close to me they were very happy with me they're always happy cuz you know you fit the role you fit the model but people closest to me who were supposed to gain the most from our relationship were miserable around me so I had to something was off something is off and it becomes a very dramatic contrast when for the world you're a celebrity and for people closest to you you're like uh a villain or whatever the right word is. Maybe not villain, but you're certainly not creating the joy and pleasure you want to create. And that really humbled me more than anything else. I would say it humbled my ego. It humbled my sense of smuggness and complacency. That itself is not enough cuz what do I do with that? But it was the beginning, the genesis of a search to open myself up. And I think in every one of us, you know, we could look at these things. How am I affecting the people closest to me? Now, sometimes you're in a relationship with somebody who has so many challenges that that may not always be a litmus test and you have to figure that out too. That's also fear. But how am I affecting those people? And then another question is my internal self does it really do can I speak about the word experiencing Hashem? What does that look like? Not not here. Not a pill. What does experiencing love look like? Love of me, love of others, love of what does that even not meaning, not ideas, but internally. I didn't even know what that means. And it wasn't really part of a conversation. I'll face it. I grew up. I had a pretty good education. I don't think there was one teacher who ever sat down with us and say, "Okay, you guys say three times a day, love God with all your heart." Let's talk about what that feels like in our nervous system. What does it feel like? I don't want explanations. God is this. God is that. I know. Got it. Got it. What does it actually feel like? It's a different type of conversation. I don't think I I don't I never remember that happening. >> Huh? Yeah. So, I want to now finish with one last piece here. It's the It's the It's the last paragraph here, the second last paragraph chapter 47 where he summarizes this. In every generation and every day a person ought to see themselves like they left Egypt. This we know from the but he adds it's not every generation. It's every day. It's not a story of the past. It's a choice. It's the exodus of the divine soul from being imprisoned in a body in a container. Mishka means skin snake. Mishka is skin is snake in Aramaic. It's a Zoharic expression. The snake of the skin. The snake of the skin. You ever saw the snake of a skin? >> It's beautiful. >> The skin of a snake. You ever see a beautiful snake? The skin is shant. Glanced practic glanceful. These visionets glanceful. Yeah. Glanceful. >> Expensive. Yeah. Beautiful serpentine gate. But watch out cuz it's poisonous. Not all skin is as attractive and as appealing on the inside as it's on the outside. means I can go into a place of skin snake which means I know how to make things look good so I could be comfortable and survive but essentially there is a major major cover up here a blockage I'm not in alignment means my divine soul becomes liberated to be subsumed amazing words to be subsumed in the oneness of Hashem What does it mean to be subsumedly? The oneness of Hashem is reality. My animal soul doesn't know that. So it's in control. So I do everything to stay in control. I get angry. I'm judging. I'm overwhelmed. I'm anxious. Which is normal. The divine soul says, "Can we go INTO ONENESS?" NO, WE'RE NOT GOING INTO ONENESS. OKAY. WOW. This is what m looks like. This work of helping my system go into oneness. Oneness with whom? Oneness with everything is the oneness of everything. The oneness of me, the oneness of us, the oneness of the universe and of course the oneness of reality of Hashem. This is essentially what all mitzvah is trying to do. Especially this is what is all about because that's when a person actually acknowledges what is. not words. Hashem, it's introducing, it's opening the preffrontal to the truth that Hashem's oneness is infinite and you're a part of it. You're in it like the child in the womb of the of the mother and and God loves you and he's channeling his energy through you. But if my nervous system is in sympathetic state, no no I have to be able. Yeah. If there's a tiger in the room, you talk a from Krishna. That's the right. It says even the first night is from because it when you're stressed, you can't doma because requires a certain sense of regulation. My my mind can be open to which right away says it can then communicate it to the prefrontal which could communicate it to the nervous system and if the animal soul is regulated by the divine soul and by the das it could channel it to the heart it's like wow life is beautiful. What a gift. What a gift to be here. What a gift to connect. What a gift to channel. You're like, "What are you talking about? The cleaning lady didn't come today. My kid has a NEAR ACHE. MY HUSBAND BOOM. OKAY, I GOT IT." SO, what do we do now? Control, anger. I can't sit with my pain. I can't be aware because I right away have to put it in a box. This is where trust comes in. But now the says one more. a new spin in the ding. We say, "God, you gave us holidays." We say every day in Shalom or if you're with your light, you gave us there's a deeper interpretation. You know what's the greatest gift you gave us? you gave us before everything else said the greatest gift you gave us is Hashem. THAT'S THE GIFT. THAT'S WHAT IT m looks like. The moment it's it's an incredible interpretation, huh? >> Yeah. Very, you gave me the gift of beyond But that's the greatest gift. What's this gift? What mean you gave me the gift of God? What's that? What does that mean? That means you gave me the gift of choice. You gave me the gift that my nervous system can actually channel ultimate reality, infinite reality, which is reality of Hashem, which is all infinite love and bliss. And I can I it's a gift. You have to give it to somebody because I may not give Hashem may have not given that to us. I may just be in a reactive mode. You know, the worm does its thing, the hen does its thing, and people do their thing, but we're all doing the same thing. We're looking for food, basically. This type of food, that type of food, emotional food, physical food, but there's a part of me that's not searching for food. There's a part of me that can actually, you have the gift of Hashem. That's a gift. You have it. And I could channel it. And in that space, of course, you're safe. Of course you're loved. Of course there's no you don't need transactional relationships. And therefore the person learns that the only thing that stops me from this type of from this type of oneness with his light is desire. If a person doesn't want this, he doesn't want to finish the sentence. He says etc. you'll figure it out. But if you want it and you accept it, you actually access the flow of divinity. Your soul just went into unity. This is what looks like in a person's life. What is he saying? He's saying here, you have to realize how much there is a choice over here. That's why we talk about it's a choice. What do I mean? It's a choice in a very very deep way. I ultimately need to make a choice. My nervous system and amygdala may believe deep down and we can't blame it that it's living not in God's world. It's living in a dangerous deranged sick mishuga belt. And you know what? There's a lot of proof especially today when we get the news as it's happening. I could prove it and I can agree with that. I for I always have to be in a panic mode or ready for panic mode always alert or disassociated and it's normal. I have to be able to say myself ultimately there's a choice there's another choice. The choice is I can lean in to a different perspective. Say hashm because that's what I want. And ultimately you have to decide because both worlds make sense. So in the morning I can wake up and I can say I'm going to go into the world of reactions. I'm going to go into the world where everything is completely unpredictable where there is a lot a lot of danger and it makes sense. And that's where I'm choosing to live from. And therefore, I'm always on alert, always uptight, always not regulated. Or I can choose and say, I'm going to lean into a world where there's real oneness, where I'm being taken care of, where I'm a channel for infinity, where I'm not broken, where I'm not abandoned, where my goodness is real, it's authentic, where God wants me to have him. He wants me to experience all the light of the world, all the truth of the world. That's what I'm choosing to lean into. But there may be disappointments today. I'm choosing to lean into that. Even if I don't always see it, even if I don't understand a lot of things, I could surrender. I can trust. I'm choosing that. And he says, "The moment you choose that, what happens? That's the world you're living in. That's the world." Your nervous system will get the message. If I really choose it, that's the world. If I don't choose it, I'm not living in that world. I'm living in a world where Hashem is really one. But in my consciousness, he's not one. I say God is one. God is one. But really, it's not true. in my consciousness. It's true in reality, but it's not true in me. In me, it's not true. And because it's not true, I have to constantly gaze whether it's dorsal, sympathetic, this state, that state, but I need to be in a state where I cannot just surrender my self-conscious and go into flow. I can't. It's too irresponsible. It's too irrespons. I could never do it. I'm not going to do it today. This is what mim looks like emotionally. This is exactly what it looks like. Which is why we mention inh that's what he says even though it's two separate mitzvah because it's really the same theme I can experience my own gulas have a beautiful day and a wonderful week >> whoever is not