From Lam to Lamborghinis: Journey to Freedom - A Passover Message from Coach Ratner

Welcome to my class today. Thanks for coming to Essentials. The title of this class is called the lamb in the Lamborghini. And the reason why I came to this class because when I see something in the Torah that bothers me, annoys me, not annoys me, but like I don't understand this. What's the purpose of this? And the whole idea is that when we read in the Torah about in Parshas Bo, about the fourth that the 15th of Nissan. In fact, the Torah says on 10th of Nissan, which by the way was a Saturday back in ancient times, right? That's why it's called Shabbos Hagadol cuz that's the day when we take a lamb or goat, we tie it up, and we tie it on our front porch. And on the fourth of Nissan, God says to take this goat or this lamb, right? And to and to kill it and to roast it. On the night of the 15th of Nissan, that we're supposed to eat this lamb. What does the Torah say to do with the leftover lamb? Does anyone know? It's a It's in the Torah. It's not a mission, it's in the Torah. There's a line in the Torah. What do they do with the leftover lamb? Someone knows. Someone knows. Just say go ahead. We burn it. Now, I'm a practical guy. As you know in my classes, I'm very practical. The Jews at this point in time, on the 15th of Nissan, they know they're leaving in the morning for good. Right? They're not going for a day, they're going for good. They're going to where? They're going to the desert. Now, last time I checked in the desert, there's no food courts, there's no shawarma stands, and you can't call 1-800-DoorDash. So, practically speaking, don't you need food in the desert? Right? I know when my wife leaves to go to town sometimes just to like buy a book for one of my kids, right? One of the bookstores. And she's going from, you know, Rehavia into Jaffa Street and back. You know, it's 20 minutes each way. She brings a bottle of water, a snack. Like she's just She's going to town and back. She brings stuff with you. You're going to the desert for good. Don't you need food? Right? So, what does God say burn this lamb for? You think God would say to the Jewish people, "Take the leftover lamb, mix it with some mayonnaise, put it on a piece of matzah, and make yourself a shawarma sandwich, and have a nice day." You know, one of uh when I when I teach a group of secular Jews, and I say to them, "What's your favorite non-Jewish holiday?" What holiday do you think that is? New Year's. Uh no, usually Jews. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Why? Why do they say Thanksgiving? Family. You spend time with your family, you're off of work, you don't have a new job, right? You get to eat a lot of food, it's great. So, what's one of the pleasures of Thanksgiving? So, when we Not we don't celebrate it cuz really technically it's a Jewish holiday because you have the turkey and the stuffing, and you you have leftover turkey. And what do you do on Friday? You go to the mall, it's Black Friday, and you're not going to eat the food courts cuz they're not kosher, obviously. But you come home, and you make yourself a turkey sandwich with mayonnaise on rye, right? It It was some stuffing. It's like the pleasures of Thanksgiving is the leftover turkey. That's the pleasure. It's interesting when you think about Thanksgiving, why I say it's a Jewish holiday because cuz why does Thanksgiving get Why do we celebrate it? 1863, Abraham Lincoln comes out and has a statement. He says, "We're going to make the fourth Thursday of every November a day of thanks." He goes, "We're not It's going to be a national holiday." Before this time was celebrated by each state on different days. He said, "We're going to make it a national holiday. We're going to thank the almighty for all the gifts that he gave us that he gave us." Because at the time after the Civil War, when other nations could have came and attacked America and could have destroyed it from within, right? And they didn't do it. He goes, "We're going to thank the almighty." It's thanking God. It's like Shabbos when we do it every single week. It's like It's like Shabbos. But we do it once a year, on Thanksgiving. The pleasure of Thanksgiving is the leftover turkey. Why burn the lamb? So, let's think about Passover for a second. Why do we call it Passover? Could God pass over the houses of the Jews that put the the the blood from the lamb that they killed, right? And put it on the lintels and doorposts of their house, and God passed over their houses. Now, from my learning that I've learned that I'm not a rabbi, but I did learn some some stuff. What are the nine other plagues? Didn't God basically pass over the Jews? I know you know, forget Let's not talk about the Midrash to the plague of darkness where Jews died. But let's talk about most of the plagues. From my understanding, that if you had an Egyptian come into your house on the plague of the blood, right? And he opened your tap, blood would come out. And if you opened your tap, water would come out. So, didn't God pass over the Jews on the nine other plagues? Didn't he? I mean, Jews were not affected by the nine other plagues. So, why is this one plague we're focusing on? In fact, why 10 plagues? Why isn't one plague enough? I mean, it's God [snorts] for God's sake. Why not one plague? One plague, next thing you know, we're sitting on Ben Yehuda Street eating pita chips and drinking mojitos. Like he can snap his fingers just like that. Why 10 plagues? Cuz I want to get into this. And so, the why Passover? Really, God could have passed over our house. The firstborn could have died, and we as Jews could have stayed there and and basically assimilated and died out. So, it's not really about passing over. It's really about the name Shavuot is called Independence Day. Our Survivor Desert Edition. Right? It's about us leaving. It's about leaving Egypt, leaving our slavery. So, what is about being passed over that the name is half of that? So, >> [snorts] >> like the Torah really actually doesn't call Passover, it calls it Hag Hamatzos. So, let's look at American holidays. Fourth of July. It's It's a major American holiday. What do people do on Fourth of July? Barbecues. Huh? Fireworks. Fireworks. Huh? What did you say? Kegs? What did you say? Nothing. Okay. Now I want to hear it. Tell me after class. Right? Swim. Picnics. Which party are you talking about? Cuz I didn't do that at the parties I went to. Oh, Fourth of July? Oh, you said I thought you said New Year's Eve. No, it's Fourth of July. Oh. New Year's Eve is drinking, right? Okay. Yeah, you're you're 6 months too off, right? Now, if Fourth of July was a Jewish holiday, what would we be doing? We'd be chasing around Englishmen with bayonets. We'd go to the Boston Tea Party, Boston, and throwing tea into the river. Cuz we relive the holidays. That's how we roll. Well, on Pesach, what are we doing? We're telling the story of what it was to leave Egypt. On the holiday of Shavuot, we tell the story of the 10 Commandments. And we stay up all night cuz we couldn't stay asleep then. Cuz the Jews were supposed to fall asleep at Mount Sinai, so we stay up all night. What do we do on Sukkot? We actually live in those huts. Like who does that? We we live the holidays. And the problem is we know the whole story. Now, I don't know about you, but this is my issue. But on the Ninth of Av, I mean, how many of you feel sad? Who's crying? I'm being honest with you. You're crying, right? Uh for me, I I have a hard time, right? How do you How do I feel something that I never experienced? How do I feel what it's like to have a temple when I never experienced bringing a korban yet? Like it's for me, it's hard. Like I know when I daven sometimes in my neighborhood in Churva Synagogue, you have a few people crying like during the you know, during kinos and crying. It's very sad, but like Am I the only one? Right? How do you How do you How do you connect to it? How do you connect to something that happened 3,300 years ago? We're supposed to sit down and retell the story of Passover. But like we don't I I don't I don't know about you. Like I've lived here now 6 years. Trying to hire a maid here is like impossible. You Can you imagine someone saying, "I want to hire an Israeli maid." That's like an oxymoron, right? Israeli maid? Like Jewish maid, right? That's an oxymoron. They don't exist. Like you think we're slaves? When's the last time you painted your house? Right? We hire other people to do that for us. We're not slaves. It's hard to imagine Jews being slaves. And so, for us, it's hard to imagine Oh, yeah, we were slaves, building brick, and we were for, you know, 210 years, and we left Egypt. And now we're free. It's not Listen. Pesach, Passover, is about our physical freedom. But it's not until 50 days later, Shavuot, that it is our emotional freedom. Cuz we're not really free until we got the Torah. And that's what this whole idea of this class is. The The The Leaving Egypt isn't a story from 3,000 years ago. It's a story for us today. We're here to grow into the best that we can be, to reach our full potential, and reveal our inner majesty. Cuz God could have chosen any other nation to leave Egypt and and get the Torah. Why did he choose us? I know there's a Midrash that he said he went to every nation, they said no, pooh-poohed it, right? I don't want to kill, I don't I I want to kill, I want to steal. So, they pooh-poohed it. But there are other nations could have taken this Torah. Why us? And the class This idea of this class is is that there is something in us that God saw in us that maybe we don't see in ourselves. They're too busy with anxieties and self-esteem and worrying about what we're wearing, and worrying about what society thinks about us. God saw greatness inside each one of us. And the greatest potential The greatest transformation you're going to make in your life is when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. Cuz he took us to freedom cuz there's something in us he saw. And that's greatness. And how do we experience that? So, what we're going to do is we're going to have to go back in time. We're going to go back in time to feel what what it was like to live 3,300 years ago and experience the plague of the first death of the firstborn. They didn't live in, you know, I lived in Rockville in you have half-acre lots, and my sister lives I was just down in Florida recently. And every every neighborhood in Florida, I don't know about other places, but I know in Palm Beach Gardens and Palm Beach, it's all gated communities. I don't know why. Why do they have gated communities? What's the purpose of that? Like have a gate and they Like it's I don't know. What What is that? It's cool. Is that what it is? Yeah. Sounds cool when you say Well, every but every community in Palm Escaras is a gated community. So, it's not so cool every single one is a gated community. Anyway, that's my new stick. Anyway, my point is we didn't probably live in half acre lots with white picket fences and like, you know, and and and and gated communities. We probably lived in mud houses on top of each other, very close to each other. And the Torah says that sometime around midnight God's going to come around and kill the firstborn of any house that doesn't have the blood on the doorpost, which is the Egyptians. So, think about this. You're eating your matzah and your maror, enjoying your company, your friends, right? And sometime around midnight you start to hear the screams of your neighbors. And you're think Now, listen. I think it back to the war when we had when when we had the war 12-day war with Iran. And you know the missiles are coming. And you probably thought if you were me like living here in Jerusalem that most of the missiles were not heading towards, right, which we wanted to head towards the Dome of the Rock, but they were heading towards like, you know, Tel Aviv and Beersheba and Haifa. So, we felt somewhat secure in in in Jerusalem. But even then, you know we had the Iron Dome and all these missiles to shoot them down. So, you weren't like But even then, you hear a siren, you're like your heart's beating a million miles a minute, you're going to go in the bomb shelter and you're like praying to say to kill him, right? Even though you're in Jerusalem. Even your Aish HaTorah here in the Old City, which you don't think is going to throw cuz it's so close to Arab communities. You're still nervous. So, you're Pesach night and you 15th of Nissan and you hear your neighbor screaming. And you're thinking to yourself, you know for a fact, you know God's going to pass over us and kill the Egyptians firstborn, not us. But you hear these screams, you're still terrified cuz you're thinking to yourself, maybe it's not God killing the Egyptian firstborn, maybe it's the Egyptians coming to kill us because we just took their idol, the lamb, and tied it for 5 days and now we're eating it. And now we're burning it. That's got to be nerve-wracking. But sometime after that, when the screams have subsided and you don't hear the screams anymore. This is what I want you to feel. God chose us. He chose us among the a myriad of other nations because he saw something in us that maybe we don't see in ourselves. That's the feeling you need to have on the night of Passover. That God chose you because you are great. I know people don't like to have this feeling, "Oh, I'm not so great." No, you are great. You just have to believe it yourself. Feeling chosen and part of something true, that's what sparks the potential inside each one of you. It's not till you believe yourself that you can actually make it come to fruition. The example I'm going to give, imagine you're a uh an orphan in an orphanage, a child, you're 10 years old, right? And you're a little boy and then uh a nice young couple comes in looking for a child. And all the boys are like, "Uh pick me, pick me, pick me." And they're going to walk through this orphanage trying to find a kid. And you're sitting on this little bench and a family this couple young nice couple kneels down, starts talking to you and they choose you to go home with them. And they bring you to their house where you have where you have a a nice bed with blankets and stuffed animals. In the morning they wake up you wake up and make you a breakfast. They take you to a school where actually teachers actually care about who you are. They take you on vacations and they love you like their own child. How do you feel? Pretty good, right? You feel pretty good. Another example I'm going to give, imagine like you're a you're trying out for an NFL team in in like July and August, right? And then you're right, it was when the season I started you had the preseason games, right? And you had the last four I think I don't I don't remember anymore cuz I don't watch football anymore. But they have four four preseason games. And after that How many? Three? Thank you. I knew they changed the schedule around. I haven't been paying attention to it. But what The Super Bowl is next week, right? And I think I Oh, hold on. Don't don't don't don't don't don't worry. Hold on. I'll do it. I think it's Seattle and and and and and and and and Los Angeles? Not the Rams? New Oh, the Patriots. Oh, Derek May. What's his name? Drake May. He's like awesome, right? Well, you're not a fan of the Patriots? No. You hate you hate Tom Brady? Tom Brady is the man, man. That guy he wins four Super Bowls. I like think about it. Like I talk about it Tomorrow we're talking about this actually in my class on self-esteem about like it's called um and I I deal with this also, it's called imposter syndrome. Right? It comes to us at different levels in our life. Like, you know, if you're beginning if you're a new teacher or new whatever you do in life, you you feel like an imposter cuz you kind of are. It's okay. Feel that way. But then you get pretty good at what you're doing, right? And then this is where it rears its ugly head when you know what you're doing. You're not a super expert, you're pretty good and you have imposter syndrome. But it's when you become that at the top of your game and I look at Michael Jordan Tom Brady of having imposter syndrome, right? Why? Why Tom Why Michael Jordan? Because after his freshman year after his first year in the NBA, a reporter came up to him and he was killing it. I think he might have been the points leader that year. I'm not sure, but he he said to him, "You're pretty good on offense, but your defense stinks." You know what Michael Jordan did? People don't think about this. He went on to become the greatest defender the NBA has ever seen. Forget points. Forget offense. Forget six rings. The greatest defender the NBA has ever seen. And he's the greatest player I've ever seen. Cuz most great players don't play defense cuz they're playing on offense. He did both. Cuz he had a chip on his shoulder. Tom Brady, four four Super Bowls. Not enough. Five, six, seven, seven with Tampa Bay. Chip on his shoulder. I'm not going to be great, I'm going to be awesome. And that's the awesome you need to see inside of yourselves. Why does God to say burn the leftover lamb? Do you know why? And this is the key to this class. What was the lamb in Egypt? It was a god. It was an idol. They worshipped the lamb just like they worshipped the Nile River, they worshipped the sun and the moon. They worshipped idols. And God said to the Jewish people, "You want to be free? You What does freedom mean? Freedom doesn't mean you get to do what you want when you please." Cuz you know, I grew up in I grew up in the United States. I live in a town called Reston, Virginia. Anyone here from Virginia? No one. Of course not. No one's from Virginia except me, right? Like I'm not going to lead you from Virginia. So, I live in this neighborhood where I could not change the color of my front door. I couldn't change the fixture of my outside light. It had to stay exactly the same. I lived in a pre-planned community built by Mobile Oil back in 1960. It was awesome because every There was like five communities in this area called Reston. Each community had a pool, basketball courts, running trails, and a lake. And each community had its own shopping center with a grocery store, a bank, and a drugstore. So, everything was convenient for me. And I loved it cuz I ran all over the place, I played basketball, I swam in the pool all the time. I was a triathlete, not really, but like pretend one. My point was I did actually did these things. I actually swam I was swimming I was swimming a mile a day, I was running 6 miles a day. Yeah, so I was I was biking. I don't know how far I was biking. Uh no, one time. That was whatever. Back when I used to be in shape. This is back when if you if you if you listen hear my class on um on dating and marriage, if you want to catch the right fish you need the right bait. I talk about my big muscles I used to have, I dig guns. Whatever, I'm not going to that. Uh It's an idol. It's a why any And God said, "You want to be free? You want to be Freedom isn't to do what you want you please." So, I lived in Reston, I wasn't free. I lived in the rules of my community, my my my my county, my state, and my government. But then here's the thing, if you look at any country in the world where there's advances in technology, advances in healthcare, advances in the in the in the way people live, which countries are those? The ones where they have freedom. But freedom means you live within a set of rules and laws that you have. Just advances in technology? They do and they're not so free. Right. In general. This is a generalization which means there are exceptions. Right. There there is some freedom there. Some. I I'm not going to cuz I don't know the whole story in China, right? But for the moment we're going to stick with this. Just follow my plan. South Korea. Just follow my plan. South Korea, right. They do have a lot and Japan also. Japan has a lot of advances also. Freedom in the Jewish thought is the ability to reach your potential in life. And God says, "You want to reach your potential in life, want to be free? Burn the idols in your life." Now, back then we might have had idols we might have lambs, we had Buddha statues, we might have idols in our house, but today they're different. Today they're cars, sports, money, power, celebrities, jobs, fashion, houses. These things hold us back because we're putting everything we have into them. And our time and our focus and our we really want to they keep us from reaching our potential in life. And God said, "You want to be free? Burn the idols in your life." Let's get into football for a second. I used to watch a lot of NFL. And I have to say it was somewhat of an idol. Why? I wake up on a Sunday morning, at 10:00 I watch uh the NFL ESPN and then at 12:00 I watch NFL Today on CBS. And at 1:00 I watch the 1:00 game and at 4:00 I watch highlights of 15 minutes of the 4:15 game. I watch that from 4:15 to 7:00 and at 7:00 I watch ESPN and watch Len Berman go, "And he could go all the way." And at 8:15 I watch the Sunday night game and at 11:30 I watch the news to watch what my team did. That was a full Sunday. Total idol worship. And every single day of the week I'd get the newspaper, this is before the internet, I get the paper. Why? So I could see the stats of all my players and my teams. And then with during the week when they had gay sports on for like the coaches show and like the Darrell Green show and the Mark Rypien show, I watched those shows, too. Cuz I worshipped the game. I had the socks. I In fact, I still have the coat. So, if you see me wear the Redskins coat when it got really cold here a few weeks ago, I still have the Redskins coat. It's like it's like my thick coat I have. It's a great coat. >> Redskins. They're the Commanders now, right? So, here's your muscle. When I spent my And here's what happened to me. 2013, I had to go to the hospital. I'm not going to get this whole story. It's a whole another class. I had my I I lost my lung. I mean, I didn't lose it at the Walmart parking lot. I had it taken out, right? Can't find it at the lost and found, right? So, I had my lung taken out and my hospital was in Maryland right next to where Dan Snyder, the owner of the Redskins, lived. And I'm thinking to myself, oh, here I am. I'm 47 years old. I've gone to like tons of games out of town. I've traveled. I I I've I've gone to events. I've I've screamed my lungs out. I have Redskins socks and Redskins underwear. Dan Snyder is going to come visit me in the hospital. Did Dan Snyder come visit me in the hospital? No. And I'm thinking to myself, what am I doing? What am I doing wasting my whole life watching this team who doesn't care about me? And I started to think about it. Did I go to elementary school with any of these players on the team? No. Did I go to college with any of them? No. Did any of them Did any of them live in Reston, Virginia and couldn't change the color of the front door? No. That's not true. Some of them did cuz I live somewhat close to Redskins Park. My point is, I didn't know any of the players. And by the way, would any of these players gone and played for another team if they got a contract for a dollar more per year? 2 seconds, they're out of the team. So, when I am rooting for the Redskins, what am I really rooting for? Seriously, not the players, not the owner. I have no cash or no relationship with them. What am I really None of them are from DC, by the way. They're all from a little world. None from DC. Who am I rooting for when I'm rooting for my team? But there is something greater to feel that's much bigger than part of the Redskins or the Giants or the Cowboys or the Seattle Seahawks who are playing in the game next week. We are part of the Jewish nation. We are part of something much bigger than this world. And you have to figure out what your puzzle piece is because we are part of this big giant puzzle. And we each have a part to play. And we might not know what our part is. But knowing that you're a creation from God, knowing that God created for a purpose, even if you don't know your purpose in life, will keep you at least you looking for your purpose. Cuz when you have purpose in life, that creates meaning. Purpose being forward looking, I have a purpose and that's create meaning in my life. Cuz that's all we're searching for is purpose and meaning. If we can't find it somewhere, we look for it somewhere else. And some of us find it in the NFL. I'll be honest. And when the Redskins won, I was excited. And when they lost, I had to find something else to do in my life. I was depressed. I was depressed. When they didn't play, I had to find something else to do. When they won, I was excited. I was thrilled. When they lost, I was depressed. And when they didn't play, I had to find something else to do in my life. And that ended up being golf or something stupid. Another thing I that I was worshipped to was cars. I mean, we spend a lot of time. People love cars. They have car shows and BMWs and Porsches and Mercedes and Lamborghinis. They tell a story of a guy, a Jewish guy and his wife, and they're driving He buys a brand new Lamborghini. He's driving down the highway. And he's flying down the highway, speeding. Cop pulls him over. He says to the guy in the front seat, he goes, "Sir, do you realize that you're going 100 mph in a 55 mph zone?" And he says he says to the cop, he goes, "I'm so sorry, officer. I had no idea I was going so fast. I had no idea." And his wife in the front seat says, "Harry, you were just bragging about how fast you were going." He rolls eyes. The cop says to him, "Sir, do you know you're not wearing a seatbelt? Do you know there's a law in this county that you have to have a seatbelt on?" He goes, "I'm so sorry, officer. I completely forgot. I promise I'll wear it from now on." And his wife in the front seat goes, "Harry, you never wear your seatbelt." And now his face is getting red. And the cop says to him, "Sir, do you realize that your rear taillight is out. It's broken. I'm going to have to give you a ticket for that." And the man in the front seat goes, "I'm so sorry. I had no idea. I'll get it fixed first thing in the morning." And his wife in the front seat goes, "HARRY, YOU'VE KNOWN ABOUT THAT FOR WEEKS." And the man gets so MAD HE GOES, "WOMAN, YOU SHUT YOUR MOUTH." AND THE COP SAYS TO HER, "MA'AM, DOES HE ALWAYS TALK TO you that way?" She goes, "No, only when he's drunk." >> [laughter] >> How do we become slaves? We talked about it earlier in class. How do we become slaves? Does anyone know? We Well, I'll I'll tell you now. So, we come down a nation of 70 people. We come down to Egypt and just like most Jews when we've traveled to a new country, are we coming as like presidents and owners of corporations? No. We're coming as poor people with the shirts on their back. Just like we did back in Egypt. We come down. We quickly go to 3 million people. It's a major shift, right? And we get get ingrained in Egyptian life. We become the doctors. We become lawyers. We don't become athletes. They're not what they really are, athletes. But like but like we become the teams' owners. We don't own the NFL and the NBA. We own camel back racing and pyramid jumping. That's what we own. And guess what happens? Pharaoh got nervous. We became very successful. And his advisors said, "If you're not careful, these Jews will become the fifth column and they'll take If we ever get attacked by another nation, they will come and take over our country." So, what did Pharaoh do? He used our souls against us. He said, "We're going to have a day of community service. And what we're going to do, what we're going to do is we're going to come out and build these two cities called Pithom and Raamses. We're going to build them as a nation together." And guess who came out? The Jews and the Egyptians and the generals and the Pharaoh. And we started building. And the next day we came out and we kept building. And next day we came out and we kept building. And finally, Pharaoh stopped coming. Egyptians stopped coming. And then what happened was the the the general said they started putting quotas on us. "How many bricks did you build yesterday? Three? Tomorrow you're building four." Slavery does not happen overnight. If Hitler in March of in January 30th, 1933, comes out and says, "I'm going to kill all the Jews." What would have happened? We would have left. Most of us would have left. But he didn't come out and say I'm going to kill all the Jews. He goes, "Oh, we're going to put them first We're going to first make them wear a Jewish star. We're going to take away their rights. They're going to put them in ghettos. Eventually, we'll put them into death camps." It doesn't happen overnight. Slavery We're slave to things. All of us here. Slave to something. And you don't realize it cuz it doesn't happen quickly. You take a frog and you put him in a pot pot of hot boiling water, he is going to jump out. You take that same frog and you put him in a pot of cold water and you slowly turn up the heat, what's going to happen? He is going to boil to death. And the question that you have to ask yourself today, am I that frog in hot water? Am I doing things in my life that are keeping me from reaching my potential? Am I doing things in life that are keeping me from freedom? True freedom, the ability to reach your potential in life. Cuz you are You need to burn the idols in your life just like God told the Jewish people. Here's the thing. We can do something about the things holding us back from reaching our greatness. We don't need to rely on a miracle from God. You know, I I lived in Bethesda, Maryland for I don't know, 20 years, whatever. And it's a very Jewish area, like 10% Jewish, but not religious, but Jewish. And I can imagine if if the county comes out cuz we had a Potomac River there and it was dirty and people There's parks along the river and someone said, "Day of community service. We're going to come out and we're going to come to the park and we're going to have these little sticks with little pointy things and bags and we're all going to come out and we're going to clean up the river on a Sunday morning, right?" And a thousand people, this is my opinion, a thousand people showed up. And the community is 10% Jewish. I would guarantee you about 80% of those people that came out would be Jewish. Do you know why? We have this desire. We have this drive. We have this internal compass inside our souls that we have to do the right thing. And the problem is if we don't find it in our Torah, we're going to find it in other things. The Torah is not about a bunch of guys walking through the desert wearing togas and walking through sand dunes. It is an instruction manual for life. Just like we reach our potential in America, we have a set of rules we have to follow. In our life, we have a set of rules we have to follow. It's not there to make us miserable. It's not there to make us struggle. It's there to make us great. If we follow these guidelines, we can reach our potential in life. What really, you know, I back I grew up loving cars and I always wanted this Porsche. You guys know what a Porsche is? A fancy Italian 911. Fancy Italian German car, right? And back in 1988, I'm in California. I just started working and I was down in Newport and one of my co- my workers, not my workers, but a guy I work with, do some business with, I should say, just bought a brand new 1988 cabriolet 911, white. My My buddy Jeff. Killer car, right? It's a killer car, the 911. Do you know 911? You know, you can You can say no. It's okay. I'm like, "Jeff, dude, this car is awesome." He goes, "When I sell it, I'll call you." 1995, he calls me. He's living in Boise, Idaho. I bought the car. We had to ship it from Boise, Idaho to to Springfield, Virginia. In my garage, the 911. Cabriolet. It's pretty cool, right? I wanted it my whole life. Now I have it. You know what happened? I quickly realized that the pleasure of owning that car was not so great. Do you know why? So, what happens is when you have these fancy cars, you know, they're they're they're machines. But, not like a toy or a Honda where you can take it in once a year for a wheel change. They need constant attention. They're very very finicky. So, like every time I went to drive the car, something broke. The alternator broke, the electricity didn't work, something else happened. Like next thing you know, every time you go to a fix it to a to a German car dealer to get it fixed, it's like a thousand bucks. They know you're they they they it's like oh, I just need to like clean my windshield, a thousand dollars. That's what it was like. I'm like you kidding me? This is crazy. And I quickly realized the pleasure I got from the car was not worth was not worth it. And I figured out the best thing about owning a Porsche was the anticipation of owning the Porsche. And once I had it, it was no big deal. And I was like for years. Like you get another Porsche. You get another Porsche. And I feel it. What's the what's the purpose of a car? To get from point A to point B. I'm not saying you should like buy like a cheap Honda or whatever. I'm saying you can do it. You can find a nice car. But, like the cheapest cars nowadays do some of the most amazing things. You can buy a Honda that lasts like 20 years. Like it'll it'll last longer than you maybe now, right? Especially if you got a one of those electric. They have no moving but they don't have moving parts anymore. And guess what? They're like it's ridiculous. This is all our ego. It's all low self-esteem. The reason why that you spend $150,000 on a car, $100,000 car is low self-esteem. Cuz you think it's going to make you look better in the eyes of other people. No offense. You can disagree with me. I don't care. That's all it is. It's low self-esteem. And we have it all the time. This is why Listen to this. Would you go and buy an Armani suit for $3,000 if you knew no one's going to see you wear it? If you say yes, you're lying to me. It's not I used to go to the gym all the time. Spend hours in the gym. Because why? Low self-esteem. I wanted that big muscles so I get attention to myself. That's where it's coming from, right? Cuz we don't need muscles anymore. It's not like you have to go out and chop down a tree and go kill to get firewood and kill an animal, right? What do we have muscles for? No. We I'm not saying not to work out. But, we spend three hours in the gym working out every muscle. Cuz I used to do this, right? You have the flat bar. You do the flat bar. And then you have the incline bar. And you go like this like this and like this. And you have this and the dumbbells. You go like this and like this. And then you have the leg things like this. And you have the machines like this. Cuz you have to get this muscle really big right here. And the legs and the incline decline and flat bench. It's crazy. Why Why doesn't work on all three muscles in my chest? Why? Low self-esteem. And let me ask you this question. Would you go to a gym and work out if you get stronger but you wouldn't see any change in your muscle size? So, when you go to a when you go to a when these you know, bodybuilding places, they all look like you. Little skinny guy, you know, 150 lbs, right? Would you spend the time in the gym? Probably not as much. We're slaves to thing and we don't realize that. And what really what things that we're slaves to is we're slaves to time. We don't have to walk to the river like our bubbies did to get water. And we like I always say if God can slow down the rotation of the earth and make it 28 hours a day instead of 24 hours, what would you do with those extra four hours? You know, it's so funny. We have all these time saving devices today in the world, right? We have dishwashers, we have washing machines, and we have vacuum cleaners. And many of us, by the way, don't have time to run those things. We do, we hire some other person who's not Israeli or a Jew to run those things cuz we don't have time to run them ourselves. We are slave to time. I remember when I lived in Rockville, when I built my house in Rockville, we finally moved into a Jewish community where I had for the first time, I'm like I'm going to put a faucet in my wall for my pots. You know, my my my We had a stove top and I built this pot filler, right? And so, what you had to do is you had to take the You know, if you if you're ever doing any building and you know, one of the most expensive things to do is to move water. And water pipes and electricity Electricity's last but water's the worst, right? So, we had to move water pipes to go under the stove and on top and put this pot filler in. And you know what happened? The pot filler moves around like this because I couldn't spend the extra eight and a half seconds to walk from my stove top to my sink to fill my pot with hot water. I had to have it right there cuz I'm so busy. I need to save those eight and a half seconds a day to fill my pot up. And you know what happens with that pot filler? Because it moves, it ends up breaking, it starts leaking. Next thing you know, you have a gallons of water in your sink and your floor. And like next thing you turn the water off and never use it again. It's the stupidest thing. And we do this cuz we think we're so busy. We can't save time. We can't buy time. And it doesn't matter how much money you have, you have the exact same amount of time. So, on this note, I used to work at a bank and every single morning I was a teller at a bank in Alexandria. And we had what's called the coffee break. You know, at 10:00 in the morning I get to coffee break. I look forward to this coffee break every single day. Why? Cuz I had to think I had I had I had time to myself. I didn't have to work with customers. I go in the back and get a cup of coffee. And we have this in our lives. The question is are you using this coffee break? Are you living with coffee break? You know what a coffee break is? It's the same thing as Thanksgiving. It's a day to put aside to thank the almighty for all the gifts that he gave us. And the gift that God gave each one of us is the ability to reach our potential. The gift that he gave us is greatness. And we have to understand that is a gift from the almighty. And that is called Shabbat. God says six days a week I want you to create the world the way you want to make it. And the seventh day stop creating and walk through the world the way that I made it. And until you can control your time cuz right now, if you don't have Shabbat in your life, you know what you're doing? The same exact thing every single day. Cuz you cannot control your time. God says I want you to put away your phones. I want you to stop creating. I want you to stop cooking. I want you to prepare everything in advance so you're set for the day. And suddenly, you are in control of your time. Cuz no matter what happens on a Friday afternoon at work, you have a pile of work to do, it's going to be there Monday morning no matter if you come in Saturday or not. It's still going to still going to be there. I took my family skiing a number of years ago in Colorado. Anyone here ski? You ski? Where do you ski? Canada. Canada. Banff? You in the Banff? Oh, nice. That's Quebec, right? Yeah, I want to go up there. It's cold though, right? It's very cold. Do you remember the first day skiing? You snowboard though, right? You're not a skier. You snowboard. You're not a snowboarder? You're fake. You You look like a snowboarder. Okay. Okay. I'll I'll I'll forgive you. What do you play? Remember the first day you skied? Yeah. How was it? It was amazing. Okay. You're Who Who remembers the first day skiing? You don't remember. You don't remember probably. He's blind. You You remember it? Was it fun? Oh, you Okay. It was Were you miserable snowboarding? You know why? Cuz you couldn't stop. You couldn't control yourself. This is what skiing is like. You know what happens the first day skiing? You go down the bunny hill and you do what you call what they call the pizza, right? The snow plow, the pizza. Do you know why? Because you can't control yourself. You have no control and you're terrified. You're terrified on the bunny slope. You look at that mountain and you see great you know, blue diamonds, black diamonds. Forget that. I'm terrified of that mountain. But, what happens after the first day? You know, cuz you're freezing cold and you're falling down. You have no control. What happens is you start to do what's I call the the french fry, right? You start to put your two skis closer together as a parallel. And what happens is suddenly out of the blue, out of nowhere, you learn what's called the hockey stop. This is where you take your two skis and you go like this. >> [snorts] >> And guess what happens? Your life changes. Do you know why your life changes? Cuz suddenly you can stop on a dime. Skiing is just like life. You look at that mountain, it's fearful. You're terrified. But, once you know how to stop in life, that mountain goes from fear to pleasure. God says, burn the idols in your life. These are things that are holding us back from reaching our potential. And one of the things that hold us back from reaching our potential are lack of control of time. And God says, you know what? I control time. I want you to put everything away on Friday. And I want you to walk through the world the way that I made it. And I want you to have pleasure in life. You know, on Passover, we break the middle matzah. It's called the Yachatz. We put the other half away for later. It's called the Afikoman. Which means we do the entire Seder with half a matzah on our table. Which is unusual because we don't have things that are broken in Judaism. We have Rosh Hashanah, the shofar can't be cracked. Sukkot, no blemishes on the esrog or no broken pitom. Hanukkah, you have the pure oil. Purim, listen to the entire megillah, not part of it. On Shabbos, no broken challah. And on Shavuot, we eat the entire cheesecake. We don't like things broken in Judaism. We like things to be whole. Stop looking for perfection in your spouse, in your body, in your car, in your house. If what you're perfecting isn't your middot or your spirituality, everything else is just slavery. And you have to find out what is keeping me enslaved. In Egypt, we were incomplete without the Torah. We weren't perfect then and we're not perfect now. But, we The difference is we have the Torah. I'll end with this one story. The story about a king who had two water carrier had a water carrier. And he went to the river every day with his pole and two buckets of water to get water. And he'd come back and he'd bring the put the water into the bin for the for the king. And one day the king noticed that his water carrier looked very very sad. He goes, "What's going on?" He goes, "Well, I have one bucket that comes back full. The other bucket has a crack in it. I can't keep it get back before half the water spills out." The king takes him down to the river. So, then he wants you to notice something in the path. You see the path where your water bucket's not leaking? It's dirt and rocks. And see the path where the water was leaking out? It's full of life. Full of plants and flowers. We all have cracks. Sometimes we think we're being buried, we're just being planted. God saw greatness in each one of us. And the greatest transformation you're going to make in your life when you believe in yourself as much as God believes in you. Thank you very much.