Mr. Harry Rothenberg - Purim: Light Up Your Life

thank you I many years ago we were back in 1988 to 90 and then before law school two years before law school and then 93-94 when I came back after law school married with two kids you know I was sitting at one of these tables so Babel will be up here on this side of the table you know I just my brother to each of you is that someday you know you'll fast forward the clock and you'll be here you know giving the class and there'll be a bunch of students here and you'll say wow I remember when I was sitting in one of those chairs so what I wanted to talk about is that we have poor arms coming up very soon um and if you guys are not excited about that holiday you know then there's a problem okay because you know this isn't you know I can understand you know being worried about Yom Kippur coming up but this is Purim coming up okay so there should be a great deal of excitement whether it's choosing the why or choosing your costume or all of the above so one of the things that's interesting about Purim is that the Purim story is very similar to the story of all of our holidays and if anybody ever says to you what happened in this Jewish holiday and you can't remember like you just freeze for a second you're trying to remember wait porn versus Passover versus this one that or okay the the safest thing to do is just to say okay so basically what happened was they tried to kill us we won let's eat okay like that's the basic you know summary you know of Jewish holidays so at the end of the Purim story when they tried to kill us and we won and we're about to sit down and eat we're told that okay the Jews had light and joy and gladness and honor okay which suggests that the non-jews their enemies did not so I get it that we had Joy right we won and we had gladness we won and we had honor we won but I don't get light I mean we had light like if this room is light even if half the people in this room are not Jewish and the lights are on we all have light and the lights are off we all have Darkness how could we have light how could it be that the Jews have light and the nine Jews don't and I'll prove to you that this is an important point because this particular phrase is not just in the magella that phrase is grabbed and borrowed from the magella and we say it every Saturday night we make Abdullah one of the lines not that long one of our lines is it should be for us also it's an important line in the Jewish religion so if you want to figure something out and Judaism there are usually two very good ways to do it so one way to do it is to look at its opposite and the other way to do it is to look at the first time it appears in the Torah so let's take let's do both right so to look at its opposite the opposite of light is obviously dark and if you think about it this isn't the only time when the Jews had light and in the same place at the same time the non-jews had Darkness right does it sound familiar for anybody if you stayed awake that long at the Seder okay when we go through the 10 plagues right when we get to the ninth the ninth plate was darkness and that's exactly what happened if a Jew walked into a an Egyptian home the Jew would be able to see well it was dark for the for the Egyptian in fact God did it that way so that when we were leaving and we'd say to our non-jewish neighbors hey you know can I have some gold and they say oh I don't have any and you'd say no no actually you know in the kitchen where you have it hidden in that third cabinet kind of like in the back behind that salad bowl and they say I had it because that's what we did we went in and we kind of did a little reconnaissance mission and we saw a world the gold and silver was well we had light and they didn't and that's also still not the only time that happens in the Torah because if you think about it when lot is in sedome and the angels are sent one to save him and one to destroy so though the people of sadome get very upset because load has violated one of the rules of stone one of the rules of Dome is you're not allowed to have guests over so they want these guests send them out okay and load is resisting so they're they come to the the doorstep they're right at the doorway and the angel reaches out and he blinds the men okay and the Torah tells us that the men of Sodom exhausted themselves trying to find the entrance to the house I'll think about that for a second right if I'm standing at your front door okay and let's say it's before I put my hand on the doorknob all right so I still have to find the doorknob and somehow an angel blinds me I hope that never happens but it happens right with enough effort aren't I eventually even if I look like one of those mimes okay aren't I eventually pulling around in the darkness gonna feel oh there's the doorknob so why do they exhaust themselves trying to find the doorknob they're blind they're not immobilized so the Ebenezer says that one of the commentators that this type of Darkness was which they reflected was very similar to the type of Darkness that occurred in Egypt why because in Egypt we're told there are two different types of language or idioms that are used to describe the darkness so Rashi the greatest of the biblical commentators tells us that the first three days was dark it was just really dark the second three days during the plague of Darkness it was an immobilizing Darkness so Rashi says if somebody was standing they couldn't sit down for those next three days if somebody was sitting they couldn't sit up for the next three days they were frozen in their spot and so that is the same thing the menezer suggests that was going on back when the men of sedon were blinded they weren't just blinded they were completely immobilized and so what he describes it was a darkness that blinds the eyes and the heart so what does that mean what type of mobilizing Darkness I am a plaintiff's personal injury attorney so I represent people who get injured in catastrophic accidents so you name a horrifying situation like when we sit on Yom Kippur and we have that that prayer in sanatofa can we talk of and we talk about how God's going to decide you know who's going to live and who's going to die and who's going to die by fire and who's going to die by water and who's going to die this way and who's going to die that way okay I have represented families who have lost loved ones through fires through drownings through electrocutions through crushings through uh you know auto accidents many times through suffocations um you know these words hit home and it's in an instant you know it's not like somebody sends a memo to the family make sure to say goodbye to dad before he leaves for the wedding tonight because he's going to get killed make sure to say goodbye to Mom before she drives to her vacation home this morning because she's not going to make it so it's without any warning and so when the people are recovering from this you know I had this recently where I where I had sit with a a man who lost his mother and his son because they were just driving in the morning and a in a you know 18-wheeler rear-ended them ran over the fuel tank um pulled the nozzle out of the fuel tank we were able to see this when we went on the inspection it was one of the most gruesome things I've ever had to say imagine what a car looks like after this happened and it so it it dislodged the fuel nozzle so fuel started leaking out of the tank it's metal or screeching as it's as it's being dragged by the car and it catches fire and they burned to death in the car so you could you can't even imagine almost like to sit with somebody like that so somebody's going through that kind of situation it's not just that it's dark out like the lights are off it's an immobilizing Darkness because think about it it's a lack of hope it's a lack of faith it's a lack of clarity it's think of somebody like if you've ever had a friend or if you ever I hope nobody's ever gone through it you know a severe depression like somebody curled up in a fetal position like they just can't move that's the type of Darkness so that's the type of Darkness we're talking about during the plague of Darkness at least during the last three days that's the type of Darkness we're talking about when the men of sedome were blinded that's what darkness is light is the opposite so light to look at the first time it appears in the Torah God says we all know when it appears right God says let there be light some people don't get past that you know they say oh how far did you make it in the Bible I remember the light part okay God said let there be light and there was light okay so Rashi says that God saw that the light was good and so he said you know what this light's too good so I'm going to take it and I'm going to hide it away for the righteous and the world to come whatever that means hopefully we'll all get there and we'll enjoy it together so which means the late we have nowadays is not that original light that original light was sequestered it was put away for the righteous and the world to come that's the original light ketov that God saw that it was good so fast forward the clock Manning amram and woman named a baby boy named Moshe and when that baby boy is born says that his mother saw ketov that he was good so rashu has that incredible ear now realize this is Rashi who's living in France in the 11 in the 1100s in the town of trois with 99 other Jews like that was the Jewish population we think almost been Brooklyn there must have been hundreds of thousands or millions or 100 Jews and 12 friends and he writes this magnum opus commentary on both the Torah and on the talmad how he did it he obviously did it with a lot of inspiration from God so his ear Russia has like remember Spider-Man in the comic where his spidey sense would kick in so they would do this like kind of wavy lines to show you like he realizes he's about to get jumped on by somebody from you know the Green Goblin behind them or something so Rashi has that that same kind of sense so when he hears wait a minute he Tov he relates back and says you know what's going on when Moshe was born you know why the Torah uses that same phrase that he used for the original light because the room lit up when he was born okay now I've been there thank god um I have eight children seven times because the youngest two are twins the room is very well lit okay the room is extremely well lit because they're people like me if the doctor messes up they will hear from me and they don't want to hear from me in the courtroom okay so the room is very well lit but we mean the room lit up obviously the Rashi is telling you that something phenomenal and unprecedented happened the room lit up around she's suggesting with some of that original light that's why the Torah uses that same phrase some of the original light that God hid away for the righteous in the world to come came back so hard to come back for this kid it was a baby Mazel Tov and simentov and let's dance and you know wonderful but why this kid I'm guessing the reason why this kid is that this is the kid who someday is going to go up on Mount Zion and bring the Torah down and once you know it when he comes back down with the Torah with the tablets his face is glowing and I'm guessing that that glow is Again part of that original light that original light that was so beautiful that God hid it away for the righteous level to come and what's interesting is that unfortunately I suppose the word for Rey in Hebrew is Karen the word for horn in Hebrew is Karen so Karen can be mistranslated instead of rays of light as horns of light now even horns of light is not talking about actual horns but you've ever heard of that ancient wonderful little you know thing that they they non-jews often like to say about us is you know I spent once I made the mistake of going when I was I don't know what I was thinking I grew up in Philadelphia so usually when I go to a game I wear a baseball cap but one day I said you know what am I wearing baseball cap I'm proud to be a Jew I'm gonna go to the game you know wearing my yamaka and I sat there there aren't that many people were yamagas in Philadelphia it's not New York and for the entire two and a half hours it took you know for uh however there was at the time it's probably uh doctor J was still there at the time you know I had these four college students you know behind me riding me the entire game I was about I don't know I don't know how old it was I just started the drivers like 16 maybe 17. and the whole game okay oh it must be to cover his and he's wearing that biniono maybe he's a bald spot I don't know maybe it's raining out okay so the horns thing is always out there I have a friend who grew up in Atlanta he played for his his local Jewish team so they had the Jewish I mean they were going deep south and play other teams okay they'd play all black teams at all you know all other you know non-jewish teams so one time they're in the Deep South playing this non-jewish team and he's the captain so they get up there and the refuel goes over the rules okay and at the end of the rules the captain the other team looks at the ref and he says Hey ref what about their horns okay now my friend said the amazing thing about this was not that he asked the question the amazing thing about this is the ref turned him like yeah like what about your horns okay so he said somehow like God just put in those heads so he looks back at the graph he goes don't worry ref we unscrew them before the game okay oh okay all right you know let's have a fair game guys all right so that's where it comes from he so so now we have some idea okay of what light represents okay we know this from it being the opposite of Darkness that total lack of Hope and Clarity and Faith light is the opposite light is Hope and Faith and Clarity like there's Hashem I see that light that's that original light and that's what it represents and now we have some idea of what's going on when the Miguel is telling us that the Jews had light meaning we had that faith we saw oh now everything makes sense now I know why Esther became the queen now I know you know why I should have go through now everything's flipped around and now everything makes sense and also explains why when when the decree came down it says that that the the the city of shushan was bewildered which is a really weird term like I can I can assure you this okay if if I ever get word we have like in in Passaic where I live we have like a little like list serve you know that goes out like you know communal events will tell you oh a new kosher restaurant is opening or oh there was some you know some Lane closing so be careful going into town just you know things of communal interest you know it's very nice if they ever send out God forbid I don't ever want to get this email I'm just using it as example okay you know you know alert call your Congressman okay a decree was signed to kill all the Jews next other like am I gonna be bewildered I'm gonna be terrified I'm gonna be you know all sorts of things and I think that's part of it is that bewildering is like wait what's going on is that confusion it's that Hester eponymous that hidden it's like Where's God what do you mean we're gonna be all killed so I think that's what's going on so the question then becomes very nice okay but what about us it's like how does that how does how does that speak to us how does that talk to us you know what lessons are we supposed to get from this so I think that there are there are two and I want to talk about them so number one is that we have to be very careful not to ever let light turn into darkness okay so you know for example we're supposed to be the light untenations and so we're supposed to always set the right example and I'm telling you however you look okay you know a Jew as a Jew as a Jew we're held to a higher example and if we don't hold ourselves the whole example you know they will to have this experience once there was that was aggravating to me and I'm just going to tell you guys that you know you know be careful about this when you you know when you when you get back to the States if you don't stay here and you should all stay but if you come back and join me there I there used to be this great shortcut into the Lincoln Tunnel where if you were in the left two lanes on 10th Avenue you can make a left on 39th Street zip right into Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan you had to be in one left two lanes so once I'm sitting I'm in the I'm in one of the two left lanes actually the one to the right and then they're cones to the right that they set up during rush hour so there's a white panel van directly in front of me but he's in the wrong lane he's in the third lane okay so he can't make the left so all of a sudden I say his window opens a hand reaches out picks up one of the red pylons takes it into his van the window closes now he he's made a space he cuts in right in front of me now he's able to make his laugh now I'm going to assume that the next day when he drove in because I follow him on the tunnel that pylon did not make its way out of that van so I'm assuming on his way into work the next day he was what you know went to the tall person said oh hi I found this in the roadway I just like to return I'm giving him the benefit of that okay but the main point of story is that when this happened I remember uttering a prayer out loud saying God please let it be that I was the only person that saw that the guy who did that had a big beard and a yamaka what is he thinking what is he thinking okay I always tell his people like that's why God invented baseball caps first of all don't do something like that just don't do it all right so if you're going to do something that that ridiculous okay put on a baseball cap so at least people will say oh that blankety blank you know for me you know Flyers fan instead of that blankety blank you're representing the Jewish people and so we have to be very careful about that and it's so easy it's so effortless to make somebody's day twice a year Omar and up on the days leading up to Tish above I stopped shaving okay because you can take stand I can't if I have a court appearance then I may not have a choice or private trial but at the extent I can work it out I don't shave during those periods of time so I get Scruffy and I grow like a you know pretty poor excuse for a beard and you know and as soon as those days end you know I take it off so one time I went to I had a speaking engagement I was flying to um I think to Boston I think it was to Boston and I and I give the woman my um you know my ID okay and she looks at it okay and then she looks at me I'm where I have the beard okay and she looks at it because I'm clean shaving she looks at me she looks at it she looks at me and I'm thinking like I don't realize what's going on I'm thinking like did I get on the no-fly list like what exactly is going on and five the third time she looks at me she goes I like the beard and I look at her and I say like I'm so taken back I say thank you so much nobody's ever told me that before okay like I was like you know I was like skipping to the gate like that was so nice like it's it's so effortless to make somebody's day and it's such a nice thing especially when you're somebody who represents you have a yamago and you have your sisters on and you let like in New York I mean just holding an elevator for somebody you were like wow like letting somebody in when they're trying to merge and you have a Yamaha it's like wow like you could literally in an instant change everybody's opinion you know of Jews in one Instant by doing something nice we also have to realize that you know we as an interesting law it also relates to light obviously in the on the on another holiday on Hanukkah we we have a we have a rule it's kind of an obscure one that when you like the Hanukkah candles you're not supposed to just touch the fire of the flame like oh it's lit okay you're supposed to really hold it there until it's fully fully lit okay like to fan that flame all right because that's what we're doing remember what that light represents it's the light of the you know it's the light of the Torah particularly the oral law so we want to fan that and so unfortunately we always do the opposite right like that kind of like you know inspiration like yeah yeah okay yeah whatever okay I'm moving on but the other light like somebody insults us right so you'll sit and for the next week you're replaying like the tone voice in the exact language and the look they had it's like a Larry David episode right you know on Curb Your enthusiasms like no he you know I remember there was an episode once where here he he saw only David okay he had Michael J fox who has I think Parkinson's right you know as a guest okay so he's in the elevator and he kind of twitches and he's telling his friend like yeah you know you know was like yeah like you know I saw Mike's right he's like I think he's upset at me he's like what are you talking he's like yeah he was like like kind of like he was sneering at me and someone's like he there he is Parkinson no no that was not Parkinson's that was a sneer okay he's like no he is I'm gonna ask him you can't ask him he's Parkinson's so of course he ends up asking him as a wildly embarrassing okay so you know we right he won yes he shook up his phone okay so so what we do is we take that insult and we fan the Flames all right somebody said something stupid somebody said something they shouldn't have they're not perfect right and of course by the way if it's the opposite if it's us it's like I can't believe it's like dude all right I was tired I didn't mean it you're taking it the wrong way like we went every benefit of Doubt but it's the opposite we won't give any benefit of that you know we fan those slaves we're supposed to do the opposite which was the fan the Flames of inspiration not the Flames of insult and another way we have to be careful not to turn light in the dark is that we pray for everything we need okay you know I have friends who tell me you know I'm atheists okay you know what I have clients they're atheists in the meantime my atheist client clients who will tell me they go in for surgery sometimes that are it's so gut-wrenching to even read you know the surgical report and then the doctor took out his drill and drilled the hole and then he hammered you know the the 16-inch Rod into the leg and those are some of the easier surgeries they're just horrible horrible stuff so they'll say to me you know because I'm the rabbi you know because I wear my arms they'll say you know what listen I don't know if there's a God I don't think there was a God but in case there was a God pray for me right like you know like they always say like the only minor surgery you know people say oh I'm going in for minor surgery the only you know the definition of minor surgery is when someone else is having the surgery that it's minor surgery when you're going in it's not minor so we Domin right we pray for everything okay we pray for good grades we pray to understand the gamara we pray we'll get into the right class we pray we'll get into the right College we pray we're going to meet the right woman you know so we can get married we pray and we pray and we pray and we pray and pray and then it's like wait did I thank God because then it comes true right and some like sometimes God says no I mean some says it's a no something he says yes sometimes the s's beyond what we could have ever imagined right you're praying to get a job offer you get a job offer for twice the money you were looking for you're praying in the one school you get into an even better school you're pre like you you can and it's and we and as an afterthought we have to remember that I thank God yeah yeah that you know you know thank you very much I remember the when we were when my wife was um pregnant with our um with our seventh child so by then I wasn't going to every doctor you know the first child you go to every single doctor visit and every word he says and you're taking notes and you're reading What to Expect When You're Expecting Etc like seventh time already okay like I'm not going with the you know to the doctor you know appointments you could say like the younger you know women are there with their husbands and the older the women were older who have had you know multiple they're they're not there with their husbands okay so she comes back home and she says um and she says take a look and she hands me the ultrasound pictures which you know you you know it's a fetus but if you didn't know his videos you wouldn't even be sure okay it's like was this like something from Sigourney Weaver and alien like what exactly you're trying to figure out which way to hold it okay but I know what it is so I'm sitting I'm eating my breakfast that finished like I've gone to school I finished my hubrisa so she hands it to me and I said oh very cute so she says it's a picture like these two ultrasound pictures she just take a look and I said yeah yeah take a look I said Jesus take a look I'm like okay what in the world I said what's going on she's like take a look all right so now I'm like really am I looking at everything okay and I see this tiny tiny writing underneath the first picture baby a like and then I scan down BBB I'm like no said yes okay so uh you know like and here all I was you know when what from when we first found out she was pregnant of course I'm praying for one thing I'm praying healthy baby healthy baby healthy baby like in my wildest the magic just praying like make it a double and she's like not only am I going to give you a healthy but I'm gonna give you two bouncing baby boys like sometimes the the yes is beyond what we beyond what we asked for like how often does it happen in life like you ask a friend you know okay really can I do can I do a favor can you do me a favor you know can I can I borrow your car and your friend's like yes and you show up and he hands you the keys and he flips you the keys to like a you know a Ferrari okay you're like was he's like you know what I realized you were renting it you know yeah I mean you were borrowing it for your date and I was like I really wanted to impress the girl so I went and I rented a Ferrari and here I'm letting you use it you'd be like that thing doesn't happen in life and it happens with Hashem all the time not always but happens all the time or he'll say yes and we have to be careful to thank him I was I was um I was um sitting once with a with a with a Rocher Shiva in America you know a very very high level like household name Russia and he had to speak about an important topic and he got a phone call he said excuse me and since because of my line of work I realized in two seconds what was going on you know it was one of those calls you could tell by the tone voice somebody was telling him about a baby he was very sick he was going in for an operation was giving him the name to pray okay so before he finished the call he said okay of course I'm gonna pray he said just please call me back and let me know what happens okay hangs up the phone he looks at me says he says people call me all the time he says I'm not convinced that I have any greater powers like I'm I'm a human being I don't know that I have any greater powers of prayer but if somebody calls me to pray of course I'm always happy to pray he says you wouldn't believe how few people call me back he says and I always ask he says and I wonder like like you know if I pray for a thousand people like like babies over like I would hope that some of them make it right like nobody ever like everybody's always so quick to ask but when it comes time like um probably somebody made it right and he says so few people call back to say thank you and so it's an incredibly important thing for us is that we've got to say thank you that's if you've ever wondered when we when we say twice a day we repeat this right the amida right so after we say our own the housing gets up and he says it right we're gonna do it now right after right okay so each of the of the blessings the cause and says we say Amen says the next one we say Maine bring the you know bring us back to Israel Maine and reveal the basement you know what I mean and forgive us for our sins you know what I mean and you know and ren Resurrect The Dead absolutely you know I'm in on that one you know I mean there's only one you can't just say on me when it comes to modem thanking God you can't have a cause and do that for you that's the one modes in the right you've got to do it yourself and so I think that's a critically important thing is to make sure not to not to turn that light into dark by not thanking Hashem for the things he gives us the the second um point which I think is is at least as important is to try our best to turn Darkness into light and you should never know from this I see this all the time I practice as I mentioned before you know people hit types of Darkness you know without any warning without any without seeing it coming that's it's tough to even wrap your mind around and I have some clients who are you know it's over like they will never I'm talking about the surviving people okay you know they'll never be the same and there's no amount of therapy and they do tons of therapy and they're just they're just you see there's just that you know there's like a deadness or a hollowness in their eyes and I have others who demonstrate so inspiring it's hard it's hard to imagine so I'm representing now a woman of parents who lost their 12 year old son in an event that's that if I told you what happened you'd have trouble sleeping I tried very hard we hired a forensic pathologist to go through to talk about what this kid suffered through like what he would have known before he before he passed away and and this is just you know a clinical dispassion it's you know Professor who's a coroner okay I could not get if there was a four-page report I could not get through it without crying that's how horrifying it is so after this event happened the kid went into a coma he eventually died he was in a coma for some time so the mother who was a religious Jew she mobilized everybody in your community she had people studying in the hospital she had people praying in the hospital like 24 7 okay and it came a point in time where in the doctor you know was you know he's giving her updates so as it was you know getting worse he was hooked up to every possible machine and he had 12 years old he had some younger siblings she had three younger siblings so she took the younger siblings and she stood them at the doorway and she said I want you to look at your brother right now he has one foot on Earth and one foot in heaven and If Heaven calls him if God says they need him up in heaven we are not going to ask any questions if that's the decree we're going to accept it you'll understand we're not going to be happy it's going to be very sad but we're going to accept God's decree about an hour or so later the doctor called her and her husband over and they said okay you have to go say goodbye we're losing him his vitals are losing you have to go say goodbye she goes into the room I didn't hear this from her a rabbi who saw this told me the story she walks in the room this is her son 12 year old son who a day before was playful and and wonderful and full of energy and accident totally out of the blue and now he's about to die okay and she starts screaming at her son screaming at it in the hospital the Torah says you have to honor your father and your mother I am your mother you have to listen to me I'm telling you now when you get up there to Heaven you're gonna go right to Hashem write to God and you're going to start praying to him you're going to pray for me you're going to pray for your dad you're going to pray for your grandparents you're going to pray for every one of your brothers and sisters and you're going to pray for all Jews God is not going to be able to say no to you a 12 year old boy going up like this when God wants you up there for a reason he's going to put you next to him I know you're going to be able to talk to him and I'm commanding you pray for all of us I mean it was it's all about turning Darkness into light here's a person she should be there in a curled up in a fetal ball unable to move and instead she recognizes it doesn't mean she was happy okay she was as sad as any human being is going to be recognizes that for reasons that none of us can understand and won't understand until we get up there that was his time and she's going to take the last moment to instruct him what to do when he gets up to heaven because she's convinced without any question that's where he's going he's not going to disappear he's going up to heaven and so that I think is a you know is it is a is a phenomenal example you know imagine right you have a really bad day whatever I don't know think of your worst day a really really bad day you get into bed you turn the pillow over because you want the colder side okay and then after you turn it over you you feel underneath there's like something underneath your pillow what's that you pull it out and it's like a really really you ever get a really fancy invitation okay where it's like that really fancy card stock you're like whoa that's like is that even paper what's that made out of okay like really fancy thick heavy and it's engraved not like the you know the thermolite stuff it's not like you know uh you know inkjet engraved print things got your name on it okay the return address is like 18 Cerulean Court Heaven okay like that's weird it's got your name right you open it up okay dear your first name okay I know you had a really bad day I just want to let you know that I got your back don't worry everything will be all right love God okay the next day you take this thing because you have a friend who's like some you know biomechanical engineer he's like I don't know whatever Carnegie Mellon is he's an MIT inside he's like give me a favor can you just like take this to your lab and like like analyze it or something okay you gotta call an hour later where'd you get this from what are you talking about you know that thing you gave me where'd you get it from like no I I just whatever where did you get it from like what are you talking like no no you don't understand the physical properties of this paper like it doesn't exist on Earth like this isn't from Earth where did you get it from okay it was like independent confirmation I was like this was extraterrestrial right you'd be feeling pretty like I got a letter from God like telling me that he loves me and it'll be all right and so the the reality is that every single one of us every single night has that letter we don't realize it every single night every one of us has that letter tucked underneath our pillow from God to you directly I got your back it could be difficult your day could be difficult yesterday tomorrow or you could have a series of difficult days I got your back I love you and that's why this to me was stunning when I saw it but commentator explained this I have a son one of my one of my sons is named Yosef he's 13 now we are thank God very very close I love hanging out with him he said that perfect age okay playing ball and following Sports and stunning it's already got everything we do together is fun my older two boys are out of house they're in Israel then I have two my two daughters with whom I'm close but they don't sit with me you know in school we don't so we like we go to school together we're very very close so I don't know six months or so ago um I'm in the bathroom right you know as I hear you know Dad like yes you know yeah yeah okay uh you know uh where are you I'm in the bathroom Okay like 30 seconds later Dad I'm like yeah yeah I'm in the bathroom Okay like a minute later dad I mean um yes I'm super dad but you know I'm human being I don't have unlimited patience okay I'm like yoey I'm in the bathroom what's the emergency voice on the other side of the bathroom door oh I'm sorry I just um I wanted to know when you're coming out because I wanted to hang out with you okay here I am I'm like yelling at him like for you you just wants to hang out with the town like we're very very close okay I have never gone I mean I've gone maybe I don't know the longest I've been without him he went over and I can so I guess you know until visiting day it was a few weeks something like that so I don't even know if I've gone 22 days right yaakov Jacob goes 22 years without saying his Yosef okay this is Joseph right for who my son's names 22 years his beloveds and we know how close they were right 22 years thinking he's dead and he gets the news dad he's alive oh by the way he's the king of Egypt okay and he's just first he can't believe it then they show him the signs and he believes it he says I'm going to see him before I die how do you even how do you describe the level of excitement how do you even wrap your mind around that level of emotion he's gonna see his son after 22 years okay and so that's it and they walk towards each other and they Embrace but they don't Embrace because only one of them is embracing you're safe throws himself at his father and he's hugging his father I imagine for dear your life okay I have one of my my twins um is absolutely not a hugger like the only way I can hug him I came up with a way to hug him is that if we're if we're paying attention to a game and there's a big play I'll be like guys hug it up big play and then he'll do that but otherwise no hugs the second one is a huge hugger okay I'll say to him I don't know can I get a hug and he'll go giant or small of course I always do giant one and he throws himself around me this giant hug okay let me hug each other so yo safe understandably he's hugging his father his father's not hugging him back why we know why right rash tells us because he's saying Shema right but now don't get me wrong yaakov is extremely from I imagine a giant beard and Pez and the whole the Hat the whole nine okay in the white shirt I imagine okay and it sits us out the whole nine right so of course you know he's got do you really think the god up in heaven wouldn't have said Jake whatever he calls him okay you could hug yourself serious really hug your son then you can say like it's fun it's been 22 years hug your son then you can say Shema he's to say Shima first foreign you really think that God would have been like I can't believe you didn't say Shama first right it's just a commentator that says what's going on is it yaakov realized he understood because he felt it he knew he was overwhelmed with emotion and he was worried because he was worried for that one moment when he hugged his son he was going to love his son more than he loved God so he wanted to show God and show himself and show his son and show us as much as I love my son now which is more than a human being can even express 22 years I haven't seen him I love God more right and you'll say come on how could he possibly and that's yaakov because he realized you know why he loved God more because he understood that as much as I love my son as much as he loves me God loves me more as much as your parents love you as much as whoever dotes on you the most your grandmother your aunt your your siblings your spouse to be whoever it is that loves you so intensely God loves you more take that to the bank and so that's one way if we remember that you know to to to Really latch on to making sure to the extent that we can to try to turn Darkness into into life so we'll try to remember to see God's hand in in the good and the bad to realize that even if it's bad he loves us maybe he's sending us a message you know nobody goes to life without any setbacks maybe he's testing us maybe it's neither you know of those it's some other reason that we may not know any may not tell us but he's still God and he still loves us we remember to thank him as intensely as we ask him try not to ever turn light into dark and try in those you know horrible moments when we Face Darkness to turn them into light thanks for listening um uh I do a um I do a video as you as you may have heard if anybody's interested you can um if you give me your email address I'll send it to you and I have some some cards if anybody does make it back to the States I'm gonna come for Shabbos I live in Passaic New Jersey which is about uh 10 miles outside uh outside of Manhattan I work in Manhattan and so I commute so I always love to have people for Shabbos the kids always love guests and if you have any questions I have a few minutes a few minutes until uh a few minutes until any questions it means I was thinking about this if I throw your lecture um says I don't know if I remember the verse exactly but he says oh I'll show I'll show Mercy when I choose to show mercy and all show what is it uh where's the other one and I'll show um yes I'm like justice when I choose to show Justice right exactly so like what is that what is that verse in the past like what do you take from that like specifically that like God's saying that I'm gonna show you so are you are you pinning on the fact that it sounds Cavalier of God like you know when I'm in the mood almost or no I was just kind of relating it to like light and darkness I don't know it just kind of it reminded me of that okay first so okay so what you're what you're hitting on is one of the thorniest topics on Judaism right which is that you know why is it that sometimes why is it that sometimes God seems to act so cruel right you know you have you don't have to look you know back too far you know go to a Paris Supermarket go to you know the harno shul I mean these are things that are that are tough to understand you know why does he you know show those kind of things and other times you know shows you know his his wonders hands so simplest answer that is that I have no idea and won't know and none of us will know you know the best analogy is you know you you know you walk in you you got your times confused you know on Fandango right it's a two and a half hour movie you look at it's one hour into the movie okay and then you stay for half an hour and you walk out and you know you talk to a friend you're like yeah did you see such this movie like yeah and you're like that was like the most ridiculous thing ever like why'd the guy kill that person and the friend looks like are you out of your mind I was like the most ridiculous thing and then friends says well you you didn't see the beginning when that guy like killed his mother you're like oh yeah I missed that and you're like oh yeah and in the end like you know why they put that guy in jail like what are you talking about you didn't see the breakout scene you're like oh yeah I left it like you didn't you're coming we're coming in the middle so when God maybe is suggesting is that when he says I'll show meaning that you're gonna only see pieces of it you're not going to see the whole thing right we weren't there at the beginning we're not there at the end we're only here for a very very tiny slice of the movie when we get up there you know eventually we'll understand and that's why when the when we're told that in the in the Messianic age that all holidays will disappear I'm not gonna have any holidays anymore it's not going to need them because they to the extent that we feel that freedom you know on Passover and the extent we had that closeness of the Torah on chivalas and we have that protection of God on so because we're not going to need any longer we're gonna have them automatically we're gonna feel them all you know at the Messianic age two holidays are gonna remain Purim and Tish above except Tish above instead of being a fasting and sad day is going to be the happiest day of the year so Purim is going to remain because that's the day where we see where we already saw that oh it looked so horrible and boom it flipped around and Tisha was going to remain because we're going to say oh all those things that happen the Jewish history now I understand I thought that God was showing cruelty then really he was showing mercy so maybe that's what he's hinting at that that all show is a suggestion of I'm going to show at certain points of times things that look like this but realize you don't have the whole picture that's one possibility I mean there are many other ways of trying to to understand that what made you come back so um I mean came back the first time for for another year yeah so um I had spent two years here you know gotten I would say that when I first started off I'd grown up in the modern Orthodox Community which meant there were certain things that I was careful about certain things I wasn't to put it differently I would say that I was I was Jewish to put it differently I would say that I never let halacha get in the way of a good time okay that's where I was holding right so when I got towards a mask I got much much more serious and realized that you know it kind of doesn't make that much sense you know if I have to be honest with myself like you know I I do this you know when I'm in the mood and not when I'm not in the mood like either it's right or it's not or I have to or I don't and also you know it was the first time that anybody ever presented something to me as a big boy like so when I checked in climb sound you gave me the keys to the dorm okay remember I'm somebody who had grown up you know Yeshiva this Yeshiva that Yeshiva gotten kicked out okay it's like I've done this route before and he says okay you know let me just go over the rules so right away I do an eye roll like yeah okay all right great let me get a chair because it's gonna be like three hours long yeah okay let's do the rules okay he's okay so rules are like uh no girls in the dorm no drugs and just you know please just be sensitive like on Sabbath you know don't turn off or on any lights because you know because there are people that you know then they won't be able to turn them on or off okay I was like yeah he's like no that's it two and that's it you're gonna that's it I said what are you talking about I I've been issue where there are like 500 rules see he said to me he said let me ask you something if we force you to do something here do you really think you're going to keep doing that when you're in the states it's not going to work he said so we just present things like we will you'll have questions we'll have answers to to some not all of your questions and if you'd like the answers great and you know you're a big boy and you're going to make your own decisions and it was the first time anybody ever treated me like that like I can make my own decisions yeah it's between you and God you're going to make your own decisions we're here to teach you skills and introduce you to text but you're going to make your own decisions and that to me was on was amazing it was it was two years of incredible growth and then I got married and had my two kids and said you know what before I you know embark on my work so now I'm about to start work and I said you know I'm young like right now I'm taking off a week can't begin to tell you how tough it is to take off a week I'm running a law firm I have you know six semi eight kids at home okay you know and my and my wife and it's extremely difficult to take off a week back then when I was younger I mean we all think we're busy I was able to take off another you know Academic Year so I grabbed it because knowing that I wasn't going to get the opportunity you know the older you get you know the more difficult it is to take off that time uh first I want to thank you for coming and speaking with us you're very welcome balance learning yeah so so it's funny because um I I um one of my kids asked me this once a while ago dad did you know how to juggle and I said no then I realized well actually I do you know so I can't juggle balls but it's it's a um it's a little chaotic it's a little hectic I constantly have balls up in the air you know between Discord appearance and that you know you know lecture scheduled and this you know trip and this family obligation Etc and so a lot of it has to do with scheduling you know the if you if you're harusa I have a friend okay so this is his you know and I mentioned the ones like oh do you have a study you know a guy who you know who who he likes studying I said you know who do you you know who you have a study partner he goes absolutely I said also what are you guys studying he says I have a study partner I said what do you study because I have a study partner I said when do you study because I have a study partner I said Wendy's I have a study partner so I realized what was going on like he and his friend they have a study partner they don't actually ever study but they are both study partners so the only way it works is if you have something scheduled like you know in the morning between whether as I go to Minion and then after minion I have my that is my study partnership okay yes occasionally if I'm traveling he's traveling I'm gonna miss it but if not that's when you're studying you have a built-in time at night and that's it and and it doesn't matter okay you know oh but Gotham's on oh but Blacklist is on oh but no no that is your time so you've got to schedule it and so I you know I have things like for you know for so a you know morning and evening just start to schedule this afternoon I have a rough share that I go to you know it's easy in the summer it's a long afternoon in the winter you know you're taking a half an hour nap that's difficult but every week like that's my you know my daughters know they got to you know wake me up for that and Saturday night you know I go to another class so I think that that's that's the for me is the most important thing is that is you have something scheduled and then also do this weekly video so I know that you know I gotta get it done like I'm on the clock every week you know so I'm filling in and the nice thing about that and there are other things you could do is that it's constant preparation in other words throughout the week anytime I have an extra five minutes I just pull another book off the shelf and I'm looking at something to try to you know prepare because there's always another point you know Etc that I can that I can add to it or modify et cetera so I think that would be my best advice would be to just lock things in as many things as you can lock in yes yeah foreign