Practical Spirituality: The Power of the Wilderness - Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser

You want to tell yourself then Jacob And we are live. All right. Anyone who'd like to be part of these experiences of these classes and to have a little extra merit come in their way or for anyone you can obvious obviously let us know and we will mention names. We have various sponsors and and big shout out to Ashpiza where we are doing this class right across from the Temple Mount here in the holy city of Jerusalem and also the and actually Benzion Klatzko's actually teaching right outside this room to one of his groups on the Akiva trip and also to Torah Anytime the biggest Yeshiva in the world and one of our sponsors. This person should have a Yona Tan Yosef Ben Yaakov Ezra He should have big success in what he's doing. And um Yeah, today we're going to be talking about quiet you know, really getting to a quiet place. So let's start with a little quiet place. Everyone take a deep breath. Nice. Take another deep breath. And close your eyes as you exhale. One more deep breath. Hold your breath. And release. Opening up your eyes. And just notice the quiet place that you got to with three breaths. It's it's under estimated. I think the power of breath the our breath really does make a big difference. And most people are breathing unconsciously most of the time. And you can go quite far with with just getting conscious with your breathing. And there's so many types of breath that you can be um utilizing. Um for example, the anti-anxiety breath. That's That's a really important one and that's the in through the nose, stomach, chest quickly and then a long out through the mouth. Let's try that one. So, stomach, chest. I'll show you what stomach, chest looks like. Try it together. Stomach, chest is fast. Slow out. You don't hold the breath. One more. So, that uh tricks your um your nervous system to go out of the parasympathetic uh fight and flight emergency mode and puts it into a um a state of the sympathetic nervous system, which is just relaxed. What? It sounds relax It sounds reverse, but it's I was told to remember it cuz everyone gets it confused, including me. I was told the para- para- sympathetic is think paramedic. But, look it up. You got your phone. Oh, good. We got another student coming in. Shalom aleichem. That seat must have been for you. Come on by. No, no, this way. Yeah, watch the cables. Anyway, shalom aleichem. Good luck. So, anyway, but there's all kinds of breaths. You can go, you know, you can skip psychedelics and just meaning you don't have to take any psychedelic. You can just go straight for holotropic breathing if you want which would be and a very simple level would be through the mouth in and out as strong as you can. Like like this. Like I I do doubles, but but simple it would just be Do that for close to 2 hours. An hour at least, but close to 2 hours. Um to the point where, you know, after about 45 minutes your breath is breathing you. And I wouldn't try this alone necessarily because you can have uh And you should be somewhat supervised. Somewhat supervised. But they But what will happen just by doing that um consistently for an hour or an hour and a half, 2 hours, you will move into a fully psychedelic state. And And that And that's really interesting that you can do that just with breath. Um Anyway, there's plenty of other breath um mechanisms that can take you far and that's our discussion today and our discussion's about the wilderness. Um There's There's an experience with wilderness that has the awe-inspiring mountains, but there's also an experience of the wilderness that gets very horizontal. So, deserts are generally horizontal and oceans are extremely horizontal. They outdo the the desert for horizontal. But there's also deserts with giant mountains. The Sinai desert has giant mountains. Uh Uh Joshua Tree National Monument is is full of these rock formations that are If you haven't seen Joshua Tree, I'm not sure you can die. Because you have to have been to Joshua Tree before you die. Just to experience this place. And there's certain places that I think are musts on the bucket list of wildernesses. Um, but you'll see that if you go to the ocean and you didn't even get in it, but you hung out with an expansive horizontal place, I don't know what it is about it, but your whole system just chills. And you'll notice that cities line coasts. And it's not just because, you know, it's access to the world to be near a coast, cuz you can today you have full access from Chicago to the world without a coast. But people tend towards coasts, coastlines. There's something about horizontal that's the moderator. And you'll notice that the time we get our deepest rest is when we're horizontal. Horizontal is I mean, we put our own bodies horizontal. Or being horizontal on the beach is there's something about that. And the and the word midbar is the word in Hebrew for wilderness. And what it means really about what midbar really means is is it's where there's as little um, influence as possible. Midbar really means minimized, ultimately minimized influence. And it's funny coming off last week's parsha, which was and before it even talked about the death penalty for idolatry, it first gave a death penalty for influencers. And and it's very interesting that that Torah goes out of its way to start with influencers before it went to the punishment for the idolatry. So, and and apparently God has it in for influencers. Uh meaning if you're an influencer for good, so I imagine God's pretty cool with you. But if you're an influencer and you're influencing people in a a way from good, so Now, obviously there's no influencer doesn't think he's influencing for the good. Everyone thinks they're influencing for the good. Uh which brings up whole subject again, what's good and what's bad and and you know, and then we're then we're back in that whole discussion. But uh just to not have that discussion, let's just suffice to say that when you have, let's say, a pyramid of priority where you're going to sacrifice lower to get to a higher point of a pyramid, so if you don't put God at the top, if you don't put that at the top, and it's kind of cool that the ancient world had a seeing eye at the top. Because what is God if not a seeing eye? If you don't put God at the top, God is just good without with missing is one of the O's, you know. If you don't put God at the top, then then things get dicey. Things get real dicey. Take God off the top, things get dicey. And I don't think there was ever a civilization that lived very long after God was knocked off the top. And um um and just as a fair warning, you can YouTube this, but it's pretty cool. And I I don't know how if it's 100% true, but but you can YouTube this one is um is that when you take God off the top now, so now you're we you no longer have a a a unified objective good. So, what happens is uh good gets very subjective and very disunified and factional in what's going to be called good. And and and then it it's just a matter of time until there's a full breakdown. And and the the thing that makes it worse, the thing that really really messes up a society is when things get all gerble jumbled like that. Because God got taken off the top. There's no more tip to the pyramid. Get rid of that. The uh things get so jumbled, but there's an ingredient that's one of the most beautiful things in the world and in fact it's for you it's oxygen itself. That if you add it to the equation, I mean you add something as healthy as what I'm about to tell you. If you add this to the equation, then things go south quick. And you know what that is? You're not going to believe what it is. It's called acceptance. Your which is your deepest need. Your deepest need is to be accepted. No, that's not really your deepest need. Your deepest need is to be loved. But who are the people you love? The ones that accept you. So, acceptance is like a super super high value. If you don't have it in your household, your kids for sure will sour. You know, you might wind up with good kids, but they're dead inside. Because they were too busy trying to earn acceptance cuz there was no unconditional acceptance. It was you know, it was acceptance like a gun over your head acceptance. We'll accept you if you behave, you know. And so and so those homes like either a kid will spin out and go find a place where he's accepted at some 7-Eleven parking lot or you'll or you'll get instead good kids who are dead inside because they don't have their deepest need met which is unconditional acceptance which leads to love. Cuz the only people I would ever feel loved from, the only possibility of feeling love from someone is that they accept you for who you are. That's the only way you could ever feel love from someone. Anyway, but check this out. When you take God off the top and then you inject acceptance as the main as the main um value. Like we're going to make acceptance the main value. So what happens is that standards of for approval get pushed out. Standards for approval get pushed out. Think about it. If I have to accept you no matter what so then I likely will start I'll have to say that what you're up to doesn't matter anymore. You understand? Uh gosh, I mixed this up for you guys. Let me make it super clear, okay? You have You have something called approval and then you have something called acceptance. They're two very separate subjects. Approval is standards of behavior. Stuff you do. So for example, would you guys approve of me not making a blessing over this water? I already made a blessing before we started today, but would you approve of that? No, would you accept me if I didn't? Yeah. So, do you see that two separate things? You'd accept me as a human being for having not done that, but you wouldn't approve of it. Is that clear? So, people have ex- People have approval and acceptance blurred. They have them blurred. So, they wind up only accepting people they approve of. You either follow my standards or you're out. Where that's ex- that's approval and acceptance blurred together. Or you or you are following my standards or you're out. Now, does that feel safe or dangerous? It's very dangerous. And how are you supposed to know my standards? It's not like anyone interviewed me. I mean, how are you supposed to know my standards? Yet, most people only accept the people they approve of. Most people only accept those they approve of. In other words, they have acceptance and approval blurred, and they only accept those they approve of. This is why when I meet someone, like I'll meet someone at some party. I'll be in LA this week, so uh later this week I'll be in LA and then I'll meet someone at a party and they'll be like apologizing for their existence, you know, cuz they're meeting this Jew with the payes, and people with the beard, and they're like They And the guy's like, "I'm a really bad Jew, Rabbi. You have to understand. I'm just like You haven't even told me your name yet. And this was not like some kind of test of And we're we're at a cocktail party, for heaven's sakes. Like, what is you having to be a bad You happen thinking you're a bad Jew have to do with this? You know, I was I'm just came here to enjoy myself. You know, but you understand that what he's really saying is I feel like such a in front of you. Meaning Meaning Meaning you clearly would not accept me for my behavior. You wouldn't accept me because you wouldn't approve. So, they get blurred. But, let's look at it the other way. You're you Most of us only accept the people we approve of, which is terrible thing. And you're makes you frankly dangerous. You know, I'm not going to feel safe with you if that's the case. And the other is that you can go the other way. What's the other way? Is I only ex- I sense acceptance is the highest good. And that's like the USA. USA is the United States of Acceptance. Think about it. That is what it is. I mean, it just go to Brooklyn. Drive around Brooklyn. You'll drive from community to community to community. And a lot of those neighboring communities are have been at war for for ages in their original country. But, put them in the United States of Acceptance, they live side by side for generations. No nothing ever happened. It's the United States of Acceptance. The melting pot. Where you take Where you take warring factions throughout the planet, you bring them to America, and everyone just gets along. They made acceptance the highest the highest value. Meaning they took God off the top. And they put acceptance as the top. But, they have the opposite issue as Not only do do I accept everyone, but I also have to what? Approve. Have to approve of everyone. Because if you put acceptance as the highest good, and you don't understand it the distinction between acceptance and approval. You don't understand that distinction. So then what happens is you wind up with a society that there's no such thing as standards for approval anymore. I'm okay, you're okay. Everybody just do whatever you want. Hells bells. And just go for it. And so that society as it breaks down What do I mean by breaks down? Break the standards of behavior are no longer considered um important necessarily. People are meaning that the just the whole society loses its standards. It loses its own self-respect. And it's like um you know, the 1960s was a big part of this. The um I think that the the psychedelic era um was was a a period of time that I mean the late '60s was a time where where I think on the on the under the influence of psychedelics in that period that there was a loss of distinction at all. Like like you and I like we're all one. Which is true. You know, I mean it's a very Torah precept that everything's really one. But Torah everything's one and then there's all these distinctions. Whereas 1960s weren't being guided by Torah. You can go to ancient villages meaning communities all over the jungles of the world. Like aboriginal communities that are where where psychedelic medicines that show you the oneness are in the bedrock of the religion of that aboriginal community in the jungle there. And yet they have very fine lines in their societal structure, in their um in their way of doing things and what the men do and what the women do and and what your position is in position is in the community. Things are clearly distinguished. So when I'm what So basically the the psychedelic era of the of the US, which was late '60s and throughout the '70s, was it was n- bringing psychedelics to the United States of acceptance was a bad recipe. It was a bad recipe. And and then what happened was acceptance and approval getting blurred. So since I have to accept everyone and we're all one anyway. So therefore um I have to approve of everyone. And therefore there's no more standards. There's no more you know, after a while there's no more right and wrong. What you can get so blurred out with the oneness of it all that there's no more binary nature. You understand that that what is binary? Binary means that there's there's two. And unity means there's one. And interestingly, the whole Torah, which is the blueprint of our creation, God literally is creating this world through a blueprint. Meaning like an overhead projector is constantly active when you're in a classroom and there's an overhead projector. That transparency, which is creating the image on the screen, is at all times actively doing that. So the Torah is the blueprint of creation. It's the It's the um It's the overhead projector transparency that's been placed. And it's moving all the time. It's alive, you know. But it But the Torah begins with a bet. With the letter bet. Aleph bet. B. Aleph bet. It begins with a two. And the two, if you look at the shape of a bet, okay, the bet going this way has its back turned to the olive. And God's called the olive. He's the alufo the the one within all the many. Cuz every all the many in the whole world of this this um digital you know, we're inside this you know, digital uh what's the right word? This is a three-syllable word. Um simulation. So, simulation, four syllables. In this digital simulation, it's all made of vibration and the and one is the common denominator of all vibration. So, if you play your A string on your guitar, that's 441s. And Hashem is the one within all of it. And now, when you get married, so now it's two, just like creation, it's two. But two that become one, which is, you know, the goal of everything. And the and to be when you hear music playing, it's you know, multiple vibrations in the chord. But the the spiritual the spiritually wise hear Hashem in the music at all times. You know, you're always hearing Hashem in in the music. And anyway, but just going back to the that when you when you go non-binary, meaning when you want to say everything's really one, and there's no two, even though the entire creation is binary, Meaning the second you have multiplicity, you're in binary realm. You know, this is why when we say Shema, when we talk about the oneness, we close our eyes and then we cover our eyes. Everyone try that. Close your eyes just regular without your hand. You'll see you still see some light. And um and now cover your eyes with your hand tight. And by the way, this is how you should say Shema tight. And you'll see it just becomes one. You can open your eyes. And that one is nothing. Because before there was something, what was there? Nothing. Before the if you if you're a big banger, before the big bang, there was nothing. If you're a Genesi-er, before the before heaven and earth, there was nothing. Well, how much of nothing can there be other than one? There's only one nothing. If you divide it by three, you get nothing. If you multiply it by three, you get nothing. It's absolute total oneness. And and it's the truth, but he created this world with multiplicity. It's a binary world. And and the Torah teaches us all its distinctions. You know, and the Torah is distinguishing the world for us, just like the aboriginal cultures have great distinction. They understand the oneness cuz they're tripping on ayahuasca or whatever they're taking over there. The mushrooms of Mexico or something. They know all about the oneness. But but they have deep traditions of the standards of behavior, of the distinctions of wrong and right and you know, good and bad and and in Judaism has that. We don't need the psychedelics cuz we have prophecy. And prophecy makes LSD look like vitamin C. Prophecy's beyond you know, if if psychedelics are are if they are a a a taste of tripping sorry, taste of of if psychedelics are taste of prophecy it's a very small taste. Because the 99% of people can do a psychedelic and come back normal. Uh obviously people should be aware of their family history and their own psychological makeup before they get involved in such things. But the but if any of us got even a light meaning us in this room, myself included, if any of us got even a light um prophetic moment right now. Like if you just suddenly got just a little prophetic moment right now. I don't mean a a little one, but like a real real prophecy. Like you got a real prophetic moment right now. You would you probably wouldn't be able to um continue your life as a normal person. You wouldn't be able to come back from that very well. The and I know everyone feels like they're pretty solid citizens in here, but um I don't want to scare anybody, but but we're way more shaky than we realize. We're way more shaky. Well, I think since since maybe after Corona, after COVID-19, I think everyone realizes how shaky they are. Yeah, would you guys say you're a little more sober? I'm pretty shaky, bro. You're pretty shaky. Is there anyone here who doesn't realize how shaky they are? You realize that. But before Corona, I thought I was absolutely unstoppable. You know. It was until I like broke a tooth and I'm like, what the heck? Did I break a tooth? Like, did I just break a tooth? What is that? And and so I went to the dentist. I'm like, I broke my tooth. He's like, yeah, man, you're clenching your teeth. I'm like, clenching my teeth? Since when? I'm the most chill guy there is. He's like, have you been following news like during Corona? Like during COVID, have you have you been like following the news? And I'm like, yeah, I mean, I'm definitely following the news and he's like, why don't you stop watching the news for about a month and see if you're still clenching your teeth. So I stopped watching the news. I stopped clenching my teeth. And but that was one of the indicators of how shaky I am. You know. And I was I would definitely consider a pretty solid citizen and I still am, but but I'm much more humble now and realizing that we're we're um we're just we're just shaky, you know. And since the war things are getting more shaky. And whatever it's This is the time in our lives where we have to laser beam laser beam onto Hashem. Like I don't know what you guys are up to in your lives, but you got to laser beam yourself onto Hashem. You got to laser beam into Hashem totally right now. And it's it's really important that you do that. Um the flying squirrels, you guys ever heard of flying squirrels? It's fun to watch them on YouTube, but they but they they they take off and just like jump from tree to tree and they have this they have like like their arms are kind of webbed into these wings and they just So this some guy did something that I'm sure animal activists wouldn't have been so excited about. But you know what he did? He took a like a seesaw thing and just bang this side with the flying squirrel on this side and just shot the squirrel off, you know, bang and the squirrel's just like you know, cuz he's in full spin mode. You know, definitely going to cra- have a crash landing, but doesn't. He lands on his feet each time. Anyway, but what he did was he slow mode it. He put it on full slow mode video. And to see how does this thing flying head over heels the whole time land on his feet each time? And so by putting in slow mode it's very clear what he does. The um the second he shoots up it instinctually chooses a landing place based on I guess the trajectory. Chooses a landing place and while his body's doing all the spinning, his head is makes his body pivot around it. His head doesn't move. His eyes are on the spot till he lands. I think everyone just here got the reason why I'm discussing flying squirrels. You have to be a flying squirrel. Meaning you're going to be sent head over heels all over the place, most likely all of us are. We already have been and it's going to probably be getting worse before it's going to be getting better. And who knows what's in store next? I mean, it's seriously crazy, you know, like like you know, and what if the US has a civil war? Do you realize what could happen? You realize the world as we know it is over? And and people are like more and more starting to wonder about that. You know, and and please God it won't happen, you know, and let's hope that that the great United States of America can can somehow make it through these crazy times. But um but if it did you better have your eye on the target and I can't tell you how awesome it is. I feel like since Corona since COVID my eye on the target is the target's Hashem, but there's another aspect of it and this will sound maybe crazy to some people, but Israel is Israel is the is the refuge city. Israel's the refuge city. I know it didn't seem very safe on October 7th. Um but God is in control and God is um you know, it was a miracle, like the Hamas's victory on October 7th was an absolute made zero sense. Militarily that they were able to like ride through on cruiser bicycles, you know, like and and uh do what they did. So, it is clearly God's hand. Um October 8th was the next news, which was the news that the whole world hates the Jews just like World War II Holocaust. Like uh were they all waiting for this whole time to let us know that or how much longer was the world going to pretend that And how long much longer were the Jews going to pretend that we're actually loved and cherished by society? But, like October 7th was the first crazy miracle. And normally miracles are good things, but this was a miracle bad thing. But, that that happened. October 8th began the world feeling no longer bashful about their hatred towards good. And and then the Whatever they that Ever since these times, every time I'm on an airplane back to Israel, my I don't know what it is. I just I just keep thinking that like there's only so many more of these trips I'm going to be making. And there's only so much more time left. It just feels suddenly like a time like like there's a like there's a countdown. I don't And by the way, you can throw this in the waste basket if you want. I And but other people have this feeling, too. I don't know if you guys have this feeling. You know, you have that feeling? Yeah. You have that feeling? Yeah. No. You have that feeling? You? You feel that? You shouldn't. You don't feel that? Okay, so. Huh. I hope I'm wrong. I mean, I have my family, my friends, I have my all the people working with me in my organization and the possible you and all these branches of all these students of all these And I love everybody, you know, like all these people out there but I don't know, there's something about Israel. Even though I'm you know, I'm I'm far from I'm I'm I don't I don't consider the Jewish leadership of is like the Israel leadership leadership I don't consider them leadership. Um but nevertheless, I like the fact that if there was something of existential like if we were in an existential situation that our existence was online that they could uh they could you know, do something about it. Whereas if we're in an existential threat outside of Israel, we're completely at the mercy of the kindness of a government that you hope likes us. You know. And maybe I'm sounding too Zionistic right now that that I like the fact that there's a military system set up for existential threat. But I got I think it's basic math. I mean, if if you have an existential threat as a Jew and you have a government that's also Jewish who feel the existential threat and are going to are willing to do whatever it would take to protect you from losing your existence. So I guess it's basic math to feel more safe safe here. Of course, you know, whenever I speak this way, people say, "What about October 7th? They didn't do a very good job on that day." But but my answer would just be that that day just doesn't make any sense. That's That was just the next level of the of the um hysteria or anxiety of the of this this period that clearly is about to give birth to something. Like there's we're in the middle of a birth process. So, something's being born right now. And and we're in that process. We're in a process of a some kind of birth. We And we don't even know what it is. And that's why I'm saying we got to keep our eye on there. We got to be the flying squirrel. That while you're getting rocked, keep your eye on the target. All of this for us, let's make this our preparation for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. This should be part of our preparation cuz um Tues- Monday night begins the uh Rosh Chodesh Elul, which begins our 40-day count to Yom Kippur. So, I think all of us should have that in mind. And also, I I just like to suggest everybody cuz tomorrow night begins this 40-day count that um I think it would be who of us to s- that whatever it is that makes you feel guilty like in a daily or let's say once a week or whatever's going on with you that causes that's not building you, but it's actually breaking you down. Whatever it could be possibly breaking you right now, choose one thing that's not so hard and just s- take on that for the next 40 days you're not going to do it as of tomorrow night. Like you're just that Take one thing and get rid of it. So, I I got rid of mine. Um Mine is Mine is going to be using technology for entertainment. Using technology for entertainment. Meaning I'll use it for learning, I'll use it for I don't mind getting news. And I think the professional surfing tour will be surfing in um Southern California, so I'll probably watch a few of those few of those heats cuz that's my sport. But um But yeah, not not If it's entertainment, it's out. And I'd like to see what I do with my time that is no longer wasted. And it's mostly really just my sleep. Because the affording yourself some entertainment at the end of the night can wind up being much longer than you would have anticipated. And you probably would have fell as fallen asleep much quicker without it. So and then there's uh that's the low sauce and meaning that's what you should take on one thing that you're going to Stop doing one thing that's hurting you. And take on one thing that's going to help. So I already took on my one thing. And and all it was was just some additional study, but very specific Torah study that will I think will keep me more on target in my life. So the um Anyway, but I think everyone should spend the next 24 hours thinking of what they would like to stop and what they'd like to do. They'd like to stop doing what they'd like to start doing. And then do that for 40 days. And the reason why one of the incentives of why to do that is because you don't want Rosh Hashanah to just like slam into you unexpectedly. So it's you know, those are two days and they're also the most important days of the year. So, we have the two most important days of the year coming up, which is Rosh Hashanah. Which is 2 days. And that if you stop doing something that's scattering you and you start doing something that's focusing you you'll I think you'll find that that little thing you stopped doing and that little thing you started doing will have sensitized you to be involved in all kinds of other stuff. So, that when Rosh Hashanah comes, you'll be highly sensitized to have the ultimate Rosh Hashanah. What I'm What I'm saying is that the thing you're doing that's scattering you and the thing that you're not doing that would be focusing you is causing you to miss all kinds of other really cool things cuz you're a little spacey. You understand what I'm saying? You're a little spaced out. And so by accepting upon yourself something you're going to stop doing and something you aren't going to do that you're going to be more tuned in now and by being tuned in, you're going to you're going to get tuned in to all kinds of amazing stuff. And then God will send you your messengers and you'll have some some awakenings and I'm in a lot of topics at once as usual. Um Does anyone have any questions on anything I've said at this point? Questions? Questions? Yeah. I wanted to ask if earlier when you were speaking about acceptance would you differentiate between love and acceptance and if yes, how? Um So, I consider accept love as a function of acceptance. But love is love is is really Uh I mean, let's just play it together right now. So, do you mind being online with me? I'm with you. Uh no, but like in camera. Sure. Come in real tight cuz I don't know the frame. More even. Everyone, this is my friend Bensin. So, um I don't know what you've been up to as far as your behavior and in um you don't know what I've been up to either for that matter and don't let looks fool you, but I'm generally being good, but come in bring like lean in a bit in case cuz again, I don't know the camera. Yeah, you're good. So, um Anyway, whatever it is you were up to, I I don't care whatever that was because inside of you is your being. Like you you you sense for a moment what you're doing is sitting, but there's a being inside of you that is vivifying your body. It's giving life to you. That's your being and everyone get that that you have a being. Okay? And that being is untouchable. There's nothing you can do that to mess with that being. That being's always there. Um it's like it's like the sun, you know, if it's cloudy day, if it's a sunny day, if it's a foggy day, it doesn't affect the sun. You You that these are all these are all So, anyway, so you have a being. And that's your true self. And And the interestingly, whether I accept it or not is almost irrelevant. It just is whether I accept it or not. But you knowing that it's your being that I'm relating to and you it's your actions that are are not at all my focus. At all. Like I have no focus on your actions. If you were to come to me and say, "I've been up to this and that and the other. What do I do?" I would give you advice. I would say, "Yeah, you're right. That's probably going to be harmful. And and scatter you out. So, let me help you. So, the But your being is untouchable. Okay? Now, this doesn't necessarily mean I like you or love you. You'll probably like me. You'll probably love me even. I mean, if I They like acceptance. Yeah, you'll be like, "Hey, this guy gets me." And it's like Cuz most people don't do that. Right. This guy gets me. He's good with me and I really love him. But you understand my accepting you doesn't necessarily mean I love you. What would it be? What would love be? That's what I was That's what I was asking cuz in terms of kids, like often times I think that's the biggest issue. I'm not a parent, but Is it the parents looking for their kid to behave certain ways to get the love? love. And it's similar to acceptance in the way you were talking about acceptance earlier. Right. But But what would it be to love you? Or for you to love me? So, you might love me because I am accepting you fully. Doesn't necessarily mean I'm loving you. Okay. So, what it would mean for me to to love you would be I you we got ourselves in a bit of a spot right now. Let me explain why cuz there's two things in this whole entire planet that have no definition. These two things have no definition and people don't know this. And I even saw who I consider one of the smartest people alive which is Jordan Peterson absolutely fumble the ball for like 45 minutes, maybe even an hour where he decided he was going to explain love. Cuz normally you just throw a subject at him and he's just great at riffing on it. And he'll riff his way to like explain that subject like nobody else. So, he there's a video out there. I wish I had downloaded or something so I could show it to you, but I wouldn't know how to find it. He thought he'll just riff on love. And he tried to riff on it and he just completely missed it. And it's not like he doesn't love his wife or his kids. And it's not like he doesn't have love. He does have love and he has strong love. But he tried to define it. You know what the other thing that has no definition? The other one, yes, sure. Um okay, so I think love is the recognition Oh, to decide Oh, one sec. Before you do that, I'd like to add um and Rav Noach Weinberg also has a definition which which I don't necessarily agree with, but the um what's the other thing that has no definition? Excellent. God. God has no definition. If think about it, if something has definition, so you're saying it's this and not that. This bottle has a definition. This microphone has definition. This ends here. That begins there. And they're like they don't touch. They have edges. What is definition? It's when you define what it is and and what it's not, obviously. Well, try that with God. What can you say God is that he's not? What can you say he's not that he is? Happy is defined one with the other. God is love and love is God. Well, that Well, that's the thing is is love has no definition. God has no definition. And and I I think that it's very somehow meant to be and and um And the word for one is love in in Hebrew. The word one is echad which equals 13 and the word for love is echad And if you double the word cuz there's in the binary nature like there's God and us or there's you and your spouse or you and your kids or me and Ben Zion. The when you double the the love with two people two lovers that's meaning like God for you it equals 26. And 26 is the yud and the hey and the vav and the hey equal 26. Which is also interesting. Cuz that's the yud and the hey and the vav and the hey the four letter name of God has two parts. It's the upper yud and the hey is the upper and the vav and the hey is the lower. The the the binary world is the vav and the hey and the the united world is the That's why it says bayom hahu and it will be when God finally gets dominion over this crazy place. The high vay Hashem the melech al kol ha'aretz Hashem's going to become the melech. He's going to be the melech of the whole aretz. Bayom hahu on that day Hashem echad that which is above one. Ushmo Echad, and his name in the binary, the word Once you're in the world of names, this whole world's made of the names. And the names is is totally binary. I mean, it's like cuz he's creating each thing, mineral, vegetable, animal, human, like and all the vibrational things happening, like the A string or the lights in this room or it's all one, and there will be a time where we go back to the pre fruit of Garden of Eden and go back to oneness. We'll be we will be back there. And we also, we have God has 216 years left to get us back there because we know that this whole system's only 6,000. We're on a 6,000. You know, there's like 6 days and then the Shabbos, 6 years and then there's sabbatical year. There's six counts of or seven counts of the the Yovel is seven sevens, and then there's the 50th year, the Jubilee. And then and this world is 6,000, and then there's a and then we move into a world that's the 7,000th year, crazy chick transformation. And the third temple and the Mashiach and us being able to see through this whole thing has to happen before that. Yeah. Coming to a Temple Mount near you. Now, um And yeah, your definition of love? I'm just going to try it. So, um Don't try too long. It gets painful after a while. Go ahead. Um okay, so love is the recognition of sameness in another, and with um with judgment, and the recognition of differences in another without judgment. I hear you. And Rav Nachman of Breslov was appreciating the virtues of a person and then seeing the person as those virtues. Which is deep and special because your virtues are are not you. But the thing is is that since your virtues aren't you, meaning I might be um I might be very kind, but I'm not kind. It's not what I am, you know, you put me in an MRI, you get back to the being. I can act with kindness. But I'm not those virtues. I'm not that virtue. I am I'm this being, this deep, deep part of God. And God himself is not one with his virtues, so why would we be? You know, God chooses kindness, but he also chooses wrath. Which one is he? Neither. Choose Those are chosen interactions with creation. Of how he interacts. He's His essence is way beyond virtue. Anyway, So we're in a pickle. Yeah, so so the So I can't really define the feeling of love. And And there's also there's a very natural love for your own children. And then there's love you have to work on. For example, uh you and I could only really have love if we would invest Yeah. in the relation. Whereas siblings like how many of us have siblings that we absolutely love and we're not investing at all. And they love us and we're just totally uninvested. And we all owe major phone calls to them. You know, to smooth it out a bit. We haven't been investing, but the love is 100% there. Spouse got to back to invest. If you don't invest with your spouse you the love fades away. Day after day the love turns gray like the skin on the dying man. It's a Pink Floyd song. And um the So it is So it's not so clear. I think all we can do is figure out if we love someone, but not um if they love us. So so much for our havruta. Yeah. Get out of here. I feel like we almost got somewhere. We almost did. The um I can give you a few tips though if you'd like to be loved. Meaning again, you can only figure out if you love somebody. Um but not if somebody loves you or so much. A little harder to do that, but the but there's tips for being loved. And uh one of the main tips is share as much about yourself as possible with people. I mean obviously don't be a weirdo. And uh you know, what's it called TMI? Too much information? Yeah. So what I meant was wasn't share as much information as possible but share as much information as is appropriate. Give someone something to hold on to so they can love you. If you don't show them any contours, if you're just sheer glass, you will never be loved cuz then what are they Who do they love? They know nothing. So if you're going to be a If you're going to be a closed book, well, you'll be alone. Yeah. So if you don't know if you can't tell if somebody loves you when you're feeling alone, is that just a projection of the love you have for yourself? Yeah, it might be a bit of that projection cuz if I'm if I If I love you because you accept me, so it's me I love. And really my my love for you isn't so much love for you, it's that you Is that I'm safe with you? And we're calling it love. You understand my My love for you is that I'm safe with you. We're calling it love. Which brings back the subject of share a lot of yourself with people so they do have what to hold on to. You need love handles. No, I always see it as rock climbing. You know, you've been to those climbing gyms? And you got all these shapes that you put your hands on and I did it some climbing in the desert this week, which we are going to finish with the desert with the wilderness, but um you have to give people love handles by showing them the contours of yourself. And that really brings a lot of love. If you acceptance is probably the best thing you can do is to have a vibration of acceptance that people feel it truly accepted by you. That's going to have a really big impact on you being loved. Sharing yourself is the other big one which I already spoke about is give people love handles. And and then, you know, we've talked about it before, but the only way you'll ever share yourself is by trusting people. And um and definitely trust people. Trust me that the more you the more you're trusted with the less likely you're going to break that trust. You know, if I if I handed you 100 bucks and asked you to deposit it in the bank and I didn't know who you were, but I need the 100 bucks deposited, you'd likely deposit it. Um but if I handed you $10,000, you'd definitely deposit it. Cuz you it's like 10,000 times the amount of trust was given to you and it feels amazing to be a trusted individual. And so, we're we're all mixed up when it comes to trust, but the more you give someone, the more they actually will will guard it. It's not the You've been thinking like I should give up as little of myself as possible cuz I don't get screwed. Um no. That's not right. All that does is make people wonder how trustworthy you are cuz if you're that protective, maybe you're not so straight. Cuz you're seeing I mean you're probably seeing people the way you're see yourself or something and just like you can't you just like you're not trusting, you're probably not so trustworthy. But by showing much more of yourself and showing people that that trust, they're going to they're going to hold that very dear to themselves. You said in terms of of dating, uh you stressed an element of mystery when we spoke about it So, I want to know Mhm. It's something that's been on my mind a lot. The balance between the openness with the mystery. Mhm. Oh, that's funny. Um so, when dating, you want to uh you you you want to date as little as possible and come to a decision about the person. Um what you don't know about the person is is the mystery that becomes the fantasy that it's probably amazing. And when you over get to know somebody the um and you're not married to them, well, you start to get to know also all the liabilities of marrying this person. So, you know all the good stuff, you know all the liabilities. But um it gets a lot harder to ask someone to marry you once you see the liabilities. When there's no more mystery, there's no more fantasy. So So, I hear your question. So, the the way you deal with that is just like minimal dating. Um four dates. The fourth date is also very important not to touch. Very important. No physical contact. And also um no dating for companionship. No dating for companionship. Make it real clear. I'm not looking for a companion. I'm not looking for a girlfriend or boyfriend that leads to marriage. None of that. I'm not trying to fulfill some loneliness inside of me to have a companion in my life. That's not how you date. It's not how you date for marriage, anyway. Um There's something about a person who's only dating for marriage. It tends to just um siphon off everyone they should not be dating. And then because after a while it becomes known that this guy's only dating people that he might marry. Not someone he might go out with for half a year or 9 months or a year or two three even. And what happens is every person who would have been that girlfriend or boyfriend for those 9 months or 2 years or whatever is automatically not on their list of people they would date. And so they they they self remove themselves. They self-reject. They're They're now They are now ch- um uh uh what's it called uh in Darwinian when something gets selected out? Natural selection. Yeah, they're naturally selected out because this person only wants a wife. Or this person only wants a husband. And so it gets rid of all the people who aren't serious. And And another important thing is to not show money looks or body parts. Don't show money, looks, or body parts. You mean bad looks? Looks um uh don't you know, if you if you really love designer clothing, don't let that person see it, you know? Like when you date that person, go with your plain label stuff or whatever. Um I had a friend in uh LA who had a really hot Mercedes, like you know, like an incredible Mercedes, like a real race car from Mercedes. And and he also had uh he had like a 30-year-old like piece of garbage four-door sedan, like it was like a Mazda from like 19 80 or something. I mean, it was it was a it was a miracle the thing actually drove. And he took all his dates out in that. Took all his dates out in that. And now he's married 45 years. You know, with a big fat house, and she drives a nice Mercedes, and he drives a nice Mercedes, and they're they're uh they're really a beautiful couple, like a really beautiful couple. And he because think about it. Anyone you attract into your life based on anything other than who you are, it means that they don't love you for who you are. They love what you're presenting. So, by not presenting stuff that's attractive, which includes wealth, body parts, um or, you know, how you dress, fashion, stuff like that. By By not presenting No, obviously, you should, you know, shower, use soap, shampoo, deodorant, whatever you need, and you should look put together. But, the uh you know, definitely get rid of all low-mood clothing. Like, never wear low-mood clothing. Any If you own low-mood clothing, you have low-mood clothing. Low-mood clothing's like There's stuff you wear when you're feeling good, and there's stuff you you've somehow bought certain things. It's like hoodies. You know, like a hoodie is like a low-mood clothing object. Not for everybody, but for many people, the hoodie is what you put on when you're like you know, sweatpants and a hoodie, and that's how you're going to roll that day. You know, so get rid of those uh Just don't even have them in your in your dresser. Give them away. And so that way when you're in that down state you know, like this morning I think I woke up lower than I have in a month or two, maybe. But I did the proper things that you're supposed to do in a low mood. One, get all the jobs on you got to do is was busy this morning with everything I had to do. Two, get yourself out of your home. So you're around people who know you when you're not in that low state. Cuz they'll they're going to interact with you from a different place and you'll just kind of fall into that interaction, which is exactly what happened when I got in here. Till I got in here, I had no idea what was going to happen. And and I mean, you can see I'm very low energy today, but and three is um Three is What's three? Oh, dress for success. So because I'm What'd you say? Kittel. Yeah, I did that, too. But the uh dress for success. So because I'm part of the community, we have uh only one outfit available anyway. And if it's Shabbos, you look like this crazy guy in your streimel and you're you know, you just look like something to reckon with and and What's that? Yeah, I did Yeah, you should wear your Shabbos date outfit for for when you're in a low mood. But the um But yeah, definitely don't have clothing available to you that's not you know, very put together clothing. Why? Because uh in those days where you're not doing so hot, you don't have an outfit to go to. You're going to have to look put together. But But the trick is that if you ever wake up in a low mood and you do you are kind of person who has multiple outfits, wear your finest outfit in the low mood. Like dress like you're on your way to a wedding or something. But that's the day to dress nice and what happens you leave get out of your house, that's the key. Get out of your house, get around people. Everyone's going to look at you and you just automatically are start you know, people are interacting with you as if you're someone to reckon with when you're really feeling like something that you know, stuck to the floor. And it will affect you over the throughout the day. Um and then the fourth thing I would offer is kindness. Kindness is you're such a lost cause today. So you might as well meaning you have no life, so you might as well work on other people's lives. So that's a good day to offer assistance. That should be a day of assistance when you're in a low mood. Like what can you do for other people cuz there's not much you can do for yourself. And then most important thing, the fifth thing I'll tell you, the most important thing in a low mood is is to not analyze problems. In a low mood you have what's called an NAD, a non-analysis day. NAD, try that term everybody. NAD. NAD, it's a non-analysis day that if you ever find yourself in a low mood, you have what's called a non-analysis day. Which means that every negative thing you think of throughout the day, you let it just scroll by like some kind of digital news story, you know. Don't click on it. Don't click on any story to get the full analysis, you just let it scroll by. And it'll be a terrible day, but much better to have a terrible day than a terrible month because you're clicking on everything. Don't click. And if you follow all five of those, by the way, it's important to note, if you follow all five of those pieces of advice, should we review them real quick? Well, I'll tell you the promise. If you follow all five, I promise you that your low mood will end in 24 hours. 24 hours. So, what do you want? 24-hour hard day or 24 weeks? So, the the five things were dress for success, get out of the house, um What? Kindness? Kindness. Kindness for others. Um do do your list of all the stuff you usually avoid doing. That's the day to get everything done. And the fifth was NAD, non-analysis day. And I'll just add that getting out of your house means being around people. And they'll just automatically project into you who they know you to be. Or if they don't know you, at least if you're wearing your finest, they'll you know, they'll give you that kind of nod of like, hey, you're an actual you know, you're self-respecting human being here. You know, and you and and again, get rid of all your Don't even have those clothes available that don't put you in that state in the eyes of others. And regarding dating is a few dates, get to know each other. A bit not so much long Not these long dates. Not like hours and hours and hours. But a couple hours, finish the date. Um Ideally, you would have a go-between. Cuz if you want to stop dating, if you'd have a go-between, cuz if you want to stop dating, it it's A lot of people keep dating because they don't want to hurt somebody. But if you have a go-between, the go-between handles that. So, it's like you're not hurting them directly. Um and then um Uh one thing you have to do is on the fourth date, you have to tell them You have to tell them if something's seriously wrong. So, three dates getting to know you. And the fourth date is um Got that? Three dates getting to know you. Fourth date is um You have to let them know if something's really wrong. With you or them? With you. Meaning uh whatever, you know, someone has a you know, they're terminally ill or something and they have 10 years left. So. Um they're they're Their father's uh in a state penitentiary on 30 life sentences, you know. And that that's something they're taking on by marrying you. But you don't have to tell them that till the fourth date. But fourth date You got to spill the beans if there's something that's a potential deal breaker. Fourth date. Anyway, if anyone wants to really get married, then I have a video called the I have a video called the six It's called happy h a p p e y cuz it's six steps, so I added an e. Um there's It's the six steps for expediting getting married and you can look that up online. It's on Torah anytime. It's on YouTube. The six steps for getting married. Just to finish with the wilderness is the wilderness is a place that doesn't have people. No influencers. No influencers in the wilderness. So, when you're not getting influenced, what's left is your own voice. And the word for the wilderness where there are no people is midbar. And the word midbar is the word midaber. Midaber, not midabrim. It's midaber. It's you're hearing your voice. And you'll notice that all the prophets were shepherds. So, they were hearing their voice. They were They were getting connected to their essence. You're not being influenced out there. And where you're not being influenced, you're getting your voice is getting stronger. And eventually your voice can be so strong and you can be so aligned with Hashem, you can get prophecy. Today we don't have prophecy, but maybe you get some form of it. The um Yeah, the the wilderness is where you you get you get your voice. It's where you find your voice. And it was very noticeable that we were not seeing a lot of people out there. Th- This last week when we were out there, we were really out there alone and and um when we came back, we hit a traffic jam on its way to Jerusalem. Thousands and thousands of cars were on the one highway. I was so excited to see all these people coming to Jerusalem. I was actually very happy. Yeah, it was 2 hours out of the desert and and like another hour instead of 20 minutes. It should have been 20 minutes, but it was another hour in traffic. And um my wife's like, "All these people." And I was like, "All these people on their way to Jerusalem, you know? It's like it's She caught my vibe really quickly and thank God all these people. But, it was a shocker to go go that way. To go from no influencers to everyone influencing. Um Anyway, but we all need to spend some time in in the wilderness. We all need to spend that time. And I'll finish with a song my brother wrote when he was 12. And this was actually the table cloths. The table cloth was sheet music at his Bar Mitzvah. Yeah, of this song. And I'm going to sing it. He's my my brother name is Sam Glazer. He's a virtuoso in composing of songs. And he's written more songs than maybe anyone in the history of the world. It's a little weird. And no one really knows that this is happening, but he wakes up every morning. He hasn't over the decades, he's 60 now. Over the decades he's learned how to when the song comes, they come mostly in his sleep. When the song comes, he learned how to wake himself up, grab an MP3 player, he presses record, and then he says what key it's in, what are all the words, what's the bassline, what's the drum beat, what's the but it's all the words, the chorus, the the what's the backup vocals, what's the guitar what's the guitar rhythm guitar thing doing. All the melodies, the bridge in songs, you know, songs at least used to have bridges. After the second verse, there's usually a bridge of some sort. And then there's a third verse and a chorus. And the bridge is there, too. And he wakes up every day, sometimes there's two, three songs there. I mean, if you do the math, and he unfortunately loses all the Shabbat songs. So, the Shabbat songs are lost, but um so, then he wakes up he has no memory of any song. He wakes up, he brings his MP3 player into his studio. He's a he has a whole recording business. He's a big beautiful studio. So, he goes into his recording studio. He gets on his piano he hits the you know the computer to get it recorded. And he does the whole song. And then it's just filed away and like you know, in the where does the US government file away everything? I don't know. I forget the name of it. There's some place where everything's filed away. The cloud. Yeah, no not the cloud. Anyway, it gets filed away. Dropbox. Maybe it's that. Maybe. Anyway, but it gets filed away and never to be heard never to be no one will ever hear these songs. Um There's thousands and thousands and thousands every single one is a masterpiece. The um there's no song that's like a throwaway. Every song I'm taking like a random song. Um Oh, so how did this all start? He was 7 years old in his in his his grade school teacher uh said everyone should write a poem. So, he wrote a poem called uh black. No. Oh my gosh, he wrote a song called alone. A poem called alone. So, my mother says my mother's a musician. So, she says, "Let's sit at the piano and make it a song." So, she starts playing and like it's she's got it on the you know on the Stenders she's she starts singing and then my brother he's 7 years old he says, "No, Mommy, that's not how it goes." He already knew how it goes. 7 years old. She says, "Really, how does it go?" It's hard to sing without crying, but I'll sing it for you. Alone is when you have some time to spare. But do not have anyone to play with or share. Alone is feeling lonely. Having nothing to do. Feeling sad or fearful. Uncomfortable and blue. While all the people are laughing. Really having fun. You feel so embarrassed. You feel you're going to run. Without any friends. Till the very end. And my mother was just like What? And she pulls another poem. He had other poems. She pulls out a poem called black. She says how does this one go? Black is the night without of the stars. It is a rocket going to Mars. Back black is a bowling ball waiting to ride. Black is also the night. Black is a Black is the surrounding of the stars so bright. And black is your father when he says goodnight. Black is your father when he says go to bed. And black is the color upon your head. He had black hair. Every single thing was like this. And it's just still going today. He's 6 years old. It just keeps going and going and going. So, the wilderness. The love the wilderness holds for me. No one else can supply. Just being there makes me happy. I will feel it till I die. The rushing water makes me feel power. The mountains give me pride. I'm relaxed by the wind and flowers. I feel joy deep down inside. The love the wilderness holds for me. No one else can supply. Just being there makes me happy. I will feel it till I die. I will feel it till I die. Die. These songs were so complex. What was going on around them with whole theme intros and outros and crazy. I was 12 years old. Anyway, you can tell I'm pretty excited about my brother Sam. He's total nut. But, if you're ever in LA, definitely give him a ring and he will take you to live music. Which he does every night. Shalom everybody. Tslacha u'metzlacha. We did it. I somehow made it through this class. Anyway, we've got a few more sessions today before I fly, so Let's go. Mhm. Thinking of going to Tzfat tomorrow. Ra- uh Rabbi Yossi Kaduner is playing a concert at um in Tzfat tomorrow Good Such a humble man. Yeah. First time I see him, he gives me a giant hug. Are you famous or you just love everybody now? Uh yeah, he's very Wow, you have to sit down for that in 2 days. That is Oh my gosh, we're still live over there. Yes. What's the name of this class? Oh gosh. Guys, what would you name this class? Wait, I need someone who knows more about computers. Wilderness. How do we turn off the live, guys? Okay, it's over there. Is it still going? Yeah, it's still on. Oh, it's a little bit of a direct lag. Who is high-tech here then? I'm not high-tech, but I'm like low-tech. And it's a hard turn off. Uh I can turn it Yes, see it's Excuse me. Oh, good. I didn't judge it there. It's just we're still going.