What Women Need to Know About Men in Marriage - Rabbi Shais Taub

there's a letter in thees where the writes to somebody who asked why are there not so many m in why in the mm of the the discourses of the ofad why are there not so many metaphors or analogies which is an interesting question because I think there are a lot of mum there are a lot of metaphors but from the Reb's answer it's apparent what the person meant was a certain type of metaphor which you don't really find in in kabad teachings and and that is an extended metaphor like a story that has characters and dialogue and chapters when there's a metaphor in it's like a short little oneliner it'll be like the relative non-existence of the creation as compared to the absolute existence of the Creator is like the relative non-existence of the Sunray when it is still contained within the sun know that's like a mush from kabad it's a oneliner it's just a little visualization that'll help you to understand understand the concept as opposed to other styles ofus where you have a whole long story and this guy said to that guy and then they went on a trip and then bunch of different stuff happened like a whole like a whole book like a whole novel so you don't have that stuff the truth is I think the longest metaphor in kabad is probably Mel the king in the field and that's not even long it's like three sentences there was a king he left the palace he returned to the palace on the way back to the Palace the people in the field came up to him and he smiled at them all and then they followed them back to the palace and that's like the longest Parable so this guy asks why you don't find it so much and it's interesting what the rebba answers the rebba says that the way that people use metaphors or parables normally in normal communication is as a rhetorical device in other words it's a tool that you use to explain something specifically when do you use a mush a parable a metaphor when the concept you're speaking about is a lofty concept and therefore to speak about it more is only going to further alienate your audience so what do you do you back away from the concept you're really talking about and you speak about something that you're not really talking about but it's more relatable and then when the person relates to the relatable idea you build a bridge of similarities from the relatable concept to the previously unrelatable concept and now you've given people the ability to understand something that they couldn't have understood on their own because they see the commonalities or the similarities with the thing that they already relate to and that's how you use a metaphor effectively the Reb says that is not how metaphors are used in the teachings of the ofad rather the reason why you don't find as many metaphors and you don't find extended lengthy metaphors is because when the r ofad use a metaphor they're not not using it the way that normally metaphors are used they're not comparing one thing to another thing that's a normal metaphor you compare one thing to another thing or more specifically you compare a familiar thing to an unfamiliar thing to help to familiarize you with the previously unfamiliar thing but it's the comparison of two things the says inad that aam do not compare one thing to another thing rather when they use a mushel a metaphor they are describing one thing as that one thing simultaneously coexists on multiple planes of reality so for instance if we say that Z and malus These Are Spiritual energies in attilus the highest world if we say that Z and malus the six emotional building block energies and the receptive energy which accepts those energies in order to give birth to further worlds when we say that they are comparable to the six work days and chabas and that in turn the six days of work and chabas are comparable to a husband and a wife we're not saying that they bear a similarity to one another we're saying there's one thing in atus it's called Z malus in time it's called the six work days and chabas in your home it's called the mother and the father a husband and a wife so these are not comparisons these are understanding one thing on multiple planes so when we talk about gender or anything that exists in our experience of this world the reason it is the way it is down here is because of the way it is up there and therefore you can go both directions you can learn from above to below and From Below to above they call ha andha hav is to strip away the physical trappings of an entity until you're left with the spiritual core that would be like you study something that takes place in the human realm in human experience and by studying it you gain insight into spiritual phenomena but you could do it the opposite way as well you could do Hal you can learn about a level in s in the spiritual worlds and by learning about that it can give you insight into to how that manif manifests itself when it devolves into the Physical Realm that's halasa where you're malush you invest the spiritual concept into a physical context so we can go both directions and the more comfortable we come we become with these with these ideas the more we could sort of fluidly go in and out of Halas hav until basically we understand the mushel the nyal it's all one thing so when we speak about masculinity and femininity as spiritual energies we're speaking about masculinity and femininity as gender roles within a society as well as within biology as well as within psychology and everything in between but we have to begin with the premise that the reason things are the way they are is because that's how they are up there and as above so below so uh what's more Godly God's infinity or his finitude I like that you said say it again there are countable Infinities and uncountable infinities and both were created by God or maybe even on a deeper level both are an expression of God himself God can create ack God can create a rock that he cannot lift yes so what's Holier the heavens or the earth when messia comes all the bodies all the souls that left their bodies in the in the ground and went to heaven and have been having Aliyah after Aliyah they're all going to make a uturn and come back to their bodies here in the physical world why why should they change their Direction after so many elevations they're not changing the direction when the physical world will become refined when mssiah comes the only way to go higher for these Souls will be to come back to embodiment because that's how pure and refined the physical world will be the physical world will be holier than heaven so we tend to think of the spiritual as more Godly and the physical as less Godly but really it's not true when Mah comes All Flesh will see that the mouth of God is speaking which means that Hashem is speaking everything into being and we'll look at the physical world and we'll see godliness so you know this notion that the spiritual is somehow more Godly than the physical it actually comes from the male domination of society and religious thought for the past 5,783 years it's an artifact of patriarchy of course men recognize hashem's masculinity and exalt and rever it and fail to recognize and even denigrate hashem's femininity so of course we think of the heavens as loftier than the Earth Earth or the soul as more important than the body but the reality is that God one God created both and there's a symbiotic relationship between them the infant the finite the spiritual the physical the soul the body it's all Oneness just two different manifestations of the one for for for 5,783 years we've been ruled by a primarily masculine biased view of reality and of God and when mesiah comes we will Usher in a new era of divine femininity there will be alas malus which is hashem's feminine attribute will rise into prominence and then one of the symptoms of that is that we will see the Infinity of the body and the body will live forever we will see that it's not that the body needs a soul but the soul needs a body the soul will actually be nurtured from the body instead of the body from the soul and the woman of Valor The Virtuous wife will become a crown she will rise to prominence above her husband hashem's femininity will take on greater prominence and recognition and will see the value of the physical world and will realize that here's where it's at and that's why all the souls in heaven which is a masculine experience are going to come run ring back to the physical Earth which is a feminine experience and that which we thought of as higher is really lower and that which we thought of as lower is really higher and it's happening right now and we're living in a crazy time of flux and transition where an old Paradigm is closing and a new paradigm is opening from Millennia the masculine view of God and of reality has been prevalent and that's why the a have dominated the world because idolatry is primarily a function of masculine spirituality when Messiah comes feminine spirituality will dominate and then the Jewish people will rise to their proper place of prominence as guides and teachers to the entire world the alter says something cool in lra on uh my bar mitzvah par parl it says that the spies were all men which is a little bit it's a funny statement to make Rashi even deals with it because it's so inyour face and he has his way of explaining it but uh the alterb explains it like this what was the problem with the spies remember the spies that misho sent into the land to prepare the nation for entering the promised land the problem they had was they came back and they said that it's a land that devours its inhabitants and asidus explains that meant that they were afraid that the land literally being engaged in everyday mundane physical activities like city building and agriculture all the stuff they didn't have to do in the wilderness because they were sustained by bread from heaven and in a well of Miriam and they had Clouds Of Glory so they were afraid that that earthliness would devour them it would consume them that if they would enter the land and have to deal with everyday mundane activities they would lose their connection to God so the spies came back and they said let's not enter the land let's stay in Co all of our Lives it's beautiful here everything's taken care of we don't have to worry about anything mundane and we'll connect to God through the totter we were given even though we can't do all of the Mitzvah no problem we'll just learn them as spiritual concept they had the toyra already so they could just learn it spiritually as ideas so we won't apply it in the literal physical way okay no no so the AL says that's why it says K they were all men because it means they were such men if they would have been women they would have appreciated what the land can do for them they would have appreciated that the real yides kite is only in the land it's not in the spiritual archetypes it's in the everyday living the uh the models of loving the land were they loved the land it says what does that mean they loved the land they wanted to have property they wanted real estate real estate developers they loved the land means they understood that the ultimate purpose is in the land that's a uniquely feminine perspective the masculine perspective is the higher it is the more abstracted is the loftier it is the cooler it is and The Feminine perspective is that's nice but what does it look like in real life let's apply it and that's Z in malus in ailos in the highest World ailos means the world of emanation it's such a transparent world that it's almost more Creator than creator that's why it's called the world of emanation up there you have Z and malus Z Zin is the six emotional energies which are the six building blocks for creation the six energies which cre creation all creation is made of and they correspond to the six days of creation first day is second day is third day is so on and so forth but on their own they do not create because they are comfortable existing in abstraction it's only because of malus the feminine aspect of divinity in ailos which draws them down malus is you can't have a King Without a kingdom meaning Z is like the professor in his Ivory Tower he doesn't need to talk to anyone he doesn't want to talk to anyone he's totally self-sufficient and you can't draw him out of himself malus is like a mik who's a mik a mik is the only one who has a kingdom you can't be a melik and not have a kingdom meaning the identity of malus is a relationship sounds feminine right the identity of malus is the relationship so malus draws Z down into a union where they unite and he deposits his creative energies within her see malus is receptive she wants to create but she can't create on her own she wants to have a relationship with something outside of herself but she can't create anything outside of herself on her own she needs his Creative Energy so malus attracts z z then unites with her and deposits his creative energies the six emotional energies into her she receives it she becomes impregnated and then Mal ofus gives birth to Bria and then the same thing happens again Mal of Bria attracts Z of Bria she becomes impregnated with his creative energies and she gives birth to Y and it happens again in Ys and then she gives birth to AIA and this is all an interaction that's happening within Hashem himself I'm using the terms of the SP Z and malus but there are sh there are Divine names that correspond to these Concepts as well in sh in Divine names it's called Z is called and malus is called what does mean the word Kadesh we translate as holy but holy is not a good translation really it means set apart what what's holy holy is something that's set apart you don't use it for ordinary use because it's set apart marriage is called kadan for instance because it establishes an exclusive relationship where you set apart this relationship as unique from all others a sea is Holy because you don't use it for ordinary things so KES means set apart but it could even be aloof detached so hashem's masculine energy is it's aloof and set apart from creation it's more interested in spirituality in loftiness Mal is the what's is means it dwells within it gets down Z is flying up malus is settling down in fact not only the settles down is and dwells within but she goes so far that what does t tell us that even when B are in a state of T when they're in a state of impurity the is with them because that's what the sh is the is the mother who will change dirty diapers she'll go down as far as she needs to go down where her children are she'll go to them she's not afraid of going down so you see masculinity and femininity in their Source are like diametrically pointed Energies one wants to go up up up up up and away and the other one wants to settle down one of the reasons that a k God Yim Kipper has to be married is because we learned what happens when unattached men enter the holy of holies the two sons of Aon n of and AIU they different explanations of why they died when they entered the holy of holies but the common denominator between the different explanations is they saw this spiritual R Revelation and their souls took flight they just ran away with it they didn't want to come back to their bodies they didn't want to come back to this boring world so one explanation is that they weren't married well that's the same thing for a man not to be married means he's not interested in the mundanity and the everyday and the ordinariness of this physical world maybe even he's afraid of it another interpretation by the way is that they were drunk but that's the same thing again it's also escapism not wanting to be present in the he and now same idea another explanation is that they were they didn't have their coin Uniforms on their clothes and if anyone ever learned Tanya you know what clothing is in Tanya right what's clothing in Tanya so behaviors expression meaning how you act down here as opposed to the soul which is the internal the clothing means the behaviors how you engage with the world so they weren't interested in that so sort of like the maragam maragam just wanted to be holy they didn't want to get involved than anything uh every day so a CO godal has to be married because if he's going to enter the holiest place on Earth on the holiest day of the year and he doesn't have a malus for his z a for his he's just going to fly away and never come back now the misogynistic way of mocking that is with the terrible expression people use the ball and chain the old ball and chain right oh I got to go home my wife has dragged me now she keeps me home that's an immature masculine view of femininity that resents the fact that femininity is drawing it down into the world but when you appreciate what femininity is then you're grateful for your anchor for that which settles you down for that which gives your soul some peace so you can focus on a mission here in this world and if not for that why did your soul even come into a body if your Soul's going to come into embodiment okay so then finish the job and do what you were sent here for a Man Without A woman can't do that and ultimately when this happens on a macro on a macrocosmic level for the entire universe like I mentioned earlier will appreciate the Holiness of the physical world the souls in the highest Heavens are going to come back down to their bodies God will be apparent in the physical world even more than he is in the spiritual you know the problem today is that in GIS when we're in GIS and the is in G so you can look at the physical world and not see God when Messiah comes and the world is healed you're going to look at the physical world and you won't see anything but God in fact you'll see God more down here than you ever could in the highest Heaven which is precisely why the souls in the highest Heavens will come down here because whatever they were experiencing up there will pale in comparison to what is accessible in the physical world okay so now you understand the the basic characters here that we're dealing with in Aus you could call it Z and malus in sh you can call it and in time you can call it six work days in chabas in a home you call it a husband and a wife it's one concept these patterns repeat themselves like fractals in nature like the shape of the tree is the shape of the leaf you ever noticed that if you ever look at the Contour of a tree look at the silhouette of a tree the shape of the tree is the shape of the leaf the pine tree has little needle leaves what does a pine tree look like looks like a needle an oak tree has broad leaves you look at an oak tree from the distance look at the Contours the silhouette of an oak tree it's broad it's wide it has little dips in it just like the leaf these are repeating patterns this is a sacred geometry it's embedded in the fabric of the universe and once you know how to identify these patterns you'll see them everywhere in fact you'll even see it within yourself because there's masculine and feminine Within each of us and you'll identify your own masculinity and your own femininity and how they're in conflict with each other as well as how to harmonize the conflict let's talk about how they relate to each other the masculine and The Feminine how are we doing good okay let's talk about how they relate to each other if you don't understand the relationship between the masculine and The Feminine what one of the first mistakes that you will make is that you will think that the feminine is passive and useless and completely dependent on the masculine if you don't understand what's really happening when you understand the Dynamics then it flips and you come to see it completely different I'll give you an example like I mentioned before in ailos malus wants to create but she doesn't have the building blocks to create with so she has to get it from z z is the six emotional energies which are the building blocks of creation so she needs him she's dependent on him she's looking up at him and saying no can we do this already he's flying high so she can't create without him and if you just tell that half of the story she looks very passive and very dependent but what's the rest of the story the other half of the story is that he gives her what he's got and she creates something completely new out of it she's not a receptacle she's a recipient malus is not a receptacle malus is a recipient a receptacle is something you put something in it and then you come back later and all you've got there is whatever you put in it this is a receptacle 7 oz cup doesn't matter if you fill it with coffee or orange juice or milk or vodka you will never get more than 7 ounces of liquid out of this cup because that's all that it contains and all you can take from it is what you put into it that's a receptacle malus is not a receptacle malus is a recipient you know what a recipient is recipient is one that you put something into you come back later and you get back more than what you put into it like a true student is a recipient not a receptacle a student who can only parrot what the teacher said that's a receptacle that's like the 7 o cup that you can never get anything more out of it than whatever you put into it but a true student a true student is somebody who can give back more than that more than they were taught like it says I learned much from my teachers more from my colleagues but from my students most of all how can the teacher learn from the students the teacher's giving the students receiving yeah because the student is a true recipient and a true recipient means whatever I get I develop and when I give it back to you it's improved and that's what femininity is femininity is not a passive receptacle where you just put stuff for safekeeping and come back and get it later femininity is a recipient where whatever she gets she develops and she puts it back out in an upgraded form and on every level this is the male female Paradigm six days in chabas six days are masculine chabas is feminine chabas is the queen so from one perspective chabus is a loser because she can't make anything for herself we say that if you toil on ad of chabas you have what to eat on chabas if you don't toil on Ed of chabas you have nothing to eat on chabas what does that mean chabas is a day where if you didn't cook and clean and prepare and shop and do all the things that you can do during the six days you'll have nothing on the seventh day that's half the story what's the other half of the story the other half of the story is what the six days give to chabas they give her her a cougle and she turns that into warmth love a connected family spirituality Transcendence so yeah the first half of the story is when she's waiting around for him to make a move because she does need to receive from him but the other half of the story is what she does with what she receives she upgrades it that's what m masculine and feminine are the simplest illustration of it and I think the most helpful one when we get confused about gender roles is the biological model because that can't be disputed when it comes to emotional stuff psychological stuff you could start arguing it's a social construct if you would raise them in a laboratory then you could uh they would be free from these uh traditional gender roles so I like to look at the biological model because that is still indisputable they have not found a way around that and that is that for the act of procreation it is the feminine parent who receives something from the masculine parent and then a little while later gives back what she got but in upgraded form in fact infinitely upgraded because what she gives birth to is infinitely more valuable than the form in which she originally received it but that's what femininity is when you place a seed in the ground so where does the tree come from is it the seed or is it the ground I mean it is the seed without the seed nothing grows and it's clearly the seed because if you put an apple seed in the ground you get apple trees you put an orange seed in the ground you get orange trees and what's the ground the ground is just a place to put the seed yeah but if you don't have the ground then all the potential of the seed will never come out and there's infinite potential in that seed and it'll never come out it'll just be one seed but when you put it in the ground infinite potential comes out and when I say infinite what do I mean infinite literally uncountable I don't mean all at once in one crop in one year but I mean the potential that's in the one seed they say anyone can count the seeds in an apple but only God can count the apples in a seed because potentially there are infinite apples in every seed you can just keep regenerating generation after generation but that will only happen when the seed is placed in the ground more than the rich man does for the popper the poer does for the rich man literally and figuratively literally the recipient gives more to the giver than The Giver gives to the recipient but also figuratively that anytime you have the giver which is the masculine entity uniting with the recipient which is the feminine entity The Giver ends up receiving more than the recipient received from him now you want an insight into men I'll give you an insight into men we have this concept called mash and Mable giver and recipient so what is a man a man is a mashia a giver and that's all well and good it sounds great until you actually look at the whole story and you realize hold on a second his greatness is that he's a giver but as soon as he he gives it to her she starts immediately developing it she starts working on it and whether we're talking about biological reproduction or whe whether we're talking about a vision an idea a concept she's always developing by the way in I kept talking about Z and malus that's on the emotional plane there's an even higher plane there's andina same relationship kma is the little germ of an idea a little kernel of thought inma you'll never practically apply anything because it's just it's too abstract so kma is the is the father is Aba Bina is IMA the mother kma impregnates Bina what does beina do she's elaborative thought expansive thought be a b to build she takes his crazy abstract idea and fleshes it out just like she does with the baby in her womb she does with ideas he says it as an abstract idea she turn turns it into something real something practical oh he had a cool idea of where to go on vacation he never thought about the the fact you got to pack clothing for the kids and what are you going to do during the 4-Hour layover at the airport who's going to who's going to bring sandwiches he didn't think of that she thinks of that so she's always developing it and making it real she brings out the details the practicality and and then she gives it back to him she gives it back to him so who's the giver now do you understand the plight of masculinity my whole role is that I'm a giver but the reality is my wife will always give me more than anything I could ever give to her so then who am I what am I what am I worth h H the seed so how do you Embrace being a seed how how how is a man supposed to be comfortable with the idea that he's a [Music] seed right so she needs him yeah that's true but what she does is so much more impressive and you have to understand why that's threatening and if you're all going to rush to minimize how painful this is for a man you're going to miss the opportunity to truly have empathy please understand how scary this is that a man knows deep down his entire role and identity is that he's a provider and yet anything he could provide to her will always pale in comparison to what she ends up giving back if you don't understand why that is existentially terrifying for a man I want you to take a second to connect with your empathy and maybe you will understand and start to identify certain unnerving perplexing behaviors of your husband that may M that may make sense to you now in this light yeah I talk to men too I do but this is a woman's crowd in the men's crowds I try to get them to be compassionate on their wives in a woman's crowd I try to get women to be compassionate on their husbands so yeah but this is this is how it was given to me so this is how I'm going to give it to you and you'll do with it whatever you need to do with it I trust you because you're women and you'll figure out you'll figure out what it needs to look like in real life I'm just a speaker I don't solve problems I just get people to think in a new way and then hopefully they apply it in real life that's all I'm doing the sages ask a question who's a bigger bz dacka a husband or a wife and they're speaking about in a home where there tra traditional gender roles where the husband goes out and works works and brings home the flour the wheat and the wife takes the flour and she bakes the bread so our sages say when a popper comes to the door and asks for food can he eat wheat the papper can't eat wheat he needs bread the husband brought home a bag of wheat that's how they used to get paid in the olden days but nobody benefits from what the husband brought home it only becomes useful when the wife takes the bag of wheat the husband brought to her and makes bread out of it people eat bread that's useful you understand what I'm saying masculinity is to realize that you're a provider and yet what you're providing is really useless and you feel that you're not needed please understand the deep dread that every man has that he is absolutely useless and he does not have the emotional support that you do because men don't talk to each other men swallow it until they die of a heart attack or they kill themselves hold on hold on hold on hold on let's sit in the uncomfortability of it that the biggest cause of death of middle-aged men is suicide a man is terribly afraid of the fact that his life has no meaning he's nothing but a money machine when he's bad at that he hates himself when he's good at it he feels like he's being used it's always she's always outdoing him yeah share with me how it comes up in your life what's the last silly impractical clueless thing that your husband expected of you because he has no clue what it takes to actually do things in real life and he thought he was being sweet and spontaneous and you were totally stressed out by it because it's totally not realistic and not practical that only happens a few times before he's too embarrassed to offer himself again and he goes to his man cave to sulk these are paradigms this is the fabric of the universe it's unavoidable if you don't recognize these patterns sit with it a while these things come these patterns come up in every single place right correct when when single women live together they make it like a nice little home they actually like they have hand towels a bachelor pad they don't have sheets on the mattresses you don't want to know how your husband lived before he met you the laundry hamper is a pile in the middle of the living room for single men yeah if they don't stop living like bam yeah then they continue to do that yeah and that causes conflict yeah that's right what our okay so what's our role very good that's a great question but what I want to explain to you is not what's your role I want to explain to you his role so you can help Cher them on you got it but you know the you said you complement the seed but you know the greatest compliment just receive it receive it yeah but appreciation is you could say to someone wow this dinner you made looks scrumptious have some I'm not hungry doesn't work that way so here's the deal when he gives you receive women don't realize the ways in which they shut down their husbands and you don't realize right or wrong how fragile the male ego is and how low of a threshold he has to the embarrassment and the shame of failing an attempt to provide something to you that you would value he feels so ashamed that what he offered you wasn't received that he'll just give up and he becomes withdrawn and silent so the art of being married to a man is the art of encouraging his giving now that's a really difficult art and I'll tell you one thing that makes it super complicated and that is you you know as well as I do that you can't receive everything and I don't just mean you can't receive everything from everybody I mean you can't receive everything from anybody because sometimes even the people that you're closest to are trying to put something on you or in you that's not healthy and you can't be present to receive it it's not safe it's not self it's not self-respect to receive it you have to have boundaries and standards that's what makes it so difficult to be a maabo is that you have to be so careful if he's trying if he's sharing with you or expanding into you in a way that's invasive or disrespectful you can't be present to receive that that's not going to help the relationship Sometimes women appease men in those ways because they feel like it'll just be more peaceful if they give in and okay fine but that doesn't actually lead to greater bonding so you can't accept everything I mean let's give a really easy example that's cut and dried and it's a no-brainer if what he's trying to give you is abusive then no you can't be present there to receive it okay that's an obvious example most things are not as obvious as something that's outright abusive but there are things that on a on a subtle level are disrespectful and if you're there to receive receive it it doesn't lead to Greater bonding it sometimes it diffuses the tension for the moment but it doesn't lead to more trust more connectedness so you can't receive everything you have to have a filter and yet at the same time if you make the mistake of putting up a wall and saying I'm not here to receive anymore at all because it's unsafe well what's going to happen and a lot of times women put up a protective wall by the way many times women put up women put up a protective wall and it's not so much a response to their marriage but to earlier experiences I think we have to be transparent about the fact that a third of women even in a religious community have experienced some type of sexual assault or violation it's horrific but it's true and if that's happened to you don't think that your survival mechanisms haven't put up a wall of course they have you'd be insane not to but then what do you do when you have that wall and you bring it into your marriage and the entire relationship is about him being able to provide for you but you you can't be receptive cuz you don't feel safe you know how many times people come to me with marriage problems and they they love to get hyperfocused on on the most distracting superficial external manifestations of of the relationship and they actually think that's the problem we're fighting about such and such and will just get somebody to come in and referee this fight then there will be peace and and it's never that simple if it were that simple they would have figured it out on their own when you have a husband and a wife who are really butting heads they're really at an impass it's always about deeper stuff it's always about deeper stuff and usually it's a out on the woman's side and I'm just speaking about the women now because this is a predominantly female audience usually it's some inability to receive and the inability to receive makes perfect sense by the way I'm not bashing it at all because if you had trauma for sure then what do you want you're you're you're just trying to survive so that that's going to make it difficult to receive receive if in your relationship presently with your spouse he ever overstepped a boundary even mistakenly because he was just a dumb bucker didn't know how to treat a woman because they don't teach them that he didn't know what he was doing was invasive and disrespectful he didn't know he didn't know he was objectifying you using you insulting you he didn't know he's a good man he didn't know but what do you want you felt disrespected you felt felt invaded you felt encroached upon and your god-given survival mechanisms put up a wall to protect you okay I can't blame a woman for protecting herself it makes perfect sense the question is what do we do now he's shut down because he feels like a loser because he can't give anything to her that she'll receive and internalize meanwhile that only feeds into her perception that he's unreliable so she's given up on him too he's not there for me that's what she's saying he's not there for me he's unreliable well he's not there for you cuz he's he's pouting yeah it's boyish it's childish it's immature I'm not trying to I'm I'm not taking the men's side I'm also not taking the women's side to me the whole thing's heartbreaking everyone is just doing their best and reacting to the trauma that they went through and and I can't blame either side it makes everyone's reaction makes perfect sense to me so he's pouting in his cave because he's embarrassed because he doesn't want to put himself out there anymore she's frustrated cuz she's malus and she's waiting for for a mashia to show up in her life and she's frustrated and lonely and UND stimulated and bored and they're living in the same house not knowing what to do trust me when I tell you these patterns are Universal they exist ex IST in ailos they exist in the physical world they exist on every plane and in every Dimension not to the same extent by the way some marriages have a heavy case of this some marriages have a lighter case of this maybe in previous reincarnations you cleaned up most of it not everyone's going to experience this to the same degree but to some degree this is what happens in the universe is that masculinity stops showing up for femininity and then once that happens nothing nothing can proceed we're at a complete standstill so here's what I I want to advise you practically but even when I say practical I don't even really mean practical I mean a man man's version of practical you'll make it practical when you give K of what I taught today please add the actual practical applications I can't do it you could do it if you're at an impass try to locate to identify ways in which your husband is giving to you and when I say giving I mean initiating because mhia and maabo he's a giver but she's a bigger Giver so then what's he the only thing that's special about him is that he gives first MH and maal is not giver and recipient because a recipient's a bigger giver than a giver so if you say MH and M's giver and recipient it's not really true she's a bigger giver than he is but what is he he gives first try to locate and identify situations in which in which your husband is initiating initiating could be something like he comes home and again maybe he's clueless and you're trying to get supper ready and you've got kids running naked and soapy slipping on the bathroom floor and you got a baby crying and you got a toddler about to fall down the stairs and the Schnitzel is about to burn in the frying pan and he comes in and stands next to you and says you want to hear a vort and it's like oh my God will you get a clue what I'm dealing with over here okay yeah you're right he's clueless I know that but stop a second ask yourself is it abusive is it invasive is he is he doing something inappropriate or is he just trying to give you something if it's inappropriate meaning it's unsafe I don't want any woman for the sake of peace to do anything that makes her feel disrespected or unsafe and I want to repeat that again I don't want any woman for the sake of peace to do anything that would ever make her feel disrespected or unsafe ever because it won't lead to peace anywhere but if he's just clumsy he's trying to feel it out he's trying to get his juices flowing he's trying to give you something so if you can try to just be a recipient try to feel the energy moving from him to you because that's what you want anyways right that's your complaint your complaint is he's not giving he's not providing he's not present for me yeah I know he's on his phone because he doesn't get embarrassed he doesn't fail interacting with his phone he gets embarrassed because he fails trying to interact with you so what I'm saying is give him a win let him experience successful initiation of an emotional exchange by the way just so you know that I pick on the men just as much as I'm picking on you you know what I tell the men I say when you come through the door and you're feeling beaten down by the world and you go to your wife to give you nurturing and and and a sense of well-being when you turn her into Mommy you're killing the relationship I tell the men because you're the giver and if you walk through the door and you're taking from her you just flipped the whole masculine feminine Paradigm and it won't work I tell men all the time if you come through the door and you're emotionally needy and you're trying to take from your wife I promise you it's not going to lead to other ways where you want to be masculine and and a provider and give to her she won't be able to receive from you because you already turned her into a this this mugging victim you emotionally mugged her when you walked through the door I tell the men that when you come through the door come through the door as a giver so I I think I'm fair when I when I give advice I think I'm I'm equal but as far as the advice to the women you know how nursing works as long as your baby is nursing you're going to make more milk that's how Hashem made it as long as the recipient is receiving the provider will provide and when the recipient's not Prov not receiving anymore the provider stops providing as long as the students are engaged the teacher will teach and when the students are no longer engaged the teacher dries up he has nothing to say so you want more you deserve more you deserve your husband to show up for you in every way mentally emotionally physically socially yes and that's what Hashem wants Hashem wants healthy homes where husbands and wives are bonded to each other on every one of these levels of course so you deserve your husband to show up for you in all these ways to be a provider for you in all these ways to give you time to give you focus to give you attention to give you compliments to give you love to give you affection to give you he just to give you his commitment that he's here for you he's here for you yes you deserve him to give to you in all of these ways what I'm telling you is please recognize the subtle ways in which he's attempting to give and he's failing and be more surgical be more strategic in finding tiny little opportunities to Grant him success in providing something for you so if at all possible when the kids are running around slipping on the bathroom tile and the B baby is crying and the Schnitzel is about to burn and he comes to the door and he says you want to hear a vort if at all possible if you can just let him say it and thank him for it give him a win and say to him that's so cool can we talk about that more at dinner and I want to tell you the miracle that will happen that night he'll actually come to dinner because he wants to give you much more than he wants to be on his stupid phone but if he doesn't think showing up to the dinner table is an opportunity to be a Masia and to give you anything that you're receiving yeah so he's on his stupid phone because that's safer yeah emotionally needy when it comes to the door emotionally needy yeah but in that case he's trying to give but he's trying to give yeah you're right it's a clumsy attempt to give but there's a learning curve here's okay here's what I'm one second every skill requires practice men need practice giving the more they give the better they get at it but when they fail they stop practicing Ing and they don't get better again if you feel unsafe then that's a different situation yeah well there are levels I guess of respect yeah in his mind yeah and no well here's the thing you're saying he earning a living is it providing in his mind it is but very often to his wife it's not she doesn't feel like he's doing that with her and his mind it totally is like why am I dealing with this craziness if not to provide for my wife so in his language he's providing and her language he hasn't even begun providing in fact he's out somewhere else with other people let's say she is on the page okay yeah well that's exactly what happens that's right he says I was out there providing all day when am I going to get to get and so he comes through the door and he starts taking from his wife and that's why I always tell the men a man cannot healthily receive anything from his wife that isn't her returning something to him in an upgraded fashion that he originally gave to her but let me explain what that means just like conception what he gives to her call it a it's not a compliment it's a denigrating term what she gives to him is his child a person with a n so he gets back from her something that he gave to her but it's in infinitely upgraded form what I tried to explain to the husbands is you will never be satisfied taking anything from your wife whether it's attention validation affection time whatever because you're not men are not meant to be takers they're meant to be givers oh so then when do I get the men ask and I say to them when do you get when you impregnate her emotionally or physically or on any other level and she gives you back the baby that she developed so I tell men come through the door invest in her give her time Focus energy you're going to get it all back m multiple times over because that's just what she does that's what malus does you put one seed in the dirt an infinite amount of apples will grow for then till the end of time so the men have to know initiate give to your wife even a little bit you'll get back infinitely from her but it'll only hit the spot and be satisfying when for a man he's receiving back the energy that he invested in his wife but if he comes through the door he doesn't put anything into her he's not investing energy into her he just walks through the door and starts taking energy from her then everything falls apart yeah and that's that's that's why it's a vicious cycle he says I was out all day I was giving all day I was giving all day so what I tell men is not that you guys really should hear this but I tell them you are giving all day and you're going to come home and spoil it in 2 minutes if you were giving all day just give for two more minutes enter the door as a giver give her attention give her focus it won't take more than twoes see men get intimidated they think I was giving all day now I'm going to come home I'm going to have to give to her for the rest of the day no you don't the men just have to that well that's what they think and that's why they're afraid to do it and they give up and they don't try but I always tell the men give to her for two minutes It'll fill her up and when she's filled up she'll fill your whole home with light the man doesn't have to fill the home with light he can't fill the home with light he has to fill his wife for two minutes with a little bit of time and attention she becomes impregnated with that energy and she fills the entire home with warm and with light that's just how it works there's no other way for it to work yeah yeah he'll gain much more correct yeah and she'll be happier right right so look I don't want to make this the women's problem but what I would say is let's say he enters the house and he's in taking mode yeah he's tired he's not in giving mode so what you can do is you can ride it out you wait for him to be rested sometimes he just needs to decompress and then when he starts giving like when he starts to tell you about his day oh now he's giving so that's my opportunity as a woman to receive that and then once he starts flowing that's how a giver gives it just once you start flowing everything goes everything goes what when when when you're a giver it's all about flow anything that interrupt the flow then it's said forget it and it's it's very shameful by the way as a Giver there's nothing more embarrassing than speaking to a room full of people who are talking it's the most shameful thing H can she ask the art of femininity is to bring it out of him without explicitly ordering it first of all when you do explicitly order it it ends up not satisfying you right when you have to coach him and tell him how to give to you then it feels like well I might as well just do this myself and you know why it feels that way because you are taking the initiative and you are doing it yourself when you tell him to give it says that a woman is not supposed to explicitly demand intimacy from her husband that doesn't just mean that one thing it means all types of emotional bonding so what she supposed to do sit there and just wait no she's supposed to use her femininity to start to awaken his desire to give and to provide like very simple let's use a very not emotionally charged example again the teacher and the students the students are sitting quietly ready we're here to absorb the teacher is not going to be able to help himself from speaking but if the students are all chatting and talking and they're looking at their phones and the Stu then the teacher's like what am I you know I have self-respect I'm not going to be an idiot I'm not going to talk no one wants to hear me talk so there are cues there are hints that a recipient can give that make a giver feel like this is going to be good and the Art of femininity of receptivity is giving those cues so that the giver wants to give ask don't degrade yourself to ask it won't satisfy you anyway okay yeah well yeah it it can work if you know no you can't make them listen to it right but you you don't need both sides to be in on this if you do what you got to do it'll help even if they're clueless the truth is we all know that if you if you have to have one if you have a marriage and one partner is clueless and the other one is working you tell me this is such a sexist thing to say but it's just true if you have a marriage and you have one partner who's clueless and the other partner who's working meaning really working on the relationship and it's either going to be the husband or the wife which scenario creates a healthier happier home yeah when the wife is the one who's doing the work it's terrible and I'm not saying it to put that on you it's just a fact of life that's what a ktis AAS means the foundation of the home means that when she is working at the marriage and the relationship it's a lot more effective than when he's working at it doesn't absolve him and I don't want you to think I'm saying that so that's a great attitude I like that okay should I do these questions and then we'll wrap up okay what if no what's if that is exactly my struggle letting go of the salum I know myam I know what they are and it is hard for me to let go I feel stuck Frozen the unknown in letting go of that identity feels scary I would love Clarity well you know that's always the Allure of aora like I said before and I'll say again why do we turn to false gods what do they promise US is a false sense of security and we feel like if we give up the idols we'll be unsafe we'll die and we have to realize what a Shaker what a lie that is these false gods whatever they are and like I said they're all the Character defects that we rely on to make us have that illusion that false sense that we'll be okay if I can be the biggest toughest meanest person in the room then I'll be safe or if I can get everyone in the room to like me then I'll be safe if I can be the smartest guy in the room then I'll be safe if I'll have the most money then I'll be safe these are theam these are the idols and we have to realize none of those things can take care of you and only Hashem is taking care of you and when you really put yourself completely in hashem's hands it's terrifying at first but after you do it it's so natural because the idolatry was never authentic it was never natural to you it was never organic it was always superimposed you're carrying it so long it feels like it's part of you but it's not you people will say that well I just have this issue I'm just angry I'm just fearful I'm just whatever no you're not you're not you are pure and holy and happy and fearless and joyful and all this stuff it's not you and it feels like you'll die the minute you let go of it so let go of it and see that you didn't die and that to the contrary you begin to live to really live how much of Judaism today is broken telephone and when we find oursel doing something because that's just what's expected but not necessarily A Torah value do we continue doing those things example it's nias standards dictated by our community yeah this is a tough one because how do we differentiate between what is authentic and what is inauthentic you know the adaptations to GIS the defense mechanisms to GIS can happen on systemic levels meaning it's not just homes that are affected by these maladaptations it could be an entire community and I understand where it comes from I understand the threat and why the response the survival impulse kicks in but yeah it's true I don't know if this is going to help I don't know if I'm going to make you more confused than you were before you asked the question but I think what's happening in this generation I said it before on a micro level about individuals and families and I also mentioned it on the macro macro level of like the whole universe I said we're all cleansing and we're returning to our authent our authentic selves I kind of skipped the middle tier which is communities it's happening on a community level as well it can't not happen it already started and there's no way to stop it and there are people with a vested interest in stopping it but they can't stop it anymore and it's going to be fine yish kite is not going to fall apart msia is coming yish kite's only going to get stronger and stronger and more and more authentic so I don't want to be the one you're the women you'll figure out practically what this should look like but I'll just say on a very conceptual level any of the artificial overlays that are being imposed and that are not authentically Tyra will be identified and it won't even require a struggle to get rid of them they will all be gently laid aside and we just be left with authentic Jewish spirituality and I'm frankly I'm very excited to be around to see it happen people are healing every family is healing if you're not the one in your family that's healing that someone else in your family is healing it's probably the person you think is the most sick or if you're the one in your family healing then you're the one they think is the most sick but families are healing communities are healing yides kite's getting stronger the abish is becoming more revealed in the world not the opposite don't don't buy into the the hype don't buy the fear mhia is coming things are getting better not worse Manhattan what's wrong with Manhattan h we're in gullis you know we're in GIS I don't expect that Manhattan is like yam but you know what in GIS yudam is not like yudam things are getting better of course they are everything's getting better everything's healing and while we're healing yeah we're purging some stuff we are we're purging stuff and crazy stuff's coming and you're vomiting a Salem and a Hitler and a Stalin and all this garbage is coming up but it we're getting rid of it we're not keeping it we're not holding it we're purging it about generational triggers another thing came in of course various energy techniques can release them question mark I like how it says of course but it ends with a question mark what oh it wasn't but breathing do you know real examples of people who release those triggers with just breathing yeah myself I don't talk about anything that I don't do see what you have to understand is everything I talk about is experiential I don't waste anyone's time telling them what I read in a book yeah I got my ideas from books but I don't bore you to tell you it when I only got it from a book what happens is here's the process I learn it in a book then I spend time internalizing it sometimes it takes years and when I'm finally putting into into practice then I talk about it publicly if I haven't personally put it into practice yet I won't talk about it publicly why would I do that so yeah I I'm I'm healing and yes breathing has been very helpful to me and no I never took a breath work shop and maybe I will someday I haven't I don't know any techniques for it I don't know how to do it but I've been doing it my whole life I've been breathing since I was alive and you know it seems like something I got to continue doing as long as I'm alive so why not just do it more mindfully more deliberately you know I'll tell you also I don't know if I'm breathing right or not like I said I never no one ever taught me how to do this I've been doing it since I was born but I'll tell you one of the things it does for me for me for me I'm I'm maybe this won't resonate with you where there is breath there is life and where there is life there is hope wish I didn't even have to finish that sentence but I will every breath is hope when we feel like we can't keep going take another real breath and somehow at least you'll have enough hope to make it till the next breath okay last question if my children are exposed to dysfunction and unhealthy behaviors from extended family members and they hear questions and get confused how do I as a parent respond to them these family members are hurtful to my husband and myself okay well there's a couple things here first of all I'm assuming the person who wrote this question already knows this but I'll just say it you don't have to expose yourself to everything like I said with women you don't have to accept everything your husband is offering if you don't feel it safe well there is such a thing as boundaries and making choices about what types of situations I put myself and sometimes you just have to have more self-respect and be more firm about that that's part but that's only part of it the other part of it is okay so now let's say you're doing your best to protect yourself and your children but there's still some stuff that gets past the filter and your children are exposed to it okay so if you're really doing your best to not to not allow that stuff in but it's still getting through I think it's an opportunity your children are going to find out sooner or later that not everybody is healthy or to put it in a different more positive way that each of us are at different stages of healing and sometimes people who we're related to in fact sometimes people we love are not very far along in their process of healing and they're still doing things that are sick I think it's helpful for children to understand that these are not bad people these are people who are unwell and that we have to have compassion and at the same time having compassion doesn't mean to lack compassion on myself and to disrespect Myself by accepting every toxic thing that somebody wants to put on me I can be compassionate and I can also have self-respect I can understand that people are imperfect and they do things that are hurtful that's what you wrote in the question these relatives are acting in a way that's hurtful okay where should your children learn how to deal with that other than from you Hashem is creating the situation Hashem engineered the situation Hashem knows what he's doing so this is your opportunity to model for your children how to deal with hurtful people and every situation is your opportunity to model for your children how to deal with a world that's still imperfect we're closer to perfection than ever but there are still vestiges of of sickness and sometimes it comes out in ways that are hurtful but we need to know how to deal with it one of the ways is not to be panicked again we we were in gulis for so long that we get triggered so deeply by any threat any amount of toxicity makes us feel like there's this massive monster consuming us and it's not true the clip of today it's don't feed it we're the only ones who give it strength like the woman who can't get rid of the salum because in her mind she made it such a big thing but that's how it always is we make it into such a big thing it's not a big thing the people who are hurting you are just unwell people they're just not well okay so Davin for them say a Capal tillum for them if you can help them help them if you can't sometimes you can't help them okay say tell them for them that's it we don't have to make it this dark looming monster you know elephants in the circus how do they keep them tied down they chain their foot to a spike in the ground but the reality is that any elephant can just pull that Spike right out of the ground with just one lifting their foot so then why don't the elephants all run away from the circus and the answer is that they catch the elephants when they're babies and they chain them up when they're babies and when they're babies they're not strong enough to rip that chain out of the ground and after a few thousand times trying to do it they give up and they come to a state known as learned helplessness well I'm going to ask you a question you don't think all the Mitzvah that were done for thousands of years refined this world and made it a more delicate more refined place you don't think all the misus nafish and the martyrdom and the Jewish blood that soaked the soil had a refining effect on the world you don't think everything that our ancestors did from Millennia had any effect of course it did so today the clippa is so flimsy but our minds give it power so we think we're chained down and so we don't even attempt to lift our foot cuz we still think we can't but the real the reality is we can at this point any individual who chooses can be liberated and can can experience a gus AA prus means that psychologically you can already be living in the times of Messiah like logically I'm not pretending that the world is all ready for that until the entire world is liberated and redeemed okay we're still in gullis and we're still going to have to fast on tisho but it could happen in the next two days that the entire world could become liberated and mashiach will be here and we won't fast on tishu and if it doesn't happen on a universal scale then at least let it happen for you everything that's terrifying you internally and externally all these monsters are nothing there's nothing stopping us today from being healthy there's nothing stopping us today from being loving and Serene and at peace and kind and generous and and and fearless there's nothing stopping us except for our own internalized Gus trauma and if I could share any message with you today it is that I want you to keep your eyes open and watch people waking up it's happening already one by one people are waking up and you can choose to be terrified by it or you can celebrate it I'm celebrating it cuz I know who wins in the end I know the end of this story Messiah comes I know the end of the story God has revealed in the world I know how this story ends it's a glorious ending and each family that wakes up and each individual wakes up is getting us closer to that all right we uh yeah okay