Q & A with Rabbi YY Jacobson on Instagram Live | Mental Health in a Chaotic World

the yeshiva.net thank you everyone uh for joining us live if you have any questions comments um relating to the topic of mental health but more broadly addictions struggles leave it in the question box right why jacobson is someone who in my life i found is incredibly passionate compassionate wise i come from a long linear driveway of fans of yours my grandmother the first thing she does every morning is listen to your share my father on his commute to work listens you're his maggot chair and the first thing my fair ever told me well my shorts for months he's like you got to go check out one of robert so i'm part of this this legacy of admirers and it's incredible uh to be on the same screen as you this is this is uh surreal thank you did you introduce yourself to the audience i did a little bit moshe shaumbra i live in maryland i work on campus the university of maryland trying to teach torah to the jews here we got like six thousand uh jewish students amazing and um i do some art on the side that's in the background and oh that's your art yeah some of that so right behind you is the shameless shmuel the shame damage it's the only painting in the world of the shamish mole i did it as far as i know i think it's a but it's based it comes from a picture yes so it's based on the picture i painted it yeah the shade was one of the great hasidic masters from poland he lived in and i see the picture right behind my the painting so that's beautiful he passed away in the 1920s i believe his son succeeded him but his son was murdered by the germans yeah and i see on his right well you know the laboratory and that's the review i was there the resting place in poland of one of the great masters of alibaba beautiful okay so this is your your hand work your hands yes this one over here is is it or kaufman a famous hungarian painter yes yes yes but yeah enough about me we want to jump right into the questions here we have incredible amount of questions coming in everyone can still leave the questions you can leave it on the uh in the comments on the question box um let's jump right in we are recording it curious and i see there was also questions that came in before i read quite a few questions right right so we'll start with some of the pre-submitted questions but people could submit live if we want okay um you can hear me and see me clearly that moisture i could i could it's uh still still can't believe we're on the same screen okay so the first question is from the perspective of torah and hasidas can fear or anxiety ever manifest or is fear no matter how rational an indication of a lack of trust in osha well that's a wonderful question does fear always mean that you don't trust god and that's why you're overtaken by fear or can there be let's call it a healthy fare a productive fear good fear so that's a great question and the answer to that is absolutely in fact you may be surprised to hear that one of the mitzvahs of the torah one of the 613 commandments of the torah is shamayim to have fear [Laughter] it's a verse in deuteronomy as hashem you should fear your god we call it fear of heaven but the question is what is this fear how do we define it how do we understand it so fear is not always destructive sometimes fear is not only good and productive but sometimes it's holy it's sacred so let me just define this distinction between the two fears when the baal shem tov the bombshelt was the founder of the hasidic movement rabbi israel of israel he passed away in 1760 on chevous and he revolutionized the landscape of jewish thought he was orphaned at a very young age by both of his parents and he became one of the most uh inspiring figures in jewish history founder of the whole hasidic movement and its teachings when he was five years old his father was on his deathbed his father's name was eliezer and what do you tell a five-year-old right before you're leaving the world and soon his wife would also die so he would be an orphan from his father and his mother and the story is that his father said yes relic i want you to know two things number one don't fear anybody or anything in the world besides god and then his father passed away and these two messages of his father on his deathbed became the two pillars that guided the balshemptiv who became my as i said one of the most extraordinary leaders and impactors of the jewish world until this very day so his father gave him these two messages probably the greatest gift that a father can give a child especially he's not going to be around not to fear anybody or anything but god and what he meant by that was that if you fear god you don't have to fear anybody or anything else because naturally we do have to fear how can i not fear anybody or anything i should be afraid there's always somebody to be afraid of even if you're very successful and you're independent and you're autonomous and you're your own boss but there's always somebody i have to impress right there's always somebody who has some power over me so i'm going to be afraid how could i not be afraid but only when you can really inculcate within yourself a genuine fear of god then you really don't have to be afraid of anybody or anything else now what does it mean to fear god what is this fear what is this fear of god why should i fear anybody you know we tell people don't fear fear is not healthy but there's some fears that are very very good for example very simple if somebody tells me i'm afraid to jump over the brooklyn bridge is that a good fear i'm like yes it's a very very good fear i'm afraid to jump over the empire state building that's good good i'm afraid to play with certain items that are very dangerous okay thank god i'm glad you're afraid this is not a bad fear this is not a paralyzing fear this is a fear that means you're healthy you're allergic i'm afraid to eat food that can kill me yeah that's good so fear of god on the most basic basic level is understanding yeah that hashem has told us that there's certain things you want to be afraid of you want to be afraid of things that are immoral you want to be afraid of hurting somebody else you want to be afraid of things that can damage your soul that can hurt your loved ones that's a very very good fear even in 2021 i wish that everybody has a little bit of that dosage of fear there is also deeper levels of fear when you speak about fear of god the great mystics talk about fear in the sense of or reverence respect the feeling of humility in the presence of greatness mark twain said when god created the grand canyon he didn't create the adjectives with which to describe it sometimes we're in the presence of greatness and you just feel the sense of awe and your ego melts away or gets diminished so that's type that's that's a deeper it's called eras a fear of exaltedness a sense of deep reverence and in life it's a great blessing to be able to have that ability to be moved in that way where i feel like my ego is reduced and i'm just mesmerized by by that presence of greatness that's amazing what about then the second part was anxiety somebody has anxiety they're worried um is that indicative of just a lack of trust in hashem that's a great question that's a very different question and the answer to that is absolutely not to tell everybody that has anxiety that it means you don't have a relationship with god is simply not true and if somebody does say that to you they may not know one of two things they may not know anything about anxiety and they may not know anything about fear of god fear of god doesn't mean i don't have anxiety some people have anxiety for various reasons sometimes as a genetic sometimes it's based on nurture sometimes it's based on certain events sometimes it's based on something internal sometimes it's based on a trauma it's anxiety is not always a choice that you could just snap your fingers and say you know if i would just think positively and if i would just have fear of god i would get rid of all my anxiety do not feel guilty and start blaming yourself that because you have anxiety it means you're not a good person you're not a good child yes sometimes a person's faith and resilience and relationship with god can eliminate all anxiety and if that's the situation you should certainly strive for it but you have to respect the fact that sometimes anxiety could be a very deep condition sometimes a chronic condition and even all the teachings in the world don't eliminate and you have to respect that fear of god can help you deal with the anxiety it tells you that god is here with you that at your core you're not anxious that at your core you're part of the divine so relationship with hashem helps you confront the anxiety not be afraid of the anxiety not let you be defined by the anxiety realizing something deeper than your anxiety but some we have to have compassion and respect towards our anxiety it may be rooted in a deep space and you may need time and healing to get rid of it and sometimes it's far from easy task that's incredible um there's so much in there i'd love to narrow it down it's it's a very it's a very intense subject let me tell you something moishe and everybody who's listening uh today's day and age i would say it's one of the top struggles of people anxiety it's a funny thing because in many ways our generation has been blessed with certain gifts that other generations didn't even dream of right in terms of a lifespan in terms of prosperity in terms of opportunity in terms of freedoms not that we don't have our share of tragedies and pain we do but compared to previous generations you know if you would describe to somebody 100 years ago we have today it's like wow they will be walking around happy they will all be happy because we have so much more time you know the industrial revolution and everything just working on a computer working with you know we take for granted phones and planes and all these types of things so we have so many opportunities but it did not eliminate anxiety it's fascinating some say it increased anxiety i don't know if it increased or this but it's a fascinating thing that anxiety today is a very very common thing i get lots of emails a day and questions and i have to say a huge amount of them are focused on anxiety so this means that it's it's one of the great challenges of our times but as we know in judaism every challenge is an opportunity so somehow god is giving us all a gift and the gift is that it's our mission to cleanse our generation from anxiety i think that the trauma of the last 2 000 years of jewish history are now coming to the fore because we are the ones who were chosen to confront it and extricate ourselves from it to the best of our ability so i know that it's often debilitating and very difficult but i tell all of you and myself and all of us i also have anxiety that we really don't be afraid of your anxiety it's an alarm clock don't hate your alarm clock your alarm clock is here to wake you up to make you alert to what you have to work on anxiety is here to point me towards the direction where i have to fulfill my mission in life and things i have to confront so it's difficult but it's also a gift i know it's a difficult gift it's a challenging gift but the first thing is don't be afraid of it number two know that at your core you're never damaged your soul is not anxious at its core your soul is free your soul is happy your soul is uninhibited because it's a peace of god and just like god is not anxious at his core you're also not anxious at your core there is freedom and infinity and infinite reservoirs of joy and confidence and happiness at the core of your soul the anxiety is something that came into our lives as a result of something internal something external something from childhood something from later years something that may be pre-verbal you know a childhood wound or maybe other aspects and you have to find the right people and top people to be able to help you with it with god's grace but never define yourself by that and never feel that you are essentially destined to live a life of eternal anxiety without anything to do it may be a long process remember at your core your wholesomeness is more powerful than all of your anxiety wow it's amazing what uh which is one of the things that you said stuck out is like our generation is charged with addressing that anxiety well uh one of the questions that i had was if you look in a lot of the literature you're looking the gemara you're looking to re-shine them and they go you don't see a lot of at least it wasn't cold anxiety um and the truth is maybe like the rub is saying they didn't necessarily have the luxury to be contemplating their mental health and their state of mind they're trying to survive and especially in the 20th century and now even before even before if you go visit the way they live just 200 years ago 150 years ago i once went with my son's class to see how they lived in the 1800s and you realize people simply didn't have the time or the luxury the mental space to think about their emotions you know the whole field of psychology is a pretty new development in in olden days they didn't even have a name it was like a branch of philosophy understanding people was a branch of general philosophy psychology has become a self-contained discipline literally in recent times just a little more than a century ago and of course the father of psychoanalysis was a jew named schleimel of freud or zigman freud i should also mention that just a few days ago dr aaron beck passed away a jew a hundred years old and he's the founder of cognitive therapy cbt cognitive behavioral therapy which has made a major contribution in the field of psychology and in many ways differed from sigmund freud and its founder dr beck a very brilliant jewish man who dedicated his life to help people through that particular method and he just literally passed away a few days ago dr beck and you're dealing with a branch that is very very jewish they say that the old joke is that uh ziggman freud could have made a minion for minister every day and a shared affiliate with the with his minion of people that were working with him the problem is that none of them believed in god besides carol jung who was the only guy gentile among them but uh but the point and carol jung by the way said in his and his 80th birthday that the the key the the foundational points of his system of psychology he received he learned from rabbi dov bear of ms rich the market of mizritch so he attributed the core the nucleus of his ideas to the successor of the mosham at his 80th 80th birthday i saw the interview with them and they're fascinating but that's us for a separate evening but the point i'm making here is that i think that certainly they did not have time for the emotions that we have survival and literally survival was difficult the lifespan was also very short you know most people died at the age of 40. if you lived 45 50 you were like you were blessed there were people who lived long but it was very very rare because between infectious diseases and hunger and violence most people did not live a long life so that's also a major part of it you know the expectations were completely different and how many children did not survive childhood you know childhood mortality so therefore in a way people's have people have to crystallize their priorities much more and to be much more focused on what you're living for because there was no time no time to waste i should say however that in our literature there there are quite a few references made to the concepts of joy and anxiety and depression and melancholy especially in the midrashic literature the kabbalistic literature and the hasidic literature is full of it civic literature only begins 300 years ago because of was born 1698 so it's a little more than 300 years ago and that's when it parallels with the enlightenment then like the european enlightenment begins at the end of the 17th century literally parallel to the balsham and that wasn't a mistake it was certainly a providential and the enlightenment really created an era where people focused more on the individual power went from religion from the church from the king to the individual the search for self to search for science to search for logic so as that was developing judaism also developed a tremendous focus on what you might call psychology the internal self both in the muslim movement which was essential centered in lutheran and lithuanian communities and the hasidic movement which was centered in ukraine and poland and ultimately also lithuania and hungary and much of eastern europe but today there's no question that if you divorce judaism from uh from a focus on inner resilience and happiness and serenity you lose a lot of people because people are really struggling with this you see it also in marriages you know i i can't tell you you know how many marriages are struggling today and people say what happened what happened suddenly people have been married for thousands of years and i'll tell you one of the things that i see emotions have not been a major part of defining your marriage at other times it's like i don't care how you feel we're married we have a life to live take out the garbage and cook dinner and do the laundry you know it's but today emotions are very real and if i'm miserable in my marriage i do not want to be in that place and people also feel that they have choices i don't want to be i don't want to be in a miserable world i want to be in a happy marriage a lot of people are lamenting this they're saying you know we're just a bunch of spoiled brats self-centered narcissists and they may have a point i personally feel very differently i think that these are all signs of the gula of redemption because redemption means that it has to be fusion between the body and the soul between the mind and the heart between a practical moral life and an emotional serene life redemption means there is complete vagus complete alignment with the divine and with this complete alignment with the divine i'm not frustrated i'm not miserable i am happy i'm not just a soldier who obeys but internally i am completely alienated that's not gullah that's ghost that's an exile mentality gula mentality is fusion fusion of all the parts of our being with our higher purpose with god than with each other and i think that's what our generation is yearning for so i know people saw someone as pessimistic but i maybe i'm too optimistic but i see in it a very genuine and spiritual transcendent yearning for fusion so i celebrate it that's incredible i love that that the psychology and the self-awareness is the synthetic as always every gift comes with a challenge people can can misconstrue it like everything everything you know nuclear energy can can light up the world it can destroy the world so whenever there is a focus on self-awareness there is always the danger of self-worship narcissism i become obsessed with myself you know individualism trumps every other consideration that's a danger but the the solution is not so that is not to go back to horse and buggies you know let's all use horse and buggies let's not use telephones anymore and let's write letters and i'll write a letter to australia and i'll get an answer six in six months or eight months right there is nostalgia no question there is nostalgia and somebody once told me nostalgia today is not what it used to be like and we have to always be aware of the dangers of self-worship but self-awareness is part of our what we call avoided today because if there is fusion there has to be self-awareness it can't be that i serve god but my internal self is not present so i dive in i put one foot ahead of another foot and i'm like a soldier i do the right thing but internally i'm alienated it's not who said one of the great hasidic masters i don't remember who he said something very profound he said when judaism began there was a tremendous focus on space god says there's going to be a tabernacle for us i'm going to dwell in that space and that was the space you couldn't go anywhere else to bring your offerings and then there was a basamiktus in jerusalem and that became the space then the temple got destroyed and the big focus was now time not so much a space because jews were all over the place and there were shows everywhere but the focus was time shabbos yamtif this is a development of the second temple era times for prayer and so forth and shabbos of course is biblical but the idea of times during the day when you connect to god and then he said later when the balshemptiv came about the main focus became not space and not time focus became the person you have to find god within your self-awareness and say for your the great kabbalistic work does space time and presence of soul so in the beginning it was a focus on space later the main focus became time and now the focus became nefesh of course there are spaces like synagogues there are times like shabbos and holiday but the real focus is memphis you have to turn your own identity into a conduit for divine infinity so self-awareness is a tremendous step in that direction amazing okay i want to move on related to it it's how does a person differentiate between having an addiction versus just having a behavior that they need to work on that's a great question addiction in hebrew there's a word called kaiser means a craving an instinctive inclination to something that may be potent and then there's something we call addiction which today in hebrew they call hitmakrut which means you're sold and i think it defines it very well when i'm really addicted to something i really lose control that's why they call it a disease to the point that my rational prefrontal cortex doesn't function anymore i can miss my child's birthday i can miss me and my spouse's anniversary i can miss a hanukkah party i can miss something that somebody who's responsible and caring would never miss because my addiction turns me into a dysfunctional person i'm lying i'm running away from everybody and myself i really lose control my my my brain a certain part of my brain is fried and that's why the first step of the 12 steps is acknowledging that i don't have control i really have to surrender then there's a tiva a tiva means it's a craving it's a craving you know some of us have a sweet tooth we see chocolate we see chocolate it's hard for us to resist we see potato chips it's hard for us to resist we see a danish it's hard for us to resist i'm giving examples that i have to deal with and there's other examples but is it something that if you know you really somebody once said he said uh what did he say he says i can resist everything in life besides temptation so uh taipei we all have our temptations but it's not to a point where i can't think straight where i can't resist it anymore it's a struggle but i'm in control and both of them are difficult but you have to distinguish between the two because when somebody is a full-blown addict then it's a very very serious situation because they are uh they're in a very very bad place and sometimes till they hit rock bottom they're not ready to rise up and really there is a very deep yearning there for spirituality that they're not filling they're not filling the void and therefore they are desperately trying to hold on to some fake oxygen that they think will help them numb their pain it can't really numb their pain because it's not what they're looking for so you have to know where you are you know and sometimes you really need a different level of help so i want to ask about that about the addiction part meaning but hera free will free choices is a big thing in uh in jewish thought and somebody whose prefrontal cortex is obscured by a chemical uh dependency doesn't i would see i would think has lost an element of here so why would let's say hashem create this um this concept this phenomena of this disease of addiction um like what what's that good spark you were touching on it that it's it's you know it's a hit spiritual people could you can you expand on just like a general overview on addiction um yeah yes you're touching on a very very serious issue and really this deserves you know a few days or a few years but just just very very briefly um it's what god tells moses about pharaoh there's going to be a point where he will he will not have choice anymore it's it's a point it's like when you when you get drunk you know when you get drunk and once you're inebriated you're just not functioning on a rational level and it's very very tragic but this is really the key the addict i heard this from dr tworsky the great doctor twice who just died a few months ago who was the big expert on addiction for 60 years dr abraham turski who was a psychiatrist and a hasidic teacher and a very interesting colorful man and i heard this from him in boca raton a few years ago we did a shabbaton together for recovery people in recovery and he told me you should know that he told us to me directly 60 years of my experience have taught me that people who are addicted are usually the most spiritual ones among us and what he said was as follows that everybody is dealing with hypocrisy everybody is dealing with challenges and adversity in life and falsehood in life and lies but he says people who are not so spiritual can just somewhat ignore it but people who are deeper and more sensitive when they have that void they can't just ignore it it creates such a profound sense of emptiness and pain that they need to resort to extra destructive measures to numb the pain and when the pain is not numb they have to increase those destructive measures i need more alcohol i need more drugs i need more insane websites i need more clubs or whatever i'm doing in order to to to just get me out of my self-consciousness get me out of my ego get me out of my my pain my insecurity really it's not going to help because what i'm really looking for is there's an emptiness that can only be filled by god nothing else nobody can fill it not money not women not men no websites no alcohol no gambling no cocaine nothing nothing not validation not attention no physical pleasures they're all interesting stuff that can be enjoyable and minimal and sometimes in particular particular measures of it and in certain contexts in certain contextual situations but the core he says you must have a relationship with god and when the addict goes into recovery the void doesn't go away it stays there forever he's always gonna have to deal with it because addiction is really the soul crying out for a real real deep relationship with transcendence until the addict doesn't get that he will never be able to escape it you're not gonna fill that void that void is gonna be there either you will find god and you will constantly have that relationship that will help you confront that void 24 hours a day and save you from self-destruction or you will not find him and you will constantly go to the next high which is really just take me out of my misery and you know why god does this i think this is maybe the ultimate sign of the fact that the human being really has to realize that our greatest gift of choice is to choose to be who we really are and who are we really we are really divine creatures we are not animals we are not immoral we were created to be the manifestation of god in this world and that's my ultimate choice to realize that and nothing else you know let me say it in different words when we're children we know this we're all looking for love and then when i feel that i can't get that love what happens i substitute it with this search for attention i just want attention i just want validation i just want something to make me feel good it's not going to help i need real love i need real relationships with myself with people and with my creator well that's incredible so the the the search it sounds like if i'm understanding the addiction is less about how it's how it's manifesting and the behavior that it's uh that it's bringing about but the root of it the root of it's coming from this this great year for for something for something deep so yeah then how do how do we let's say for ourselves if we want to prevent fall i mean of course if somebody's in a uh uh pattern they're they're stuck in addictive behavior um there's places for help there's there's therapists there's recovery centers i know one right here maryland avenues recovery center great place what about somebody that's wants to prevent falling into that behavior so they have this great yearning so or or for our children if we want to our children are growing up in the world as it is today and we want to hopefully uh uh prevent them from falling into such a uh uh negative way of of filling that yearning or trying to fill it so what are some practical ways we could uh avoid that what an important question what an important question we have to recognize the following addiction is not the problem addiction is the solution when people say addiction is the problem they're missing the point addiction is not the problem addiction is the solution that the addict is using to help him or her escape their misery momentarily we want to understand what's the problem the addiction is not the problem addiction is where he's running why is he running there why is she running there because there's a problem that's what we have to address that's much harder it's easy to turn addiction into the enemy but addiction is the solution addiction is their best friend we want to understand what's the problem that's driving them to addiction that's much harder because now we have to address ourselves not them as long as addiction is the enemy that's great you know we have an enemy called hitler we have an enemy called nasrallah we have an enemy called ahmadinejad and we have another enemy called addiction great at least we know the enemy but if addiction is the solution and they're running to that solution because it's a problem now i have to look into me after looking to me what's happening in my house what's happening in my heart what's happening in my soul what's happening in my family what's happening in my parenting what's happening in my school what's happening in my community that takes a lot of introspection we need to be able to address every one of our children in a very meaningful and real and authentic way for them to feel connected for them to be able to feel their value their dignity every child needs attachment in a very deep place they need the four s's they have to feel safe secure seen and soothed this is critical this is the greatest antidote to running to addiction as the solution because when i don't have resilience and i don't have attachment and i'm feeling this terrible void and this terrible pain especially if there was abuse or another trauma so i have this gaping gaping void that i have to escape and addiction is a wonderful fake and superficial solution and the greatest antidote to that is attachment connection attachment attachment attachment with our children with our students with our spouses you know that they noted in research today there's a famous quote that the antithesis of addiction is not sobriety not sobriety we used to think it's sobriety proof is your 84 year old grandmother breaks her hip god forbid goes to the hospital they give her drugs including cocaine sometimes with a different name after three weeks she should become a full-blown addict but she doesn't she goes home and she's fine what happened the answer is she has 20 grandchildren jumping on her when she comes home with welcome home with welcome bubby signs the antithesis to addiction is not sobriety the antithesis to addiction is connection connection that is that's it the first thing god says is not good in the torah what's the first thing that's not good loy toif the whole creation is good god so everything is good if you go to genesis the first thing he says is not good it's not good for adam it's not good for man for a human being to be alone the loneliness the sense of loneliness is what causes that sense of detachment i'm not attached with anybody when i'm not attached the void is too painful and i need to look for somebody to soothe me whatever that somebody or something is and that's what the addict has to understand don't allow your void to be enthused by things that will not fill your void they will just exasperate and aggravate your void you need to find that which what you you need to pursue that's what you're really searching for not the distractions don't go to distractions distractions will be very disappointing they're easy but they're disappointing they will fail you you want to confront the real emptiness amazing wow okay we're we're running out of time i have a list here of 20 something pre-submitted questions that we have a whole bunch coming in um maybe we can do one last one should we do one more yeah sure okay um a lot of these questions are just hard to read i don't know how the rob sees these emails coming in every day there's just so much pain and it could be overwhelming which is another question of like how do we deal with this feeling of overwhelming uh yeah eden uh this one i guess it's related it's it's coming from a mother who says i feel sick saying this because i love my children dearly but i hate life with kids um i feel like that my pre-child life was was great and awesome now that i'm here i'm just completely overwhelmed i've lost myself in the process i'm busy with my kids i'm busy with with uh running a household and i just don't have time for myself i just feel overwhelmed by all my my obligations um i feel this myself in my own life we have chakras and learning and the family and the job and everything just increases increases and it's like feeling overwhelmed at times like how do i juggle this what's the um what's uh how do we how do we uh navigate this yeah okay so what's the conclusion of her question it's very hard for me with children and and what's the question um i didn't know how hard this was gonna be now i'm here i feel stuck what can i do okay so that's that's a very serious question i feel stuck what can i do she's not just saying you know give me advice because it's overwhelming it's like i really don't want this life like i feel really stuck so i think the first thing is it's important to validate these emotions and have compassion for them you know some people just organically they gravitate to a life with children it's their dream come true and the more children you know bring them on just just bring them on and and they somehow come to life certain people and it's amazing you know there's a woman i know here in my community and she told me you know my dream was just always to have another child another child i loved pregnancy i loved delivery i loved birth i loved nursing i just loved it she told me she has a lot of children thank god more than a minion and she wanted more she tried to have more so you know it's amazing and it's incredible and you know you have to salute these people and god bless them and they should have all the strength and stamina they're amazing but not everybody is like that so the first thing is it's important you know not to feel guilty about the emotions you have because yes a life of children is a different type of life there's a reason that in the secular world so many people are opting out of marriage and out of having children because a life of raising children is a life of incessant commitment dedication sacrifice you know your nights are different your days are different especially when you're a mother father's still there's a famous there's a famous interpretation of the haksava kabbalah it says that leia had a son and then a son shimon and then when she had her third son levi levy she said now my husband will join me and she named her third son levy which means joining so some of the commentators say maybe humorously she said when she had the first baby i can hold him in my right arm the second baby i can hold in my left butt what happens with the third baby so now i need my husband finally he's going to realize that he's not a bachelor anymore so sometimes for men it takes another few years to realize that they're not bachelors and they can't just run to shul or to work whenever they want or go skiing or other forms of recreation whenever they want because you're a parent so i think it's important just to validate yes there's a lot of inhibited your life is inhibited you can't leave without a babysitter and you may not be able to get a babysitter it may not be good to get a babysitter and you know it and it's a different life and it's important to acknowledge that and it's important to have compassion and not to judge it after you do that now you have to make a very serious decision and say okay so what do i really want do i really really want to say goodbye to my family and say goodbye to my children i have a friend he told me that he went the other day to a meditation meeting he's very involved in that mindfulness and he said that the leader of the meeting is a buddhist and he got up and got up at the meeting and he said i had to be true to myself so i told my wife that i need to get divorced even though i love her and i love my children because i have to be true to myself and this person tells me i respected him so much and that moment i lost all respect for him why not because he has that feeling because it shows how spirituality can also be very selfish because ultimately you have a wife and you have little children you want to meditate fine but really deep down this is the value of judaism to be able to know what ultimately long term is the right thing for you when you're a hundred years old enjoying the beach in florida and looking back at your life what decision will you respect in yourself more the decision to say goodbye to your wife and children so you could go biking in new zealand for six years and nobody ever bothering you again or the decision to remain married to be there for your children which each decision has its prose and its cons but deep down judaism i think was a very powerful tool to tell people that at the end of your life your deepest and greatest joy and achievement will be the fact that you were there for your family because rationally it's hard emotionally it's hard but ultimately ultimately the way god made us our deepest deepest core values is that we don't want to abandon our children we don't want to so have compassion for the struggle but then realize that you have ability to choose every time you wake up with your child or you put your child to bed or you give your child a bathtub a bath don't do it from a place of resentment and anger there's a time to say yes i could have had another life i wanted another life but now let it be a choice what do i mean by a choice a choice means that you're present you say you know what but there is this is the life that i'm choosing now with every fiber of my being and therefore i'm gonna give it all i got and when you do that i believe that as time progresses you will not regret this choice have compassion for other choices appreciate the fact that you have other dreams and there are difficulties true but now from a sober elusive place ask yourself in your deepest deepest core what do you want to do do you really want to abandon those kids and then make a real choice and when you make that choice go into it with your full presence and i should also just say that it is important though to take time for yourself even with children whatever that means maybe you have to go to sleep an hour earlier and wake up an hour before then and go for a run or journal or dance or exercise or pray or meditate or learn or join my classes monday morning 7 30 am on the yeshiva.net or do something else but it's important to nurture yourself motherhood doesn't mean that there's nothing else in existence outside of motherhood that's not humanly possible for some people maybe you know it's important for you to nurture yourself your spiritual self your physical self your emotional self because that will make you a far better spouse and a far better mother and a far better father amazing wow and that's just uh mentioned uh be true to yourself like that was the reason that he left was be true to yourself and that's a very common refrain it's very very common i want to be too much about you from getting divorced now right or i got it and i understand it because he doesn't have a toy he doesn't have anything to guide him and being true but i tell you i tell you that in 20 years 30 years he's going to look back he will not be proud of this decision you will not be proud of this decision it's easy it's very spiritual but ultimately i'm not judging him because i understand the culture where he comes from and he really may think he's doing the right thing and as this person told me he's a nice guy he's soft he's a soft nice mushy guy but ultimately we understand that in life we're all connected and for a father to say goodbye to children who are small they're young and you're raising them is this really really what's going to satisfy you spiritually really you know i think that many years from now when he'll look back he's going to say this was one of the mistakes of my life and now i know people will say to me i'm going to get emails why are you judging maybe for him it's the right thing i'm not judging anybody here i'm saying that the way the torah teaches us about a human being which god designed so god knows about a human being is that certain things are so deeply embedded in us and to separate that and to make believe it doesn't exist may be very short-sighted you'll meditate your wife won't bother you your kids won't bother you but it may be a very something you're going to regret that because it wasn't a miserable marriage it's not like his wife he said his wife is a great great person it's just where i am right now she's not part of that maybe you have to become a little larger than yourselves yourself and not allow your spirituality to become an egotistical uh exercise so these are things i think we all have to think about in our own lives you know spirituality can become very egotistical and ultimately we're not about egos we are servants of god and that's when we are the most happy when we do and fulfill our mission we are miserable and we don't fulfill our mission because we're designed to be conduits for god not to be uh not just to be people focused on you know what i want right now it's it's it's a very superficial pleasure and it could be very practicality i wake up in the morning and my wife is struggling three kids they're screaming and i want to go dab and chakras and learn the daf learn to share from shiva.net and then is that just me doing my egotistical thing and feeling spiritual when in the meantime uh maybe i should stay back and that's uh one of those times one of the great spiritual teachings of the great masters was service of god does not always have the same look sometimes it means going to synagogue and sometimes it means staying home sometimes it means opening a book and sometimes it means closing a book there's the famous story about the alta rebbe the baal hatanya the founder of lyadi he was denied of him kippur he was in the palace praying called idre and he threw off he took off his palace and he left the show he was living in lyajna belarus and they said he went to the end of the town there was a broken home and there was a woman who was given birth there was a newborn baby and the family decided young kipper they want to go to show but he felt that she was desperately yearning for hot soup for herself and the baby and it was the night of him kipper he could he made a fire and he cooked the soup and he fed it to her so i once heard from the laboratory i heard this myself he said okay it's a basic law if somebody's life is in danger you have to violate him kipper what's the big what's the what's the why is it such a unique story and he said the uniqueness of the story was in the middle of californian kipper he felt he felt the anguish of this woman it's not that somebody made a hot solo call they said so he went he felt in other words in the highest of highs he felt the anguish of a young mother who gave birth and its hungry baby and that's the idea the idea is that serving god doesn't mean that i right now go to show maybe that's exactly what it means but maybe now it means the exact opposite thing maybe it means that i don't go to show you know you never it's a very very it's a very delicate thing because if it always means the same thing i'm going to say this a little bluntly then it means i'm not worshiping god i'm worshiping my comfort zone if god always looks the same way every day it's probably not god it's probably your your comfort zone that you worship you call it god and the reason is because god has no image if god has no image it means he's unpredictable so what god wants for me today may be the exact opposite of what he wanted for me yesterday and and blessed are the people who don't get stuck their religion doesn't become an exercise in stagnation smugness and emotional paralysis it's just like with children what god wants from you regarding one child maybe the exact opposite of what he wants from you regarding another chart so i can't live that way and the answer is well living with god means first and foremost living with quantum mechanics living with quantum mechanics means you live with paradox we're not afraid of paradoxes i'm not afraid of paradoxes god has no image no image means he can be a particle and it can be a wave not only even light is a particle in the waves even creation is paradoxical certainly the creator has no fixed image so whenever judaism becomes too fixed be careful all right maybe a critique if everybody in the school or the system or the communities trying to come out in one certain image listen listen there's something called judaism cherishes structure and discipline and schedule there's a time for more this morning and this afternoon and this evening and that's the beauty of it because it's not just a bohemian uh transcendent faith where you know let's just fly into the heavens and do whatever we feel like that's not the power of israel the power of yudhisthira is there are concrete structures we call them but if they become traps they are tools to transcendence structure is here to allow you to transcend structure not to worship structures and it's a very subtle distinction when structure starts becoming the target of worship it's not anymore about god it's sometimes about ocd structure is here to structure is the tool to touch that which transcends structure because you have to work through structure if not it becomes just chaos and irresponsible it's an exercise like woodstock no boundaries and whenever there's no boundaries everybody loses we live in a world where you need boundaries it's respect you need respect but the boundaries are here to be able to touch something that transcends boundaries and that's a very very subtle and delicate level of awareness because there are people who hate structure artists bohemians and there are people who love structure because they are what's the word you know they're just very they love everything perfect and predictable they're control freaks and you see that certain people somebody once told me he said i became a vulture because i needed a religious justification for being ocd i said i love the self-awareness but he understood he has a problem and he loves how lucky because he just tells you i needed somebody to tell me what to do every second and the worst thing you can do is sit down on my seat and shoulder if you said that i was eating true you know people they lose it they lose it they want to convert i remember i once went to a show i sat down in somebody's seat and there was like a crisis there had to be a board meeting because somebody sat down in your seat now i understand some people really need structure and the truth is you know a person who's suffering from asperger's syndrome right sometimes if you shake that up it could be very very very difficult and sensible we have to realize we have limitations and not turn them into gods we all have limitations that's fine but don't worship it don't turn it into god and therefore you have the flexibility to be able to say you know what it's not the end of the world when my structure was shaken up amazing people who transcend structure people who transcend structure the artists among us have to have the courage to say and now god wants structure you know it's and you know what in kabbalah and there's a beautiful insight there's something called vessels and there's something called energy oh and kaley energy is like artistic infinity vessels containers are finite structures which one reflects god light or vessels so the altar ever writes god is neither light or neither vessel he's not infinite and he's not finite so how do you find god he said it's in the fusion between infinity and finiteness that you're forced to transcend both of them and that's where you find god and that brings it back to the beginning the the fusion between our self-awareness our spiritual goals that's your real spiritualities yeah yeah you know real spirituality you don't amputate anything you don't get rid of anything you don't say part of me doesn't matter incredible i was told that this was supposed to be a half an hour so yeah yeah so i guess nobody has stuck to structure nobody has stuck to structure the problem is you're a bohemian and i'm a bohemian we need somebody of structure you know the structured people they cut things brutally sometimes especially with me i would say double speed was created for me yeah okay incredible hopefully we could uh get to do this again sometime but hey man contact everybody go to yeshiva.net amigos it's a great name you know with websites if you don't get every letter right you know the intentions don't matter you need the structure that's like if you miss out a dot or you miss out a letter you're not getting to the website so you see from here that sometimes you know god is in the details but not only in the details amazing uh so it's incredible i think it's a great skill for the entire instagram that robert we had you on instagram live thank you thank you my pleasure my honor thank you everybody for joining us thank you for your question yes thank you for joining and uh to keep sending into questions because we're gonna we're gonna do this again hopefully we'll make it happen um and thank you to moisha good stuff thank you rabbi great scholars all the best this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at triple w yeshiva donate