R' Menachem Nissel on the 'Beauty of Tears

I do believe that it must be 10 years that I've been giving the share and every year I come here and I'm still um filled first of all with the with the awe of the tragedy that happened all the way back that began this minhag when we remember Y and um we are at dting this as well for abah and Juliet vazi thank you very much and I want to thank the organization for being consistent and so devoted in sponsoring me and giving me this tremendous Merit to support and to be able to spread T in this beautiful community and once again I would like to thank kazak for everything they do for being one of the Premier organizations for disseminating Terror throughout the whole world what can I tell you I chose a subject that this year is the year that my father passed away and it made me think about the subject of tears and to study the concept of Tears on a whole new different level which I'm going to explain tonight we're going to learn together this extraordinary par this extraordinary subject of why Hashem created this phenomena called tearing for me personally one of my first memories of tearing is an incident that happened to me in my high school in London I teach in the hasian excuse me I actually taught her as well but I went to a high school called hasman in Northwest London and something crazy happened what happens one of my friends his name was Ellis I'm not going to say his second name because I do believe he now lives in New York but Ellis did not like his French Classes he actually hated them we all actually hated them but he decided to do something about it and when a big French test came along he decided enough was enough and this was the 70s in London and he called a from a phone booth now I just have to go slowly over here because I see there are people here who are under 50 and they may not know what I mean by a phone booth they probably think I'm making a Spider-Man reference uh but actually Once Upon a Time somewhere between the Civil War and Vietnam uh people used to communicate by going to these booths and picking up a phone and used to D and put in money it's a concept I don't want to complicate things this evening we're aware of the phones today the what we're aware of those phones public phones you are yeah we all are aware okay they have them in the Subways oh oh I forgot this is Queens okay yeah so my point is is that he went to a phone Bo and he called the police and he put on his finest Irish accent and he said I'd like to report there's going to be a bombing in the Hasan in high school and he put the phone down and within minutes the police came down and I had this memories of my ream rushing to take out the C Torah and and and and the whole school was evacuated and it was this whole complicated thing but yeah the French test was actually cancelled this was incredible the problem was is that what came afterward was a police investigation and there was a memory that I have I was maybe 16 years old of speaking to a British police officer who was clearly investigating something that he thought was very serious but the problem was is that I was just a little 16-year-old and I was looking straight into his belly button he was this huge guy and he comes along and he says hello hello hello young man and he starts to ask me questions and I started to have the giggles now I'm very ticklish and I'm also one of those people that once you get me giggling it's very hard to make me stop and here I am the more I realize that this was an important conver ation the more I started laughing until eventually I crumpled down and I was just crying with tears of laughter and the policeman did not know what to do with me he basically gave up on me as some kind of like seor and that was it but this has happened to me on many many occasion when something really serious is about to happen and I start to get the giggles I have no idea what to do I I I'll bite my lip until I bleed crazy things I even recall this summer excuse me it was straight after pesak I was coming home with my family from Miami Florida we just were there on a pesak program and the plane took us through Wasa we left the airport for one day I showed my family wara but I told them I said you know when you go through polish security we have to be very serious these people have no sense of humor they're polls you got to be very very very serious looking answer their questions and we come in and there's the men's and there's the women's and it's my wife and my two daughters and then my little baby daughter and I'm going last and my wife is confronting the Polish Security Office she's a female you wouldn't know it I mean so this huge big woman like a reject from the Polish wrestling team super heavyweight size and uh she's demanding that my wife takes off her tickle she wants to see if she's carrying a bomb underneath her tickle my wife is saying she's not doing it's a whole big deal then afterwards she's patting down my wife and then she's patting down my my one daughter and then another daughter and then comes my little Lula Bears my Lea is 9 years old she's the cutest little thing looking at the audience some of you may actually know her and this cute little girly as is being she's facing me and she's being patted down by this massive woman and I'm looking at the terror on her eyes and this is the funniest thing ever because for goodness sake what on Earth is she looking for on this little girl what do you think she's carrying and then I go in and this guy the male one he starts to like and I stop he's tickling me all right the guy's like going like this and he's going like this and I can't take this anymore and I basically run out of there and I Collapse in a heap and I'm crying and I'm crying and I'm crying and that's it I was completely dysfunctional you couldn't do anything with me but the point is is that yeah there are people in this room I'm sure you've experienced this thing you cry so much from tears of laughter that you can no longer function properly but we as Tera Jews have the right to ask the question why did Hashem create such a phenoma why is it that we go through emotions called tears of of laughter that create this inner inability to function and of course you have the extreme opposite that when a person goes through a tragedy and sometimes we just cry and we cry and we cry and we are equally dysfunctional let me ask the question the way the maharal asked the question marala consistently asks what can we learn from every physical phenomena that we see Hashem created nothing is by chance he will explain he'll go through the human body from top to bottom and ask why is the nose here why are the ears over here why is the organ of balance placed into the ears why is that K who put the heart a little bit to the left side every small little detail in the human body he will try and explain to mine it for deeper meaning and clearly the concept of tearing is something that is it begs the maral to ask what is this a person is emotional a person is emotional either through tears of sadness or through tears of joy and made it with his infinite wisdom that our eyes well with tears why does it have to be that way to show that we're upset there's many ways that God can show that we're upset he could put I don't know a buzzer on our farad every anything can happen or if not a buzzer then then they just maybe maybe I don't know our foreheads could turn red or if you insist that we have to tear why do we have to tear outside of our eyes CU bar gave us big noses we're Jews we're proud of it and we already have two nostrils put a third one right here and that way you don't have to you know ladies you don't have to ruin your makeup you know think about it you'd have a tearing duck right over here and it will dribble off if we all had it you get used to it life would be good so what does it mean number one that Kar who created this phenomena called tearing what does it mean that tearing has to be liquid that comes out of the eyes and thirdly and finally why is it that that moment when we cry whether it's Tears of Joy or tears of sadness we become dysfunctional first of all you cannot see properly you cannot see if your eyes are filled with tears it's dangerous to drive and secondly when you really really cry a lot it's sometimes you can't speak properly nothing can come out of your mouth you basically close up as a functional communicating human being today we're not going to discuss this but I can give the equal and opposite class talking about laughter laughter and tears on ying and yang they also when you laugh a lot so tears can come out of your eyes and once again you can't function properly out of your mouth but to understand exactly the connection between tears and laughter we will not do today that's something belongs more to a perm class but the bottom line is today I want to focus and understand what does it mean what's going on over here Hashem created this phenomena called tearing only humans cry animals do not cry except for crocodiles and those are crocodile tears get it they're not real tears a crocodile does not cry when watching when Bambi's mother died you know what I mean she doesn't do whatever have to be uh 21st century I don't even know when when uh when Brie died I don't even know um I don't even know from whatever it is when Dobby died okay I'm looking at my Harry Potter people out there um the point I'm trying to make is we cry we get emotional why did a make such a thing happen I want to begin the gar in chabas brings down a cryptic gar and says there are six type of Tears three are good and three are bad what are the good tears the good tears are number one quote some that means that there are certain um I imagine it was the ancient equivalent of Vic Vapor rob you know those things he put whatever is some kind of a chem chemical that clears out your sinuses and makes you makes you cry um that's healthy another one is tears of laughter is and the third one is what thear calls pisos good fruit Rashi says which is mustard so I don't know I have my sapharic brothers and sisters in the room so you will know more about how these things are done uh with us pale faces it's basically onions that make us cry and that's it what else is there what else makes you oh Mora Mora makes you cry but I'm sure there's these things that are these things that you have a good meal and you're enjoying it and it brings tears to the eyes then you have a listing of three things that are the bad tears one is asham so if God forbid there is a fire and you take smoke inhalation and causes tearing so that is very very dangerous the second is well we call regular crying Rashi says from and from Aus from from from from suffering and the third is called betak from bathroom which I thank God I'm not British so because this is you know the British love toilet jokes but this is the gumar the gumar comes along and says there's a phenomena called base hak that this causes this causes the um the eyes to tear the bottom line is there's clearly a deeper thing going on over here it doesn't take a rocket scientist to notice that this group of three begins with something uh spiritual like comes from like a gas and then something emotional and then finally something down to earth and very physical you see over here what's called the higher from the mo from the heart from the emotion of the LA and then find something from the physical each one has a representation both on the side of to and in the side of RA daa in the world of Tears so there got to be something deep going on that the gar is not teaching us something that you can learn in a biology class in the human biology class there something as a message for us to understand about the nature of Tears so I want to take this on a very very deep level today's class will be a little bit sophisticated there's no question that everyone in this room will understand this each one of us to our own ability on a sophisticated level but I do want to just point out that um that there are ladies in this room so and there a Men and the talmud in brings down the following words and I quote CRA thear seems to be giving just like basic advice in how to run a good marriage and says the following thing everyone here knows there's a Torah prohibition from saying hurtful words this something we we we forget unfortunately we all forget this is something we all do unfortunately unfortunately we all do this to our loved ones um whenever I give parenting classes I always tell parents before yum kipur you go to each child and said if I ever said something hurtful to you during the year and it wasn't for good educational reasons could be Friday afternoon there's pressure and you say to kid you're stupid or something like that and after you realize that those words were hurtful and painful to the child so you have to ask them for forgiveness it's a ter prohibition hurting people with the power of your mouth says the talmud a husband has to be extra sensitive for his wife because men work differently guys can we can tease each other and and and and say nasty things and 10 seconds later everyone's forgotten what happened this the nature guys fight and they don't even remember what they fought with ladies can remember something that was said to her in fifth grade some passing comment and it's 20 years later and you see that girl and it's still painful and you're waiting for that moment of Revenge so you're wired up differently so you get married your husbands have to know that you're a little more sensitive and that you're a little bit more um um your things hurt you with the mouth much quicker and therefore the Torah says warning to the gentleman you get married you got to be more careful because since she's quick to tears so You' got to be more careful with what comes out of your mouth why am I telling you this not to give us M although it doesn't hurt to give us M the point is is that the tal identifies that women are close to tears why is this important it's important for our class for a very practical reason because there's another gamar that tells us the following thing and this is important for everyone this is the the Gates of Prayer have been closed since the temple has been destroyed even though the Gates of Prayer has been closed the gates of tears are still open which means you have basically these Gates that are made out of spiritual steel and you can't break them down if you want to break them down you need acid that acid is the tears of a Jew break down those doors and open up the gates of prayer it comes out that since theban since the destruction of the temple theban if you want to fix things the way the fixing is through the power of tears the says it's why one of the reasons why we need women to pray because they're quicker to tears and those tears are crucial to breaking down those barriers in heaven so that we can bring the final g if you want yours to be answered we need the power of tears the balov the holy bmov he had a custom that he always tried very hard to pray in a place that had a women section those of you that know in Europe I don't know what it was like back home but um in Europe the women's sections were sometimes tiny they were the women didn't go to the synagogue except for for Yip and and and R they really went to the sh to the and the bov wanted to D in a place where he knew that there were women ding on the other side of the M why because he knew if they are ding then there are tears going on if there are tears then they unleash es a certain power and that power is what he wanted for his own prayers it's a little bit of a tangents but it's a story that's very beloved to me because very beloved to my Rabbi Ros Shapiro Ros Shapiro Tells over this story about his father as a child and his father this was during World War I and there was a certain period during World War I let's guess it was 1917 when Jewish communities in certain areas of Russia we're in tremendous tremendous danger so what happened the came out with the ruling and said things don't look good the Jewish people are in danger we need to unleash our Navy Seals we need to unleash our big guns the most powerful commanders that we have and he made an announcement empty out the synagogues and put the women in there is what he said put the women in we need their tears so my Rabbi said his father was a child ironically he went into the into into the women's section upstairs to watch down from theat to see what the women would do so what do you think the women did I tell you what I would think a couple years ago I I spoke in a very very very distinguished Tor community and I spoke to the N to the ladies group over there about the power of prayer before I spoke there was a very famous rabbitson her husband's one of the biggest rashash shivas in the land and she asked me to step out she says we're going to say a few before you give your speech so I'm kind of curious to see what goes on how women say to Heim in this prestigious community so I I make myself into like a wolf flow I I hide myself in the corner and the rbon gets up and she does exactly what happens in the Mir Shiva when I learn the mornings he does exactly you know she gets up and she goes and all the ladies are going wow just like the mirror except for in the mirror when when the men respond so it's like it's like a rock concert the whole thing you know it's like you think the whole place is going to collapse and we scream ladies are quietly responding it's a different generation what was described just two generations ago my re's father saw the women come in dinging dinging ding the women are coming in that's it one of the women go straight to the arodes he she opens it up women are coming in with their children and then all Ganon was let loose the women started screaming at God in Yiddish each one saying their own prayers and there were tears and they were crying and they were shaking their children in front of the C Torah and they saying you got to save us and these tears were coming out of their eyes that's how our grandmothers used to pray it's a whole different world back then it was a natural outpouring of tears that people used to give over I'm not saying us men F can't do it just that the tal already identifies that for women that this powerful acid this spiritual acid in heaven is something that they have as their Birthright so what is tears what does it mean for us and how can we come out of this class with something positive because this is not going to be a depressing class this is going to be an uplifting class so what I want to say is the following thing I'm going to break down tears into three categories category number one category number two and category number three one and three we've already spoken about but category number two that is the point of tonight's class is to explain properly category number two what is category number one and category number three number one is called tears of tragedy tears of tar tears that come out to quote the prophet in my eyes my eyes are a River of Tears in in the book of lamentation there's many references to tears a destruction of the temple you see the terrible suffering of the people the destruction of hashem's holy home the the the dispersion of clel to the four corners of the world it creates tears and these tears are tears of um of of of unbounded tragedy unbounded tragedy there's no hope we don't know what to do with these with ourselves now I'm going to interject now and answer my first two questions with the moral of Prague because moral of Prague has a lot to say about these tears without going onto the deeper Dimension that we're going to learn in a few minutes what does the morale of Prague say a person goes through a tragedy and they cry and there's tears coming out of their eyes there's many different ways Hashem could have created us when we're upset when we're going through difficult times when we're going through sorrow all kinds of things could happen as I said before and why isn't there like I know our foreheads could turn red it happened to everyone if that was a symbol of pain to find why tears and why coming out of our eyes says the maral the external expression of Tears is showing the internal expression what is happening with our our Sals meaning the following thing when we cry so what happens our eyes are covered with liquid not regular liquid this salty liquid a salty liquid that causes our vision to become defract so if you remember from 10th grade physics when you're looking through a liquid you no longer are looking at something that's why there's no iron Hara on a fish because you cannot see a fish in the water even if you see it you're not really looking at it because of the laws of defraction so if your eyes are covered with liquid so you no longer are looking properly says the mar this is exactly exactly what's happening in your soul meaning when something goes wrong my father passed away a year ago so we knew for many many years that this day was going to come but we're used to being with my father we used to have him alive he was sick but he was alive so what does Hashem do you have in the Mor's language you have what's called A B C D and we're used to what happens next e f g suddenly X boom something completely unexpected happens so this a b c d x creates this emotion called tears we've been thrown out of our own comfort zone we're no longer in control we don't know what to do with ourselves it's fascinating but the same thing happens with tears of laughter tears of laughter is also when something so unusual this extraordinary scene of a seven an 8-year-old girl with this huge monstrous woman pattering it down looking for a bomb so for me this was the funniest thing ever you don't expect it and this created this emotion C tears this something came out of nowhere so every time that we externally tear is because internally we've lost our vision when we internally tear and then what comes out of our mouth is like groaning sounds we can't speak when a person's crying they can no longer speak normally is because simultaneously with your eyes closing up your mouth is closing up you are ceasing to function as a regular human being that's what happens you're now in a state where your life is so to speak monily closed the shop has been closed everything has been switched off that's what the morale says the tears of tragedy and also we find the same thing with tears of joy those tears at that moment then everything's been closed up internally we have this state of deep confusion it's fascinating the morale at every single opportunity will always show us that the Hebrew language brings out exactly his idea what's the Hebrew word for Tears okay Deon those you familiar with mishna Hebrew DEA is one of the Hebrew words for confusion so again for the scholars over here if you mix tum right with with with and you mix it together you don't know what the mixture is the mixture is called Dema a confused mixture every single time you cry you enter into a state of confusion what's category number three we're skipping to the third category is what we just mentioned the tears of laughter the T brings down a beautiful in that says at the end of days Hashem is going to bring thear he's going to bring the evil inclination and will present them in front of theim and theim the evil and the righteous what will he do to the slaughter it end of days goodbye the evil Incarnation is now gone says the gamar the gar brings down that everyone is going to start crying the sikim are going to look at the and see this huge mountain and the will look at this and see a a tiny little hair and the sadik will look at the and says how do we do this how do we conquer such an incredible Mountain they are going to be like the proverbial mountain climber that reaches the top of Everest how do we do that how do we manage to conquer something so huge and these are tears of joy these are tears of of how incredible this feeling is that we manage to conquer this thing and Ne the rim they said we're so stupid this was all it was and we could have had everything and we gave her up for stupidity for nothing those are tears tears of tragedy that have no tiun that there's nothing you can do for them anymore interesting thing in the um in the power of the Hebrew language we say at the end of days the sadim are going to look at a k and it says right we are going to rejoice and be happy B what does the word b mean is the is the same of the word the tears the B plus the letter Y the Y symbolizes the the completion at the end of days so the be at the end of days is the be where the tears have brought us to this extreme closeness to this extreme inner sense of of completion but that's not why I'm standing here tonight that's not the purpose of my class the purpose of my class is not to talk about category one which is tears of tragedy or category number three which is tears of Triumph at the end when everything comes together I want to talk about category number two and this was a revelation for me and there I'm sure many people in this room have never thought of this I'm hoping you get the same thrill that I felt when I understood this year I only discovered this idea this year about category number two I understood exactly what C it's a new category in about 15 minutes we're going to understand that this new category on the deepest deepest level is actually the connection between one and three it makes one and three turn one but it is going to be a different category and this is the main lesson is to know that there's a new type of Tears there's a middle section of Tears what is this middle section any way to make it a little cooler in here is it is it like so if it's possible there's a medish the medish is brought down byak inra per base piml and this we talk about a lot on the Festival of sukat it's a very very powerful piece but this verak brings down the story of how tears began I challenge anyone in this honorable audience where does the story of Tears begin where do we see tears for the first time I'm not talking about the word tears in the Tor I'm talking about in the mid the idea of Tears so you're 100% right but in the mid we already find tears on the second day of creation all the way the very beginning what did God create on the second day of creation he created water and he split the water into what's called and my higher Waters and lower Waters so this separation of the higher Waters and the lower Waters says the mid created what's called Waters crying who's crying the lower Waters it's an interesting thing I mentioned before and that when we Cry tears come out that are salty well guess what you go to the oceans do not drink that water that water is salty that salty water is in the symbolism of the midash you're looking at tears these are tears why are they crying what is gone wrong over here what are the tears of the waters that are out there the answer is they're crying because it's not fair we want to be up there with Hashem they are yearning for closeness with God these tears come out of frustration that they have been l walked into this prison called the lower worlds and they started off like all the other water with the opportunity to be close to God and they're down here and the med Springs down the waters are are trying to Surge upwards but they cannot they are straight jacked they're going nowhere what does Hashem say Hashem says you Waters you crybaby Waters Waters of Tears you Waters of the ocean I'm going to reward you with two things number one when the praising of God begins you have to praise God first and then the higher Waters can praise Hashem you will always come first but much more than that I'm going to give you a privilege that the higher Waters can never enjoy your salt which symbolizes your tears are going to go where on the M the holiest place in the whole universe and the water that comes from the lower planets that comes from down here that water is going to be used on sukat sukat symbolizes the end of days sukat symbolize when everything becomes reconciled that water comes from the from the lower Waters okay let's step back and understand what happened over here we're being introduced to Tears For the First Time The Tears begin with frustration the tears begin with the lower Waters being locked in being closed in they don't know what to do with themselves Hashem says because you're crying because you want to get close to me well I'm going to take care of you I'm going to make sure that you will end up in a deeper sense even higher than the higher Waters let me trans that into the language of this class this in between category of tears are tears that the helplessness is the helplessness of wanting to become closer to God and you become frustrated and those tears create a new reality those tears create a new world where K shifts and adjusts the rules of the game and he in introduces new laws and new mitv and says you Waters that are down there at the bottom are going to reach higher than the higher Waters you're going to reach the highest of the highest let me translate that to you in even simple English this type of Tears opens up a deeper and more profound reality this deeper and more profound reality creates the solution that brings us to the tears of Joys you hear this again that moment when you feel vulnerable that moment when you recognize that All Is Lost that you're not in control that moment when your body has closed up and remember we learned together that every time you cry you you you become dysfunctional your eyes closed your mouth closed at that point then you are going back into the womb and you're coming back out more powerful and closer to God than ever before those tears have created this new reality and in that new reality the tears turn into the tears of joy cannot begin to tell you how deep this idea is and once I've shown this to you we can understand a whole bunch of things let me give you some examples through the examples we can understand this a little bit better one of the Ron him that lived in Germany was called the RO got nothing to do with Bas or a form of horseradish Ro was one of the r and he brings down that on Suk people used to come contrary to the imagery that you and I think was a party man right everyone was dancing and singing it was great they used to come and they used to cry for rain and when they used to cry for rain with those tears they used to feel the rues the holy spirit that was there at the and it would turn into this exalted state of happiness and joyfulness because on the tears for rain the tears that say God we cannot survive without your help that creates a new reality of extreme closeness to Hashem that's the you can feel that Clos of hem like I mentioned beforeand Su is a taste of the world to come the Taz in Sim brings down something incredible who is the one man in history that was always closest to the end of days we normally associate with laughter it's a person that was always focused RAB AA reaba whenever he saw a difficult scenario people were crying he was always laughing so the T brings down that Rea he used to cry on shabas now it's forbidden to grind shabas but his tears were actually the tears that allow the tears of sadness to connect to the SE tears of laugh at the end of days his tears so to speak create a new reality that brings us to the end of days which brings us full circle which brings us to me and you you and I you and I our tears when do we see these tears that create a new reality not when we're crying for a loved one not when we're we're crying from tragedies but rather those tears come out in the power of prayer we pray to God that we cry and we cry we feel vulnerable we we feel like the morale says locked in closed up incapable of expressing ourselves at that point then a new reality opens up those tears of the acid that break down those metal walls between us and God and takes us right in but once we're right in Hashem invokes the power that is that is infinite and changes everything and fixes everything and brings the G so you have over here and again I don't understand exactly how this works I wish I did but we have over here that it's category number one is the tears of tragedy and categ number three is the tears of joy at the end of the story when everything works out but somehow these tears that we for example do when we pray somehow connect one to three somehow in the same way that Tish is always always always the same night as pesak and the tears that come out of our eyes on Tish of night are intimately connected to the tears of joy that come out as we come out of Egypt what connects it is that the Jewish people feel the sense of we're not in control well if we're not in control so who is Hashem when you recognize that you unleash this new Mahal this new power so the end at the top of the top of the top of the top and that's what happens to the Jewish people yesterday I had an incredible thoughts I hope that the r agrees with this because I'm saying this now for the first time and I have no idea if this is true but my heart tells me this is true you mentioned beforehand a woman called Leia and I have a soft spot for Leia besides the fact she's my 9-year-old daughter who I'm unabashedly obsessed with in a very healthy way I love my little girly and uh I all the layers I know are incredible people any layers in this room just by chance so I can dedicate the next few minutes to you but uh I always feel that Leia gets a bad deal in the pantheon of great Jewish women for a very simple reason every we talk about the big four who the big four Sarah Rifka Rael KH why sah KH because they're the ones that couldn't have children NE the ones that suffered she was like you know from maybe six kids like boom boom boom Leia had it all yeah as many kids as she wanted hello did you ever read the ramban at the beginning of Leia was not ugly contrary to what people think everyone thinks oh Leia she was hideous she was not ran say she was not hideous Le was beautiful like all the IM every was beautiful it's just when you s you was so distracted by her eyes cuz she used to cry herself to sleep every single night until all the hair around her eyes was flushed down all you to was like these red blotches her eyes were shocking and and and and that was the first thing you notice is his eyes his terrifying eyes and they came from tears and tears and tears and tears because she was supposed to marry is asov the most evil creature that ever walked on this planet that was the natural Z so what happened to those tears so we all know that those tears created a new reality that new reality is that ASV rejected his whole role in making the world into a perfect place Yakov takes on asa's role Yakov when he buys the firstborn the first the birth rights from asov he takes on asa's role at that point then yob needs a new Z he needs a new partner so Le's tears create this new partner but that's not me speaking this is reading the Kash what I want to say is that the rabbis tell us that those ugly eyes that lay created out of Tears she was rewarded by having a child called David we don't know anything about David except for two things he was a red head go red heads and he had beautiful eyes he I did not know that he had be okay he had beautiful eyes he had beautiful eyes so everyone oh that's so beautiful L ugly eyes so she got a child with beautiful eyes no that's not theat over here David contains inside of him the mhia he is the r said he's the first mashia and then they'll be the last mashia in other words through those tears of Leah D was so to speak created there would be a a Reconciliation that would bring the whole world back to that moment when Leia lives in this world this hopeless world where she's married going to be married to a monster and spend the rest of her life in this devastating situation creates a d who's going to be making and it's going to fix absolutely everything so let me summarize what I came to teach today before I give my final message my final message is basically to strengthen all of us to be able to face the challenges in front of us what I'm teaching tonight is is that we're all pretty familiar unfortunately with tears of tragedy and hopefully with tears of joy what we learned today is that there's actually a process that connects them for you and for I we find this in our prayers more than anything else but those are moments when we feel hopeless and we feel not in control and we feel exactly like the Mayim like those lower Waters those useless lower Waters have been disconnected from God but what happens those tears create a new reality Hashem says okay after you have cried I'm going to change the rules of how this world is run and you're going to end up the highest of the highest of the highest the question is I don't want anyone to leave this room miserable I don't want anyone to leave this room and say okay see wants us to to recognize that we are in a state of lack of control and and and somehow this I don't know it just see it seems very hard and there are so many people in this room that are going through real difficulties Hashem Keeps Us close when Hashem Keeps Us close he always gives us opportunities to turn to him every person in this room has known a little taste of what is like to be L to feel trapped to feel they don't know where their lives are going and every person in this room because that's why you come and learn Torah knows that there's an address and there's someone to talk to and somehow or rather we don't always get to see it those tears catapult us into a new reality and that new reality can bring us to the tears of joy so I want to come full circle I began by mentioning and now at the very end of my year of a of M for my father and the interesting thing uh there are people in this room from my generation meaning that my father was a young man during the Holocaust and he didn't speak not because he suffered he actually did not suffer so much he didn't speak because he came from generation that people did not talk about themselves it came out out of a deep sense of modesty well just it it wasn't histi he didn't talk about his exploits it took me forever to find out about what he did he fought in two Wars for Israel in 1948 1956 what I did not know is that in between he was working for the mad just came out by chance afterward I found out that while I was growing up in London in the 70s he was secretly doing all the stuff for the Soviet Union to try and help Jews I did not know these things these things came out very very recently during the shiver from my father my father's cousins told me about what he did during the war and I always knew a little bit but I didn't understand he had a whole organization with his brothers for saving Jews interesting there's a book about um how the Bob of arabba survived the war through a whole bunch of Miracles and my father not mentioned by name but his family is mentioned as one of the people that saved him in his hometown of Arad which is in Romania so I decid okay this is ridiculous I had to wait to my father to pass away to get to know about his life I decided this year I'm going to find every book I can that talks about Romania during the war and I realized I did not know and again for those of you that still have parents and grandparents from that age group I don't know how to say this in we sayar I don't know how to say grab your these people uniqu get them to talk to you to tell us about that those ages there's one fellow who wrote a book his name was mayor kahain mer Kahan and Mer Kahan grew up in the same Village that my father grew up Vish and I was so excited to read this book because it starts to be describing this little town that my father grew up up and I meet a person don't know him personally by chance his son went to me his son Mendy went with me to Yeshiva he's from antp he lived in ANP and I knew his son but this person over here is describing and it's fascinating but I'm going to be very honest with you the first half of the book was kind of generic in the Holocaust books def have a always start off by showing how beautiful everything was and how they used to live then everything turns into geham and they old die except for these people who miraculously Escape that's your classic generic Holocaust book sorry for being cynical I believe you should read them because these stories give us a lot of a lot they strengthen us this book was different this book was different because first of all it had the strangest title the title was called between my father and the old fool so when you see this title you say this is weird between my father and the old fool little did I know that the title was describing a scene in the middle of the book which for me is one of the most powerful scenes that I've ever read Because at that point then my kahain amahan became you and I and he talks about himself as a person who clearly had a lot of love of life he was always a positive looking person and apparently as we're going to see from the story he must be very good-look his son for sure was a very handsome young man I remember very clearly from my Yeshiva days and he's part of a Hungarian Battalion a Jewish Hungarian Battalion comes May 1944 the Hungarian government is disbanded the arac cross Hungarian fascists which were basically Nazis with a Hungarian accent they took over with a couple of months they managed to send hundreds of thousands of yiden to aitz what happened to this Jewish Hungarian Battalion they were forced to march to Germany where they would be given over to the Germans and they didn't know it in the end but their story was going to end in Bergen bson in the concentration camp and he's marching and mayor knows that once he's going to be given over to the Germans 99% he's going to die why because he already knew from the stories of what was going on till then he knew about asit he had heard all the stories about what was happening and he was no full and the day before they are going to be handed over to the Germans they're sleeping in a farmhouse on the Hungarian side of the Hungarian German border and the farmers are taking care of these young Hungarian soldiers who happen to be Jews and there was young a young woman and her name was marushka marushka aarian woman sees Meer and brings him milk gay he didn't want to take it from her and she says come on you know you need this okay so he took it he tried to pay he wouldn't take the money and it's very clear that she's attracted to him this is written by Art scroll so luckily the rry Rhyman from Lakewood who translated it from the Yiddish he wrote this in an incredibly clever way so it's very clear what is happening over here it's very very clear that she has her eyes on him and then she comes to him and gives him a key and says look behind the horse stables there's a a room of supplies we use it for the winter but now it's summer no one goes in there this is the key to that room you go in there there's food there and I'll bring you stuff every day day even my parents aren't going to know a couple of months the war was over this was after staling gr this was a few weeks before the invasion before dday so here's this key and this key is the key to life all he's got to do is he has to go and unlock this room and go in there and hide no one's going to find him no's going to notice he's gone just a couple of months he can leave and go out and relive his life but he understands that there's a price for this Freedom that this marushka is going to want more than just to bring him cups of milk so as he's going to this place a picture of his father comes in front of him his father is in the title between my father and the old fool and his father looks at him in this Vision exactly like yakobo in the story of yose and prer wife and says to May are you don't you remember that you're yes what you don't know what this woman wants from you you don't understand what's happening over here where's your where's your brains he says you the Jewish boy does not do this go out meet your fate then another voice comes who's this other voice the old fool the old fool is a reference to the is the it's it says it says mayor he says it'ses you have to take care of yourself what's the big deal you can withhold Temptation you can be strong enough what's the big deal it's just a couple of months and you'll be free you got to take care of yourself go grab the opportunity this is going back and forth and he's standing there in front of the door the mve of the night there in Hungarian side of the Hungarian border a couple few hours before he has to be handed over and he's going back and forth and then he finds his inner strength and he throws the key into a ditch and he runs back to where all his friends are sleeping and after that literally all hell is let loose before he knows it he's stripped naked everything he has his fillan his money his everything that was carrying with him is taken away from him shat has are put on him he's had his first beating because he walked to slowly at one point and he's lying there in his bed in a bunker in a concentration camp and this voice comes to him may look how stupid you look now look at you you're nothing you're just a number you could have been with Marishka now she would have taken care of you and and this voice keeps on coming back as each chapter gets worse and worse and worse in the next chapter there's one scene where he barters the little bread that he has he barters it for a pair of filling him and three friends they put their bread together and there's a whole business going on by the latrines this was well known latrines the people that had access to the to the supplies that were taken from the prisoners they would buy it they would sell it for bread he got himself a parot filling and he goes to his bed and he hides under the this little teeny blanket and he tries to put the thill on and suddenly the the banket is open wide and there's that coppo with a whip and he takes the fill and he crushes it under his feet and starts whipping him until he's a whisper away from his death the voice comes back may look at yourself now you could have been safe Mishka would have taken care you could have been drinking milk and he sees his best friend again this is not why you came to hear hola story you know what it means to be to see a friend being eaten by a dog until eventually there's nothing left of him so the Americans liberate Bergen bellson he's lost everything every single friend he ever had his mother his father his brothers his sisters his aunts his uncles people that had taken care of him when he was in Budapest those one chapter oh gone everything gone and then From the Ashes he rebuild his life and he ends up living in antp the story ends and I'm thinking to myself how does he do it how how did he manage to stay strong how did he manage to conquer that voice that kept him coming to him and then there's this epilog this epilogue is so powerful the epilog fast forward to the 1970s and am is dedicating a sa in a vision s in in Ben and he's there with his wife and children and they're dancing with a safe Tera there's a moment of Celebration but this sa Tera is no ordinary sa Tera it's being dedicated in memory of all the people that he lost and the voice comes back to him one last time that's what he writes the the old fool says may why are you dancing you lost everything your mother your father your brother your sister your uncles your aunts your cousins your grandparents everyone was murdered what are you dancing for this is not a time to dance it's a time to cry and this is how the book ends and this is the message that I want to share with you because this is the key to everything this is the key of how we je survive the book ends with the following sentence at that point I turned to the evil Incarnation to the old fool and I said to him for the last time he said life is always a choice between anger and joy and I choose Joy that's it finished what does that mean what is it mean what does it mean to go through geham and choose Joy this the secret of the Jewish people it's something that you and I deep down we understand that somehow our faith somehow a knowledge that is there for us means that we can be the in our own lives we can be the rejected from the second day of creation but somehow we choose joy and we choose joy and with that choosing joy we know that somehow we're going to end up like the with the highest of the high highest of the highest of the highest we know that and this is something that is the power of the Jew because if we don't choose joy we get depressed we get we get we just we just turn and we close into ourselves and that's it and that's it our lives become this horrible vicious cycle of Darkness but a Jew chooses joy and therefore whenever these challenges so we cry and we cry to K but in those tears in the middle of when you're ask for all the that we have there's this Joy there's this joy that somehow with you know that this story somehow we have no idea how because we're completely closed up it's going to end up over there with thata where the tears are going to be banished forever how beautiful is it that the word b is the same and those who are not mathematical it's too late for you this is even I can do this bet is two c is 20 right Y is 10 32 say gach is cavod cavod honoring Hashem and this is something incredible because the tears of a Jew that come with this joy that somehow is going to work things out for us we throw ourselves into his hands is the greatest kavad that we give to Hashem and with this we have the secret of Jewish survival and with this we have the secret about how every person in this room deep down knows that our stor is whatever we're going through is going to end up how does it say in Disneyland and they all lived happily ever after except in Disneyland It's whatever it is until they have to go for divorce therapy but for us it ends up with the tears as we see this mountain in front of us and we ask ourselves how did we conquer this mountain how did we manage and the answer is because throughout our lives and throughout the challenges we know we have a choice we know we can choose anger and bitterness but and with this I conclude it's the power in our little secrets that whatever we go through we always always choose joy and that Joy is what brings us to the tears of laughter to enjoy those beautiful tears thank you for listening