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Something About This Story Still Stays With Me

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Rabbi Josh Zebberman avatar
Rabbi Josh Zebberman

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everything the Rebbit lived for. Making this world a home for God, making this world a better space for everybody, inspiring people to connect to their best selves. I I see what I've noticed and please let me know if you agree in the comments or not, but what have I what I've noticed is that the Reb gave a lot of autonomy, agency. The Reb wanted people to take ownership. And while the Reb had given a lot of general guidance in what our mission is, what our job is, how to illuminate this world. The Reb did speak a great deal about personal agency. I think you see this on every level. You see this with young yeshiva students where the Reb wanted them to come up with not just study Torah, but come up with their own novel thoughts, write them down, and even publish them. These are like young students, young rabbitical students that he wants to them to to develop their own agency in Tyra. You see this with the Reb from what I understand rarely told specifically what to do. There was general guidance and how are you going to do it? You know, you go figure it out type of thing. And I I think with the amount of teachings the Reb had left us suggests so much opportunity to develop ourselves and take agency in learning. I want to share with you a story shared by Rabb Nissen Manguel and his interaction with the Reb guidance that the Reb had shared with him which I found to be very inspiring and really uh point to this idea of taking agency in our own Judaism. Take a listen to this story. Once I come into the rebre tells me learn five times every week the whole whole center for five times five times and not like sayim you have to understand every word that's that's a big that's a big uh work and it's not in the Not in I remember I came up went to the reb asked me tell me vas had to many times be up to 3 4:00 in the morning and make that from the whole pir on took out the pirush but anyways so they were they had to learn through five times whole afterwards. Let me tell you, okay, next year tells me I should go between in Montreal. in Montreal then was not good to see us around but anyways so then the reb tells me I should go and next time next year the reb asks me tell me do you have a say to every shabas I learned all kind of not said reb no idea I don't have a to learn a however since you told me last here I should go to to I don't material so what I learn I take out I cash every cash then I tret and believe me my heart was beating why green glass said you have to say divra don't Say your own words. You say here I make my own. They're very good. The Reb wanted Manguel to learn. But he didn't want him just to learn or even just to understand. He wanted him to internalize. So much so that he was okay with him filtering it in his own language, not the Reb's language. That's a big risk. Putting something in your own words, not the original, is very risky. As risky as it is, it can be just as meaningful. And it seems that this is what the Rebe wanted. And you see this throughout many again throughout many of the Reb's teachings. I've seen letters of the reb where he had shared um thanking people for sharing ideas in he says not in a way that like just said that at least their soul understands but in a way where they truly understand it and connect to it rather than just uh repeating word for word but actually understanding the concepts. the Reb's final address at the kinosim where the Reb said that we are not just servants of God and Hashem but we're of God we'reim of hem ambassadors of God and there's a fundamental difference between a servant and a an ambassador a servant an eid does what he has to do almost robotically a shak is invested with his heart invested with his soul And because of that, he has an opinion. Because he has an opinion, he has the ability to mess up, too. But he has the ability to succeed in such astronomical ways, in such meaningful ways. And in this talk, the Reb pointed out that the word and the word Mashiach have the same numerical value with a difference of 10. Mashiach has an extra 10 because there's the 10 faculties of the soul, the 10 personalities of the soul, the 10 emotional and intellectual attributes of the soul. And when one invests that in their mission, that's what makes this world sacred. That's what actually brings Msiah. When we internalize things on our own terms and not adulterating it, not diluting it either. The teachings of the teachings ofidus need to stay true to their source. need to stay true to what they truly are. They can't be psycho babbled. At the same time, they have to become meaningful.