Children, marriage and the mid life crisis - Rabbi Yom Tov Glaser

[Music] shut up and welcome to practical spirituality here at Asia tour in the old city overlooking the Temple Mount just a couple of announcements that I need to make I can't remember exactly where they were but when was the Yom Tov media Club please join the yom tov media club so we can get the word out to as many people as possible the other announcement was oh I'll be in New York Sunday through Thursday so wherever you are in the US people used to fly into Israel to join the possible use seminar but now people can actually fly into New York or if you already live in the tri-state area it'll be in Muncie Sunday to Thursday the possible you you can go online to the it's fine you can go online to the possible you.org and check that out it's gonna be a men's seminar starting this Sunday the 28th of August no July July and the women's seminar starts on Monday men's is on non-work hours of women's on work hours and and then I'm flying back here and I'm making a wedding in two weeks which everyone's invited to I'm making wedding an Asha dodes so it's for all the surfers they like to surf in Ashdod and anyway we're gonna be making a major party down there we've got the best band a full breslav band and one of the top singers in Israel and in lots of booze both otaku so in fact when I when I was where I was raised in California we were it's kind of a narcissistic society in Los Angeles where everything's about you and it's really all about you I think there was even a feminine hygiene company that's full you know motto was it it's all about you and I think they must have been from LA or something and the but that was the world there and anything that cramped your style was automatically nixed I mean you just you just got rid of it like nothing you did everything for you and it was kind of interesting Society because you might think that's selfish but these same people in the West Coast speak up when you bother them so it's interesting like everything's about you and everything's about them and if your stuffs bothering them so they tell you and then you're immediately cuz you're you know I don't want to bother anybody and so it actually works I mean I wouldn't want to ever you know I wouldn't want a West Coast or marrying an East Coaster because you know the East Coasters gonna constantly be wondering why this person so inconsiderate and the West Post person is gonna be constant wondering why this person so quiet because West Coast people just speak up when someone's on your toe you say something period East Coast you just kind of wait for them to figure it out anyway but being raised there I was I would say at best I was ill-equipped and raising a family and the last thing I would have thought of you know the funny thing is is that I actually had this whole bluff I was I was what's called a radical environmentalist you know radical environmentalism is their most of their activities are actually illegal but the radical environmentalists are the people who like put spot metal spikes and trees that kill Lumberjacks and stuff when their chainsaws hit the spikes and the radical environmentalists do crazy stuff they climb up trees and sin I've personally climbed up trees I haven't spiked a treatment I've climbed up trees that are being cut down and sat in the tree until they went away you know and as soon as they went to the next tree I just climbed up that tree and sat up there and they're not gonna kill the guy okay not gonna kill the hippies sitting in the tree so anyway I the funny thing is as a Hasidic to you can't imagine me climbing trees that are being cut down actually in the middle of Jerusalem they were cutting down a tree and I climbed it and I sat in that tree and I saved the tree and it's still there to this day like 20 years later the tree is still there and and but the funny thing is people walking by the whole time and there's still people to this day or like scared to death of me because they feel like I have no fear and if something's going off wrong like if someone's doing something off I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm not gonna stop until they stop doing something that's all and something that's off is cutting down trees that's for sure and anyway and that's why I speak a lot about the Amazon etc but the the subject for us is there was something that I was introducing was the last thing I ever thought was that that I could raise eight children and thank God they come one at a time because you know I mean it's just like it's it shouldn't be possible that a person with my background should be able to raise eight kids and not only raised eight kids but raised eight healthy kids and he connected kids and committee kids and and you know what I mean like to raise it's just you're responsible this is a responsible and and coming from the environmentalists background like when I would the first time I came to LA and ran into a bunch of environmentalist friends who were coming to and they were in an event that I was at so I invited my wife and kids to the event when I walked into that event with my wife and people saw my children filing in like ducklings one after the other in the height order and so my my old colleagues from the earth firsts community earth first is radical environmentalist organization and so the the people from the earth first community were like like Glaser like you knew better than any of us like you you're the you're the environmentalists like what is it is like overpopulation in one family and and I said to them you know it was amazing timing by the way because someone's lid off their cup flew off someone's coffee cup lid who flew off like went flying down the Bluffs we're overlooking the ocean and that went flying down the bluffs and my kids just went after like a competition as I was speaking they see like eight kids it go well in this like competition of ketchup to that cat and bring it back and they of course won over brought it back a few minutes later like with the victor and I said when you're creating more of a problem I understand but when you're creating the solution you should have as many children as possible when my wife and I committed to each other to build a family they our commitment to though the family wasn't just so that we can have our own selfish needs of having the meaning in life that children bring a neighboring a lot of meaning in life and you have no idea how much meaning because you should know that the meaning in your life is gonna dry up eventually when you're about 40 or 50 years old and things are gonna dry up out of it maybe not saying for everybody but there are a lot of people in the majority of people the meaning will dry up at around age 40 or 50 know someone is connected to turret you're just the meanings constantly going in with a syringe I mean it's like it's like you're intravenously meaning your life's meaningful all the time and anyone who's watching this or hearing me now who's in the 40s or 50s 60s range knows that if you have a connection to Tara that is you're mean that is you're mean but for the rest of society for most people the meaning is the grandchildren the meaning is is that there are all these grandchildren around it and and when they constantly okay the fact that people can just put off having a family and put off put off marriage put off having a family just totally postpone the whole thing which obviously puts you in danger of not even having it is a major disservice and potentially creating very depressed years later in life and then that's playing hardball for me to say shut such a thing it's not nice for me to say but it is a major phenomenon and so you shouldn't take it lightly that you're building a family because what you're ultimately doing is making the ultimate investment for your the rest of your life so that your life's gonna be meaningful now what's meaningful when you're young what's meaningful when you're young is contributing but most people have the thrust of their contributions gonna happen by the time they're 50 so what are you gonna do just live off the fumes from 50 on good luck with that most people are big contributors are generally adrenaline freaks to begin with and you're not gonna get a ton of adrenalin over you know resting on the laurels of whatever contribution you made during those years and therefore having a family is going to be in important part of your life because later that's going to be filling your days and that's one of the beauties of living in Israel's kids generally stay in Israel when you have them not every kid but likely they'll stay and another great reason is to build your family in Israel is that you'll actually have that time together whereas my friends who live in America their kids are all over the country yeah you know they see them obviously Thanksgiving and vacations and stuff they're together but but here in Israel were actually with our kids or watching our grandchildren grow up they're growing up in our house and then that's a super big blessing anyway that our marriage was based not on us having the meaning in life though we really we really built these kids to be solutions for the world and I've even explained to their teachers at the beginning of the year when their kids start with a news teacher I say to the teacher I say I know you got 30 kids and I know you're gonna give them all everything you got to make them great but I just want you to know that if you put extra focus on the glaser kid if you put a little extra focus on the glaser kid you're this child isn't being raised to be like other children this child is being raised to be a leader and so whatever you put into that kid will be broadcast outward eventually it's gonna be broadcasted because that's the way we're raising our children we're raising our children to be solutions to the world's problems and and welcome and and but you literally see it true because my children who are now from 20 I don't know how old down to nine are all in positions of being the nuclear nucleus of helping people who need help that's what they do my kids are just constantly helping people and they and they do so beautifully and they they see it as the meaning of life it's the difference they can make for others and it really works to do this and it's worth it to have a lot of kids if you do this now when I'd like us to do today those is something totally do and that was class one so that was the class on on children and meaning in life and I know she was the girl for me you know I mean it's not a nice answer maybe I was a bit of a snobby dater the [Applause] if any girl ever said to me can we talk about something else other than the meaning of life she didn't realize that she had just literally sealed her fate that's no longer dating me and I understand the girl it's four in the morning it's five minutes we've been talking for twelve hours now he had another like like there is a concept of small talk I just don't have that but there are those who do and she was just making a request we talk about something lighter and anyway when I finally found a girl who who nollie not only could keep going but she could up me one enough me want to help you want to go deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper down the rabbit holes of the meaning of life so I just I just said that's the one that's the one and the funny thing is I wasn't really that was when I was supposed to not be dating because I was at Asia tour learning and you achieve I was a yeshiva book so what did i do I told the rabbis that when you tell me it's time to start dating I've got someone in mind it may not be the one but I want at least start with her and so they told me one day they just said it's time to start dating and I said ok so I know which one I want to start with and they said ok so how do we reach her and I said I I could call her no number no I hadn't been talking to her a lot but I had her number and and I so I called her up she was in spot and I called her up and we spoke for three hours huh Mike it was just a call to ask her out but it was a three hour call and we were engaged by the time I hung up you never went out we never went out I never got to have a date with her yeah we're engaged by the time we got off the phone but it since I'm on this story I mean you can't believe what happens next so now I mean now I'm engaged and it's just amazing you know the gauge woman and like I haven't even seen her in months and she's and she was teaching in a women's program in spot and I'm teaching in Jerusalem well as a Sheba her in Jerusalem but a t-shirt or a fury she was lucky you teach and and Here I am engaged and all of a sudden I get called into ruff Noah Hawaiian versa is that Saul's office and I go and turn the rabbi's off is the rough shoe of a sitar and he sits me down he says he says listen I've gotten a bad report on your fiancee and and he told me I'm not gonna tell you what I don't want to offend anybody in case in case this is you but he said that she's X you know in her worldview me she's one of them in her worldview whatever them is which by the way had nothing to do with anything at all at all it was purely what's called mote C shame raw you ever heard the term mode C shame ray buxley shame res character assassination which is basically someone called the rush Shiva Vasia Torrance says you cannot let young Tok laser marry this woman because she is X which was a worldview that wasn't the was in the world view of of me or know of who was my red being just wasn't our worldview but again this was all pure character assassination this is the this is the power of lush in her so roughly the so Arab a Weinberg says to me I'm sorry you got to break it off and soon what I did I called her up in spot and I said to her hi you know it's it's me I'm like listen I've got difficult news but it's over we're not gonna get married and she says silent for a moment she says recession is it what's the Barajas ship she said I was sure we were supposed to get married I was I was I was positive that you were my soulmate and thank God because that would I mean what bigger mistaken in the world could you make then marrying the wrong person I only want what God wants for me so this isn't it I'll move on okay I hung up the phone and I said to myself I got to marry this good because the ex that you should that the Rosh Yeshiva ref Weinberg was told was that she was you know not part of like the serious serious like people with real what's called Euron sham I am like real real of fear of God like this sounds like a woman with a lot of year at jamya anyway I was pretty bummed out and whenever I went down to the Kotel to pray and before I went to Prague Press the water fountain or I went to get some water the water fountain I made my brother you know boy though : yep it broke press the button I start drinking and I hear a voice behind me saying you should have pressed the button first before you made the blessing because how did you know that drinking fountain works you almost use God's name in vain at which point I'd turn around and there she was she was visiting the Kotel from spot and she just walked off because she's not having conversation with a guy Jane Mary she just walked off to the women's section I'm watching her walk off saying I got to marry this girl and who would have even thought of that like check the water fountain then make your brother I make sense you know don't just blurt out God's name thinking the technology is gonna work for you you know first first to see that it works and then use God's name saws like his kids amazing anyway so what happen was word got out to her that I was pretty depressed and so she already lickle me and she was a she tickle breslin breslav was going to the forest and pray so she was doing her forest prayers you know they do an hour date in this forest to pray and she's out in the force praying and she had a whole list of people she was praying for and she added me to list that I should be happy she's pretty that I should be happy I didn't know anything about that day whatever I got that word meanwhile I found out what it really happened that all of the whole reason we were broken off was because of somewhat loose-lipped jealous person who believed that she left a particular school you know her particular school to go to a school that was less her ad or whatever and and that that was all you had to do and and this this woman spoke out against my wife you know a leader of a school spoke out against my wife for going to a less observing school and which was not less observe and it was just a different worldview and anyway long story short is I get to I can't take it anymore I got to marry this girl so I met with Rabbi Orlick famous rabbi rabbi Noah Horlick and he got us he basically had said bring your wife to me so we both sat there across him he just started blushing and blushing and he's like you guys are so obvious soulmates like you got to marry each other he calls her up Noah Weinberg next you know we're engaged but then she says to me she can't be on the same continent with me until her marriage she's flying to New York to be with her parents until the wedding and then she calls me from New York she says she wants me I'm a mountain micros she says we got to get married on the land like literally with our feet on the soil ok I don't mind a wedding hall after we can have buses to a wedding hall we're getting married in the forest on the land of Israel and I'm like great she says get on your mountain bike and ride so I go five-hour ride like a huge ride cuz it's not so easy we got to find a place that's level enough we got to find a place where the pins come in and Rebbie who was in his 80s can get to the hoop up we have our grandparents coming you got a parking and she's got to be in the wilderness like putting all that together was difficult so I rode and rode and rode I finally find a spot I call her up that night I found the perfect spot took me five hours to find she says describe it to me I describe in the spot you know what she says she says that is the exact spot where I prayed for you and we literally got married on the spot that she prayed for me when I was down and you know what the beauty of getting married in the wilderness is you can go back to your on your anniversaries and go back to the exact same spot where is good lucky I get a wedding hall like excuse me uh sorry anniversary so we'd like to like get in there you know but we go back to that same sign she brings a veil and she walks around me seven times and we both just kind of chuckle and cry while we watch our kids playing in the playground around you know there's a kind of a forest playground there and we watch our kids playing each year there seems to be another one we're just crying while she walks around me of our kids like coming teenage daughters are looking over at us like oh my these two anyway that's the end of that story whytnee question it why the question why did he talk to you you wanted your future wife on his own rather than hearing something excellent that's an excellent question why and if if you heard the answer you would fall out of your chair there's an actual answer and I totally understand why meaning I would have done the same thing if you heard the answer you'd understand why I cannot tell you the because I'm protecting someone's character right now okay