Fresh Start Pesach Rabbi YY webinar

So, the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya writes in chapter 31 of Tanya an incredible, incredible idea. It comforts me every year again. This This morning I gave a class about this, and we again rework this amazing idea. And he says Moshe understood that the redemption of Egypt has to be done in a way that they are escaping. And therefore, he made up he set up a mechanism that they should be able to escape even with permission. How? By telling Paroh, "We're only leaving for 3 days." So, he gave permission for 3 days, and then they deceived him. And the question is, "But why? Why did the Exodus of Egypt have to happen through escapism?" Through escaping. And the answer is, "What does it mean to escape?" It means that somebody's chasing you. The redemption of Mitzrayim is not always in a way that I leave and there's nobody chasing me. I leave and there's somebody chasing me. And who's chasing me? Somebody inside. There's always a voice or there's often a voice inside of me that says, "Come back, you loser. Come back, you're a slave. You were born to be a slave. You were born to be a victim of trauma. You were born to be wounded. You were born to feel lonely, broken, devastated, isolated. You were born to trust nobody in the world. You were born to experience betrayal after betrayal after betrayal. You were born to be triggered every time your wife speaks to you, every time your husband speaks to you, every time your children speak to you. You were born to be triggered and go into isolation and resentment and get jealous and spiteful. You were born to be miserable." Familiar? That's the voice of Paroh deep inside of me. It's a template. It's a voice that seems so deeply ingrained in my psyche that tells me, "You were born to be a slave." And the only way I can deal with it is not by getting rid of it completely. One day, perhaps, we will. We're working on it. But simply by identifying it. I'm like, "Wow, look at this Paroh. He's pretty convincing guy, but you know what, Paro? I'm a free person. I'm going to choose not to go back into Mitzrayim. I'm going to choose to respond differently. I'm going to choose to breathe into my internal divine soul. I'm going to choose to embrace my inner holiness, my inner core beauty, my inner wholesomeness. And after a while, new neural pathways are created and the the choices become easier and easier. So, you see, Mitzrayim is not an Exodus in which there's nobody chasing you. There is somebody chasing you. Moshe did it specially in a way that we're running away to teach us for generations that when you get ready for Pesach and you have all these voices inside of you, I have all these voices inside of me. And it wants to keep us small, safe, and in control. It is so afraid of vulnerability. It is so afraid of enjoying life. It is so afraid of authenticity. It is so afraid of you showing up with your full truth, with your full beauty. It is so afraid of you trusting yourself. I would say that in our generation, one of the deepest forms of Mitzrayim is that people don't know that they're allowed to trust themselves. We have often been taught, "Never trust yourself. Always trust your father, your mother, your teacher, your rebbe, your mora, your principal, your rebbe, your rosh yeshiva, your mashpia, your mechanech Hashem. There's always truth outside of you. Never trust yourself. You're a loser. You're a traitor. You're a slave. You don't know anything. Always trust those outside of you." And it looks like it's emunah, right? You trust. You trust those outside of you. I've learned in my life it's the other way around. You can't trust Hashem if you don't learn to trust yourself. I can't trust my spouse. I can't trust anybody if I don't learn to trust myself. And I'll tell you why. If I learn my whole life to trust other people outside of myself, I know deep down that it's at the expense of myself. It's because I can't trust myself. And that means I'm overriding all of my feelings. And that means that I don't really trust them. I actually resent them. When people learn to trust in Hashem at the expense of trusting themselves, they actually are experiencing resentment which they're repressing. You know what real trust in Hashem means? Actually, it means that you trust yourself. And from your very self, you're like, "Wow, this feels so right. Energetically, this is the place to be. This is the place of bliss. This is the place of love." Somebody told me the yesterday. Literally, somebody told this to me yesterday, "I trust you." And I said And I said this, and it wasn't with it wasn't with great humility. It was very sincerely. I said, "Don't trust me. Don't. You're making a mistake." Trust yourself. Go into your own energy. And ask yourself, "What is going on here?" And then, you'll find that if you should trust me or not. First, trust yourself. Stop trusting other people at the expense of yourself cuz you're going to end up resenting them. That is one of the biggest mitzrayims. I am so dirty. I am so unholy. How can I trust myself? The moment you begin identifying energetically the difference between your klipa and your kedusha, between the parts of you that are dead energy, nauseating energy, their shells, their husks, their blockages, their cover-ups. Those are the places we go to. They're the rabbit holes we get stuck in, but they keep us flat, safe, in control, but so small. And you feel the difference between that energy and the energy that is expansive. The energy where you tune into the frequency of vulnerability, the frequency of trust, the frequency of surrender, the frequency of faith, the frequency of joy, the frequency of serenity, the frequency of love. Your heart literally opens up. You become alive. It's a very, very deep, deep experience. Now, you may be thinking, "Rabbi, why are you speaking so eloquently about these beautiful things? But many of us are trauma victims. We don't know how to feel. We have been disassociated. We have been numb. We have been detached. That's why we developed all of these coping mechanisms." I get it. I get it. So many of us are struggling with this and that is such a deep deep deep mitzrayim. We don't even know that we don't know. We don't even know that all the real energies inside of you vishakanti bisaychum. You're the base hamikdash where God wants to dwell. Of course you trust yourself. You God lives in you. Truth lives in you and then from you you connect to the whole world. Not because you're arrogant but because you're a temple for Hashem. You're the conduit of the shchinah. Our journey of yetzias mitzrayim begins with identifying all of these voices with understanding that we want to be sick and tired with being sick and tired. It's not a mitzvah to live with anxiety. Now nobody chose this. Nobody chose the anxiety of our generation. It's an invitation. It's an opportunity what we want to work on. What's lying behind the anxiety? What gems are there behind it? You know for many years I suffered from a feeling that many of you might be familiar with. It's called blahness. B L A H. You know when you just feel blah. You're not angry. You're not resentful. You're not even in a bad mood. You're just like blah. Like duh. Like you're not it's not negative but it's so not positive. It's like this deadness. It's not even depression. It's just like blah. And it would come over me very very often. It would like wash over me. It was very very difficult to deal with. Very difficult. And I was one speaking to a mentor of mine. And the mentor said something very very profound and said speak to your blahness and ask your blahness what is it trying to protect you from? Obviously it's afraid of you feeling your authentic emotions. It doesn't want you to feel. So it's putting you in this place of emotional paralysis, numbness, stagnation. What is it afraid of? It's trying to protect you. It's afraid that you're going to feel your energy and it doesn't trust it. Ask it. Ask it. Ask it. And it was such a beautiful and and authentic insight. You know I was taking my blahness so seriously seriously because I was identifying with it. Like I am the blindness, the blindness is me. This person explained to me, "No, no, no, no. The blindness wants to be you. Wants to make you feel that it's you, but it's really covering. It's a clipa. It's a shell. It's a husk." You know, in each one of our lives, this is so, so true. As you get ready for Pesach, it's so easy to go into a dysregulated space. It's so easy. There's always things that are failing, things that are not working out. The to-do list never ends. There's so much stress. And even at the seder itself, I pray something doesn't work. Even the perfectionists among us can't get it all together. And the truth is you're in good company. Because when the Jewish people were told to leave Egypt, they got nothing together. Everything was chaos. They couldn't even go with bread. They couldn't even bake bread. They were in such a rush. Because yetziat Mitzrayim does not mean that everything in my life is perfect. It means something else. It means that right now, right here, I could be present. I can lean in and breathe in to my deepest, perfect, wholesome energy that has not been blemished, that has not been tainted, that has not been destroyed. I could see everything else with compassion and empathy. And then I could make more choices every day if I'm going to go back into the rabbit hole and get stuck in the bubble of Mitzrayim, or I'm going to choose different reactions, different responses, a different way of talking, a different way of doing, and a different way of active thinking. I want to conclude with an insight that I I saw this week. It's an insight that comes from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, and he said it on the second night of Pesach, tav shin kuf, 1960. It's also apropos, the Rebbe's birthday is tomorrow night, you know, 11 Nissan, 11th of Nissan. And uh every year of growing up at the feet of Rebbe was always a very emotionally charged day where his disciples and students till today express so much gratitude to Hashem for the smile that he sent down to the Jewish world after Auschwitz in the form of the soul of the Rebbe. And on Pesach, after the second seder, which ended around 1:00, the Rebbe would come down to hold a farbrengen. Imagine a farbrengen starting like 1:30 in the morning, no food cuz it's after the afikoman, and the Rebbe went on for hours. Deep, deep discourses and talks about Pesach. The second night of Pesach, a lot of people would fall asleep, but there were those who remembered and transcribed it. So, this is from the farbrengen of the second night of Pesach in the wee hours of the morning, tav shin kuf, 1960. The Rebbe spoke then about the middle matzah that we break. I'm I'm I'm literally calling one insight from a very elaborate and deep talk, but just one insight that I want to share with you cuz it touched me very deeply. I just It resonated for me. You know, we take that middle matzah, it's called yachatz, right? And we break it. And what do we do with it? We make sure not to break it evenly. We have a larger piece and a smaller piece. The smaller piece we leave at the seder table. The larger piece we hide a napkin, under the couch, under a pillow, in a drawer, whatever it is, a bookcase, and we'll later retrieve it to eat the afikoman. So, yesterday, last night, I had a children's program on the yeshiva.net. So, children ask all these brilliant questions. You know, children ask the best questions. So, a child asked me, "Why is it that by yachatz we don't break the matzah evenly? Like, do half and half. Be fair, 50/50. Why is it like 80/20, you know, or 70/30 or What It's not fair." Great question. That question the Rebbe asked the second night of Pesach, tav shin kuf, 1960. He he a very, very powerful answer. He said, "We all have a broken matzah. We have break our matzah. The matzah that we leave on the table is a small piece of matzah. And what do we do with it? Right after Yachatz, we do Maggid. What's Maggid? We start off, 'Hey lachma anya di achalu avasana ba'ara d'Mitzrayim.' Or 'Ha lachma anya.' This is the bread of poverty that our forefathers ate in the land of Egypt. Because slaves used to be fed matzah because it takes longer to digest. So, the masters wouldn't have to feed them so much food. They would feed them matzah. So, this is the bread of poverty. It's also just flour and water. You don't have yeast and sourdough. There's no fermentation. It's bread of poverty, of exile. And that's the small piece of matzah. We say the entire Haggadah, the story of Mitzrayim, on this piece of matzah, the broken matzah called lechem anyi, 'Hey lachma anya.' What about the other piece of matzah that we hide? That we don't say the Seder, that we don't say the Haggadah on. That we retrieve later at the end of the meal for the Afikoman. What's that about? Time of the Beis Hamikdash, they used to eat a korban Pesach, a Passover offering, a sheep or a goat at the end of the Pesach meal. It was roasted. It was offered in the Beis Hamikdash, and then it was barbecued and roasted. And this was the staple, the highlight food of the Passover Seder. And this happened the first time in Egypt, in Mitzrayim. They offered a sheep or a goat on the 14th of Nissan. And at night, they ate it together with matzah and maror. And Hillel made his delicious wrap. Remember the old matzahs used to be like pita. The Yemenites still have pita matzahs. And then inside, you have some lamb chops. And you have some bitter herbs, which is like barbecue sauce. It was a delicious sandwich. It's not like our sandwiches today that are not the most tasty. It was delicious. And this is how it was done the first night, the first Pesach in history, and throughout all the years of the Mishkan and the Beis Hamikdash. Today, we don't have that anymore. We just have our matzah and our maror. Our sandwich is not that gishmak. So, we eat the Afikoman as a zecher, as a commemoration for the korban Pesach, and as a the for the Geulah and we're going to have the carbon Pesach. So the Rebbe said as follows, in each of our lives our broken matzah breaks into two pieces. One part is hey lachma anya. It's the part that represents our poverty, our brokenness. For some of us it's the abuse, it's the grief, it's the childhood years that have been lost, it's the youthfulness that has been taken from us. It's all of the pain and agony that each and every one of you had to deal with in your own way. Whether it was a very dysfunctional family, whether it was sexual molestation or rape, whether it was mental illness inside of you or around you, whether it was emotional neglect, whether it was addiction in you or around you, whether it was deep, deep mental challenges that you encountered among your caretakers, or all of the other forms of abandonment that each and every one of us or many of us have experienced in one form or another, and that's our broken matzah and we say hey lachma anya. This is the bread of poverty that you and I ate in Egypt, and you look at it and you expose it, and you say the whole Haggadah, you pay tribute to it, you honor it, you respect it. You embrace it, and ultimately you eat it. We eat that matzah. We eat it. It becomes part of us. It's always part of us. And we make a blessing as it is shown in the midst of its one or its last matzah. Because each of us has become sanctified. Sanctified through our deep experiences in life. Each of you has been forged in fire, blood, sweat, and tears, the tears of mother, and the broken matzah. And you're here today, you're here tonight, amazing, amazing, profound people. There are no people that I have met in my life who are as real and authentic as those who are committed to the work of inner healing. And there are no people I meet who are so superficial and I feel bad for them as those who make fun of those who are on the journey of healing. And those who their only attitude is to dismiss all the crazy people who are into healing because they're perfect. And I feel bad. I feel bad for how much dissociation our generation had to experience in order to deal with our pain. And I salute all those who can look at their broken matzah, say the haggadah over it, and But vintage Lubavitcher Rebbe, listen to this. He said, "But that's the smaller piece of matzah. The larger piece of matzah may be hidden away. It may be hidden in your pillows. It may be hidden under napkins or in matzah bags. It may be in a drawer somewhere in a bookcase. Your child may have stolen it and put it away in a way that you can't find it." He says, "That's your matzah of redemption. That's the afikoman matzah that represents the carbon Pesach. It's the matzah that prepares us for the redemption." And in life, he said, "You have to know that your larger matzah is your matzah of redemption. Your smaller matzah is the matzah of your pain." Each and every one of us needs to know. The Rebbe said, "I'm saying it in my own words." It's extremely emotional message. Never ever think for a moment that that the pain in your life is larger than the beauty in your life. Not because you haven't been through a lot of pain, but because never doubt the magnitude of your soul. The biggest effect and result of trauma is that you doubt yourself. That you think your depression is more powerful than your bliss. You think that your ego, your insecurity, your fear, your mediocrity is what occupies the most space in your brain. Maybe, but that's the trauma voice. The real thing is, your redemptive power, your healing power, your beauty, your holiness is infinite. It's almost like taking an orange and putting it near Mount Everest. An orange is beautiful, but compared to Mount Everest, what a joke. I want to tell you something. And I say this from a very deep place in my heart and I hope you'll hear it the way I'm saying it. And that is, with all the pain we have you you or I or anybody has experienced in life, with all the abuse, with all the agony, it's true and you need to pay tribute to it. But if you put that in the presence of your holiness, if you put that pain in the presence of your greatness, of your magnitude, it's like an orange in the presence of Mount Everest. The problem is, the challenge is we don't know our greatness. Most of us don't know. Most of us, as the poet said, live lives of quiet desperation. We don't know the depth of our souls. You don't know how much holiness is radiating from you, but think for a moment. Could you even compare a kami mal mamash, a piece of God himself, to the painful abusive messages that I tell myself about how stupid I am or how nerdy I am or what a loser I am or how ugly I am or what a I am or what a nerd I am? It's like comparing finite filth to divine infinity. So, the Rebbe said, "Never forget. There's a small matzah of lachma anya, but your big matzah, it may be hidden away, but your matzah of redemption is so much larger, so much more powerful and as you go through the Seder, you're going to retrieve it. And when you're going to retrieve it, you're going to bring that to the table and that's how you're going to finish your seder and declare l'shana haba'ah b'Yerushalayim. So, I want to bless all of us, every single one of us, and through you, all those that you will impact and you are impacting simply by osmosis and by showing up. And of course, the people you have direct direct contact with, especially your loved ones. That we should be able to stop preaching and we should be able to start embodying. We shouldn't have to preach because words are very, very cheap. And I know that I'm a speaker and I'm a communicator and I use words a lot, so you could take it from me. You could trust me when I say that. All the words in the world don't really express the energy of your greatness, of your beauty. That all of us should be able to this Pesach, already in the preparations, go into that space of regulation. Go into that space of your larger matzah, which has always been there, even if it's hiding among many, many layers of guilt and shame. But under all of our pain lay our deepest, deepest gems. Don't be afraid of your darkness because under them, I promise you, under these pillows, under these cushions, they're there. And that's why the children are the ones who take the afikoman because sometimes it takes our children to help us reveal our greatest matzah. What a beautiful insight. We think we came to help our children. The other day I had an epiphany. My wife helped me out with this. Our children came to heal us. Our children had so much mesirat nefesh. Their beautiful souls came down in our generation to heal their crippled parents. Our children are the ones who show us our afikoman. If we can only tune into our children, if we can only listen to them, if we're not afraid of them, if we don't think we have to fix our children and make them fit into the mold that everybody wants them to fit in. If you could truly listen to the music of your children, they will help you find your afikoman. They will help you find your larger matzah, your matzah of redemption. Thank you very much. Wow. Hey. I wow wow I I thought it was going to be the same thing as last year, but uh toda rabba. Thank god. Okay, before we I I just want to say in a moment just a technical announcement. Um we had to switch YouTube channels. So, the YouTube channel that we are on now Rabbi YY will have the voices of everybody who does ask a question live. If you don't want your face to be seen, then just keep off your camera. Um but other than that, you know, you don't have to repeat the questions. Um the other thing Stahli mentioned about uh the emotion not feeling anything. There is something called anhedonia. I don't know if you heard of that Rabbi YY, but it sounded it sounded similar. Anyways, um okay. So, we're going to we're going to jump right into it. Yes. you know, there's a chat, so they can also ask their questions in chat. Yeah, they could. Correct. Correct. Correct. They could ask anything they want. to show your face if you don't want. You don't have to even share your voice. You could just Correct. You can ask it directly. You can put it on the chat, whatever you want. Yes, so we have one I have a direct message. I'm going to we're going to go right into it Rabbi YY into the thick of things. We're going to we're going to start hopefully with the difficult ones first. So, here we go. And I I while it's one person asking, I know we get this question every year around Pesach. It's common. So, I think it's important to just get it out there, run with it. Okay. My mother wants me to come for a meal on Pesach and I didn't speak to my parents, mainly my father and my siblings for a few years and they're all being there and I have mixed feelings if my parents will be hurt if I don't go or not. What should I do? Also, want to ask, how do I explain to my kids that going to my parents is toxic and not safe not safe for them to be there. And needless to say this is coming from somebody that's been through First Start. So this is someone that's dedicated to their healing has made it a priority in their life. So what a powerful question and a very very relevant question to many many. This is a question that comes up I know in different forms and different scenarios but the bottom line is the parents want them for a meal. The relationship is very toxic. Maybe the home is a very difficult home. Should I go? Should I not go? I don't want to hurt my parents. I don't want to create a split in the family and yet I don't want to disrespect myself and put myself into such a difficult situation. And what do I tell my children and so on and so forth. So obviously every situation is specific and you really have to define the details of what is going on which I, you know, I'm not a prophet. I don't know. So I'm just going to give some general perspective that I think hopefully can be applied perhaps and if not just scratch it from the record. The first thing is we have to establish that there's no physical or sexual or emotional danger in a real way cuz if that's happening then that comes first obviously. For example, a woman wrote to me that if she goes to her parents home her father molested her for years she will faint. She will have a she has done it and for two weeks she has a breakdown. So I told her you're not allowed to go. It's because of nefesh it's like going to a place where you're going to be shot. Respecting your father and mother doesn't override the mitzvah of of of saving your own life. So that's the first thing. But if we're not talking about such a dangerous situation we're just talking about emotional difficulties and challenges you have to really speak to yourself and speak to people you trust and ask yourself if this is going to be something that's going to destroy you emotionally. If it's going to bring you back, you know, two years down it's going to bring you backwards two years then you have to ask yourself is it the right thing for you to do? You know, maybe in a proper and sensitive way you have to explain to your parents that it's not possible for you to go. However, if you are in a place where you could go you could be there for a few hours and it could be a pleasant experience. So really speak to yourself and then prepare yourself. Prepare yourself you're going into a place it's going to trigger a lot of memories. It's going to trigger a lot of difficult moments and honor that. You're going to honor that. Speak to your wife or your husband. Speak to people you trust about what you can do. What are the tools you can cultivate in your own heart when you go into that house not to be flooded and overwhelmed with negative emotions. Perhaps one meditation is before you go into the house you say Hashem and you say capital forgive me. Chapter Like even even as I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I don't fear evil cuz you're with me. Now, I know some of you think I'm dramatic, but I'm not actually being dramatic cuz if this is a home where you were hurt badly, it may be the valley of the shadow of death and say Hashem be with me. I'm an adult and speak to your child. Your child is frightened to go back home where you grew up cuz it was hurt. Speak to your child and say there's an adult. I'm here for you. I'm not going to abandon you this time. We're going to go into Tati and Mommy's home, but you're going to be safe and protected. Talk to it. And then maybe a miracle will happen and you'll be able actually to enjoy the meal. You may enjoy your siblings. You may even enjoy your mom and dad. I don't know. I don't want to give predictions. Maybe you won't enjoy it. But only if you could prepare yourself before in a way that you will be emotionally present as an adult, honor your emotions, and you also may have to leave a little early. You may not be able to stay there for 7 hours. You may tell your mother, "We're going to be there for 2 hours and then we're going to have to leave." In terms of your children, obviously age appropriate, you could tell your children that I had a difficult difficult time growing up. I didn't have a difficult you know, I don't know if you want to say the details. I don't know if it's appropriate cuz I don't know the details. But you could share with them that it was difficult for me. It was hard. As I grow up, I'm trying to heal because we all love our parents, but I had a difficult time. But we're going to go for the Yom Tov meal if you decide to do that. And it's going to be hard for me, but you know what? I'm learning that I can take responsibility for my emotions. I can protect myself and I can protect you. But of course you have to make sure that your children are fully fully safe and if that's not the case, you have to re-evaluate everything. Those are some ideas that I think may be helpful. Okay. Um thank you for that. We um we have another question here and then I I might have a Let me just let me just see one thing here. We have a person who might want to ask live, but I'll ask you the final another question. Um Again, kibbud aveilim seems to be the the theme the theme of Pesach. Um How do I deal with my father who is pressuring me to improve my relationship with my mother when she betrayed me in a deep way and he says it's time to get past it. Wow. So, this is a also a very very relevant question. Your father sometimes is the other way well but your father is reaching out to you and saying it's time to get past oh you know to to to to let go of what your mother did to you and her betrayal and just make up with her and reconcile with her. It's very important in this type of work to be able to have a support system of people who are with you in your healing. Whether it's a spouse, if you're lucky, or a mentor, a therapist, a rabbi, a rebbetzin, a mashpia, a good friend, a confidant, um a healer, or somebody who you really really trust and gets it. We all need support systems in our healing and not just one person. One person for sure, we need a few people. And these are people you want to get support from. You want to have a sound You want to have them as a sounding board. You want real friendship. You want real connection. And it's important because it's so easy to drown in messages of people that are not going on this journey and they don't know what you're going through and they could sometimes put thoughts into your mind that will confuse you. So, I'm just telling you with this situation where your father's pressuring you and pushing you in a certain direction, you must make sure you have a support system yourself and people you can trust that you could talk about these things. Now, as far as far as the actual the actual story itself, again, I don't know the details on what your mother did and where you're holding and your healing and so on and so forth. But, perhaps you need to be able to have a very open and respectful talk with your father. And tell your father, "Listen, I respect you. I love you. I cherish you. I'm sure you mean well. I am in a very, very intense healing journey. I have been hurt very, very badly. And you could share with him, you know, maybe what happened to your self-esteem or what happened to your happiness or what happened to your confidence. And yet, it would be nice if I could snap my finger and say, "abracadabra, kadoo. I forgive. I'm healed. I'm happy. I'm perfect. I'm wholesome. Mommy, just give me an eternal hug and we'll be best friends forever." But, Tati, it doesn't always work that way. I'm working. I'm working. Where it's going to take me, I don't know. But, I have to reach a place where I will be able to be whole to the point that I could forgive. You can't force forgiveness on people and you can't force reconciliation on people. I will encourage you to be able to identify your own strengths. And remember, remember that ultimately, nobody, nobody, nobody can extinguish the fire of your soul. And that's really what forgiveness is about. Forgiveness is not saying to the person what you did was right and agreeing with what they did. Forgiveness is really just saying, "I will not allow your meshugas, your insanity, your evil, your craziness, your detachment to define my life." That's a very, very deep place of healing, but you have to be ready for that. And you have to really, really respect for that. So, I think it's important for you to have open communication with your father. If your father has a respectful, interesting idea for you, awesome. But, if it's just about making things look good and perfect, it's important for you to respect your boundaries, but try to do it in the most sensitive and respectful way. Just as a general comment, and I'm saying this to all of us. And that is, you know, very often therapists or friends tell you just separate from your parents. Don't talk to them ever again. Sometimes the situation is so toxic, it may be good advice. Sometimes it's destructive advice. Sometimes that creates more commotion and ruckus and disruption in your life than anything else. Very often what is much wiser is to keep a relationship with boundaries. Because when we start cutting ourselves off completely, we don't we're not always doing ourselves a favor. We're not doing our children a favor. We're sometimes creating just a lot of confusion, and it creates drama more than healing. Sometimes you need to. Sometimes you need to. But, when you don't need to, I'm saying as a general comment, and as somebody who knows a lot about this parsha, sometimes it's much wiser to be subtle, to be nuanced, to do it with seichel. You create boundaries. You call your parents once a week. You go visit once a shabbos, once a month. What do you create boundaries that work? Rather than the saying, "You're sick people. I'm not part of this family. I'm changing my name. I'm allowing myself to be adopted by other parents." Before you make such a dramatic moves, make sure that this is the most uh healing path for you. In the name of healing, we sometimes make mistakes. And there is no mitzvah to cut off every relationship, even difficult relationships, cuz sometimes that creates much more difficulties. So, just do it with seichel, with sensitivity, with empathy towards yourself and towards the ultimate benefit of you and the people you love. Okay. Thank you. Um Leia uh Do we have a live Go Go Go ahead. We do have a live one. We have iPhone Leia Take the live one first. Want to ask. Go ahead. Leia, you want to iPhone or the Yes. Hi. Yes. Hello. Hello. Hi. Hi. Um okay. So, I'm here again. I'm I'm on Leia from last year. You were the caller. Yeah. I am the only one asking live, but I don't care about others judging. I don't care. So, I just ask what I You know, you helped me so much. I said, "I don't care. I'm going to ask what I You know, need to ask." Um So, it's not directly related um to Pesach necessarily, but very much something you mentioned and it just like triggered in me this question. I said, "You know what? Let me ask it." So, you were saying about learning the truth about oneself and you know, really tapping into your truth and you know, that's the real truth. Now, I've done you know, that work a lot of that work. But my question goes as follows. So, what if I tapped into my truth and you know, I am living my truth and living happily my truth. But now, I have So, I have three kids. I have a boy, a girl and then I have an now 3-year-old girl. Uh she needs to go into school. Now, my older daughter is in the school that I graduated from. And now, with my next daughter needs to go in there, the school is refusing to accept me. And you're talking about like nitty-gritty just not being exactly in the box. Nothing halacha. Nothing Like if I would give you an example. You talking about literally just not being exactly in the box because me being my truth, I'm living a regular normal life, but not copy-paste copy-paste. Now, what like how do you know when Okay, I can't be my truth because look, then there's then they tell me people tell me, "Oh, you see? Well, there's consequences. Too bad. Like you got You got to just jump after everybody. If not, you're going to be out of the community or whatever." And you talk I'm telling you, you're talking about little nitty-gritty like a length of a skirt or like not It shouldn't be till the ankle. It should be 2 in above. Like nothing against halacha in any sense of form. You just don't look Their answer was, "You don't look exactly how this Hasidic is supposed to look." You know I'm talking about Hasidic school. And I live in Borough Park, so basically most of the schools are ultra-Hasidic and it's have to make a decision. Like, what am I supposed to do now? My other two kids are in very Hasidic schools and I want that. I want that, but again, I don't have to be exactly copy paste of every single person walking down the street on 13th Avenue, right? So, how do you know that fine line not to listen to your truth? Yes, listen to your truth. It's it's hard. Yeah, it is it's very very hard and I'm sorry. It is very very hard. It's a difficult challenge and a difficult dilemma that many of us have. I cannot tell you what to do, but I'll just give you an example that may um minimize the the the sense of self-betrayal a little bit, okay? It's my sense I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know I know the growth you did. Nobody cares the growth you did. They look at the outside outside layer. I know I know and I empathize with you and between you and me, it's one of the disasters that are happening that the chitzonius is much more important than the pnimius. What's happening on the inside, who even cares? The main thing is the outside and this allows people to live in a facade for their whole life. There are hundreds and hundreds of families where the father or somebody in the family is completely not religious. But they're dressed beautifully. You know, they wear all the holy garments of the high priest and you know, they have three phones that they use, but nobody sees it in shul and it's a joke. It's a joke. It's a facade. It's a lie. It encourages lies. It encourages uh dishonesty. And sometimes if a person just looks the part, everything is perfect. What's happening inside the heart, who even cares? Who even knows? And that's a disaster and in fact, that is what creates so much emotional distress. And it creates so much negativity and so much dishonesty. It's why so many people need healing. And our souls Right, it brings all the anxiety. Not only that, and dissonance. Yeah, yeah. to that, like I even asked them about my older daughter and they said no issues whatsoever. She follows every single school rule. She's Right, right, right. emotionally healthy, happy. I and I get it and I get it. And the only thing I will say, the only thing I will say is I get you completely. I'm just going to be like a practical clueless man for a moment. And that is sometimes, yeah, you have to ask yourself, I cannot at the moment heal the whole system. I cannot heal the whole Borough Park and Williamsburg and Monroe and Monsey and Crown Heights and Lakewood and Toms River and Bene Brak. We're getting there, but at the moment we can't heal everybody. The only one I could really heal is me. And I could be there for my children. And then you have to ask yourself, what's the most practical beneficial thing I can do that would be the best thing for my children and my family at this moment, even if it's not a perfect solution? And that's a very personal question. And a simple stupid a simple example for this would be, if I would be a lawyer and I would be hired out by a firm and they have a dress code that they need me to wear a certain color of a tie and they need me to close my top button and they need me to put on this uniform. And some people hate wearing ties. I personally don't hate wearing ties, but some people hate it with a passion. And they may say, you know what, I don't like it, but this is a good firm. I'm going to get a nice paycheck. I don't like their policy, but you know what, I'm going to put on a tie because this is what they do for the job. This is what I got to do for the job. So, sometimes, I'm not encouraging this to anybody specifically, but I'm saying sometimes in life you have to look at the pros and you have to look at the cons. You have to say like this, I could take my kids out of these institutions and put my girl in somewhere else that would work. Those are the pros. I could be myself. The con is that this may be a very good school for her and there may be other benefits. I don't know. So, look at the pros, look at the cons cuz nothing is perfect. And then say what outweighs what. If the pros of being in this school outweighs the fact that you need to conform in some ways, which is painful. Okay, it may make sense. If not, not. And that's a very personal decision. But don't look at it as a perfect perfect solution. We live in a broken world. We live in golus. We live in a world where there's so much so much deception. And so many people living so much based on their coping mechanisms. And one more thing I would tell you, have compassion on all those leaders and all those people who are making decisions and they're so dishonest with themselves. They're so enslaved and afraid of what other people are saying. They're so not living with God. Can we have compassion and empathy for all those Jewish leaders and rabbis and rebbetzins and principals and deans and people who instead of making decisions from a very very deep blissful place are making decisions from a completely reactive, fearful, and insecure place. And everybody's impressing everybody else. I feel bad. So I I told them I'm going to conform to those that I right away said But their answer was that no, it's not enough. Basically, the whole family the whole They don't even have a pinpoint. Like I don't know what. For the next 10 months from the even if you conform, they're not accepting you. No, for the next 10 months they need to watch they're going to hire someone to watch me my family. And if everything stays cuz I could tell I'll change I'll change for one month. I'm like, "No, I'm telling you I'm willing to change." Wow, I see why some people hate the system with a passion. Oh my god. didn't know why. I didn't know why until it hits me in the face and I was Wow, it's hard. Wow, I don't even know what to say. I'm so sorry, Leah. I'm sorry. So they're going to hire bodyguards Correct. God who are going to probably men who are going to watch a woman for 10 months in the name of tznius. They're going to have two men watching a woman for 10 months. Correct. their chassidus can be protected with yiras shamayim. And these two men are so holy they could watch a woman for 10 months. Yeah. And and they weren't embarrassed to say that. They weren't and they were and they weren't embarrassed to say that. And they said I'll never know who it is cuz it's not people from that, you know, from that position. I won't even know. Of course. They They hired two tzaddikim who could look at women for 2 months while they're serving God. I get it. It's just It's just absurd. Like, what am I supposed to do? I I I I I I I don't know what I don't I'm flabbergasted. I don't know what to say. I I don't even know what to say. I remember growing up in Eretz Yisrael it was called Mishmeret HaTzniut. That's what they called them. And by the way, it sounds like the by the way, it sounds like the story like the Gemara about Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. Maybe there's no Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai out there. If Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai was watching Leah after 2 minutes, he would say they could take her kids into school. So it was a yeah. The problem is it's not not Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. The problem is it's not Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai. Right. Right. Right. It's too And by the way, Rabbi Yochanan wasn't looking. It was them looking at Rabbi Yochanan. But anyways. Right. Okay, thank you Leah for the live question. It was an important one. Um Tova, did you have a question that came in? I have a few that came in here. Uh I just want to say one thing, Leah. The only thing I'm going to say is as follows. I have found in my own life that the more healing work I do on myself and the more internally I go, the less I go into a place of judgment and negativity. So it's just a general idea. You know, we can be busy a whole day bashing the system and probably a lot of it would be right. I'm not sure if everything would be right, but a lot of it would be right. But I find that that's usually a sign of our own traumas. The more and deeper we go into our own healing and trust and relationship with Hashem in a very genuine way, the more we ask ourselves, what is my shlichus at this moment? What is my mission at this moment? Don't get entangled in other people's craziness. No, yeah, I'm not bashing. I'm I'm just very It's very painful. Yeah. Yeah. So ask yourself one question. What does God want from you in this moment? What is your mission? And do it from a place of inner serenity and joy and confidence. Thank you. fate of your daughter and you has nothing to do with those people. They're just pawns. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Okay, so the next question is going to be from a woman who just wrote in. She said the opening words of Rabbi YY really struck a chord. It was very, very special for her to hear. Um She says it really hit the spot. I look the part, I walk the part, and I look like I'm just doing the right thing. Inside, I am completely destroyed. I suffer from severe anxiety and depression. My neighbors and my friends cannot tell and see. I even managed to clean my home for Pesach a little bit and even get some Yom Tov clothing for my children. But needless to say, I cannot I cannot even think of getting through the three-day Yom Tov, which was not mentioned here yet. She says, "How do I get through the next this Yom Tov when it's three whole entire days?" She says, "Every day I find myself having to run into my bedroom just taking some me time about 10 times a day. How could I do that when I'm host when I'm surrounded by guests, by people hosting me, being hosted, meals, children? How do I get through the a three-day Yom Tov?" Wow. Your health your health must come first. Your emotional health must come first. What that means on a practical level is do whatever you can to make things as easy as possible. That may mean I'm just giving a few examples cuz I don't know the details. Maybe some food has to be bought ready. Maybe you can hire somebody to help in the house. Maybe there could even be a waiter. Maybe one meal where you're going to somebody else, you can take off and stay home. Maybe some of the guests have to be rescheduled. If you can have an open communication with your husband, I hope they really I don't know their level of their relationship, and really talk about your anxiety and how difficult it is. The first priority you have is to yourself and to your loved ones. If Mommy is a wreck and a mess and Pesach is just a cursed day filled with anxiety, what's the point? I'm entertaining a bunch of guests and I'm falling apart so that my kids won't have a mother, my husband won't have a wife, I won't have me, and God won't have the most important person he wants a relationship with, which is you, happy, blissful, and alive. So, don't feel guilty when you're taking the time to take care of yourself, you're creating the base hamikdash for the Shekinah to dwell in you. Hashem dwells in a body that is open, that is regulated, that is serene. And that's your priority. That's your zman cheiruteinu. Sometimes Mitzrayim could look very, very holy. I'll have more guests and more guests. I'll stress out my kids more. Everybody will become slaves. It looks holy, but it's not. Everybody is miserable. So, I would make a plan in your mind. What would make it work? What would make it work? Maybe You're right. Maybe you have to You're right. Maybe you need time in your room. Maybe you need a lot of time in your room. Whatever. All these ideas that I said and I'm sure there's other ideas, but just keep it simple. And all the expectations of what a Pesach meal looks like, sometimes we have to throw out the window. Maybe a Pesach meal like in the olden days can be very, very simple. And if they don't like it, they can go to the store before Pesach and you can buy Somebody can buy more things. So, I think your first priority, we sometimes, especially mothers, think they have to work like crazy to make everything perfect, to make everybody happy. The children don't like children don't like when mommy is unhappy. I would say the greatest gift you can give your loved ones this Pesach is to spare you yourself from extra anxiety and to spare them from a mother that is falling apart inside. That's the greatest greatest gift you can give to them. The greatest gift. Maybe in you need a little more sleep. Maybe in the morning wake up early, breathe a little bit, meditate, take a walk, take an extra nap. Whatever it is, but take make sure to nurture yourself and don't live up to other people's expectations. Ask yourself mah Hashem shael may'imakh. What God wants from you and it's different from what he wants from other people. Can you do that? How does a person suffering from such severe anxiety and depression, cuz I'm wondering if what she was connect to Hashem in three in those days. How does she stay connected to Hashem? How do you stay connected to Hashem? I I was just Let me just Thomas said the word three. I got a question that came in here which dovetails ties into this. Is obviously it's a three-day Yom Tov. There's Shabbos, there's matzah, there's chametz, there's all these tremendous mitzvahs. We're not asking the person asking me wasn't asking me on shabbos or Yom Tov. It's just like what what's what's their priority on a three-day Yom Tov. You mentioned three days too, that's what made me ask the question now instead of waiting. I would say our priority three-days Yom Tov in any three days is to remain connected to our own selves. I know this is not going to sound like what maybe people are expecting to hear. That's the biggest mitzvah. The biggest mitzvah is to leave Egypt. Do you know what that looks like? It means bringing it back to yourself, connecting to your life force and energy. Learning how to regulate yourself. Learning how to believe in yourself. Learning how to trust your energy. Learning that Hashem, more than anything else, wants to live inside of you. He wants you to be an embodiment of infinite light and love. The only way I can do that is when I can identify my coping mechanisms, my anxiety, and I could come back home to my own life force and energy. Ask yourself, what is it that helps you connect most to your own individual life force and energy? That's your biggest mitzvah. From that space, eat matzah, drink wine, enjoy the meals, pray, study, ask the Manishtana, sing Chad Gadya, and knock yourself out with good wine. And most importantly, from that space, vehi she'amda l'avotenu speak to your children. The biblical mitzvah of the Seder night, by the way, eating maror is rabbinic. Drinking four cups of wine is rabbinic. Reclining is rabbinic. Saying the whole Haggadah is rabbinic. The one biblical mitzvah is to eat a kazayis, the olive size of the olive volume of matzah, which is like the third of a matzah, and to speak and connect to your children. That's the mitzvah. Whatever it takes for you to really connect to your children, that's your mitzvah. And you know how do you connect to your children? When you connect to yourself. When you're present. at all to connecting to our inner child? I think connect to your inner child, but also connect to your inner adult. Connect to your inner child, but also connect to your inner adult, because it's our life force and energy. That's what we have. I have my life force and energy, you have yours. I don't have anything else. I have my traumas, I have my blockages. But all of our bliss happens when we align ourselves with our life force and energy, which is Hashem's life force that he's shining through me. He's shining through Yisroel Yitzchok Jacobson, he's shining through Yochanan Polter, he's shining through Tova, he's shining through Leah, he's shining through every one of the wonderful souls and bodies that are present here with us or watching us or will watch us. And listen, it's your life force and energy. That's your sacred mitzvah. And it's not only on the three days of Pesach, it's every day of the year, but specially Pesach is all about that. It's identifying my coping mechanisms, which is called Egypt, Mitzrayim. Mitzrayim comes from the word metzar, which means you're confined, distressful, anxious moments where I'm in a bubble and I'm locked up like this. I'm literally like a chick stuck in the egg. And on Pesach we crack the egg and we want to be born. And in that sense, I want to be able to be born. What does it mean to be born? I want to trust my energy. I want to trust the divine energy that's flowing through me. Anything you can do throughout these three days to bring you to that place, do it. Right? I know I'm just going to talk in my own life. Right? For me, learning Chassidus, specially Chabad Chassidus, it opens up my soul. It opens up for me. I have sometimes difficult times, I get stressed, I get overwhelmed. I'll take a safer, a book called Likutei Torah by the Alter Rebbe, the Baal HaTanya. I'll open it up. I'll read the discourse and I'll tune into it, I'll lean into it. I I I I have a privilege that I understand his words and I connect to them very deeply. And then like after 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes, I'll start crying from what he's sharing cuz it's touches me. And then I could look at myself and say, "Welcome home." Why why? Welcome home, Yisroel Yitzchok. Welcome home. I feel that I'm home. And then I I just know who I am. Like all the distractions, it's not who I am. Everybody sometimes it's hard to find, but that's what we want to search for. You know, when we're searching for chametz, we want to search for all those things that block our life force and energy. And it's always that inflated ego, you know, ego is easing God out. It's all those expectations of who I'm supposed to be, of who I think I am. It's the validation I need from you and you and you. And tell me I'm good and tell me I'm this and tell me I'm that. And I need my wife to compliment me and my It's all this fake ego, fake news, which doesn't allow us to realize who we are. So, whatever the mechanism is, some people need to take a walk, some people need exercise, some people need to read a good book, some people need to sleep, some people need to breathe, some people need to meditate, daven, learn, connect to people. Whatever it is that you need in your life, that you know will help you come back to your own life force and energy, that is your mitzvah. And then from there you'll have a much more beautiful seder. You'll be able to sit down and if the wine spills, okay. Who says the wine is not supposed to spill? You know, people have these expectations of this this perfect seder. I once met somebody, I told this to my family, they were all laughing. And this person said, "You know what my dream is? You know, people have a bucket list? You know what this person's dream was? Their dream was the person said to me, 'I want to come to your seder, Rabbi Why? I want to come to your Pesach seder. Your Pesach seder must be the most beautiful, perfect seder in the world. Probably all your children are sitting around the table and listening to your brilliant words of Torah inspiring them. It must be a seder that goes on for hours. Wow, I want to be at your seder.' I started to laugh. I started to laugh how people live in these dreams of expectations, what your seder is like, what your seder is like, what it's supposed to look like. You know what your seder is supposed to look like? Exactly what it looks like. Like, the greatest gift is the God of the world, just connect with your children. Have fun. Be present. Maybe you need a little wine. I I um good luck to you. Girls, girls, women, I'm going to say something that's heretical. I'm going to say as follows, try it and have fun and enjoy life. Do I get an applause for that or not? Thank you. We have a live question, but Andrea, before we go there, I just want to say two things. So, first of all, there was a comment that was made. I don't think it's a question from London. I just want to give space for it and just read it. It was written to the public. It said, "I had a very difficult Pesach last year. My parents really mistreated me. All my siblings took my side. I came out stronger, wiser. I was able to forgive and move on to see out the fire. I just have lots of triggers as I go along. All the preparation of Pesach and the closer we get to Pesach, the more tense it feels. Although I'm stronger, I'm just confused and difficult and confusing and it's difficult and a lot of embarrassing by siblings. I was so vulnerable. I just wanted to give space. I don't think there was a question there other than just to share somebody Thank you for sharing that. Yes. Um Andrea, before we go to live question, I want to go come up with one more question and then we'll go to Andrea who has live question. Um I'm single. I don't live at home, but I live nearby. I have to see you tomorrow extremely difficult for me. Being home is extremely triggering to me on Sunday and not because of anything happening now I have to go call the home, but because of past experiences on Sunday. Going to other people's is worse because I feel trapped being stuck in someone else's house for so long. So, I'm home for the all the time, but it's unbearable because of the triggers and the feelings that come up and no distractions like my phone. Every time I try to go somewhere else, it's worse than being at home and I feel choked and trapped. What does she want from me? Maybe you need to go away for a few months. Maybe you need to Is this Is this a matter I didn't get the details. Is this a single No, she's single single single single single girl. She's single, so maybe maybe you maybe you need to speak to people that are close to you. Maybe you can go away for a few months. Maybe you can go to a relative. Maybe you can go to a seminary. Maybe you can get a job somewhere. Maybe you can go to Israel. Maybe somewhere else. Take care of yourself. Honor yourself. And if it's so toxic, generally a lot of people when they're home, their worst part comes out. And we need breathing space. We need breathing space, and it's fine. Maybe for 6 months go go somewhere else. Maybe move into a relative. Maybe a grandparent. Maybe go to a completely different town or a different city. Don't be afraid of taking that risk and becoming a woman. It may help you tremendously. I mean, another option is that you find somebody who can help you work out the triggers in the home. You know, maybe I don't know if your parents are open to it. Maybe you can see somebody with your parents. Maybe your parents and you could go see somebody who's an expert. Maybe like a good therapist who's an expert. Or maybe another person who's an arbitrator. Maybe somebody can give you guidance of how to deal with the triggers in the house. That may be a wonderful idea. I mean, these are just different ideas, but I would speak to somebody you trust. You know, maybe a relative or a therapist or somebody in your community or outside of your community. And really get advice. Like, what are the options? Because you could work through the triggers in the house or you could just go away for a little bit and see how that is. And both I think could make a lot of sense. Thank you. Andrea, you want to go ahead and unmute yourself, and then you can ask your question live. I I told I told there's a there's an old question, why do we celebrate the Exodus from 3,337 years later? You know, a lot of water came under the bridge since. So, one of the most beautiful explanations in in in in in Hasidus in Hasidism is that the leave the departure of Egypt opened up a new way of thinking. It opened up a vista of redemptive consciousness. Forever. Forever. Whenever you have a thought that I'm not a slave anymore. I wasn't born to be a slave. That's all a result of Itziyas Mitzrayim. Itziyas Mitzrayim created a new consciousness. It's the whisper that we can all feel deep down in our heart and it was prompted each of you to go to healing. It's the whisper that whispers to you very, very quietly, "I was born to be free." That is Itziyas Mitzrayim in your life today. If you can have that thought once during the three days, I say, give yourself a standing ovation. That means you lived through Itziyas Mitzrayim. Lived through Itziyas Mitzrayim doesn't mean you get to crazy because the matzah, whatever, broke or the maror fell or the charoset wasn't made or there's no z'roa. Do you know when I was a little kid, it was Erev Pesach. My mother still makes fun of the story and I was starving. You know, Erev Pesach everybody's starving. I was starving and I go to the kitchen and what do I see? I see this whole pot with gargalach, with z'roas. What do they call chicken What's the z'roa in English? Uh What is it called? The z'roa the chicken neck. Isn't it the neck? Chicken neck, yeah. So, there was this whole pot and it looked like delicious. So, I took it and I ate it. It was Erev Pesach. I ate them all. I ate them all up cuz I was starving and there's very little meat on each one. And then it comes to the seder and my mother made a lot of z'roas, you know, for everybody and she's looking around and there's no z'roa whatsoever and she's like, "What happened?" And I'm like, "Oh my, did I really I ate I ate the whole pot." I ate the whole pot of z'roas. So, what happened? Everybody had a good laugh and we did Pesach without the z'roa. And you know what happened? We all survived. Can you imagine? We all survived. We all survived. Everybody realized it was a child's mistake. Like we get so overwhelmed with stuff. And I'm telling you, enjoy the moment. If you can have one thought in the three days I was born to be free. I wasn't born to have anxiety and to be a trauma victim. That is yetzias Mitzrayim. Give yourself a standing ovation for that. And you did it. You did it. I have a feeling that the moment we get to know what Pesach really is, we're all going to start laughing. And we're going to see that we created a fake Pesach. What does Donald Trump say? Fake news. Now, I don't mean chas v'shalom to minimize and mock and be cynical of all the chumras and all the work and all the hidurim and the cleaning and the scrubbing and the matzah and the wine and the hagaddah and the Torah. I'm part of it. I grew up in the culture. I grew up in the tradition. I know. I know. I know. I know. I know it's beautiful and amazing and this. But I want to tell you something very sincere. Judaism has reached a space that so many people are miserable. The moment you're going to look into your soul and experience what Pesach is, we're all going to have a good laugh. We're going to like, "OMG. We like missed the whole point." The whole point of Pesach is to look into the eyes of the person you love, co-regulate each other with your serene heartbeats, and say, "Thank you for being in my life and helping me set myself free." That's it. That's what it is. And then you take this matzah and you look at it and you're like, "Wow. With all the abuse of 3,337 years, our matzah's still here." And you eat it. And then you take a little bitter herbs and you say, "And now we're going to pay tribute to all the grief and all the pain." And you sweeten it with a little crisis and you eat it and then you make a sandwich between your redemption and your grief and you eat that, too. And that's that's the experience. That's the energy. And if some of the details are not working, okay, so they're not. So what? Like everybody thinks God is freaking out together with all of us. I promise you he's not freaking out. He likes people who are enjoying life. That's where he hangs out. He doesn't hang out in the crazies He hangs out in the chilled out zone. Andrea, you want to go ahead and unmute yourself? Sure. Hi Rabbi YY. It's such a pleasure to be live with you. It's like Okay. Um How does a person know or what does it feel like to trust yourself? Because I have been duped so many times thinking that I was trusting myself to the point that I don't know what I can trust anymore. Yeah, wow. So I would look at that. I would look every time you were duped looked Look at what happened in that trust. There was a voice in you that was telling you to trust it, but that wasn't your voice. That's a very very good very very good arrow. That's a very good reference point. That's a very good lesson. I want you to feel the energy of that trust that you felt. And you will probably know, you'll tell me if I'm wrong when you really trust your true self, your kedusha energy, your holy energy it fills your body with bliss. When you're trusting a voice that hijacks you, there's always an urgency, a stress. It's like convincing yourself. That's probably what was happening. You were forcing yourself to trust yourself. You never force yourself to trust yourself. If you're forcing yourself to trust yourself, you're not trusting yourself. There's a hijacker who's forcing you. When you're trusting yourself, it's very calm. Mhm. It fills your body with calmness that's unmistakable. You open your heart. There's always surrender there, and there's a lightness and a bliss that fills you. Is it something like finds me versus me finding it? Yeah. Like it comes to me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you're chasing it, it's not that. If you're like, I need clarity right now. Oh, this is what I am. No, no, no, no, no. It's not that. And then And then you're not ready for it. It's fine. Sometimes we need advice. What do you do when you're in that in like Bain Hashmashos' place? Like you're not You don't trust, but you like So exactly what you do exactly what you exactly what you do Bain Hashmashos. You don't treat it You treat it as Friday and as Shabbos. You don't make decisions Bain Hashmashos. Bain Hashmashos, you don't make decisions. You don't do work. You don't do work, but it's Bain Hashma- it's it's it's Yeah, you you respect Bain Hashmashos. Bain Hashmashos, you wait. Bain Hashmashos, you make an ice coffee, sit down on the couch, breathe, and enjoy. It'll come to you when it has to come. Mhm. Whenever it tells you, rush rush into make a decision. Right now, I have to know in 5 minutes. I have to know in 5 I remember I was once in shul. I was looking for a house. I needed a house for my family. I was living in a small rental. And there was a real estate guy, and I remember he came over to me, and he said, "I have an amazing house for you, an amazing house for you." At that point, I think it was I don't know. I think 360 460,000, which then which which today is very cheap, but then it was very expensive. And and I'm like, "Okay. Is it ready? Does it need renovation?" Yeah, it needs renovation. I'm like, "Okay, I'm going to go home. Let me talk to my wife. I want to see it." He says, "Oh, no, no, no, no. You have to give me an answer within the next few minutes and then you get it for 360 and if not you lose it. And there was a part of me saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 360. You got a house, yeah." And then I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa." It's not how you buy a house. It's not how you buy a house, okay? Whatever his hashem was, it's not how you buy a house. Whenever the message is, "Make a right and make a decision or not you lose it. Make a decision with it." These are hijackers, you understand? It's always from a place where there's your heart opens up. It's there's a trust. You cannot mistake the energy of serenity that fills your body. There's no mistaking it. Mhm. You know when you know. I hope so. You know when you know and you feel when you feel and this is a big part of healing. As trauma victims, we are taught to be disassociated from our bodies, disassociated from our emotions, disassociated from our energy and it's normal. As we heal more and more, we become embodied, you know? How do I know that I'm sitting now on a chair? You could convince me that you're sitting on this chair, right? But I know that I'm sitting on the chair because I feel it, cuz my body is on the chair. I know it. Nobody will convince me otherwise. That's what feeling your energy looks like. And by the way, that's what it also means to experience hashem. What does experiencing hashem mean? What does that mean? It's not something that we know with our brain, but our body gets filled with a certain presence of bliss and an infinite clarity and there's no ego there. There's no ego. I don't have to convince anybody. I don't have to prove anything to anybody. I don't need validation from anybody. I don't even need feedback from anybody. It's a very, very internal wholesome space. It's like a settled feeling, very settled. Very settled and the heart opens is a lot of love. There's trust, there's faith, there's surrender, there is there is joy, there's calmness, there's serenity. And and by the way, these are gifts. Like it would be nice to have this 24/7. It's not it's it's a gift. It's called a moment of coherence. It's a gift. But we can open ourselves up more and more to this gift and then it's a gift it's like a gift that comes. Mhm. We can receive it. Yeah. The more work we do, we build capacity to be able to receive it and experience. It's a very deep space. I can't copy anybody. I can't teach this anybody with words. It's a very internal, intimate, deep space. It's what makes your you you and me me. And you know who knows you know who knows first when you're when you're in this space? Your children. They right away know it. You'll see they all calm down. Wow. All the kids calm down. The moment they see this, they calm down. Okay. They feel it right away. And when you educate from this space, when you educate from this space, you could say five words and they remember it for the rest of their life. When I don't educate from this space, I could speak for 9 hours and they forget it 1 minute later. You get it? Okay. You're smart. Smart woman. Tova, did you have a Rabbi YY? We have two more questions and then we're going to wind down. Tova, did you have a question I think? Yeah, there's a direct question. Nobody asked the biggest question. Manishtana Halaila Hazeh? You ever heard that question? Go ahead. You'll you'll finish with that Rabbi YY. You'll give us a new new interpretation of that. You know, before um Rosh Hashanah you did with us uh a meditation with Hashamnu Bagadnu, our inner child meditation. So I think this is writing on that. Um this woman was not here then cuz she was not a fresh out of alumni at the time yet, but she just writes, "I'm finding myself so busy with all the Pesach prep that I'm beginning to feel disassociated. What can I do to stay with my inner child instead of getting so distracted during Pesach prep?" I missed the first words of the question. I heard the end, "What can I do to stay focused and not distracted?" But what was the first opening words? I'm finding myself so busy with all the Pesach preparation I see. that I'm beginning to feel completely disassociated. Right. What can I do to stay with my inner child? Right. Beautiful, beautiful question. So, on a practical level, since I don't know exactly your schedule and your responsibilities, I I don't want to be granular and specific cuz I feel it would be disrespectful. But more on a general level, what I would say is try to carve out during your day and night spaces that are dedicated for your own neshama. That may mean if you can go to sleep a half an hour earlier and wake up a half an hour earlier and take a walk, pray, learn, meditate, breathe, lean into yourself. Do whatever it takes to carve out space for that and then go to your tasks. And then maybe in the middle of the day, you need to take off for lunch break or dinner break or an hour or half an hour or 45 minutes. And all the responsibilities nothing will fall apart even if we think we're behind. When you can really connect to Hashem, remember everything that happens in this life, every moment is a gift. We don't own anything. I'm talking now. I don't own my words. I didn't make my mouth. I don't own my brain. I didn't form the 70 trillion cells that make me. Even the oxygen I'm breathing, nothing belongs to me. It's all the creator. You know, I told my wife today, I thought it was a good a good insight that popped into my head. I said, "You know, if people would realize that there are billions and billions and billions of things that have to happen every moment for them to be alive, and Hashem takes care of everything. What we do is we zoom in on three things that we think we could control and we become obsessed about them. Like right now, there are billions and billions of things in everybody's life that we don't know about. Your digestive system and your circulatory system and your respiratory system and your urinary system and your circulatory system. Billions and billions of things that are happening that I know nothing. God runs everything, but without them, nobody would be alive. And then there's three things I decide I have to do, I become a control freak, and I'm obsessed. So, every few hours, we need to stop and pause and breathe and realize Hashem runs this world. We are like a fetus in the womb. He wants us to show up with our presence, do the best we can with the tools we have, and that's it. And the anxiety about how things are going to work out, like we have such little control about everything that it's not even intellectually, it doesn't even make sense. So, what I would say is carve out space in each and every single day to become aligned with your deepest spiritual, emotional, psychological truth, which is really ain't I malvande. And we're just channels of light. And we show up to the best of our ability. Now, I'm going to cook. Now, I'm going to buy a suit for my son. Now, I'm going to buy a shaitel for myself. Can we do that? It's expensive these days. Now, I'm going to do this. Now, I'm going to take care of the bedroom. Whatever it is. And I'm going to show up. And if something doesn't work out, okay, God. Thank you for allowing me to breathe. And maybe it's time to relax and take another walk. Let's not get entangled and obsessed with our granular day-to-day moment-to-moment activities without forgetting that right now at this moment, if for a second there was no oxygen available to me, everything would be kaput. So, Hashem is running everything. My job, your job is to be a channel for what I could be a channel for right now. Do it with grace. Do it with calmness. Do it without an ego. And mainly do it without obsessiveness. And we all need reminders. Sometimes maybe you need to take off a little bit. Listen to a sheer. Watch something that inspires you. Read something that speaks to you. Sit with yourself. A good piece of chocolate always helps. At least for the women. I'm not allowed to have chocolate cuz it kills me. But a good piece of chocolate. Nurture yourself a little bit. Iced coffee may be a very good idea. Whatever it is. Pilates, stretching. Stretching is very good, by the way. I was giving a sheer early this morning. We were learning a mymer about Pesach. And somebody says to me, "What do I do when I'm not in the mood?" And I don't know, God just threw it into my head. Like usually I'll give him this emotional answer. And I said, "You need to do exercise. You're not doing any exercise." I don't know why I said I said, "You just need to do exercise and you'll be in the mood." And he's like, "You know what? You're right. Every day I do exercise, I'm in a very good mood." I'm like, "So, stop talking to me about your issues with not being in the mood. Just go do exercise every day." You know, sometimes we neglect our bodies. We neglect our our our our basic needs. Everybody needs to take care of themselves. That's what God wants. Okay, thank you. We're going to end with this question. I'm going to try and combine I'm going to take the risk Rabbi YY combining two questions here in one. But I I I believe that they are coming from the same place. So one question was is I want to feel the fire of my soul. How do I feel it? The next question was I was reading Birkot Hashachar and it says Elokai Neshama She'natata Bi then I realized who is holding the Neshama that you gave me. Who's me? Is it the Nefesh? Who is this me? second question? And the other question was how do I feel how do I light the fire in my soul? How do I feel it? Oh, okay. It's very good that you combined the two questions and the answer is when we say Elokai Neshama She'natata Bi Bi is actually the body and the animal consciousness which gives life to the body. That's the soul that's in the blood and is responsible for all of the biological functions. It's called Nefesh Habahamit or Nefesh Hachiyunit, the biological soul. That is Bi and the reason it's called Bi is because that's me. Intuitively who who am I? I am a body and I have a consciousness in my body. I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I'm tired, I'm exhausted, I'm overwhelmed, I'm hot, I'm cold, I'm anxious, whatever it is. And Elokai Neshama this soul which is a piece of you Nasata you put in you gave it Bi inside of me. It lives in my animal soul. It lives in my body and Tehora it's always pure. And this exactly this is exactly what we need to help ignite the fire of the soul. The only way you're going to access your soul is through your body and your animal consciousness. If you neglect everybody listen to this. If you neglect your body and your animal consciousness, you don't have access to your divine soul cuz the neshama should not stop to be tired. And that's why it's so important to nurture your body and to nurture your animal soul so that it could be a vessel and a base hamikdash where the sh'china dwells. The sh'china dwells in the temple. The temple is the body and the animal soul. And the more we can open up our body and our animal consciousness to the divine consciousness, the more we could feel our godliness. And what does that mean practically? It means number one, you have to respect your body and keep it healthy and nurtured. And number two, your animal soul needs to be respected and regulated. If my animal soul is anxious and overwhelmed and freaking out, I go into my amygdala and my survival mechanisms and I can't tune into my higher consciousness. Only when your animal soul is given the regulation and safety it needs, attachment, then the animal soul can go to the prefrontal cortex. It can open up. And then your divine soul can coregulate your animal soul. And the animal soul says, "Wow, that feels so good. That is so gishmackt. Experience Hashem's oneness is the greatest feeling in the world. Thank you, divine soul." And the divine soul and animal soul hug each other and the body looks and smiles. And that's what Yitziyas Mitzrayim looks like every single day. When your divine soul coregulates your animal soul and the body fills up with bliss and says, "Wow, that is pretty awesome." So, that Rabbi YY, any final brochos as we wind down and we go into Pesach. I mean, you gave a lot of guidance, a dracha, practical, spiritual, emotional. My my love and blessings to each and every one of you profoundly for the courage of leaving, of trying to leave mitzrayim every day. And heaven knows it's not easy. We have Parai. We have the Egyptians, and we have Jews who say stay in Egypt, stay in Egypt. Familiar, familiar, familiar. Stay in my addiction, stay in my trauma, stay in my stick sickness, stay in my emotional paralysis, stay in my triggers. It's a familiar place. I've been here for 52 years. I know what it looks like. I survived till now. I was successful. Let's continue. I salute and give a profound standing ovation, especially emotionally, to all those of you who every single day wake up and say, "I want to leave mitzrayim today. I am not going to go into my coping mechanisms. I am not going to get stuck in my survival skills. I am not going to live in emotional paralysis and numbness and abandonment. I'm not going to be overwhelmed every trigger and go down that rabbit hole and become detached for another week because of my anxious attachment, or become aggressive, or experience fight or flight or freeze or fawn. And even when I do, I can watch it and observe it and say, 'I'm going to choose yetzias mitzrayim.' And I want to bless all of you that as we prepare for Pesach, we should remember that the experience of Pesach does not look dramatic. The real experience of Pesach is a moment of internal, energetic recognition of how beautiful, how gorgeous, how holy, how divine, how perfect you are. The moment you even have that energetic experience, that's the moment that God just took you out of mitzrayim. And say, "Wow, thank you." And I bless you that we should to able to have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven such moments, then you're good. You're out of Mitzrayim. Amazing. Thank you, Rabbi YY, for gracing us tonight, for giving us this feeling. Thank you for that feeling. Thank you for that feeling. Thank you for that feeling. Thank you for that feeling. l'Shana Haba'ah b'Yerushalayim. And we're just going to next year, Rabbi YY, we could still do this in Yerushalayim, right? It's not a state. Amen. Amen. Amen. Yeah. Okay, fine. Okay, we're looking forward. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Have a wonderful Pesach. And we'll talk soon. Thank you so much, everybody. Bye-bye.