Seeing your child's SOUL

a uh a schleichman is never an easy event um especially for someone so young has as dina leia 19 years old full of life so beloved and uh so full of love and it's uh it's a difficult event i i want everyone to understand first of all that the family um has in in in in privacy has discussed and shared memories of dina leia and the purpose of tonight's event is a dedication a monument if you will that each of us can take on in our own lives and do this for the for the elevation and in in the merit of of dina leia tonight's talk is entitled aptly the soul of a child we heard mordechai lead the completion of the study of mishnais and and as he mentioned the the word mishnah is the letters of nishamah which means soul and really a slaysham the 30-day memorial event is a time to reflect upon a soul a soul's short time in this world and what it's accomplished and as the wisest of all men said it that those who are living shall take it to heart those of us who are who remain here in this world souls and bodies should hopefully take a lesson um some direction some focus in our own lives um on the occasion of of the the 30-day memorial we're just coming from rosh hashanah yesterday was it was was rosh hashanah second day of rosh hashanah and in the haftarah one of the things that we read about when it's describing hashem's special love for the jewish people is this very poignant metaphor that compares the jewish people to a child the the words are well known havain yakir liafraim in yellow isn't my son ephraim iframe refers to the entire jewish people a precious child isn't he a child of delight and um all of us understand immediately the the metaphor of a child the preciousness of a child the beauty of a child but i want to share with you a thought from from the arakayam the arakaim points out specifically that the reason in this halftorah which we read on rosh hashanah which is the day of judgment when we're being judged by hashem why do we specifically want to invoke the fact that we are like hashem's precious beloved little child not just a ben a ben is a son but a yellet a yelid means a little child a yingalith a little boy why are we like a little child so the erechain says like this generally speaking there's nothing better for social distancing he doesn't use the term social distancing but i'm using the language of today there's nothing better for social distancing meaning more automatically effective than smelling bad person who has a bad smell on him automatically is going to make people stand away and yet a remarkable thing is that children especially little babies they often don't smell so good and yet it never re it never causes a parent to refrain from holding their child from picking up their child from looking at the child and delighting in him or her and thinking how beautiful this child is so the arakaim specifically says why do we want hashem to think of us as a little child because we know that faults that you would not overlook when it comes to an adult you not only overlook but it doesn't even bother you when it comes to a cute little baby i i i think there's something important there for us to consider and it's not just about rosh hashanah it's really about all year round why are babies beloved why are babies precious why is it so easy to uh to find a baby lovable so i was thinking you know parents when their when their child is is is a baby and he's lying there in his crib or her crib they have so much nachos from their child and it's really funny because their child didn't do anything what are you proud of what are you proud of the child didn't do anything yet and yet everybody looks at the baby and they're so proud so where is this coming from what's this about nobody says to their baby lying in their crib hey listen why don't you grow up learn how to talk we'll go out for coffee we'll have some conversations and i'll figure out if you're the kind of person that i like why don't you go accomplish something you know you have something to show for yourself you'll have a cv you know you have a resume and then i'll see if you know if i like you nobody says that to their baby the baby gets a free pass automatically the baby is beloved and not just beloved we are proud of the baby we have knock us from the baby it's a funny thing isn't it but here's the thing there are two types of nachas there's nachas because of what you've done i'm proud of what you've done and then there's a much more essential nachas that's much deeper which is i'm proud of who you are when hashem looks at the jewish people yes there is a certain degree of nachas over what we do when we do mitzvahs but there's a deeper nachas that hashem gets that has nothing to do with mitzvahs has nothing to do with anything that we do it has to do with who we are and this is what is referenced in the verse in fact it's one of the verses the twelfth sukiyam which the rabbi instituted that every child should know and know by heart and be able to teach to their friends that hashem looks at the jewish people and says they are the work of my hands to be proud of he's proud of them just for who they are and that's what we see when we look at a baby we do not put conditions we do not put limitations on our pride of them we don't say maybe grow up accomplish something you know then you know we'll evaluate it and we'll decide whether or not we're proud of you we look at them and we are proud of who they are just because they exist just because they are so tell me when are we right when we look at the baby and we have unconditional pride or when the baby grows up and all of a sudden they have to earn pride they have to earn worthiness they have to prove that they're worthy of validation when are we right when we give them unconditional pride when we're proud of them just because or when we tell them we'll be proud of you when you earn it and if you want to be like hashem and you want to be proud of your child the way hashem is proud of your child then the answer is obvious we were right when they were babies when we put no conditions on our pride and we we we increasingly drifted from that when we started putting conditions on it so when it comes to a baby we get it right i'll tell you when else we get it right unfortunately when else do we look at someone and we say they're perfect they're holy we don't scrutinize them anymore we don't evaluate them we don't compare them to others we just say they're good they're beautiful when do we do that unfortunately after they pass away i'm sure people are familiar with the the saying we have ahrefs but after passing kadeshim holy emmer is what you should say you say that somebody's holy after they passed away okay so why do we say somebody is holy and perfect the way they are when they're a baby or when they just passed away why is that why do these why are those the two times when everyone gets a free pass why are we so liberal at those times and say everyone's perfect and maybe uh you know maybe we're being too soft maybe we're being too gentle you know it's like the participation trophies everyone gets a trophy everyone's a winner right maybe we mean we need to be tough right maybe we should start putting conditions on our love and our pride of babies and of the departed no but nobody thinks that you know why nobody thinks that because the one time or actually the two times in a person's life when everybody has clarity is either when they just got to this world or they just left and why is it why is it that we realize how precious and pure and holy a person is either when they just got to this world or when they just left this world it's very simple because what makes every one of us precious and pure and perfect the neshama the neshama is precious and pure and perfect the soul that you placed within me is pure it's perfect so when the soul just got to this world we can still sort of pick up even regular people like us can still sort of pick up on the fact this otherworldly being has just arrived from other from from another plane of reality we sense the neshama i mean but in a different way when someone's a baby of course we sense the nishama what what there's nothing to get in the way they haven't established themselves as a human being they don't have yet a personality so so of course it's the neshama what do you see about the neshama and also when they pass away when they've left their worldly uh existence behind and then all they have is the nishama so then again everyone becomes pure and holy and precious and perfect why because again now they're just in hashum so the two times that we get it right are the two times when we're seeing people as their neshama either when they just got here when they're babies or they just left when they've passed away the question for us is if we can work on all those days and months and years in between those two points and start seeing each other as precious pure perfect and holy start seeing the neshama in each other after you're no longer a baby anymore and before you've left this world after 120. and you know there's a gemara in the darim it talks about a man made a nether that he's not going to marry a particular woman now when a person makes a nether the only way to get out of it is you have to go be soiled by a hokum that means you have to go ask the sage and the sage has to find what's called a pesach an opening and what's what's the opening he has to find some fact that had you known it at the time you made the the the vow you would never have made that vow so in this particular you know like if a person says uh i'm not going to eat milks anymore and then you come to get absolved of the vow and so the kokomo said well did you know ice cream is milk no i didn't know that if i had known that at the time of the oath i would never have made such an earth okay fine so you're released so this guy made a vow made another he's not gonna marry a certain woman and uh for whatever reason it was it was not uh vowed that he uh there was pressure that he shouldn't keep it anyways long story short he goes to rabbi schmoyle we're going to read about rabbi ishmael in just a week from now on yum kippur when we read about the asari malchus about the ten martyrs abhishem oil was one of the ten martyrs who who was who was brutally tortured and and murdered as a leader of the jewish people he was murdered by the romans we read about his fate in the on yom kippur day so was the particular khochem in this story the particular sage this man came to rabbishmodule he says i made another i'm not going to marry this particular woman so uh abhishma says let me see what i can do to find the the pesach you know to find the the loophole to get you out of it has to be something that if you had known at the time of the of the of the vow you would never have made the vow so he arranged that they should bring this woman to him and uh what did he do what did abhishma do he gave her a makeover can you believe that atana gave a young lady a makeover to make a reality show out of this right he gave her a makeover and he decked her out in jewels and fine clothing and the whole thing and she looked like a million bucks after she was all dressed to the nines they brought her in and rabbi ishmael asked this young man he says young man is this the young woman that you said that you would never marry he took one look at her and he said no not this young woman why would i say something so foolish like that of course i didn't say that that was the passage if i had known she could look like this when she was made over i would never admit right that was the whole point of the of the makeover right so rabbi schmoyle lifted the vow that's not the end of the story and it's not the point of the story the gemada then continues and says at that moment cried he wept he wept to hashem and he said all jewish daughters are beautiful alohas men have lost but poverty mars their beauty this is the lesson this is the lesson for each of us the nashama is a precious beautiful perfect daughter of hashem it comes down to this world and the poverty of this world of being in the summer in a body and in effect obama's and being in gullis and all the distractions of of of ilm haza of this physical world and it takes a toll don't fool yourself that it takes a toll and when you meet this neshama as it is in a body you don't necessarily recognize you don't necessarily see that perfection that's inside you have to be a maven like rabbi ishmael to be able to see that to understand what the potential is there ismail was able to see it he understood i understand this whole story is a parable it's not about makeovers it's about the potential of every single jew when he saw a jew who doesn't look perfect he understood it's only a question of a diamond in the rough it's only a question of revealing what's inside and bringing it out he knew that all that beauty is already there and this is why he cried and he wept and he said rabbenish layla all of the jewish people are beautiful but the poverty of being in this exile and being in this world takes a toll what do you want so what am i saying that each of us should be a rabbi ishmael you should meet a jew and you should see them for their neshama that would be nice i'm but i'm not even saying that maybe that's a level maybe we can't reach that to be able to meet somebody and see them for their soul to see the pure nashama within maybe maybe maybe that's too lofty for us to aspire to but i'll say this we have a pedeglamid base of tanya we have a book called tanya which is our basic guidebook to life chapter 32 which is in hebrew lamed base which is the word lay which means heart the heart of our guidebook in life tells us one thing very clear that at least conceptually at least as an idea we have to devote ourselves to seeing others as their souls can we actually see souls are we at sadik who looks at a jew and sees the spiritual being within okay no maybe not but we know the truth we know the fact that it's there like insidious it talks about hasagas and mohos and your dias amethyst okay so maybe you've never been to the moon but you've seen pictures right unless you're a conspiracy theorist so maybe you can't see in the shama but you know it's there and we have sadikim who told us what's there and we have sadikim who showed us the belief that we have that each one of us has this power within so comes a time to reflect an alibi to take to heart a message a message that will change hopefully our own personal lives and change our homes change our families change our communities by extension hopefully change the world is to start to see the pure precious neshama you know the abdurov used to say that you could find avas isro they called him the aye of israel the after of he used to say you can find ava on every word in the torah so one of the talmudim said what about balak balak is the name of an anti-semitic king it was a jew hater in the word balak you can find ava cistrell the love of jews he says sure bollock's an easy one it's a russia tavis it's an acronym baslamarkov yahafda love your fellow as yourself so they said hold on a second your haftas with a vow not a vase okay kameras with a huff not a koof so only one out of the three letters is actually correct so the after of said when it comes to you can't be so fussy and by the way that is one approach to loving each other is take off your glasses and you blur your vision and you don't see so well and it becomes easier to love each other you know it's like putting a little uh gauze on the on the lens right and then there's another approach and that is the approach almost the opposite actually not to say that if you can't find what to love about a jew don't look so closely stop looking so closely stop scrutinizing no the opposite actually if you can't find what to love about a jew look closer you're not looking close enough what does it mean look closer a little patience a little tolerance take a little time try to appreciate what every single one of us has to offer because hashem does not send superfluous souls to this world every single soul that comes to this world comes here to accomplish a mission that no soul has ever accomplished before and no soul will ever accomplish after and so if you think that there's not something aw inspiring about every jew even a child because if we're talking about a soul what difference does it make a child a grown-up if you don't think there's something to be in awe of about every jew you're not looking close enough now i want to talk a little bit about the trap how we get distracted how we get caught up in um in incidental or side points that cause us not to be able to hone in and see the soul or at least appreciate that a soul is there we know that uh the jewish people we are descended from the 12 tribes and from the 12 tribes there are two matriarchs rochelle and leia now what do we know about rochelle and leia we're told the enemas the eyes of leia were tender or bleary it's an interesting thing thing to say about one of our matriarchs and rojo was beautiful of features and form so a little bit funny first of all when it's talking about leia talking about bleary eyes kind of a thing is that to say second of all it's talking about rock hole and it's saying that she's beautiful i mean i'm sure she was beautiful but that's how we speak about our matriarchs so obviously means spiritually beautiful i mean it means both also it's literal as well but i mean spiritually beautiful she was a beautiful tsardaekis okay then we have another problem then what was leia the bleary eyes doesn't just mean physically it also means something spiritual so what are you telling me spiritually about leia rachel was a perfect ten spiritually and leia was what what was she spiritually so we have to understand first of all literally what does it mean the blurry eyes rashi helps us out right there in the passage he says her eyes were blurry because she was crying all the time why was she crying all the time because everyone used to talk you know you know how people talk okay so they talked back then too so why did everyone used to talk they used to say you know that um lovin has two daughters and his sister rifka has two sons and so therefore they're gonna make a shidduch between them the older son will marry the older dog the older daughter and the younger son will marry the younger daughter so basically leia who is the older will marry asev and uh rahul who is the younger shall mary yankev so her whole life leia grew up hearing she's going to marry asap now she she knew who asaf was he was a wild hunter he's a wild guy she didn't want to marry this wild guy she wanted to marry uh yankee he was very refined very respectable a young scholar and her whole life didn't even give her a chance they said she was going to marry this wild guy so she was always crying and because she cried all the time you know it made her it affected her appearance and she looked sad she looked kind of washed out her eyes were mushy bleary okay what what's the point of all of this for for us torah is not a history book torah is a guidebook so this explains like this that all of us are either rushels or leia's you know like we're all from the 12 tribes well even more basic than that we're all either from rocco or from leia i don't mean genealogically i mean spiritually there are rocco types and there are layer types what's a ruckle type a perfect ten beautiful a form beautiful of appearance those are talking spiritually those are the people they go into the system they go into yeshiva and they are model students and teachers always write comments it is such a pleasure it is so easy to teach your child right those are the people who don't struggle there's nothing wrong with not struggling i mean it's a beautiful thing those are the people that they are the natural success stories and uh just a pleasure to watch them succeed and everything they take to they they do well at and they're likeable and they don't struggle socially and they don't struggle with with they don't struggle scholastically it's beautiful and then there's the leia leia is unconventional a leia type those are the people who struggle those are the people who don't have it easy necessarily in life those are the people who uh don't always fit in you know lonely in a crowded room terminally unique always wanting to be a part of instead feeling apart from sensitive souls and they cry a lot also and especially they cry because people look at them they say you know why can't you be more like your sister rahul you know she fits in so much better and so she cries leia cries a lot because they they tell her because she's unconventional we have a shidduch for you you're gonna marry asaf this wild hunter this crazy guy so they write her off they dismiss her instead of being on the track to accomplish all the great things that her sister russell is right next to her accomplishing they they they put her in the interesting category you know that damning word in our community interesting you are interesting and you can have an interesting life and we've already written an interesting you know we've already made a little box for for the interesting people for you you know that's that's please go there that's that's the layer i want to tell you a story there was uh a young man in eretz israel a yeshiva dropout and um his father was a was a rabbi but he dropped out and he he really dropped out he was he was he used to party hard he would work in the daytime driving a tractor and in the night he would go to the discos and he lived it up he barely slept all day he was working to make money and all night he was you know out having a good time one day he decides you know what there's nothing to this anymore i'm going back to yeshiva and the yeshivas wouldn't take him back he ended up in lud in the chabad yeshiva he was not from khabad he was from a lit fisher family he took a walk around the yeshiva and he says this is my place i'm home so shiva said are you sure you know do you belong here he said trust me don't worry so what did he do he used his skill that he used to have when he was out of yeshiva he applied that to yeshiva when he was out of issue he would work all day and then party all night and barely sleep so when he came to yeshiva what did he do he would go to the regular classes all day and then all night he would study in order to catch up everything he had missed out he barely slept right so he used that same wild uh personality from uh when he was out of yeshiva he used that exactly to to catch up in yeshiva not only did he catch up he started to become a model young yeshiva and eventually he asked if he could go to new york to to see the rabbi so normally the rosh hashema did not like to send bakram to the rabbi because he felt they were too young but this young man he was more mature he had been out in the world already he had experience so it wasn't such a concern so they told him yes you can go to new york you can go to the rabbit so this young man ruvain his name was he went to new york and uh he prepared for his first yuchidus now he had been told that your first with sets you up for life whatever that ever says to you and you you hide this this especially the first thing that ever will say to you that's like your path in life so he was very very um you know focused on this very intent on finding what's going to be the first thing that ever says to him so he wrote a long letter now in the letter he wrote his background about how he had left yeshiva he wrote about you know what had happened and then um but the main part of the letter he wrote about what he was doing in yeshiva now after he'd come back after and he had joined chabad and he was learning qasidis and he wrote that was the bulk of his letter about his spiritual uh growth in yeshiva so um that ever took the letter and the way that ebby used to read letters in this was um it would take the letter and put it like on a pencil and like go like this like like scroll this is kind of card stock here but like scroll the paper over the pencil like that and like scan the pages very quickly and then put one paper aside then take the next paper so that ever read all the papers and after reading the whole report this uh young ruvain he was expecting that ebb is going to speak to him something that's going to set him up in his life for his spiritual path in life something about what he's studying something about all the davening he's doing how he's growing and doing mitzvahs with special meticulous care and after reading the whole report that ebba looks up from the paper and he says to young reuven so you know how to drive a tractor and the young man was beside himself because the tractor to him represented the dark side when he left yeshiva and he ran away from yiddish guide he was driving a tractor so it was repulsive to him and he was heartbroken that here he had worked so hard and now he made it to the and the first thing that eva said to him was so you know how to drive a tractor so he was absolutely heartbroken when he heard this i'll make a long story short he stayed in new york he stayed in 770. he had a very special relationship with the rabbit it's known that when the rabbit and whatever kept hours all night that ever would be in his room all night this was the one bakar who would not leave the study hall until the rabbi's light and that his room would go out he kept it at his hours and he also had a free pass to come into yahidis when he wanted to an amazing story but i'm going to fast forward to the end at one point the young man comes to the rabbit in one of his uh yuchidus in one of his one-on-one audiences and then abba says to him it's time to go back to the tractor what was the track the tractor he was living in haifa haifa is a secular leftist socialist town yiddish driving a tractor that's a working class you know like that's like salt of the earth really you know unrefined and uh here he's studying he wants to be a rabbi he wants to go on and use all of his learning he wants to something holy or or best the best thing is just stay in 770 and stay with the deba for the rest of his life that would have made him very very happy and the rabbit tells him i want you to go back to kaif i want you to go back to the tractor so uh he started crying rabbit tells him either way you have to leave maman of shahi the way because uh if i'm a rabbit then i know where your soul belongs and i'm telling you right now where it belongs and if i don't know where your soul belongs and i'm sending you to the wrong place then i'm not at abba then why would you want to give up your life to stay here with me so at this point either way you slice it you gotta leave and he was heartbroken but he did what the rabbit told him to and he left and reuven doonan went back to haifa and he got his job on the tractor and he wore a hard hat and he carried his lunch in a box every day to work and he worked with gruff guys manual laborers and as paul harvey would say the rest of the story is that in that capacity he was able to bring to yiddish kite tens of thousands of people who would never speak to a rabbi if he had been a rabbi in the conventional sense with a congregation with a pulpit the people he was able to talk to would never even speak a word to him because they would didn't speak to rabbis but he was a regular guy on his tractor with his hard hat he was able to be makative to bring close to yiddish kite tens of thousands of people so the rabbit was able to see here's somebody who had an unconventional path here's somebody that the regular system might not have a place for and the rabbit not only was able to see how this person has an important schliches but that the whole idea of this person being unconventional not fitting in the box not being your standard yeshiva not being the one who went through the the system the normal way his life wasn't the plan a it was the plan b that ever saw that this itself was the greatest potential had the greatest power we have so many layers who have incredible power who can do things in this world to finish the job and to bring meshiach and we need to let them loose onto the world but the problem always with the wit with a leia is we hold them back we try to protect them from themselves we're afraid that they're going to do something outgoing something novel something crazy but the whole reason hashem made them layers and not ruffles is that they should do something unconventional but we try to protect them from themselves we try to make them ruffles we try to put a a square peg in a round hole and cause them all this anxiety and we tell them you know a person like you is going to have to marry an asif but you want to know the secret the secret is leia really should have married an asif not because of the reason people were saying but for a deeper reason not because let the unconventional one the interesting one marry the other interesting one but for a much deeper reason if rojo would have made married asaph she he would have devoured her he would have eaten her alive she wouldn't be able to accomplish anything in that marriage but leia with her unconventional personality maybe call them rough edges even if you will she could have elevated asaph how do we know this because we're told like mother like daughter where does the expression like mother like daughter come from it comes from leia and her daughter dinah leia had a daughter named dina and dina also could have refined asap she could have tamed him and brought meshiach and when there was that fateful showdown between yankev and asov that was the opportunity for that to happen and what happened yankovino protected dina from herself says he put her in a box so that asap wouldn't see her he was afraid of what would happen to her now in the end we know that tragedy befell her anyway anyway a tragedy befell her the whole story of shechem and khamer the story of what happened to her but he tried to protect her from herself by putting her in a box and hiding her away she had the kayak of her mother dina had the kayak of leia and and even more so and she could have refined asap and refining ace of means bringing meshich we all know according to this why yitzhak wanted to give the brachas to yitzca to to to ace of instead of to yankee because if asap could be refined that's meshiach already dina could have brought meshiach with the kayak that she had to refine asaph but she was protected from herself she wasn't allowed to we have in our midst precious layers and dinas and dinos and leia's that have unconventional powers for unconventional times to accomplish unconventional tasks which is what's called for now as we're trying to finish off the last tasks to finish off this galas and bring and bring meshiach already so for our own selfish at least for our own selfish motives if we can't do it out of obvious israel if we can't do it because of a chapter 32 of tanya at least do it because because each one of us has reasons why we're in pain and goalless and let's put an end to the goalless by unleashing the power of the layers and the dinas who have the these unusual skill sets and instead of raining them in and putting them in the box like yankevino did instead of comparing them to rocco who leia is never going to be a rocco and she doesn't need to be a rocco could be a rock we're not putting down rockles by the way we need ruffles rahul is beautiful we need rocco to be rocco but we need dina and leia to be dina and leia i'm so heartened and and inspired and encouraged by what i heard about uh the two programs that are being done in uh in dinalea's uh in in her memory the uh the life program literacy inclusion friendship emotional health that's literally it's called life and it's literally life-giving it's literally life-giving to to to give extra support and and encouragement to those who might be struggling scholastically or socially and not in a way of pitying them looking down at them but in a way of realizing these precious neshamas are assets these are people who are sent to the world with with incredible kayak these are the children that are going to bring mashiach and we have a we have a source we have a merit to just provide them a little bit of support a little bit of support so that they can do this in the world and do what they were sent here for also what we what we heard about that dina's happy place is going to be set up in binay skomish what what an amazing concept what an amazing concept that within the school instead of so many children who go to school and feel inhibited they feel crushed they feel like school is a place where they cannot find a safe place to provide within the walls of the school a happy place and i want to say something those of us who have a rabbit who sees the neshama in each and every jew arabic sees the precious perfect neshama in each and every one of us and not just when we're babies and not just when we just passed away and left the world our rabbis sees the beauty the perfection the potential in every single one of us those of us who have such a rabbit and those of us who have a guidebook for life called latanya with a chapter 32 a pedoglave that teaches us to look at the soul we have to be at the forefront of inclusion of supporting every type of child the forefront i'm going to say this explicitly and clearly those who have the labacher as our guide in life those who have seen this chabad as our as our guidebook in life we should not ever be second fiddle we should be at the forefront we have the tools we have the wisdom we have the light we have the knowledge we know how to see and bring out the beauty and the perfection in every single different kind of child we should be cutting edge and leading this and the world should be learning from us and the same way the world learned from us in the world of slichest where we showed in the world of slick it's what it means to to love and to cherish every single jew we should lead the world in an educational system to show what it means to love and cherish every precious jewish child as a neshama so if each one of us can take on one thing one thing those of us who are parents those of us who are educators those of us who are students one thing toward this cause and to do this in in in the merit of dina leia and to finish her job and all of our jobs collectively to bring mashiach already to this world and bring healing to all of us