Self-Reflection and TESHUVAH | Pre-Yom Kippur class

so the big news in uh the world today is that apparently uh Bibi Netanyahu met with Elon Musk and they were discussing artificial intelligence the future of artificial intelligence and I was discussing this with a friend of mine today A friend of mine who is a schlier in the holy land and he's originally from Israel he's an Israeli and he taught me a word that I didn't know Avi knows this word you know how to say artificial intelligence in Hebrew very good which means manufactured or artificial or made up intelligence but it's very interesting to me that they chose to use the word BINA which is a kabbalistic term and a Hasidic term and it has very specific meaning in spiritual teachings of Judaism Bina is specifically elaborative thought Bina is related to the word which means to build like when you take an idea and you build on it that's why Bina is like associative thought when we do meditation discursive meditation in the Hasidic meditative practices it's called his or Hita bonanut has that same root word which means to take one idea and to build on it you know like a stream of Consciousness free association you take one idea let's say you take the idea like uh the Infinity of of God and then you take that idea and you think about it and it leads you from one thought to another thought that's why Bina is generally described as hameven one who understands or discerns that's probably a better translation one thing from another thing in other words there are people who know what you tell them and then there are people who can figure out they can extrapolate more than what you told them and that's that's the capacity for Creative elaborative expansive thought so it's interesting I don't know if they did this on purpose when they made up the term but artificial intelligence is really good at BINA it really is because you can feed it one word or one phrase and it can put together a whole string of semi sensical associations and just flow I mean like the the the the AI is very good at uh stringing together words or sentences that sound like they have what to do with each other and it sounds very authoritative until you ask it about something that you have knowledge and if I ask it about something that I have no expertise in it fools me it definitely it's uh very good at that it would be very good at cocktail parties but if you're asking about something you actually know about you see it's really good at Flowing but sometimes just for the sake of the flow it'll throw in something that's not even not even factually true okay so which is fine because that's the information and Bina is how you build it how you put it together and so it's a really good term actually which is artificial elaborative thought and it's really good at elaborative thought what's interesting to me is the one thing that AI cannot do and this is the big discussion will it ever be able to do is what self-awareness can it become conscious of its own existence so some Say by definition it will never be able to do it others say it surely can't yet but watch out when it happens but the point is that artificial BINA is the Bina for everything but itself and why am I thinking about this right now because tonight's topic forgot exactly how we wrote it up but what was it the self-reflection what do we call it what was the official title that went out called itself reflection the art of self-reflection yeah so the art of self-reflection is really applying one's Bina one's capacity for elaborative Thought creative extrapolating thought to your own self-concept in other words we all have a certain limited self-image by definition we have limited Minds so we know only what we know um and have a full picture of ourselves you have to use your being a in other words Bina fills things in Bina fleshes things out so I take what I know and I build on that and I can build a fuller picture so a self-concept would be I take whatever data that I have and with Bina I could I could fill it in and create a more accurate a more full self-concept and and that's what self-reflection really is so it's interesting that that's what artificial intelligence cannot do even though it's incredibly good with being a with everything else but that's what we have to do and specifically now during a series during the 10 days of return the days between Rosh Hashanah where we just crowned Hashem as our King and Yom Kippur which is the day of cleansing atonement so this is really the time when we have to do teshovah which means to return to our Essence and how you're supposed to return to your essence if you don't know what your essence is so self-reflection is super important and having a clear picture of yourself is going to be of the essence at this time of year so that's what I want to talk about I want to talk about how do we get a clear picture of ourselves I also want to explain a little bit more why getting a clear picture of yourself is essential to teshovah to return or reinstatement and going back to the source um so I'll I guess I'll start with a story can't go wrong with this story the story is like this and it's the kind of story that I like to tell you know what kind of stories I like to tell okay some of you haven't been here before some of you have okay simcha's smiling he knows I like to tell stories that um are not exciting not dramatic and have a very ambiguous ending where you're not even sure I finished that is correct and this one's great because there's no action if it's like on My Dinner with Andre just dialogue that's extra points in my book So Stories like this went to the rebe marash that was the fourth foreign and uh he told him about his spiritual issues whatever it was he was struggling with said to him this is in labavich in the town of that said to him that his prescription to fix his spiritual issues is 600 fasts so the guy was kind of taken aback I don't know if he was used to fasting and certainly he never really contemplated something like 600 fasts and his reaction showed that he was a little bit taken aback said to him what do you think fasting means not eating that's called dieting fasting doesn't mean not eating fasting means every day you think about yourself for 15 minutes that's the story that's the whole story the guy comes in with spiritual problems says to him what he got to do 600 fasts oh what do you think fasting is not eating that's called dieting fasting means every day think about yourself for 15 minutes that's what he told me to do that's what the guy did and since we don't know the rest of the story presumably it worked out the first time you want to grow spiritually you have to have an accurate picture of yourself and it's going to take time you're going to have to think about yourself for a sustained period of time and it's going to take repetition you're going to have to do that more than one time do it hundreds of times do it regularly make it part of your regimen think about yourself who are you who are you how are you supposed to be the best you that you could be if you have no concept of Who You Are or who you could be and it's funny because you would think maybe in that story that ever Matt Ash would have told him first of all it's a curveball that he told him fasting doesn't mean literally not eating but even if you say it means 15 minutes of meditation a day it's interesting why not tell in 15 minutes to think about God you open up every Hasidic book it's about meditation after meditation and the greatness of God but that's not what he told him he told him 15 minutes a day think about yourself what's up with that why why think about yourself and why was that the remedy why was that the cure to all of his issues I saw a little like short video recently from uh somebody who I only became aware of very recently but I find him very inspiring is a guy some of you may know him others may not named David Goggins you heard of him okay well when you Google them tonight then the algorithm will know that you like him and then he'll be all over your YouTube and social media I'll just read to you the first paragraph from his Wikipedia this is one of the papers that I brought up with me David Goggins born February 17 1975 so he's younger than me so I was born in 74. is an American retired United States Navy SEAL ultra marathon runner ultra distance cyclist triathlete public speaker and author of two memoirs who was inducted into the International Sports Hall of Fame for his achievements in sport and there's some other things here like he holds the Guinness world record for most pull-ups in one day figure out how many was like 20 000 some ridiculous number pull-ups in a day and he says David Goggins he's an interesting guy you watch videos of him he's got a very colorful way of speaking he swears like a sailor which is a good thing that he's a Navy SEAL because I guess he actually is a sailor but he's like a real rough guy he doesn't doesn't mince words so anyways I saw this interview with him and the interviewer asked him I mean he's a fascinating guy because like I said he holds the world's record and pull-ups and he's an ultra distance Runner that's that's you know marathon is 26 whatever Point miles um he ran like 100 miles he ran a relay race and he was the only member of his team so like really crazy stuff but what's inspiring about him is that until his 20s he was it was overweight he weighed 300 pounds he was working as an exterminator he was spraying for for cockroaches and people's uh apartments that was his job every night he he hated his job so every night he would go and buy a milkshake and a dozen donuts and that was that was his only pleasure in life and that's uh you know that's how he could have lived the rest of his life but he had this wake-up call and he decided that he's not going to waste his life and he came from a very difficult background he had an abusive father and his father gave him a terrible self-image and they faced all types of challenges at any rate so somebody so he's an interesting guy I find him very interesting so the interviewer says to David Goggins what's your greatest fear because he's so Fearless like he does crazy stuff he was running on a broken foot he ran like in the middle of a marathon he broke his foot and just kept running on it he's a Fearless guy so the interviewer says to Dave Goggins what's your greatest fear so he thinks for half a second he says my greatest fear he says you believe in God he says I don't care actually it doesn't matter if you believe in God just imagine I die and I go up before God he says imagine he says imagine I die I'm 75 years old I'm a 300 pound exterminator spraying for cockroaches and I go up and I'm standing in line and I'm waiting for my turn in front of God and I tell him my name I say I'm David Goggins and God pulls my file and he looks it up and he says David Goggins Navy SEAL ultra marathon runner World pull-up record motivational speaker best-selling author and I say to him you got the wrong guy 300 pound exterminator sprays for cockroaches that's not me and God says to me no it's not you it's who you could have been David Gaga says that's my greatest fear that I would get up before God and find out who I was supposed to be now I heard that story and of course all truths uh what do they say that uh only lies are original but truths are all plagiarized so it's an old story I don't think he heard the old stories I think he just was saying his feelings from his heart but it's an old story and it depends if you're see this or let's fish which old story you want to quote I'll quote the siddish one because that's one I knew first but they say that when absolutions was one of the tal media Magid one of the students of the great Magid he was a great Sadiq and he lived a life of complete Holiness Purity and on his death but he was crying and his students were standing around him they said why are you crying he said I'm afraid of judgment why are you afraid of judgment I mean you lived a perfect life so holy so pure and if you're afraid of judgment it doesn't bode very well for the rest of us her says to his uh historians he says my dear children do not think that I'm afraid that I will get up there and the Heavenly Court will review my life and say to me zusha why weren't you like avram avinu like Abraham our patriarch do not think I'm afraid I'll get out there they'll review my life and they'll say the music why won't you like my no like like I teach her Moses I'm terrified I'll get up there they'll review my life and they'll say the musician why weren't you like zusha so if you live for the story you probably know is about the native similar story a little bit different details but the same punch line so then the the native was the Village yeah ten thousand Town meet them 10 000 students and he wrote svadam rabbinic treatises books scholarly works that are still studied to this day incredible genius and leader so uh on one particular occasion then it's if I just published one of his works and he made a a celebration with the other abundant with the other rabbinic leaders and he spoke and he said I want to share with everybody a personal story he says when I was a kid I was not a good student I did not apply myself and I was 11 years old and I came home from hey there where I was not a good student and instead of walking through the door I actually stood out on the porch for a moment and I heard my mother and father speaking and they were speaking about me and my father said to my mother you know naftali he's not so much of a learner and he needs to he needs he's going to need to have some type of a skill if he's gonna make a living I'm really thinking after his bar mitzvah we should pull him out of Yeshiva and we should get him an apprenticeship I know a Shoemaker that'll let him work in the Shoemaker shop and if totally will learn uh shoemaking so the native says I overheard that and uh he said it lit a fire under me and from that day on I took myself more seriously and I became a more devoted student and you see what became of me in the end so he says you know imagine imagine if I hadn't been standing there on the other side of that door imagine if that conversation would have taken place but I didn't know about it and I'm the day of my bar mitzvah my my parents would have said to me Mazel Tov and now it's time to move on from Yeshiva now it's time you're going to go Apprentice by Shoemaker and I would never have known that this was a discussion I would have never known what the Alternatives were I would just be taken to the Shoemaker and he says and I want to tell you something I believe I would have been a darn good Shoemaker I would have been a good Shoemaker and uh I would have lived a life and after I grew uh gray and old I would pass away and I would come up to the Heavenly Court and they would say naphtali show us your wares show us your accomplishments and I would proudly produce my best pair of shoes which I had cobbled and I would say here here they are and they would say to me but where are all of your Sodom your rabbinic scholarly books where are your ten thousand students of the Yeshiva and I would say you got the wrong guy I'm just a Shoemaker and they would say naftali you are a Shoemaker but you are supposed to be the native the idea I'm trying to bring across as I as I said earlier how we supposed to do to shovah how are we supposed to mend thy ways how are we supposed to improve if we don't have an inkling of who we are and who we're supposed to be in fact let me let me state it a little bit more pointedly everybody can figure out that certain things they're doing are wrong and they should stop doing those things okay and you could do tishova presumably for those things that you know you're doing that you shouldn't be doing you can stop doing things that are wrong but how in the world does a person do to Shiva for the good things they're not doing that they don't even know they're not doing because they never dreamed that they were capable of them how do you do Toshiba for a thing like that so if you don't know who you really are if you don't have a picture of who you really are you can't even do tishova to show that means return return to what your true self how do you return to your true self without some semblance without some inkling of a picture of your true self when I when I say true self I mean the soul and you're gonna say well who has a picture of a soul foreign so I wanna talk to you about how to get a snapshot of your soul so that you can really begin living up to who you are you know when arunakai Aaron the high priest May should have been his brother Moses his brother when he passed away in the 40th year of the Jewish people wandering in the wilderness it says that everyone was crying over him the man and the women doesn't say that about Moses it says it about Aaron so the commentary is primarily Rashi explained based on a mid-rashic teaching that Aaron was particularly popular because like it says imperialvis he was I of shalom he loved peace he pursued peace he loved people who had no redeeming qualities other than the fact that they were created by God he would bring them close to to hashem's Torah and we know actually his methodology how he used to do that um and Moses had his own path Moses was the one who received the Torah and and Faithfully transmitted it he was the lawgiver the teacher that was his path he had a different of either he had a different way of serving but Aaron's way was he was a diplomat he used to make peace and specifically the method that he used to use was when two people were fighting two brothers to business partners to neighbors husband and a wife whatever I might be he would go to one of them and say you know the other one is really ashamed and he wants to apologize but he can't look you in the eye and then he would go to the other party and he would say the same thing and somehow remarkably he never got caught it always worked and everyone would make peace and maybe by the time they figured out what had happened they didn't care anymore because they had made peace and they were enjoying being at peace and that's why everybody cried the men and the women whole families cried because so many of them owed their Shalom bias the peace in their home to Aaron because he was The Peacemaker now Moses couldn't do that because Maisha was Maisha was about truth so sometimes truth is a little bit blunt and he couldn't massage things to broker a deal right Aaron was about love so sometimes he would say things a little bit more euphemistically he'd clean things up in order to sell the deal so the lab speaks about this and he asks a question at the end of the day what are we really saying we're saying that the popularity of our coin was that he had the ability or willingness to twist the truth which may should have been it was brother Moses did not possess that's his great praise that to put it bluntly he was a good liar for a good reason for a good cause but he was a good liar so the devil is not very happy with that explanation so the number says like this that's not what happened I mean what happened is what happened but you have to look more deeply into the mechanics of what was actually happening yeah Aaron would go to one party and say the other guy wants to make up with you and he would do the reverse this guy wants to make up with you but you have to analyze it on a deeper level how did that work you see Aaron had a unique capacity because he loved you he loved you to see the real you which means your soul he saw you in the Shama and your neshama is not fighting with anyone your ego is fighting with people your ego feels threatened your ego is living with a scarcity mentality your ego Wants Revenge to settle the score to retaliate your ego holds a grudge your Soul's at one with all your brothers and sisters and it just wants to be in loving peaceful Unity with everyone so Aaron would see you fighting and he would know that's not the real you that's not the real you and he would look more deeply and he would see your soul and he would see how you're at peace with the person you're fighting with and he would go to the person you're fighting with and he would report that truth that deeper truth he would say he really wants to make up with you because it's true deep down you did want to make up with the guy you're fighting with your ego doesn't want but the ego's not the real you the soul is the real you and the Soul wants peace and then he would go and he would say the same thing to the other guy he wants to make up with you and what does he mean he the real him his soul so the way that it worked was that Aaron was capable of not being fooled by your lower self even when you were acting on your lower lower self and engaging your lower self by fighting with others but Aaron would look through it he'd look past it and see the real you and he would believe in that more than the behaviors that you were communicating and he would report that truth and it would bring it out until it became the external reality as well until your behaviors your outer self became aligned with your inner true self and that that ABBA says is why people especially mourn the passing of Aaron not because he was popular because he made peace yeah that too but the real reason they mourned him is because when he passed away they were afraid not only they had lost a great man who they loved and respected and admired they were afraid they had lost access to their true selves because who will ever see the real me again I could never fool Aaron Aaron was always able to see through my shtick and and perceive the godliness that's always there and if I don't have Aaron in my life How will I see me how I how will I see my true self so the devil says this is the function of Aaron and of the aaron-like figure in every generation the Sadiq who teaches us how to love each other and how to love ourselves by seeing the truth about ourselves and others that we are souls so we need a clear self-image we need a clear snapshot of the Soul where are we supposed to get a thing like that you have to go to Aaron you have to go to a spiritual Giant who knows how to see Souls I mentioned earlier that I shall tell you another story maybe the two stories are related used to spend a lot of time with simple juice people who are not Scholars who didn't particularly outwardly possess any special qualities and there was this one hasid his name was and he was uh he was a diamond Merchant and he was also a scholar and a refined individual and once in a private audience with the with she let his curiosity sort of be revealed and he he said something that normally a casa doesn't say to Arab but he he questioned he said why does the devil spend so much time with people who don't appear so impressive so so the never said to Ramona he said you're a diamond Merchant he says yeah he says you have any diamonds on you he says I happen to him yes he says your mind showing me sure so he puts out some diamonds on the table says tell me about them he says well this one's a particularly fine one and this one has this quality and now no this one is very rare says you know I just don't see it to me they're all I mean they're nice but they're just all diamonds I don't really see what's special about any of that so ammonia says to appreciate what's special about a diamond you have to be a maven a maven it's related to the word we were talking about earlier Maven is from that word BINA to understand to discern to know more than just the information that's presented to you to understand how to make connections associations this piece of information leads to another piece of information they have a full picture so he said rabbit you have to be a maven to really appreciate a diamond if you'd be amazing then you'll know what a uh what a good diamond is ah to appreciate a Jew you have to be a maven in other words was telling this this hasid you're coming to me and asking me what do I see what qualities do I see in these people you don't see what I see maybe you're not capable of seeing it maybe you don't have that level of BINA is a maven and specifically I'm even in what in Jews the tadiq knows how to see what special and Precious and Beautiful about each one of us you know the story about the hello rabbi from the University of Manitoba you brought a group of college kids to the other and one of them I'm saying to the television the seventh on seven seven in seven seven Eastern Parkway they came to uh in Crown Heights and uh one of the kids you know college kids they can be uh a little bit uh impolite so one of them said to the rabbit what's it ever good for anyway and the rabbi who brought them was mortified he said he wanted to dig a hole and jump in the in the ground but uh it never took it very much in in stride and he said well I can't talk about myself but I can tell you about my rabbit my father-in-law I can tell you my father-in-law was a soul geologist and that's what ebb is a soul geologist so you ask what's a sociologist well what's a geologist geologists primarily who do they work for mining companies because there's a great amount of wealth natural resources in the ground but it's not everywhere you got to know what you're digging for and where to dig for that you hire a geologist and they tell you there's the diamonds there's the sapphire there's the rubies dig this deep dig over there dig here so that's a geologist that ever said every one of us possesses Treasures but they're not always exposed in fact we might not even know they exist for that you got to go to a soul geologist a soul geologist sees what's hidden he sees the treasure Within and he tells you what you're digging for and where to dig that's a debit there's a letter that ABBA wrote during assess you may Chiva tough shin gimmel so the last months of 1942. the letter was written to the Yeshiva in Montreal it was addressed to the tamim Yeshiva that was started in the town of Lubavitch it's called and the students are called to mimim that's plural to mimim singular is tomim and tomim literally means a complete or an intact person tamim is the plural of that so what does it mean to be complete or intact or whole and the dev is writing them remember it's a sister that's the days of return and he's writing to them about the theme of tashova about the theme of return and they are tamim they're members of the Shiva whose students are called to me and then I was describing what it means to return to Hashem as a tummy to become whole to become intact so the devil says you know there are 613 Mitzvahs which correspond to 248 Limbs and 365 sinews and in order to be a complete person we have to connect to all of those Mitzvahs 248 positive 365 negative and if God forbid a person fails to do what he should do or he does do what he shouldn't do then he lacks that part of himself and he becomes God forbid defective like he's missing a piece of himself and Toshiba is the state of becoming whole again of becoming tomim again so how do you become Tommy so the devil says the good news is the gumada tells us in Yama great is penitence a return it brings healing to the world so even if you're missing a part of you you didn't do a Mitzvah or you God forbid you transgress to Prohibition but you can get healed and then you become intact again then the devil says but here's the thing there's a there's a discussion actually in the in sublace which talks about marriage contracts matrimony it says what if a man betroths a woman that I was writing to Yeshiva bakram so he's writing in terms that they relate to he's talking about the about the talmudic discussions that they're studying so he says there's a scenario the gamada the talmud says a man betrothes a woman on a condition that she is healthy that she has no illness but in fact she is ill at the time of the patrol though however later she goes and she gets healed by a doctor what is the ruling she is not betrothed because although she is now healed at the time of the betrothal she was not yet healed that's the first case the second case juxtaposed to that case and the good morning says um there's a man who betroles a woman and conditioned that she has no vows binding upon her meaning she never took on any vows that would obligate her but she did have in fact vows however afterwards she went to a hachem means a wise man and there's a procedure known as Hatteras nidarum where the the wise man is able to be Mater nether to release the vow in that case she is retroactively betrothed because although a doctor only heals from the present and onward when a hachem releases or annuls a vow it's a fact is retroactively and it is is it is as if the vow never existed so even though the betrothal took place in the past it's fine The Vow is also uprooted from the past and it's an effective betrothal so the rabbit says this corresponds to two levels of Toshiba and they're both great they're both teshuva but there's one level that's higher than the other one level is like rafua it's like going to a Rife or going to a doctor and that's indeed what the gamara says brings healing but that only works from now on in other words what you did in the past is still a sin it still caused damage to yourself to the universe but it's been expunged meaning as far as reward and Punishment you're not going to get punished for it clean slate move on yeah you have a clean slate but the damage was still done you know you you you crash your parents car they can decide to forgive you they can even decide that uh they're not going to mention it to you ever again they can get over it but you still you see the car crash the car every time you go in the garage you see you see the Dank can't change the past the past is the past the damage is done so that's one level of teshovah that's the regular level of Toshiba but then there's a higher level of teshuva and that is when you go to the and the khochem is and that works evenly Freya even retroactively that it's as if it never existed that is what the talmud describes as the level of teshovah return whereas dynast NASA Lake where past sins become like merits not just that the past sins are expunged no they become converted and transformed to positivity now how is that possible the altarev explains it in Tanya in chapter 7. he explains it psychologically rather simply he says that there's a kind of a tashova that the the gemara calls Ava teshuva that's done out of love where it's not that I stopped sinning because I'm afraid of punishment or because I want to get a reward but I stopped doing what I was doing because of my love for Hashem and how I cherish the relationship and I Rue anything that would disrupt the relationship not about me it's not about reward and Punishment it's not about my reputation it's not about the the records that they're keeping up it's just even if there would be no consequence in fact at the first level of Trulia there are no more consequences because everything got expunged but it still hurts me to know that there was this damage in the past and I wish I could make it go away so that is called Tosh the Shiva that comes out of love and the altareba says that in that case it's the person's estrangement from God that Spurs them on to a higher level a more intense level of desire for God now he just he Compares it metaphorically to a person in a desert that a glass of water never tasted like it tastes until you're in a parched desert and there you have a glass of water it's a whole new world so when a person is estranged from God's godliness and then he yearns to reinstate the relationship that closeness or the desire for that closeness is far more intense than the regular desire that we have for our relationship with Hashem and it leads to a greater vigilance and meticulousness and care like a person who knows what's at stake he knows what there is to lose because he's lost it and he's never going to lose it again so it leads to a higher level of sensitivity ironically that his sin actually after the fact brings him to a higher level of sensitivity not that you're allowed to go out and do that by the way because anyone who says I'll sin and then repent it's not going to work out so well for you so you're not allowed to purposely sin so that you can you know fight in order to kiss and make up but the reality is if it happens then yeah the truvana Ava transforms the past sins into merits that Reba says is what happens when you go to the and he's my to another when you go to the wise man and he knows the vow he takes the thing from the past and changes it he transforms it not like the doctor who can heal the illness from now on but he actually takes the thing that was hanging on you that was heavy and he and he turns it into he turns into a treasure so the devil says and this is that I have a writing like I said I said the year you heard what it said gimmel last few months of 1942. so this is when the rabbit was working in the Secretariat of his father-in-law and the rabbit tells them this is what happens when you connect to my father-in-law my father-in-law is the sadik the wise man and when you have a relationship with him he facilitates the higher level of teshuva the tashuva out of love where past sins not only become expunged but they become transformed they become your spiritual assets and how is that possible why is that what are the mechanics of that tell me tell me what's how is a relationship with azadic or a Hokum conducive to or tantamount to a level of return that changes my negative past into assets but don't you get it it's one of the same concept is the one who sees the real me like Aaron would see the real me like like when the ravamarash said for a Jew you have to be a maven you have to know what you're looking at but Sadiq knows what he's looking at in fact the eyes of the congregation they know how to see things so you check in with the Sadiq and that Sadiq gives you or lends you his eyes for a moment so that you can have your his concept of you installed at least for a moment at least for a fleeting Glimpse becomes installed as your self-concept and when you see yourself for even a moment the way the tadiq sees you then you see the godliness in you and you love the godliness in you you love God you love yourself you return out of love and then the past has transformed so we all need it could happen it could happen you could luck out you could luck out and maybe you'll have a wake-up call and you'll start taking yourself more seriously maybe if you're lucky but I don't know how to promise to produce that or if you would like to reliably have the higher level of teshovah to Shiva out of love toshua that's based on proper self-love healthy self-esteem where you love your godliness you love the purity of of your true core self your soul for that you need to check in with somebody who knows how to see that in you so the doctor he says what are your symptoms oh I have a medicine for that I'll clear that up gives you his eyes he gives you a snapshot of your Truth for a second and then everything becomes completely new even retroactively your past laughs okay so there's a story that I told a lot of times recently but I'm going to tell it again and the story is that uh there was a 14 year old kid on a small island in the current in the Caribbean in the Netherlands and pillies in the small Jewish community the island is called Curacao and actually it's historically significant because the oldest still in New synagogue in the western hemisphere is in Curacao it was built it's called the Mikvah Israel Emmanuel synagogue was built by Dutch svardum in the 1600s but other than history it didn't have much of a robust Jewish population from what I understand most of the people who even davened would go to synagogue Shabbos morning and then go to work so it wasn't a particularly thriving Jewish community um and the Jews pretty much just would send their kids to the the only options for school there which were non-jewish options and they were mostly left alone it was understood to not bother the kids during prayer time they were religious schools but uh during prayer times the Jewish kids were basically allowed to not participate and then one day there was this new principle and for whatever reason he just got obsessed with the idea he's going to make the Jewish kids to toe the line and they have to do everything like everybody else and uh there was this one Jewish kid who he wasn't going to do it so the principle started harassing him and even sort of orchestrating this concerted effort for the other kids to bully him and it became unlivable the the 14 year old kid couldn't live with it so when you blame him he just stopped going to school and one day his father gets a call why is you kidnapped coming to school he says it's not true my kid does go to school every day I drop him off you drop them off while he doesn't come into school because he hasn't been here in two weeks so the father went to pick the kid up from school he says how was school today the kid said it was great he says you haven't been in school in two weeks I know it so the kid says what do you want from me this principle is crazy he's harassing me he's getting other kids to bully me and they're anti-semites I I can't I can't give in to it so the father says okay you're not going to go to school then you got to come to work with me he said it as a bluff the kid called this Bluff he said okay I'm coming to work so now the father had to do it so the kid starts working 14 year old kid 14 year olds are not supposed to be working so the authorities were upset about this then the Jewish Community got upset because it's like you're making pressure for us you're making us look bad just go along just don't make trouble right unfortunately the Jewish attitude in Exile very much is like you know go with the flow um so now they're getting pressure from the non-jewish authorities getting pressure from the Jewish community and I want to tell you something as a father I can tell you this when we go through our own troubles that's one thing but when your child is going through troubles you can't live you can't live when your child is suffering it's just it's unbearable and the father of this 14 year old boy he was beside himself understandably and he didn't know what to do he had no he he had no idea how he's going to resolve this situation he goes to sleep very distraught and he has a dream and in the dream he sees himself as a little kid as a toddler and he's sitting in the lap of his grandmother who's already in Illinois who already passed on to the world of Truth Bobby Bala and Bobby Bailey speaking to him in Russian and she's saying to him to the father my love if you're ever in trouble ask the lab to help you this dream was the first time that he had heard of the lab he wakes up he's not sure what to do with this dream he goes to the synagogue he asks the custodian open up the ark for me they open the ark he opens the ark he he you know this is what Bobby Baylor said to do in the dream he just did it he said help me now let me cut to another story we'll get back to this story now we're in Brooklyn very far away from Curacao we're on Crown Street to be exact and the phone rings three in the morning and uh Maisha kotlarski may he be well answers the phone and on the other end is Chief secretary and he asks remember did you wash your hands yet which was code that the Deb is on the line on the other extension so he washed his hands and he said yes says the Reba wants you to travel right now to curse out no questions asked that's it okay we're going to curse out uh and this is before Expedia before orbits you don't just go online and make a ticket you had to call the travel agent who lived in Queens to drive to his office in Manhattan print out tickets remember the old days with print out tickets carbon copies carbon paper and they sent the tickets by Courier to 770. so he went into the the hall where the Yeshiva students were studying he grabbed the Baja he grabbed the lady krinsky who's now a schlier in New Hampshire and the two of them set out to Curacao not knowing anything other than the fact that Emma said go now to Curacao and then I was calling three in the morning or having his chief secretary call three in the morning you don't wait here you go so they went now they get to the island they're not sure what they're looking for so Robert kolowski asks the cab driver take me to the synagogue now I mentioned to you earlier Curacao has a historical synagogue it's called mcphail Israel manual synagogue and I told you it was built in the 1600s and every cab driver on that island knows about that synagogue and we'll take you there if you say bring me to the synagogue that is the synagogue every cab driver on the island knows that except for the one who picked up rabbit cutlarski he took him to some I have no idea how he even knew it was there some small little neighborhood Stiebel like a little neighborhood show and they're walking in and a man is walking out Andover kalowski says to this man who's walking off in the shore we were sent here from the lab and the man nearly can cannot cannot stand any longer he says then you were sent here for me and they say oh great then tell us what it is if you were sent for you then what is it you need help with he said my son my 14 year old son he doesn't have a school to go to he doesn't want to be bullied for being Jewish so then they knew why they were sent very clear okay that didn't take very long to clear up so they met with the boy and here you see the the the wisdom that ABBA said to bring the Yeshiva student because at first the 14 year old didn't know if you should trust this old Rabbi by the old rabbit in the story was in his 30s but he he hit it off at first with the younger kid with the with the Yeshiva bachar and then when he got his trust then he started talking to the older Rabbi and then he liked it because when he asked the older about are you allowed to defend yourself because he thought Jews were not even allowed to defend themselves and uh the older women said to him for sure you can Define yourself and in fact if they come to mess with you you hit them so hard they never come back to you oh you're cool you like that so they said then listen why do you have to be here this is this is not a life for you you want to come to a Jewish camp and they signed him up for a Jewish Camp to Ghana cell and in Parksville Upstate New York and then they started him in Yeshiva inar in in Crown Heights and uh that was the story and the father obviously was was so grateful so grateful like I said when you're going through your own sawdust that's one thing when you're going through your child's taught us that's incomparable but also the flip side of that is when you know your child has been taken care of when you know your child's in a good place you know how grateful you feel you can imagine the grateful father and his his you can't describe the feelings of a grateful father and with that feeling he he wrote a letter to the rabbit of thanks and he's and he said thank you for remembering a small Jew from a small island called Curacao and he sent the letter in and uh he got an answer from the rabba the answer was uh uh in English remember would generally answer people in the language that they wrote him in and I just want to read to you part of the the answer Mr Jaime yes of Graceman PO Box 2073 breeder Strat 74 Curacao Netherlands Antilles greeting and blessing I was pleased to receive your regards to our esteemed mutual friends I must however take exception now that's scary is taking exception with something that you wrote that's very scary to be on the end of the lab is criticism I must however take exception to your referring to yourself as quote a small Jew from Curacao there is surely no need to emphasize to you at length that every Jew man or woman has enough shall a kiss that means Godly Soul which is a quote part of God above as explained in the Tanya beginning of chapter 2 thus there is no such thing as a small Jew and a Jew must never underestimate his or her tremendous underlying the word tremendous potential so here's this father full of gratitude thank you you saved my son you remembered a small Jew from a small island called Curacao and the devil won't let it slide no I will not allow you to call yourself small you are not small you are a Jew and you are infinite because you have a Godly soul and you don't know the limits of your potential you are way way bigger than you think don't you ever call yourself small I always loved this story and the latter that of his response and I never met I'm yes of Graceman but when he passed away I wrote a sermon about this story and I I sent it out in hundreds of shlochum all over the world told that story that Shabbos the Shabbos of his Shiva that was uh I don't know seven years ago I think so I love this story for a long time and then it took on very personal relevance to me because uh three months ago Thomas to uh of to LOL three months yeah three months ago my son Israel got engaged to malkey Graceman or malcol Baylor malcol Baylor is the granddaughter of Jaime Joseph Griezmann her name Bayla is actually she's named after Bobby Baylor the grandmother who appeared in the dream and she's the daughter of the 14 year old boy in the story who's actually my makuten who's sitting back there and since he hasn't interrupted yet I must be telling the story correctly and I find out I come to find out that 40 years ago when the rabbit woke up my shakalaski in the middle of the night to do a miracle that it wasn't just something for me to be inspired by it was something something for me to be grateful for too to my child so I told this story gimmel Thomas we had a fabrang in here come out of the five towns in the big tent out and back and they just gotten engaged so gimmel Thomas is that his yard side I I thought what greater tribute could there be to the rabbit than to try to explain to people who did that is through this story and and I told the story the whole story just like I just told you and I said the rabbit did a miracle for me 40 years ago and I didn't even know it until until now but the point of the story the point of the miracle is that when the debit does a miracle that we have to internalize the message and the message is you are worthy of my Miracle because you are infinite you are way too important for me to overlook you think you're small you're not small you're not a small Jew there's no such thing as a small Jew you are massive and of course I turn over worlds for you because you are the world and that's the message the message is the way the Le Mama looks at each and every one of us as having unlimited potential and will not let us get away with understanding ourselves he will not allow us to call ourselves small and therefore yeah if that has to do America he'll do a miracle but the main point is not the miracle the main point is the message don't forget how incredible you are and that you have tremendous underline the word tremendous potential and so I said foreign towns I said therefore when you realize how much the rabbit believes in you it is only proper and fitting to stand up and act that great act like the big Jew that insists that you are and therefore if you think that something's Beyond you and you can't do it I got news for you you can and you tell me whose opinion of you is more correct so that was the the punch line and I finished speaking and I walked to their little platform I walked down from the platform and I see sitting 10 feet away from me my then future daughter-in-law malki and I walked over to her and I said malki I want you to know that our family is incredibly grateful for the Miracles that it took to get you here I mean think about that whole crazy story that I was waking up Mike three in the morning go go save this family and one shutters to think but it's a miracle it's a it's a living miracle and I said we're so grateful we're so grateful and malki told me and I've asked her since if I'm allowed to share this publicly and she gave me permission because I told her in my opinion this is real miracle it's not the dream it's not the three in the Morning phone call to me this is the real Miracle this right here this right here what I'm about to tell you that happened in the tent and back about the five towns on gimmel Thomas on the Revis the art site this year just a couple months ago I said to malki we're so grateful for the Miracles that got you to us and she said I know and I heard what you said that if the rabbit thinks that we're great we have to act great and we have to do things that we thought we couldn't do so she says to me when I was walking into the event tonight came over to me and said malki I need you to be the head counselor for the preschool bunk [Applause] I'll get back to you because she didn't really feel like she had what it takes to do it he said I heard you speak I heard the message and as soon as you finish speaking I turned the Hadas and I said sign me up and that's how she spent the summer of her engagement everyone knows what akala has to do and it's it was only a couple of months of an engagement and everything she had to do to prepare materially and spiritually and she spent it being a counselor of little kids ended up his camp at a Chabad House in Long Island and to me that is the real Miracle of the rabbit that the devil sees in US what we are going to do for others and he sees in us things that we're afraid to do that we can't imagine ourselves doing but he sees that and acts accordingly and all we have to do is just believe him when he says there's no small Jew and then try to act like a little bit and do that thing that you're scared to do whether it's being a counselor in a camp or taking on a Mitzvah that you know you need to take on or it's learning an extra class every week of Torah study or it's learning an extra hour a day or whatever it is whatever level that you're on but you're great you're infinite act like it and if you don't see it yourself know that the Le Bobby should ever sees it in you and in case the terms in which I'm speaking are too ambiguous let me just spell it out in actionable words do yourself a favor meet yourself in the teachings of the devil you can go online and you can learn that have his teachings even if you don't read Hebrew or Yiddish there's plenty of beautiful translations in English you can watch classes online you can go to soulwords.org there are plenty of ways of learning the Reba's teachings and I promise you one thing if you will learn that of his teachings it will totally revolutionize your perception of the Jewish people specifically of yourself it'll change what you think of yourself when you understand what a nashama is and why an hashama was sent to the world and and how unique your nishama is and that no nishama ever had your mission before and never will have again and now what you do is is essential to the Perfection of the universe and that we're waiting for for mashiach we're waiting for Perfection and when we need you to step up and be your greatest version of yourself in order for that to happen there's no mere luxury because if you were supposed to be the native and you ended up being a Shoemaker it's not just you who loses out the world is waiting for you to step into your greatness and if you don't have a clue how great you are so start learning the Deb is Toyota at least on a weekly basis learn a secret on the Parsha whatever it is whatever speaks to you but learn the Bible one thing that revolutionized is to explain in very clear terms how to view ourselves and take ourselves more seriously the second thing I would tell you and it's not second in importance perhaps in certain ways it's even more important and that is and I know there's a camera here and I'm speaking to people uh watching on YouTube in Malaysia but people here in this room tonight are in Cedarhurst and we have the I hell five miles away the resting places should have been five miles away imagine if you lived in the suburbs of Jerusalem and you didn't go to the hotel you didn't go to the Western Wall you just didn't get around to it that'd be a little weird right so here's what I'm telling you we're 20 minutes late at night 15 minutes when there's no traffic from a place where you go there you stand there I can't guarantee you what you will see what you see what you'll see probably a gravestone a marker a monument and you'll see a bunch of papers there people wrote and ripped up and left there that's probably what you'll see I can't guarantee you what you'll see but I can guarantee you that you will be seen you'll be seen with the devil's eyes the way that Emma looks at each and every one of us and we're going to say how's that ever looking at me I'm going to uh to a to a grave site when people walked in front of the rabbit and then I would give dollars in his Advanced age in his late 80s standing for hours you know I'm tired just from the standing we did on Rosh Hashanah from the prayers well they never would stand for hours until every last man woman child who wanted to meet him was able to do so some of those interactions were for a second what was happening in that second you know we we just had our first grandchild a couple of weeks ago yeah we had a lot of simcos it was yeah the day that you saw a monkey finished the Shava brachas so I flew to Cleveland I thought the coast is clear we got enough simchas for a while I went to Cleveland for a high aloe fabrangin and I get texted by my wife the tables having contractions I said she's not doing well you know she's having contractions and I flew home and the next day she gave birth you should know that the baby Esther is home now baby came home right after Rosh Hashanah so I want to tell you something I didn't see baby Esther in real life yet like I uh she was in the hospital well I saw her from like a hallway they had her in the NICU and it kind of like but and now now she's home but I don't want to go over there because like you hear my voice if I have a cold I don't want to be near her so I haven't but I've seen pictures I've seen a lot of pictures I want to tell you something when you see a picture of your grandchild how long does it take you to form an attachment no time at all because the the attachment is already there you know a regular relationship is you say to somebody you know what let's go out for coffee let's talk let's see if we hit it off but when you look at your child you don't say you know grow up learn how to say a few words and let's have a conversation and see if it goes anywhere your child is when you see your child and you say this this is the love of my life I couldn't love you any more than I already do and now I found out firsthand the same thing with a grandchild you have a grandchild that's it I love you completely with all my heart in a fraction of a second boom I lay eyes on my child my grandchild and there's this essential Bond and I suppose that Abbott was that way with every single Jew and then I could look at you for a fraction of a second and be completely bonded now there's no other explanation for something like that other than something metaphysical and otherworldly it was a spiritual thing I mean it wasn't like a normal way of like let's talk let's let's get to know each other it was the tadiq looking at you scanning you seeing your godliness and immediately connecting and Bam that's it and it didn't take any time at all so that wasn't a normal thing even when the devil was in a physical body it was a totally spiritual otherworldly metaphysical thing so how is it so different why should it be different if you go to the web is resting place in fact if anything it's probably happening more powerfully because the web is not hindered by a physical body so what you what you're going to see at the i-11 though but you will be seen and I know it will be I can't tell you the specifics of what the devil will see in you but I one thing I know because it's so predictable because that ever saw this in every single Jew what will be seen in you is far more greatness than you are comfortable admitting what will be seen in you is potential not just beyond what you think you can achieve but potential beyond what you are currently capable of imagining and yet this is what the debit sees and every one of us because the ravensis there's no small Jew so you want to do the tissue of a you want to become the real you you want to be reinstated you want to become your authentic truest self your soul okay maybe you'll luck out maybe something will happen you'll overhear a conversation behind the door and you'll have a wake-up call or you could do something more reliable something you could actually act upon go find out what the sadik thinks of you and go present yourself before the Sonic and start believing in yourself a little a little bit and I promise you that when that starts to happen you're not going to have to change your behaviors one at a time this is not like Western medicine treating symptoms oh you have a headache take this then that cause another side effect take this this is holistic healing this is you go there you're given a completely new perspective on yourself which in turn means a completely new perspective on life itself because once you're changed then everything that you're seeing has now changed your past has changed your greatest spiritual failings have changed they've been now transformed into assets propelling you to closer cleaving to Hashem there are many ways to do tashova there are many many paths and there are many great teachers who will tell you how to affect these various paths but I feel like it would be on a personal level I would be betraying my own potential if I knew this and I and I didn't tell it to you tonight and trust me when I tell you behind the scenes I ask myself whether or not this room is ready for this talk and in the end I decided that if I would not share this with you then that would be a failure on my part to live up to potential that I know about who's to say potential beyond what I'm even able to assess meaning the ripple effect of sharing this information with you and how far that will go because we never know and hashem's master plan how one thing leads to another so that's why I'm sharing this with you get to know yourself form a deeper relationship with the Sadiq try the sadik's perception of Yuan for size see if it feels different see if you start automatically just being a little more sensitive a little bit more courageous a little more present a little more authentic you start making better choices it starts to become easier to do the right thing and if it doesn't work for you you know money back guarantee you can go back to the way that you've been you can go back to your old self but I have a feeling that if you trust me when I'm telling you now and you taste this and you get a glimpse of yourself and you know what that feels like for even a second to do something you are afraid to do something that you were you felt ashamed even thinking that you were capable to do it and you go out and you do that and you don't fail and this could be a material Pursuit it could be a spiritual Pursuit for a Jewish person they're the same thing it's all one thing it's all about serving Hashem and being the greatest version of ourselves we can be but I think that when you go out and you be more true to yourself and and you live up a little bit closer to your greatness once you see that you will never want to turn your back on yourself ever again you won't be able to so I want to wish everybody as the devil would say you should be completely sealed for good for life for all good things for you and for your loved ones and uh stop selling yourself short remember your greatness go out there do something awesome do something great