Rabbi explains what it's like to be NEURODIVERGENT

a spiritual introduction to the topic of neurodiversity. Neurodiversity as a as a spiritual concept. And I want to insert here my standard disclaimer that I'm not speaking about neurodiversity from any perspective other than the spiritual perspective because that is the only perspective that I'm remotely qualified to speak from. I am a rabbi. I am not trained professionally at least, I'm not trained in any other field. I'm not accredited or qualified in any other field. I'm not a mental health professional. I'm not a neurologist, an MD, or a psychologist, or anything even remotely similar to that. So, I'm purely speaking from a spiritual perspective. And uh hopefully it will it will help people. Okay. When we speak about neurodiversity, you can't have a concept of neurodiversity without the concept of something which we would call neurotypical. Right? Because neurodiversity is a term that only exists relative relative to and in comparison or contrast with whatever is deemed to be neurotypical. And that's an interesting concept because in Torah, it's not so simple to say that there is something that is considered to be neurotypical. I mean, there is and there isn't. Which is uh quintessentially Jewish, right? Two Jews, three opinions. Which is also a type of neurodiversity, right? They say the Jews are like everyone else, only more so. So, the fact that we have so many different ways of looking at every subject, including neurodiversity, is itself a little neurodiversity. So, from one perspective, there's really nothing that is neurotypical because we're told our sages tell us that ain day say um shall bene Adam shaves. That no two minds are the same. Ac- actually, the the words of our sages are Kshem she partzufim, just like their faces are not identical, right? Even identical twins are a little bit different looking. Uh so, too, their minds are not the same. And that's why the blessing, the bracha that you make, if you're ever in the presence of 600,000 Jews, which is the number of the Exodus, of the Jews leaving Egypt, it's considered a massive crowd. The bracha that we make is a chacham harazim. Blessed is God who knows secrets. Why do we say God knows secrets? Because our sages tell us that only God could be able to see into the different unique minds of each one of these 600,000 people because each one of these 600,000 people surely has a unique mind. No two of them have the same perspective. So, in in that sense, there's really nothing that is neurotypical because everyone has a completely unique mind. On the other hand, um on the other hand, there is such a thing as normative um perspective. I'll give you a silly example in Halacha. If somebody says, "I want to eat a raw potato." Well, you know, you don't eat potatoes raw. "Well, I do. And therefore, I'm going to make a blessing on it, the blessing that you make on when you eat a vegetable, borei pri ha'adamah." So, the expression that Halacha uses is botel da'ato. His opinion, not just his his opinion, his way of thinking, not just his opinion, but his way of thinking, is uh is dismissed. Meaning, we tell him, "You can You can eat a raw potato if you want, but it's not considered the normal way. It's not the derech of eating a potato. So, even though you do it, it doesn't change the Halacha for you." Okay, it's a silly example, but it brings home the point that on one hand, Torah says everybody thinks differently. On the other hand, there is such a thing as normative or conventional thinking. And if you don't look at it that way, okay, you're not sinning. It's nothing defective. It's nothing wrong. But please understand that you're outside of the norm. Okay. Fine. So, what do we do with all of that information? Like, now what? There's a a well-known story that occurred in the dollar line when uh a family came to uh visit the Rebbe to get to receive a dollar and a blessing from the Rebbe. And actually, the the father, the patriarch of this family, is a famous person. So, I don't think there's any issue of anonymity here. It's also a famous story, and it's on video, and it's been publicized throughout the world. The father was uh is the cantor, world-famous cantor uh uh Yossele Minsker. He comes to the Rebbe and mentions that he has a son, his first son, his oldest son, who is autistic. And uh he was severely autistic, and he was actually living in uh in an institution. And Cantor Minsker is speaking to the Rebbe in Yiddish, but he uses the English word for autism. And then, when he mentions the word autism, or he says that my son is autistic, he begins to try to explain to the Rebbe what that means, in case the Rebbe doesn't know what autistic means. And you see the the Rebbe sort of very like politely, not cutting him off, but sort of flowing with the conversation, lets Cantor Minsker know that he knows what it is. In order to not burden this father with having to explain to probably yet another person, you can imagine how many people this father has had to try to, especially you're talking about in the early '90s. Imagine how many times this father has had to explain to people, "My son is autistic. Let me explain what that means." You know, how many times he's had to give that that speech. And so, the Rebbe sort of relieves him of that that burden and and and says basically what it is. And it's interesting the way the Rebbe describes what it is and what it's not. It's a very quick interaction, about a minute long. But the Rebbe says that they don't relate so much to people, but because they're not busy dealing so much with people, they can relate better with Hashem. And you see this father's face light up with this First of all, this pride. It seems he's proud that the Rebbe just described his son as being spiritually sensitive. Uh also, I think probably surprise. It's probably it was probably very innovative for him to hear this uh description. And probably relief, also. Relief that the Rebbe understood without having to hear that speech again that the father had probably given so many hundreds, thousands of times. So, there are many, many types of neurodiversity. But let's speak about for now, because we have this story, and when we have a story, it's worthy of study. It teaches us a lot. And here's a real story. Here's a story that we we know the people involved, and happened in our lifetime. Um and I I'm not trying to set it up as a rule to describe every neurodiverse person, let alone uh or even every autistic person. But it's an interesting story. It's an interesting exchange. Because they are not burdened with dealing so much with people, they're more available to deal with Hashem. Just from an inclusion standpoint, it's an important concept to think about the fact that maybe somebody who is lacking in one area is not just they happen to have a strength in another area, but the quote unquote lack in one area is precisely that which allows them to have a strength in another area. In other words, the way the Rebbe says it to this father implies pretty clearly that if this person would be more tuned in to other people, that would diminish their ability to connect to Hashem as well as they presently do. So, it's not just like, "Oh, you have weaknesses and you have strengths, and your and your strengths can offset your weaknesses, but no, it's one in the same thing. The weakness is the strength. It's one attribute. Okay, so I'm not so well connected to people. I don't read social cues. Fine. I miss a lot of signals. A lot of things go over my head. I don't realize what people are saying around me when they're making small talk and they're using their their idiomatic language and their code language that they seem to all know. Okay, so I'm missing a lot of that. But, you want to know something? Because my I'm not using bandwidth on that, maybe that gives me a a greater potential. I'll call it a potential because obviously just because you have the ability to do something doesn't mean you'll do it, but maybe that itself gives me a greater potential to be tuned into something that for quote-unquote normal people or neurotypical people or the majority of people that is something that's hard for them to tune into. So, again, I I'm not trying to use this story to paint with a broad brush about all neurodiverse people or all or even all people with autism. I just think it's an interesting point to draw from this story that when somebody has a way of looking at the world, which let's call it what it is, and be identified as a deficiency. Let's not pretend oh, it's not a it's not a deficiency at all. Oh, it hasn't caused me problems at all. Let's acknowledge it. Let's say it's a deficiency. Fine, no problem, but it's the deficiency itself itself is a superpower. You understand the very thing that makes it hard for me to do this job makes it easy for me to do this other job exceedingly well. So, I think that's just an important thing to to think about in general when we when we consider neurodiversity that even something that we acknowledge as as a challenge. And I don't think we need to pretend that challenging things aren't challenging. Oh, no, everything's fine. But even when we acknowledge this has caused somebody challenges in life. It makes life more difficult in certain ways. But at the very same time, that same trait is giving them special abilities. Now, I I don't want to I don't want to say like uh special abilities in a tokenizing type of way, in a condescending type of way. What I mean is that everybody has talents. And um I've seen at least that with most people with most people, even people who would be considered neurotypical their special talents are often the source of frustration or stress in their lives. That's the way that character traits are. All character traits are double-edged sword. But it all depends on how we use them. You know, the person who's determined that they can accomplish any goal that same trait could be domineering and you don't listen to anyone else's opinion and you're steamrolling everyone, right? Or the person who is compassionate and sensitive, that same trait you could say oh, he's he's a schmuck. He's a people pleaser. He's weak. Every trait is a double-edged sword. Every trait, even traits that are considered neurotypical, can go both ways. When we're talking about someone who is neurodiverse or we're talking about neuro diversity, what we're talking about is something that is by definition less common. So, the struggle they have is less common. Which means less people will relate to it. Less people therefore will have empathy for it. If even if they can muster sympathy, they they're not really going to be able to have empathy cuz they don't relate to it. So, that's on one hand, less people will be able to validate it or relate to it firsthand. But at the same time, what does that mean? It means less people have that skill. Less people have that ability. So, you know how supply and demand works. That's the first law of economics. The more rare something is the more of a premium, the more value it has. So, I think that's one important concept to consider that when somebody has a way of looking at the world which is considered unusual that at one in the same time we can acknowledge that being like that can cause you extra challenge and frustration and trouble in life. Yeah, that's true. We don't have to pretend it doesn't. But that very same unique way of looking at life that's causing you all that trouble and frustration is also something that gives you a unique ability to see things in a way that others don't. I think that's important for those who identify as being neurodiverse as well as the family, friends, loved ones, community members of those who are neurodiverse that um we can acknowledge both sides of it. It's okay to acknowledge both sides of it. Okay. Um let's talk a little bit more about the idea of Someone's writing in the in the comments. Well, when you're getting messages from society that there's something quote-unquote wrong with you, how do you overcome that? Yeah, and I guess that's what I'm saying here is that it's not wrong or right. It's just a way of being. What you have to understand is that it's unusual or uncommon. So, it's not that it's a wrong way of looking at things. It's just an uncommon way of looking at things. And because it's uncommon, a couple of things are going to happen. One is, like I mentioned a minute ago, people are not going to really be able to empathize with your struggles cuz they don't relate to those struggles. They see that you're frustrated, but they don't really understand what's frustrating you. Okay, so that's one thing that happens is you don't get a lot of empathy from people, okay? In fact, if you're neurodiverse, you get accused of being the one who lacks empathy. Interesting. Interesting irony. Um that's one thing. And the other thing is that people will misunderstand you. And sometimes, and this is the most hurtful thing, people will ascribe motives to your behavior. How many times has it happened that a neurodiverse person violates some social convention? Not trying to be offensive, not trying to be impolite whatsoever. Whether it's Someone's asking in the chat, does ADHD count as neurodiverse? Again, I'm not the expert on these things. I believe it does, but you could Google that. You could figure figure that with a Google search. But let's say ADHD as an example of neurodiversity. So, you know, the fact that I didn't respond to your text for 3 months. That's violating social conventions. Officially, the message is I hate you. I don't want to be your friend. In reality, it's I didn't know how to respond to your question and I froze and I've been thinking about it every night at 3:00 a.m. for the past 3 months, right? Okay. So, that's a little ADHD. Or let's say someone's on the spectrum. Let's say you have the curse of being high functioning, so people don't even believe you that you're neurodiverse and you end up being blunt because you think that people don't want to be lied to. You know, you hate being lied to. Right? If you're a little bit on the spectrum, when people say things that are polite, but it's really a lie, that's very confusing. That's toying with my reality. I don't like when people toy with my reality. I like to say things bluntly. Oh, but then I find out I offended this guy. I didn't even know I offended him. And then I'm like, I offended him? You should have told me. No, he can't tell you. That's not polite. Well, that's how we started this whole problem is people trying to be too polite. So, that's the second thing that happens is that people will will misunderstand your motives, particularly if you're high functioning cuz they think you are neurotypical. And I don't know if we have to at least tonight we have if we have to talk about educate the whole world and teach them to understand neurodiversity. How about we start tonight with just something much more manageable that we could accomplish right here and now. And that is if you are the person with a neurodiverse mind how about you compassionately give yourself permission to acknowledge the fact that while you want to learn how to fit in with people and you will try your best to fit in with people you're not a bad person and you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing things differently. And if the whole world thought like you, then in fact, right? You would be {quote} and {unquote} normal. If everybody thought like you, then no one would be troubled by your behavior. So, it's it's a little bit of a paradox. On one hand, of course we want to accommodate others. Of course we want to be part of society. That's a given. Um in fact, I think that's an important thing to acknowledge that even people whose neurodiversity makes it hard for them to relate to others, it doesn't mean they don't have a basic human need for companionship. See, that's a big misunderstanding. Oh, he doesn't even need companionship. Well, actually, no, he does. It's it's just so exhausting to deal with other people that it's like a person who gets nauseous every time he eats. He still needs to eat. He just can't. And it's not worth it for him. If I'm going to eat, I'm going to get nauseous. So, if I don't eat, I'm sick because my body needs fuel. If I do eat, I'm probably going to get nauseous. So, what do I do? You know, it's just it's like a it's a torture, right? It's a living hell. So, the same thing. A person whose neurodiversity doesn't allow him to figure out the code that everyone else is in on, what what what do you do? Eventually, you just sort of minimize human interaction to to a to a manageable amount because every time you go out and you you try to do it, either you get hurt, someone else gets hurt, or or you you come you come back feeling exhausted. But it doesn't just because you are not putting yourself in the middle of these hurtful situations, doesn't mean that you have less of a human need for companionship. Which is why many many people with neurodiverse minds are lonely. And then again, you add to that the misunderstanding that other people have of your motives. And then it's not just lonely, but they could lead to feelings of of of self-hatred. Maybe they're right about me. Maybe the people who are misjudging me aren't misjudging me. Maybe I am a bad person, right? God forbid. So, it would be very ambitious for me to say, let's educate the whole world so nobody is ever misunderstood for being neurodiverse ever again. But I'll save that campaign for others. What I would like to say is at least tonight, anyone listening tonight, anyone on this in this meeting tonight, let's make a decision now to give ourselves permission to embrace the paradox that on one hand, yes, we do want to try our best to conform to social norms because we don't want people to misunderstand us. For their sake. We don't want to offend them. We don't want them to be confused. We don't want them to be upset. So, that's on one hand. On the other hand, we have to give ourselves permission to be compassionate and to say to compassion with ourselves and to say, there's no malice here whatsoever. Again, like I said, if everybody thought like me, then no one would attribute any malice to my to my motives, right? Okay. Now, this leads me to another point, which is masking. One thing particularly that high-functioning neurodiverse people do is they watch how {quote} and {unquote} normal people behave. They're not sure really why people act that way cuz it seems so weird. But they memorize the moves, the expressions, the gestures, the words. And then in social settings, they um they mimic. So, that's called masking. And that masking can be anything from something very simple like, okay, there are certain weird noises I might make to self-soothe. And in my car, I'll make those weird noises. But at a dinner party, I'm not going to make those weird noises, right? So, that could be masking. That could be like a very basic level of masking. And then there's may maybe much higher levels like you're in an intimate relationship with somebody you really care for, and you want to make sure that they feel loved. So, you figure out how to express your feelings in ways that {quote} and {unquote} normal people appreciate instead of the way that your heart wants you to express it, right? So, that's that's a that's a type of masking. And then there's everything in between. Just like learning how to deal with uh small talk with strangers. How's the weather? How's your day? Did you sleep all right? What time did you get in? Right? These bizarre useless questions that neurotypical people ask each other that for some reason they don't find um exhausting to deal with. Did you sleep all right? Well, and what if I didn't? What are you going to do for me? Can I go back to bed? Like, what why are you asking? What's What they really mean is I care about you. Which if they really mean that, that's beautiful. Why don't they say that? Oh, cuz that would be weird. I don't think that would be weird. If you care about someone, go up to them and say, I care about you. No, that's too weird. Instead, you have to say this weird question, did you sleep okay? Well, what if I didn't? What are you going to do about it, right? Anyways, the world plays a lot of games. But masking is you go along with the games. Fine, no problem. Okay. Now, again, disclaimer. I'm just a rabbi. I don't have any other credentials, okay? Any term I use that's not from Torah, I learned it from Google, okay? So, please do not ascribe any like I'm not purporting to be an expert at all in these things. But let's use a term here. Allostatic load. Allostatic load. I think that's an important word to talk about. Allostatic load is a term which describes the cumulative burden of chronic stress. The cumulative burden of chronic stress. Somebody who is masking, meaning to say, just going out and dealing with other human beings requires an extra level of deliberate focus and concentration. Somebody who's doing that is going to experience a greater allostatic load. An allostatic load, that just means how your different uh your different physiological systems are are coping with whatever it is that's going on in your environment. If you have a high stress situation like, you know, a lion is chasing you, let's say, something that's universally stressful. So, then that would be a huge burden on your allostatic load. And uh then if you're not neurotypical and you're masking, so that would be a a constant stress, a constant extra burden on on your allostatic load. Okay. So, what we need to talk about is the fact that someone who's not neurotypical is exhausted. You're exhausted. Um exhausted from what? Exhausted from life. You want to get spiritual? I'll get spiritual. I like getting spiritual. Exhausted from embodiment. Exhausted from the condition of embodiment. What I mean is you take a soul, you put it in a body. Now, all of a sudden, that soul, that consciousness is forced to process physical stimuli. And depending on how sensitive you are, that could be very stressful having to process all of that stimuli. And then because I'm processing that stimuli differently than the rest of the world, and nobody likes the way I'm processing it, I have to mask. Okay. So, add to the burden, right? So, I'm exhausted. Um that's why a lot of times people think of neurodiverse people as being mean or grouchy. Well, it could come across as mean and grouchy, ornery, cantankerous. Well, you you might understand if uh somebody's system is being taxed to that degree. And the only way to get relief is to self-isolate, which causes more of a burden. Self-isolation is also burdensome because we're gregarious creatures. So, then you could understand why a person like that might be tired. They might be what people consider to be mean or or sharp or curt. Okay, that's that's one thing. Another thing is and I would love if more studies would be done on this. I've actually Googled around and tried to see if anyone is studying this. And uh I would encourage anyone who has the ability to look into this to do so, to conduct a study. And uh some studies have been done. But that is the subject of the intersection between neurodiversity and addiction. Um if life itself, or as I were as I was referring to it, embodiment itself, is placing a constant burden on one's allostatic load, then it would make sense that one would seek means of self-medication, particularly in numbing ways. A lot of times people will talk about the somebody with autism will what they what they do what they call stimming, which is self-stimulation, which could be something as simple as, you know, twirling a pencil or something like that. Um so, that's that's not very socially acceptable because for some reason people get really upset if you twirl a pencil even though it doesn't bother anyone else. It doesn't shouldn't bother anyone. It doesn't hurt anyone else, right? But that's like a more socially acceptable uh form of uh self- soothing, but then what about those who are neurodiverse who use chemicals? Use drugs and alcohol. So, that's not so socially acceptable. Now, I'm not arguing that people with autism should have cart blanche to be alcoholic. That's not what I'm arguing. What I'm arguing actually is quite to quite to quite to the contrary, which is that if somebody is chronically self-medicating, it might help us to consider what chronic condition they're medicating themselves from. And that if we can understand, I think breakthroughs will happen when we start to understand that a lot of self-medication, what we call addiction, which is not chemical dependency, cuz we're talking about people who already had have achieved detoxification. So, it's not chemical dependency. What it is is a need to relieve the allostatic load to alleviate some of that burden. And again, I'm just a rabbi. I'm making observations and I'm putting them out there and I would love if the scientific community would do some studies and find out more about it. I think they will find out a lot and I will also mention in connection to what I mentioned earlier about the story of the Rebbe and the father of the child with autism, how the Rebbe said because they don't deal so much with people, they can deal better with Hashem. I'll mention that it definitely is something I find more than coincidental that one of the most effective treatments for addiction is spirituality. Of course, I'm referring to the 12-step model of recovery and I think that's very interesting. Why would that work? Why would having a spiritual awakening alleviate your need to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol? Or with porn or gambling or whatever else the addiction might be. Why would a spiritual awakening alleviate that? Well, if you think about it like this, that a person is plunged into a world where they're being forced to interact with people who are playing by unknown rules from an from an unknown rulebook and that's creating a lot of stress. And then, you don't even know about spirituality. You don't know about relating to God. So, the only thing you can do is shut everything down, numb it, take the edge off of it, right? So, then imagine if you're in that type of plight and then somebody teaches you about spirituality and you're like, "Ah, well, where's that solution been all my life? That's what I was looking for all along. All I wanted was connectedness. When I was trying to interact with people, I was getting the opposite of connectedness. I was feeling like I was getting hurt and I was hurting them and I was misunderstanding them, they were misunderstanding me. And now you teach me about connectedness to God. Wow, that's all I wanted all along. Oh, suddenly the allostatic burden is relieved. I don't need to self-medicate." Just an interesting theory and I'm putting it out there. Um You know, there's a an explanation about why we wear masks on Purim. We wear masks on Purim because Haman wanted to kill all the Jews. Wicked, righteous, and everything in between. He didn't care if you were religious, not religious. He didn't care which synagogue you had membership in. Haman wanted to kill all the Jews. Okay. So, what's the idea? We wear masks because when you wear masks, you hide your unique face. Remember we said the sages say just like no two people have the same face, so too they don't have the same minds. Covering your face is symbolic of covering your mind, blending in. But this is masking in a positive way. This is blending in where all Jewish people become one. Just like Haman, the Hitler of his time, saw all Jews as the same. They're all the same to him. But in a holy way, in a good way, the same could be said that the Jewish community of souls were all one. We're all the same. We're all connected in our source up there in heaven where we are one entity. Then we come down into bodies and some of us are tall, some of us are short, some of us are fat, some of us are skinny, some of us are smart, some of us are not so smart, some of us are neurotypical, some of us are neurodiverse. Masking in a good way, the Purim type of masking is that we remember how no matter what differences we have, we are all the same. Just like Haman saw all Jews as the same. Okay, so in a good way, all Jews are the same. And what I mean is that sometimes we can achieve that feeling of connectedness with others that we seek through identifying with our spiritual connection to other Jews. And when I say that our spiritual connect connection to other Jews, I mean our spiritual connection with to other Jews as opposed to our social connection to other Jews. It's interesting. Most people are neurotypical. Did you know that? By definition. Like George Carlin said, "Think of how dumb the average person is and then think about the fact that half the people are dumber than that." Anyway, so most people are neurotypical. Okay. That means most Jews feel connected to their Judaism through connecting in social ways. Uh that means they like to share certain common memories, certain common aspirations, common history. Uh Jewish geography is a big one. Do you know so-and-so? Did you meet so-and-so? You know, that that type of small talk. Um shared jokes, being in on the same Yiddish joke and the same punchline, the same humor, the same cuisine. Ahaha, bagels and lox. And we all laugh knowingly cuz we all know what bagels and lox are, right? That is the way that normal Jews bond with each other. Um which is interesting cuz it's all cultural stuff. It's all purely cultural. Uh I mean, if you're Sephardic, do you bond over bagels and lox in Yiddish? Okay. So, what I'm saying, these these things are very culturally specific. And yet, for most Jews because most Jews are neurotypical, that's where they feel connected to their Judaism through those social cues and reminders. But obviously, Judaism, I say obviously, I guess I shouldn't say it's obvious, but to me it's obvious that Judaism essentially is a metaphysical condition. It's the presence of the Jewish soul, which was present at Sinai. And therefore, our connectedness with other Jews is primarily a spiritual connection. So, it doesn't matter if we have the same cultural background. It doesn't matter Ashkenazic or Sephardic. Doesn't matter Israeli, French, American, old, young, neurotypical, neurodiverse. None of these things really are what define us. What defines us and what we have in common is the Jewish soul. So, what I'm saying here, masking in a good way, masking in a good way is when we're forced to be in touch with our deepest spiritual identity as a way of connecting with others. So, I don't have to get all your jokes and you don't have to get mine. I don't have to even enjoy making small talk with you. But I'm bound up with you. I'm connected deeply with you. Why? Because on a spiritual level, there's a there's a kinship. And deeper than a kinship, there's we're we're one entity. And I think that idea of Jewish unity is one that being neurodiverse um helps you to appreciate perhaps better than someone who is neurotypical because they get caught up in so many of the extraneous secondary superficial descriptions of Jewish identity. I just want to take a peek here at the chats cuz I haven't uh been keeping up. Someone here says absolutely right about self-medicating. Yeah. And I think a lot more research needs to be done in that area. Uh someone writes, "Rabbi, what if us who are neurodivergent who are Noahide does not Jewish?" Okay, thank you for bringing that up. That's very important. I want to explain what that means. Noahide means a descendant of Noah, the survivor of the flood. Which means all humanity. All humanity is descended from Noah. So, here's the thing. What I described a few moments ago about Jewish unity obviously is particular to Jews because Jewish unity is about Jewish people. But, there's an underlying connectedness and spirituality behind everything. And so let's set aside Jewish oneness and let's just talk about oneness. Oneness meaning there's nothing but God. Creator and creation are one. So, let's say you are a neurodivergent Noahide. Which means a descendant of Noah, a human being who thinks differently than the rest of the world. So, congratulations. You may have a better ability than most people to see past the externalities that most people get really caught up with and to be in tune with the oneness. And and I'll tell you something more. Most people when they get to a very mature place in life when they've satisfied all their other needs then they start to consider spiritual growth and they start looking for oneness. It's almost like the icing on the cake of a well-lived life. But, if you're neurodivergent seeking oneness is survival. Because without it, what relief do you have other than self-medication which is utterly destructive, what relief do you have from the allostatic burden of fitting into a world where you are odd man out. So, that which is considered the pinnacle of of self-development for most of the world is actually basic survival for many people who are neurodivergent. If we can't tune into that underlying oneness which gives us that sense of peace and connectedness and belonging, then this world and this embodiment is just too stressful. Okay, I just want to take more of a glance here at the at the comments. Um I stopped going out. I stopped socializing as it became too much and I can't mask. I tried of late with day workshops and found again these issues. So, thank you for tonight's already been so healing. Oh, thank God. Thank God. Um technology is a double-edged sword because if you're already isolating it can exacerbate that because why ever look another human being in the face if you know Uber Eats exists and Amazon and that's it then I never have to look at a human being in the eye again. On the other hand um technology can be a tool that brings a lot of relief and that is because um sometimes when the exhaustion of reading people's facial expressions and giving eye contact. Am I giving eye contact right? Is that enough eye contact? Like and that becomes exhausting you know, sometimes we can just communicate through technology, through a text, through uh through a social media app and uh to a certain extent that does meet our basic human need for for connection. I just want to make that comment. Um Thank you for the permission slip. It is something I find very hard to relate and fit in and being misunderstood because I'm high functioning so it can be it can become a big issue. Yeah. I will call it a permission slip. Yeah, permission to be gentle with yourself. Permission to be compassionate with yourself. Um and high functioning is is a tough one, right? Because if everyone could recognize immediately when they lay eyes on you, oh, this guy's different. But, instead what happens is they think you're a jerk. Well, oh, I'm anything but a jerk. I I hate hurting people. Especially cuz I don't find out I did it until a year later, right? Okay. Um A chassidic idea has helped me parent my son with autism and mental illness. First, seeing him as a soul on journey. And knowing profoundly that I'm not the director of that journey. I stand in sacred witness and responsiveness to his journey. Also knowing every soul is here embodied in on a unique irreplaceable mission. Yeah. And it's interesting how that is something that should be kindergarten, right? That what you just said should be kindergarten. Everyone should know by the time they're 5 years old that every other person they'll ever meet is a soul on a journey. And yet in the world we live, it's the opposite of kindergarten. It's considered postgraduate. Like only the people on the loftiest level ever get to that point where they realize that everyone they'll ever meet is on a mission, is a is a soul sent to this world to do something unique. But, what's interesting to me is because of your son you were forced to realize that which most people have the dubious luxury of living in ignorance of for their lives. And uh perhaps perhaps, I don't want to give anybody work to do here but uh those who have been forced to see this truth to embrace this truth of how we're all souls on a journey maybe we can start sharing it with others. We can start sharing with others who haven't been forced to learn that lesson. People who have the option of seeing it the other way. Um again, I'm not here to give people work to do. But, cuz and and the reason I'm not here to give you work to do is because like I said when I was describing the story about the father interacting with the Rebbe he'd probably had to explain autism thousands of times to people and it's just exhausting. So, if you're the parent of somebody who a child is not who who is who is not neurotypical you probably are already having to be an ambassador constantly to the point of exhaustion. So, I don't want to give you more work, but if you're ever feeling a little bit of uh extra energy and you're up to it then you can add to your ambassadorship this message. The message of the lesson that you learned which is that we're all souls on a journey. Yeah. Okay. All right. I wasn't told a hard time limit here so I think I can get away with this. Okay. I used to write an advice column for Ami Magazine for 8 years. I may start writing it again, but I got a letter once from a mother of a of a son and she was complaining how her son is very um he's a finicky eater. He's always complaining about every little thing. He's always nothing is good enough for him. Nothing is what he wanted. Everything's always wrong and he's always crying and complaining. And I read the letter and basically she's like, "What should I do about my my son's negative attitude?" And I read the letter and I did not feel at all that she was describing a child with a negative attitude. What I picked up from the letter was she was describing a child who sees the world in such an exalted perfect state that reality is constantly a bitter violent disappointment and shock to his senses. And I wrote her back and I said, "Listen what you're describing you're describing a child who's not negative. You're describing a child who's having a hard time with the roughness and the imperfection of this physical world. Most people can deal with it. But, then there are people who can't deal with it. So, don't ascribe to your son negativity. He's not negative. He's getting insulted and hurt every time he opens his eyes and deals with the world because the world is a shocking, confusing, imperfect place for somebody who is that sensitive. And um I shared in that that column and since then I I've shared other times as well. I said, "You know, when I was a little kid, I used to fall on the ground weeping because the tag in my t-shirt was driving me insane. Now they have tagless t-shirts, but in the '70s they didn't. And my mother could have said I'm a complainer, but instead she cut the tags out of my shirt. And a lot of other weird accommodations that she made because little things that most people don't even notice were like daggers right in my eyes and were causing me to have meltdowns. Okay? So, I said to this mother, "I want you to understand something. That's not negativity. It's not negativity. It's that he's feeling things deeply and he's picking up on things that other people don't notice. And he's trying his best to process it, but he's young and he's little. And when reality is a constant source of shock and disappointment and discomfort and you're young and you don't have coping mechanisms yet, yeah, you might come off as negative, but that's not negative. And I proceeded to explain to her a concept that I've completely made up. I completely made this up to the extent that I want to say that it's probably not correct cuz I made it up. I don't have a real Torah source for it. And I also want to say that if any other rabbis steal it from me and don't give me credit, I will note it. I will note that you've done so. Okay, and here it is, my made-up concept. And I say it's a made-up concept. The the the spiritual terms that I'm going to use are are I'm making up these connections, but I'm describing a real phenomenon. Okay? My description of the spiritual mechanics of the of the phenomenon is my own invention. But what I'm describing is a is an observable phenomenon and that is somebody who has a hard time dealing with the physical world, dealing with all the stimuli that we have as embodied souls. So, I describe this as follows. In the Mishna, we have Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel. Okay? Beit Shammai, the school of Shammai, were known for being very strict, very stringent. They forbid everything. Almost every So, everything's forbidden. Beit Hillel, the school of Hillel, they're very liberal. Everything's permitted. I mean, not literally everything, but I'm saying whenever you have a dispute between the school of Shammai and the school of Hillel, with with with a few exceptions, the disputes always break down this way that Shammai is going to say, "No, it's not okay. It's forbidden." And and and and and Hillel's school is going to say, "It's good. We can do it." And cabalistically, the explanation is chesed and gevurah or gevurah and chesed. Gevurah literally means self-restraint, self-discipline. Chesed means kindness, generosity. So, Beit Shammai are gevurah. So, they say nothing's good enough and they forbid everything. You know, there's another word that we use for that trait besides for gevurah and that is din. Din means judgment. They they're constantly looking at things and nothing is up to muster. So, they judge things very harshly. Beit Hillel is the exact opposite. Everything's good. They're very liberal, very inclusive, very accepting. Everything's good. We know the story, the famous story of the would-be convert who came to Beit Shammai and said, "Tell me the whole Torah on one foot." And Beit Shammai said, "It's impossible. Get out of here." He he chased the guy off. He told him, "Get away from me. Can't be done." And the same guy went to Hillel and he said, "Teach me the whole Torah on one foot." And Hillel was like, "No problem." And he accommodated the guy. He accommodated the guy. It was a preposterous request, but Hillel figured out a way to accommodate and he said, "Whatever you don't like, don't do to others." And and it worked because that eventually led the guy to learning more Torah and then he became Jewish. Okay. What's interesting is um there's a dispute about whether or not the heavens were created before the earth. There's also a dispute about whether or not it would be better to never been born. If you understand what chesed and gevurah mean in terms of Hillel and Shammai, then you'll understand these disputes as well. Beit Hillel are realists. The And and that's why they say, "Of course it's better to be born." And that's why they say that the earth precedes the heavens. Beit Shammai are are perfectionists and idealists. So, they say the heavens precede the earth and it's better not to be born. It's better to stay up in heaven, not to be an embodied soul. Now, how does this translate into regular life? You go to a wedding and the bride is not pretty. How do you compliment the groom? This is a real dispute. Kaitz adam anakhtin lifnei akallah. Beit Hillel says, "It doesn't matter what the girl looks like. You tell the groom kallah navah v'chasudah. She's beautiful. She's gracious. Beautiful bride, gracious bride." And the explanation is, "Look, he's marrying her. For him, she must be beautiful. Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. So, she's not beautiful to you. So, she's not beautiful to to to to whatever conventional standards there are. But this guy likes her. So, you know what? So, you say to him, the bride is beautiful." Beit Shammai says, "K'meyshahei, you have to say the truth. You have to report the facts. She's not beautiful. I'm not going to call her beautiful. Why would I lie? It's the guy's wedding. Why are you insulting his bride? I'm not insulting his bride. I'm just being truthful. You understand here? You understand how Beit Shammai could be thought of as mean? He's not mean. He's not negative. He's truthful. And you know why he's truthful? Because he's gevurah and gevurah sees the heavens as the ultimate paradigm. He looks at the way things could be and should be in heaven. Then he looks at the physical world and it doesn't measure up. And what do you want me to do about it? Lie? Beit Hillel is the exact opposite. He doesn't care about how things are in heaven. That's theory. He says, "How is it down here? The guy married her? She must be pretty enough." Give you another example. On Hanukkah, we light one more candle every night. That's because we follow Beit Hillel. Beit Shammai says you light you light one less candle every night. The first night you do eight candles. You know why? Cuz Beit Shammai says like this, "The most perfect night of Hanukkah is before Hanukkah begins." And then what happens on the first night of Hanukkah? Hanukkah becomes a Hanukkah becomes a little bit less perfect. Because before Hanukkah starts, it's perfect. But then, wouldn't you know, once Hanukkah starts, it's always a disappointment. Because reality never measures up to the potential. The potential The potential is infinite. Reality never measures up. So, every night of Hanukkah you light one less candle because we cashed in the potential and what did we get? We got actuality. And the actuality never measures up to the potential. Beit Hillel looks at it like this, "Don't give me a potential Hanukkah. I want an actual Hanukkah. The first night I had one night of Hanukkah. Was it the greatest night? It doesn't matter. It was a night. It was a good Was it Was the soup a little cold? Who cares? We had a night of Hanukkah. That's one candle. The second night, again, how was it? Was it the greatest night? It doesn't matter. The point is we had a real night of Hanukkah, two candles. The next night, three candles. The next night, four candles." Cuz Hillel's looking at the way things are. And in that sense, by the way, Hillel's really easy to get along with. People like Hillel. People like those types of people. The Hillel's a guy you're going to go out to the park and he's going to have a good time. Shammai's a guy who's going to say, "It was too humid. There was people making noise on the basketball court. Um there were too many mosquitoes. And um you brought the wrong flavor mustard for the sandwich and I can't eat the sandwiches with that with that brand of mustard." And then everyone's going to think he's a jerk, but really he's just comparing the experience to what it could have been and should have been in its most perfect archetype. Okay. I'm not making an argument that the world needs to accommodate the nishamas of Beit Shammai, which I will That's the term that I'm making up. What I am saying is if you are a nishama of Beit Shammai, and I'm not a cabalist. I'm not really saying that you're actually you have a soul root in the school of Shammai. I'm using these terms very liberally. But if you resonate with that type of thinking. Then the first thing I wanted to is tell you you know that's how God made you. You don't have to hate yourself. You don't have to judge yourself. And listen, man, nobody judges themselves more harshly than an Ishama of Beis Shammai. An Ishama of Beis Shammai is constantly judging reality and reality is never measuring up. He's also judging himself harshly. And feeling that he's not measuring up. So, if you are an Ishama of Beis Shammai, I want you to know Hashem made you this way. And uh give yourself a little bit of a break. Or what one of the commenters called in the chat a permission slip. Okay? The other thing I want to tell you is that the Ari Zal, Rabbi Isaac Luria says that when Mashiach comes halakha will change and we will rule according to Beis Shammai. Meaning when Mashiach comes we'll light eight candles the first night of Hanukkah and seven the second night and six the third night and so on and so forth. We'll switch. There's the famous question, what do you do if Mashiach comes in the middle of Hanukkah? Do you switch the menorah right in the middle of one Hanukkah? That's not for now. The point is when Mashiach comes, we're going to rule according to Beis Shammai, not Beis Hillel. Why? Cuz now it's his turn. Cuz he was so patient. He waited for 2,000 years and now let him have a turn. When Mashiach comes, the world will be perfect. And then it will finally measure up to the incredible expectations and sensitivities of the souls of the school of Shammai. But until Mashiach comes the souls of the school of Shammai are forever in a state of disappointment and and and and shock and being let down and being confused and again, another thing isn't the way that it could have been, should have been. So, I told this mother who I wrote all this to, I said, "Please understand, if you tell your son something his mind is so vivid. If you tell him I'm picking you up at 3:00, don't pick him up at 3:01. If you tell him you're buying him a red ball, do not buy him a pink ball or a maroon ball. Those are not red. If you tell him we're going to a place and they have three swing sets they better not have two swing sets. Okay? Now, obviously, as he grows and he matures, we hope that he'll become a little bit more flexible and a little bit more accommodating. That will God willing that will come with the years. But please understand that at least for now, what are you dealing with? You're dealing with somebody who they take words seriously. And when you say something, it's got to mean that. And in his mind, it's got to mean what that word means in its archetype. You know what I mean by in its archetype? In its most pristine, perfect, ideal form. And then he goes into the world and it never measures up to that. So, he's always getting hurt and disappointed. So, instead of calling that kid negative oh, he's got a bad attitude. God forbid, don't call him negative and don't say he has a bad attitude. Say that his vision his ability to visualize what things could be is so vivid and so lofty that life itself is a constant source of disappointment and pain. And when you realize that, the response should be compassion. And then after you have compassion, then you can start to teach the child how to have a little bit more resilience and how to have a little bit more uh flexibility to accommodate for the fact that things and people are never going to measure up to the way that they could be. Okay? But that has to be the approach. Someone's writing in the chat, "That is my son." Yeah. And I hope that you cherish him and you have compassion for him. And I hope you realize that he's not negative. He just sees the way things could be in heaven. And this earth is therefore a source of constant surprise, confusion, and disappointment. But you know what? God chose your son's soul for embodiment. He chose your son's soul for embodiment in your home. And therefore that means Hashem chose you as a facilitator that you will be able to help your son become more comfortable with embodiment and more comfortable with this imperfect world. Okay. Um Yeah, that's really all I wanted to tell you tonight. And uh that's what I got.