Stop Healing Your Children; Heal Yourself | Kesher Nafshi 2026 Lecture

The Yeshiva.net >> Thank you so very much Rabbi Gedaliah. Reb Shmuel, Reb Shimon, Rabbi Russell all the other rabbonim, therapists, leaders, mentors, parents who are here. Thank you for the zchus. Thank you for the gift. Thank you for the opportunity. A freilichen erev Shabbos, a goodten erev Shabbos, a goodten Shabbos. I once saw or heard a drasha from Rabbi Yasha Ber Soloveitchik Rabbi JB Soloveitchik and he said this is the early years in America he said American Jews for many generations did not have the gift of Shabbos. Everybody knows the struggle of keeping Shabbos here in the past. He says but after centuries of sacrifice and commitment and education finally Shabbos has taken root among Jews in the United States of America. He says that's true. He said aber erev Shabbos erev Shabbos they still don't have. He said that they had in Europe. Erev Shabbos they still don't have. The Gemara there's a cheftza, there's something called erev Shabbos. There's different halachos of erev Shabbos if you're running erev Shabbos and you create damage in the shuk there's something called erev Shabbos. In Kesher Nafshi there's also Shabbos and there's erev Shabbos and then there's motzei Shabbos which is a nightmare cuz the melaveh malka starts like 2:00 in the morning. The Shabbos of Kesher Nafshi there's Shabbos and then there's erev Shabbos. Opening ourselves up for Shabbos. Getting ready for Shabbos. We say in Kegavna those who say Kegavna Nusach Sefard before Borchu Kegavna it's is from a stickle in Zohar. Nusach Ashkenaz you say by me madlikin from Mishnayos Shabbos. But in many other nuschaos there's a piece from Zohar and over there we speak about v'chol dinin mis'abrin minah. All the judgments, the harsh judgments mis'abrin from the word lav or are removed from Shabbos. L'mehave echad b'echad. So that oneness can counter oneness. It's very very moving words even they're in Aramaic. Kad aylin Shabbasa ihi ishyichadus b'isparshus misitra achara. V'chol dinin mis'abrin minah v'ish t'haras b'yichuda kadisha. Which means as Shabbos enters, the energy of Knesses Yisrael separates from sitra achara, from the other side. And the dinim, the negativity, is removed. And we become unified with the radiant holiness of the Shechinah. And he finishes b'nihiru d'anpin the radiance of the face. Nihiru is light and anpin is the face. I'm saying these words, these are the words that were instituted before Shabbos because it's a mindset emotionally and psychologically to go into a different posture. On Shabbos we know bo'er is assur. What's bo'er? Literally, you're not supposed to separate the bad from the good. The Baal HaTanya writes bo'er also represents in a person the separating of the bad and the good, the filthy and the clean. A whole week you have to do bo'er. Avodas Habirurim is very important. But Shabbos bo'er is assur. Why? You're not supposed to know about negativity on Shabbos, you're not supposed to separate, select. But because Shabbos you want to acknowledge but you don't to identify or over-identify with the negative, with the struggle. It's important to acknowledge it, to hold space for it with compassion. But it's a time where you can actually tune in to your higher self, to your deeper bliss, to your deeper divine energy. I'll be in the Abrahamic now. How does this connect to Kasha Nafshi? It's really the essence of Kasha Nafshi. Because I saw I saw a very interesting word. I didn't expect it over there. There's a safer called Divrei Yoel. Some of you know the safer, some of you don't know. Divrei Yoel, you can hear from the name, is the Torah of the Satmar Rebbe. That's why it's called Yoel, Divrei Yoelish Teitelbaum. Zecher tzaddik livracha, the Satmar Rav. He passed away in 1979, chof vov of. So I saw there an insight on Parshas Nasso. I was reading it. It didn't sound like a classic Satmar Rebbe vort. It was very, very powerful, and I think it's apropos to share here. He quotes the pasuk in this week's parsha we're going to read tomorrow. We read this week, Parshas Nasso. You know, it just holds about Lo Yishcha, but here it's Nasso. And it says, "Tzav es Bnei Yisrael, Hashem tells Moshe, tell the Jewish people, viyishalchu min hamachaneh kol tzaru'a vechol zav vechol tamei lanefesh." Send out, expel from the camp every leper, tzaru'a, every zav, which is a different type of impurity that comes from a particular discharge of the body, and tamei lanefesh is somebody who became impure from contact with a corpse. And Rashi explains, based on a Gemara in Pesachim, that there were actually three different categories. Somebody who was a leper had to leave all of the three camps. Somebody who was a zav had to leave what's called Machaneh Shechinah, Machaneh Levi'im, and Machaneh Yisrael. And somebody who's a tamei l'nefesh only had to leave Mahaneh Shechinah, they can be in Mahaneh Levi, which even later in Yerushalayim, and they could stay in the Har Habayit. They couldn't be in certain parts of the Beit Hamikdash. But the bottom line is, "V'yishalchu." You have to send them out. Whether they're male, whether they're female, "T'shalchum." Why? "Lo y'tamei et machana'am." Because they tumah is contagious. Tumah spreads, impurity spreads. They should not bring the tumah to the camp. Somebody who touches them, somebody who comes in contact with them. And therefore, based on the location, you want this place to be safeguarded from this tumah. "Vaya'asu kein B'nei Yisrael, vaya'ashlichu otam." They did exactly this. So, the Satmar Rebbe in Divrei Yoel in Parshas Nasso, he says that in Tanakh, you have two different words for sending people from one place to another place. And it depends on the purpose. If the purpose is to send them away from here, the word usually is "Vayotziu." Take "Hotzei'as Hamakalah." "Vayotziu es Hamakalah." Yeah. "Vayeitzei Yaakov m'Be'er Sheva." Go out. You go out. You want to leave this place. It's a dangerous place. Or you want the person to leave this place. So, you say like we had in Parshas Emor, "Vayotziu es Hamakalah, hotzei'as Hamakalah." Then you have a situation where you don't want to You don't want to send them away from here. You want to send them on a mission. You "Vayishalach es Hayonah." Noach sends the dove. He didn't mind the dove. The dove was a very, very nice bird. But he had a mission for the dove. "Liro'es." To see "Hakalu Hamayim." If the flood has receded. "Vayishlach Yitzchak es Yaakov." From Yitzchak's perspective, there was no danger. He was sending him to get a shidduch. "Vayishlach Yaakov malachim." He wasn't trying to get rid of the malachim. He was trying to send them on a mission. It's called "shlichus." So, the Satmar Rebbe says, "I don't understand. What was the reason to get rid of these t'mei'im? Why are you sending them out of the machaneh?" You want them somewhere to build up some institution michutz l'machaneh, cuz you said lo yitamah es machaneichem. So, why does he keep on saying the word v'ishalchu? As though they're sending them on They're not sending them on a mission, they're expelling them from the machaneh. And it says three times, v'ishalchu, t'shalchu, v'ishalchu. So, the Satmar Rebbe says, you could really confuse this with uh with a Lubavitcher vart, but it's in Divrei Yoel, you could look it up. And he says that the Torah is trying to teach us something. And that is, there's no such a thing that somebody is being expelled exclusively. You're impure, you're being expelled. There is a shlichus. There is a mission. It's not in vain. It's not just a punishment. It's not just a penalty. You have a particular mission. Vayishalach uh no Vayishalach Noach es hayona. It's a whole different experience. Even in this situation, the Torah says it three times. It's true, you don't want them to be metameh es hamachaneh, but that's not enough of a reason to get rid of them. There is something that their soul needs to accomplish in that particular place and that particular location. As hard as this is to hear, what he's teaching us is something very profound, it's fundamental to Yiddishkeit. And that is, I don't know anybody, well, at least almost anybody who comes to Kesher Nafshi to honeymoon, stam on a vacation. You were looking to get away with your wife for Shabbos or with your husband for Shabbos, and you heard there was some program in Cleveland, and the ta'am here is l'eila l'eila, and the tea room and all that, so you decided to come into Kesher Nafshi. Yeah. People don't come here voluntarily. To quote our Godol, they come onus al pi hadibur. And many men come kicking and screaming, I'm never going, I'm not that that's not our mishpacha. It's not for us. We're not the that that that that And usually most people who come here have tried a lot of other alternatives. The la la la la So sometimes it's barzel. Sometimes it's al pi dibur with a smile without a smile. But it's a pretty much you're looking at yourself and you want to know am I a am I a How in the world did I end up here? In this place. We are good family, good parents, good grandparents, nice people who did all the right things. And there was a pain involved. And the Torah says here we shall come in a machana. Sometimes it's difficult to know, but there is a divine mission. It's not a punishment. It's not a penalty. It's not because this one failed or that one failed. Of course, we're human to make mistakes. Just as the did the did in the nefesh did. But there's a mission. That mission is not always something that's explicable. That's obvious. That's apparent. That we can immediately grasp. It's a mission that's usually very very deep. It's infinite. It's transcendent. Requires a lot of humility, a lot of cracking open of the egos and the blockages. But know know beforehand that there's a here. You weren't abandoned. This is not God telling you you're a failure. You're a miserable failure. Your neighbors, your siblings, your cousins have done well. Ah, look at the one after another. I'm a Every week that family has a bar mitzvah, bas mitzvah, another bris, and so on and so forth. Somehow that family knows how to hatch them, match them, and dispatch them. And you're still between stuck between one and two. You hatch them. You're trying to figure out how to match them. And you can't dispatch them. So, it becomes sometimes we become so introspective and guilt and shame fills our psyches. And guilt and shame, when they fill our psyches, they don't allow us, they deprive us of the gift to be able to open ourselves up to a deeper calling, a deeper destiny. We've said many times, I once heard from the Lubavitcher Rebbe on Megillah, Mordecai tells Esther, "Mi yodea im le'es kazo'is higa'at la malchus." Who knows if this is not the reason you became the queen? And the meforshim say you should have not said "Mi yodea." That's a very ambiguous, unconvincing statement. He should say, "Ani yodea." For the seder, when everybody's sleeping, it's good to say, "Echad mi yodea, who knows, who knows one, who knows two?" You want she should go on mesirus nefesh, into an alcoholic Persian drunkard husband, and you see from Iran, it's not so easy to deal with leaders in Iran, if you haven't figured it out yet. Hafacha fan, right? The one day I was a one day I was a. You want her to go in and come out maybe with a head shorter, "Achashdarshan l'hamas." You should say, "Ani yodea, I know, I know, I'm the rosh hashanah, and I'm telling you the Ribono shel Olam put you here." What's this "Mi yodea?" Very like ambiguous, very nebulous. You can't send somebody into a crucible, into a lion's den, based on a "Mi yodea." Ver vey, in Yiddish they say, "Ver veys." Maybe yeah, maybe not. That's ambiguity. And the answer to that is Yaakov Mordecai was not being ambiguous. He was saying something very profound. Esther was troubled by a deep question. How in the world did I end up here? Esther was a valedictorian from Beis Yaakov, Beis Sorochin, Beis Rivkah Bnos Yisrael, Bnos Sarah was the Cleveland school of Yavneh, Bruriah, Shalheves, Neve. Bnos Yisrael, for those who know our area. Whatever it is, she was valedictorian of all these schools together. She was destined to become Esther Hamalka to build what they call Erliche Yiddishe Deiyos. How in the world did I end up with a Persian, non-Jewish, alcoholic, anti-Semite, and a hot tippers? How? How? This doesn't make sense. This was not part of the trajectory of my life. And Mordecai says to her two words, "Mi Yideya?" This is something that's beyond us. Which explains why Rava says, "Am I Rava Chayev Inish Libsumei B'Puraya Ad D'Lo Yada?" The only time the sages decided that you have to become so drunk that you don't know what hit you. Not Pesach, not Sukkos, not Shavuos, not Chanukah. Because who was the first person to be Mekayem Ad D'Lo Yada? It was Esther, when she heard the words "Mi Yideya?" You have to go into a place that's beyond us. Not everything can be captured intellectually. We can't always wrap our brain around the trajectories of our life. If your life works out in that way that you could see everything clearly and go to a life coach and they'll explain to you exactly your talents, great. But life throws its curveballs and then you look into life and what you could do one of two things. Either I can fall into despair, wallow in guilt, shame, I can become cynical, I can become disassociated. Or I can look into the infinity of reality and say, "Mi Yideya?" Ashreinu Ma Toiv Chelkeinu, Ma No'im Goralenu, Ma Yafa Yerushaseinu. Three different things. Chelkeinu are those things in life that you could call your lot. Everybody has different talents, different resources. And you could say, "You know what? I'm good at this, I'm not good at this." That's Chelkeinu. Yerushaseinu is what we call genetics. The beautiful things and the challenging things we inherited from our parents and grandparents all the way back to Adam and Hava. That's go- That's yerusha sayno. Ashreinu ma tov chelkeinu. Ma yafa yerusha sayno, but there's something else. Manoyim goirel leinu. What's goirel leinu? What's goirel? Whenever everybody throws a goirel and you win the goirel, why did you win the goirel? Answer is mi yodea. It seems random. But as the pasuk says, the goirel also comes from Hashem. Purim is called pur hu a goirel. That's the ada loyada. That's mi yodea. It's beyond us. Not because it's a hefker velt, but because the shlichus is something that is so transcendent and mysterious that it's beyond. It's lema'ala min hada'as. It's not lemata min hada'as. It's lema'ala min hada'as. So when you person opens themselves up to that with a lot of humility and with a lot of grief, but also with a lot of conviction and with a deep sense of purpose and joy, I can open myself up to a different type of destiny. Mi yodea. And then you become a channel for things that you don't even imagine. They say two people fail in life, those who don't have a plan and those who stick to their plan. You have to have a plan, but don't make the mistake of sticking to your plan. Have a plan and then when the moment comes, take your plan, tear it up, throw it into the dustbin and say, "Mi yodea. I'm ready to be a channel for something that is really ein sof, for something that is really powerfully, powerfully infinite." There's a safer called Beis Aharon from Reb Aharon of Karlin and he quotes over there in parshas Vayeitzei, I think it is, something that Reb of Karlin said. We say every day a few times, "Veahavta es Hashem Elokecha bechol levavcha." What's bechol levavcha? With all your heart, not with a half a heart? So Rashi writes, quoting the Sifrei, "Shelo yehei libcha chaluk al hamakom." Your heart should not be in a fight with Hashem. Hollow from the word Mahlkeus. In other words, your heart shouldn't be fighting with the and he asks why does why do use the word Mahlkeus? It says after Hashem so it should have said Mahlkeus on Hashem Mahlkeus your heart shouldn't be split Mahlkeus is split Mahlkeus. Half of my heart agrees with God half of my heart doesn't agree with God. And Mahlkeus said Mahlkeus means space. Who Mahlkeus Mahlkeus Mahlkeus. One of the most powerful arguments people have in life is not with their wife not even with their mothers-in-law. The greatest Mahlkeus people have in life is with their Mahlkeus with their space with their positions with their vocations geographically and even more emotionally. If only if only I would have been born to this family if only I would have married this man or this woman if only I would have had this job if only I would be X Y and Z if only I would have done this decision if only I would have sent him to this school and her to that school if only we would have lived in a different community if only I would have had 25 years ago if only I would have dealt with my amygdala limbic brain 45 years ago when I was born if if if if if if if then life would have been blissful and ecstatic. But because I didn't therefore we are the losers of Cleveland and of the entire Midwest. Mahlkeus Mahlkeus Mahlkeus. Part of real real living is stop fighting with your Mahlkeus. Stop fighting with your space in life. You're exactly in the space where you're supposed to be. It's hard for us Jews to hear that because our Our name is guilt. I'm not supposed to be in this space. I made crazy mistakes. I know. And it's not a contradiction to still say there is some inexplicable lawyer lip can you make peace with your space and I'll tell you why it's so important because the energy that most of us invest in the what if deprives us from the energy we should be investing in showing up today to ourselves to God and to our loved ones. My energy can't be everywhere. Our mental bandwidth is limited. The energy I invest constantly in blame and shame in regret is so toxic. It's so overwhelming. It takes me away from the ability to actually be attentive to the person who needs me to be attentive today. It's camouflaged by something very spiritual and Jewish chuva repentance confession Jewish guilt as it says in Tanya chapter 26 it's often straight from the the would love nothing more than to keep you in a vicious cycle of endless blame. What a horrific mother I am. What a disastrous father I am. You want to do chuva? He says in Tanya make an appointment with your guilt. No problem. Just like you do with your therapist you make an appointment. Yeah. Make an appointment with your guilt. Tell your guilt from 9 to 9:15 Monday night we have an appointment for those 15 minutes a shaman a thousand times. Feel guilty. Feel horrible. Tell us all how you're the most horrible person who ever walked the face of the earth. That's till 9:15 p.m. After 9:15 p.m. You did chuva. God says back to living. lawyer lip hollow Allah Allah Allah They say a story it's It's a It's an easy story for people to digest. The Baal Shem Tov was once visited by a couple again and again they couldn't have children. And they asked him for prayers and blessings. And uh he avoided it. He avoided it. But after he saw their desperation, he finally blessed them and promised them with a child. And she became pregnant. And the story is a printed story from the Toldos Baal Shem Tov. The Baal Shem Tov heard a uh message from heaven. And it said that he just lost his chelek in Olam Haba. Why? Because he was misarev b'dinei shamayim. He He went in He went out of his was wasn't his area. This was a gzeira. And he really, as you say, he went out of his boundaries to do this. Tzaddik gozer v'Hakadosh Baruch Hu mekuyam. But this was a very serious It was a breach of the system, as you call it. His His daughter, Rebbetzin Adel, saw that her father started to dance. So she asked him, "Why are you dancing?" So he told her what happened. So she thought that her father heard that he lost his Olam Haba. He uh so to speak lost it. So she said, "What's the simcha? That's pretty sad." So the Baal Shem Tov said to her, "Till now I was never sure that I was serving God. It could be I was just using God to get my ticket to Olam Haba. Now finally I could actually start serving God. Finally finally, no Olam Haba, there's no distractions. I can actually have a relationship with God." Of course this story ends. Now we heard a bas kol that he got back his Olam Haba. So I don't know if he started to cry. I don't know about that part of the story. But I want to use one detail of this I'm not going to get into the deep spiritual insight behind the story, especially it seems, you know, difficult for uh some people to even under begin to comprehend this story. But that's not for now. I want to focus on one thing. The Baal Shem Tov was teaching here something very profound. And that is even Olam Haba can become a distraction from Hashem. Not only Alam Haza can be a distraction, even Alam Haba can be a distraction. Right, the Alter Rebbe used to Bal Tanya say, "Mili Bashamai, v'im lo l'cha chofatzti b'aretz. I don't want this Gan Eden, I don't want this Alam Haba, I don't want this Alam Haza. I don't want anything but you alone. I want you." If I tell my wife, "There's a reason I want to stay married to you. You keep the house clean, you serve three delicious meals a day, and you know what? You also have a good sense of humor, so when I'm in a bad mood, you know how to crack a nice joke. Anything else? That's it. Just these three things that I gain from you. Amazingly, continue with the food, continue with the laundry, and continue cracking jokes." Okay, I mean, listen, if it keeps you away from sin, and it's you mom is completely disassociated, so fine. Maybe it's better than other things, but it's a pretty pathetic relationship. The definition of a relationship is "I don't want anything but you alone. I want you." I want you. And that comes from a very, very deep place. Even Alam Haba, the Maharal of Prague writes, can be a distraction. It could be like a ticket. I use God to get my Alam Haba, which means it's not about God. It's really a narcissistic form of religion, even if it looks very spiritual. Let me tell you about the opportunity that everybody sitting here has. You actually have a tremendous gift. And actually, you can start serving God. A lot of the benefits that come with the frum system, you will liberated from. You lost your Alam Haba already. You're good. You can ac- You can actually You certainly lost your Alam Haza. That whole nachas machine, that nachas machine, right? It's not happening. At least not in I mean, I hope it happens, but not maybe not in the way you imagined it or in the near future. So, it gives you a tremendous opportunity to crack open and say, "I'm not here to impress anybody. I'm not here to impress my community. I'm not here to flatter my in-laws. I'm not here to get approval from my uncles, my aunts, my brothers-in-law, my sisters-in-law, my I'm not here for any system. So, what are you here for? You're here to connect to truth. You're here for real devekus. You can experience Hashem's truth. And the truth of Hashem you'll experience every moment. On the contrary, with the cracking open of the ego and the regular things we all aspire to, you can experience a much deeper relationship with God. And that relationship is priceless, which brings me to my final point, and that is we focus so much on how to heal our children. I found in my own life, and I think probably many of you can testify this, that focus is understandable, but it's the wrong focus. It's really the wrong focus. And it's coming from a cover-up. A nice cover-up, a Jewish cover-up, an aidel a cover-up, but a cover-up. We're trying to live vicariously through our children. We're trying to find validation in our own eyes, our communities' eyes, our spouses' eyes, and in God's eyes through our children. In a way, it's using our children to get our ticket into Olam Haba. Let that go. If you have a relationship with Hashem, that's where it's at. Can you celebrate life right now, right here? Can your children see parents who are regulated, who are present, who are open-hearted, who actually can experience ecstasy with Hashem, notwithstanding the circumstances in their family that are imperfect? You say, "How could I? Look at my Shabbos table. No divrei Torah. No divrei Torah. There was no divrei Torah to say at my Shabbos table for a year." Yeah, I don't to have a Shabbos table. So the father turns to the son, "Nu, what do I tell her?" So he makes with his shoulders, you know, that classic answer. He says, "Nothing to say?" "No." He got really, really angry. He says, "Why do I pay $18,000 tuition?" The boy says, "Good question. I told you years ago not to pay $18,000 tuition cuz I'm doing nothing in that school. You know how that Shabbos meal ended." Of course, it's a tremendous blessing when you're sitting around the table and everything clapped and stimmed and it's tich tich and it's like, "Wow, what a nachas perfect family." But me idea. Nobody understands the journeys of souls. And the question then is, what's happening right here, right now? Can you and your spouse actually celebrate life? You say, "But how can we celebrate life when there's this challenge and that challenge and that challenge?" Those are all very, very powerful questions and we need support and we need to be able to grieve and we need to be able to cry, but we have to answer this question honestly. And that is, does a relationship with God really mean that everything is perfect exactly the way it's supposed to be in my imagination until then there's no relationship? And if Hashem is real, is he not real right now, right here, wherever I am? I once heard from the Telner Rebbe where I read it from the Telner Rebbe. He was in a hospital. I'm sorry. He heard this from a Vizhnitzer Hasid. And the Vizhnitzer Hasid was in a hospital. He went Friday afternoon with his wife for a routine checkup. And they come to the hospital and the wife gets her checkup and the hospital says in Israel she has to stay for Shabbos. And this Vizhnitzer Hasid didn't expect it. And he didn't have his levushei Shabbos, he didn't have his beged Shabbos beged, he didn't have his shtreimel, he didn't go to the mikveh, didn't So he was in a very bad mood. He had to stay for Shabbos with his wife. And he davened over there in the shul in the hospital, but there was no no no preparations for Shabbos. And you know, I in in a lot of shuls, especially by Hasidic shuls, there's a dancing and the whole ecstasy of Shabbos and the the vision of the dancing and the vision of the Hadadi and he was very he was in a bad mood somber. He told us to the tone of the Rebbe the tone of the Rebbe said it over. And he was walking down the hallway Friday night and he sees in one of the rooms there's an old man an old Jew with a long white beard. So he says good Shabbos good Shabbos goes in shalom aleichem and the old Jew was a wise man. He says to cook stories mother schneider you look depressed what's going on. So he says yeah I came in for a routine checkup I thought I'll be home for Shabbos we have to stay here in the hospital and it's Shabbos it's Shabbos. He says I can't make I can't shul I can't I can't nothing I don't have anything I'm in a hospital here without even my basic garments of Shabbos. This old Jew with a white beard looks at him and says to the beard let me tell you something let me tell you something. I was 10 years in Stalin's gulag. 10 years I was in Siberia. 10 years. Every Friday afternoon I looked up there was no there was no family there was no gefilte fish there wasn't even a guarantee that I'm going to live for another week. There was nothing there was a 70 below zero degrees in Stalin's gulag. And I would look up Friday and the sun was setting and as the sun set I said it's Shabbos it's Shabbos. It was Shabbos even in Siberia. This Jew's name the tone of the Rebbe said was for the fuss who was a very very famous and was I had this to know him for in his later years and he says what he told the vision of the fuss. It left a very deep impression because if we define you just guide and Hashem based on circumstances I have my comfort zone that's not very authentic. Situations like this stretch us. But stretching, if you have a stretch, you know, that's what allows the body to become alive. And you realize the relationship with Hashem starts here, right here, right now. Not only are you allowed to have fun and joy in your life when your children are struggling, you're it's important to have this. I heard this from Rabbi Russell years ago. And I think it's so true. You can see it from your children. One of the worst pressures on children, besides their own struggles, is when they know that they are the ones who made their parents miserable. Your children are sensitive. And that feeling, we destroyed Mommy's life, we destroyed Tati's life. Do you know what type of burden that is on your child? Not enough that he or she is struggling with their own stuff, which is quite difficult. Now there's a new struggle. We destroyed Mommy and Tati's life. Let's face it. From the day that I quit school, look how Mommy cries by Shabbos candles, and she doesn't stop. It goes for the night and for the day. Look at Tati's face, downcast. That love, that vitality, that zest is gone. Everything is almost a double lot to see the rasa. That's a terrible pressure on children, but you cannot get rid of this by forcing yourself, because your children will feel that, too. This is where we have to go very deep into our souls and ask ourselves, what is our relationship with God based on? If it's real and authentic, it's actually not dependent on our children. It's not. If we make it dependent on our children, it's not real, and it's a pressure on them. Find it within yourself. Shabbos is Shabbos, even in Siberia. Yom Tov is Yom Tov, wherever you are. Torah is MS in all circumstances. And I just have shame to say shame to call of the whole show of the Finding your soul starting to dance allows your children to say, "Mhm. Wow. There's something inside of my parents that's alive. I would love to find out one day what that looks like." Somebody sent out a clip. Don't try to put God into your children's hearts. You find God in your own heart. And that let and then let your children into your heart. And if God is there, they're going to find it. This is a little harder because I can't blame anybody. This is my work. This is your work. This is our work. The real secret of she is, I don't mean to spoil it. You think you came here for your kids. That's not why you came. This was God's clever way of bringing you here cuz he knew that with your relationship with yourself, there was no way your wife would get you here FOR SHABBOS. NO WAY. You're Mr. Perfect. You're the pride of the community. Tired of the makamat. So your children when I'm I'm now telling you the truth, okay? You can make fun of this. Your children when I'm a serious neffish. You'll find that one day. Your children's souls took on a task much greater than anybody even knows. These children are the greatest of the great, deepest of the deep, holy holy souls. They took on a task to bring out light in very dark places and not only that, to help their parents find their own souls, to help their parents crack open our egos, and discover our authenticity. So this Shabbos as it comes in the miss Abraham you know allow yourself to go away from the void of boiler and to embrace your highest deepest divine self and to be able to really find your own spark of life. Be able to find your happiness inside. Because if your children matter, it's only because you matter. And if you don't matter and only your children matter, then your children are going to believe that they don't matter and only their children are going to matter. You matter. You're indispensable. Your relationship with God is here today and it's infinite and it's powerful. Let's ourselves crack open in the most beautiful and delicious and vulnerable way as we embrace a historic Shabbos the haldinian miss Abraham you know the E ishtar us be huda kadisha the nehiru the anpin. Good Shabbos. Thank you. >> This class is brought to you by the Yeshiva.net. Please help us continue the classes. Make even a small contribution at www.theyeshiva.net/donate.