The Freedom Paradox: -Why We’re Chasing Freedom but Still Feel Trapped Rabbi Nir Menussi #226

Hi everybody. Welcome to coach on this beautiful Sunday night. Thank you for joining us March 30th. Tonight is shar 226 and we appreciate everybody for coming and like I start off every week first saying uh for all the people that post the shares and let people know about it. It's tremendous. Not every shares for everybody but it's good to post. You never know who wants to hear what topic or relevant for. It's a place to talk through important topics and get some. And if everybody wants to join our WhatsApp chats, you could WhatsApp us at 7323141710. We'll add you to the community chats. You could also go to manful.com and sign up for his weekly emails or the shim and all the stuff in culture world. Um for all the people that are watching this on YouTube, you can click on the subscribe button. So every week when we upload a new Sunday night video, you could get it dinged about it and be notified. Also click on the like button. Thank you all the advertising sponsor liquid scoop ele 5 central k from JCN every Sunday night at 900 p.m. on this zoom for over five years. We're in our sixth year of different topics. Next week will be the last year before PES and then hopefully Mashia will be by then and M April 6 will be the Yoseph Greenfeld from Chesh Lakewood the topic who we haven't confirmed yet but it's PES I'm assuming it's going to be something related to BE please join us next week for the before we go into and let's jump into tonight's shar is 226 and we're going to turn it over to coach man to give the opening and the gamatria coach what's the gamria 226 and what are we doing here Sunday with Rabbi Nia from Israel at 4:00 in the morning. So first I want to regard he's not here with us tonight on the zoom so he gave me over the matria that he has. So the topic that we have tonight the freedom paradox why we're chasing freedom but still feel trapped in the Jewish path to true liberation. So the idea that he came up with was that if we realize that everything that Hashem is on top of us and everything is from Hashem that gives us clarity with all the questions that we have. So he so he said the gate of 226 is immigr should help. Okay. So I want to welcome everyone. Welcome everyone to another let's get real with coach man. Here we are with a lot of we have this to have with us with a lot of information books that he wrote uh interesting topics interesting ideas but today was and we hope that we'll will go out we'll have this to go out of of golus just like the Eden went out of mitem and uh we're looking for for freedom, right? When even when they were free, but after all of the, you know, shuds and after all of that they went through, they made it out with all the but we can't forget that we say we say in halal hallelu it wasn't that just they went out of they they became a hashem. So you know discussing discussing tonight the topic of you know people want to be free I should be able to do whatever I want and then I'll be able to serve Hashem to realize you know what what what is it really is it the concept that we have of free and doing whatever I want or maybe not the same the same question is when asked byem went around to all the nations he came to the Eden the Eden all they said was nas and Ishma we're in we're in but we know that afterwards was it's very nice you know you want to be you see that that's the truth and that's the way you want to go but at the end of the day we were forced a great question why did Hashem need to put us under the why did we have to be forced to leave if we all wanted to accept it so it also brings out the idea another another concept right somebody who learns follows that's so it's an interesting concept discussion for tonight you know people want to be free on one hand you know don't tell me what to do I want to choose and other hand how do you know what's right what's wrong you want to have you know you want to know from somebody to tell you what's what you know the direction. But in general, if there is no if there's no uh mission or accomplishment in this world, then yes, you know, let me do whatever I want. There's nothing to it anyways. But the second we realize that we're here for a reason. And there's a tas everybody has their own tlas. There's a mission to accomplish and we want to follow it. We want to at the end of the day, we want to get there. You don't want to find out at the end that you went down the wrong path. So we want to be able to be a hashem to serve Hashem and to Hashem to accomplish our goal in this world. So hopefully tonight with the discussion with Rabbi Manusi, he'll help us out a little bit to understand how do we look at this one hand you know both both ways and we should be talking we should we should be to you know from and we should be able to be because if we know that that's our we should actually love it want it and feel the freedom So you'll wait to Oshia. Yeah, I'm here. I'm here. Read your bio and he'll open up here. Sorry, camera got quote. Okay. So, thank you for coming on tonight. Tonight's shar we we we labeled it the freedom paradox. Why we are chasing freedom but still feel trapped and the Jewish path to true liberation. Nir Manusi is an author and speaker. He's written several books on Jewish thought, psychology, spirituality. He lectures widely worldwide and is known for his unique blend of philosophical clarity and psychological death depth and he's an he woke up early to join us. We actually last minute this last week asked them to join. So we really appreciate this minute. Rabinire the crowd the floor is yours. Open it up. What are we here tonight discussing? Wow. So um uh good evening everyone and uh good morning for me early pre-m morning. Uh very nice to be here. Very [Music] um nice to meet coach man and Asher. Uh we are here to discuss the tricky concept of freedom. Uh it's very tricky. Uh when you have it, you take it for granted. Uh when you don't have it, it's the one thing you want the most. Um and we're we're gonna we're going to try and wrap our heads around this topic. And I'm also going to share a little bit of my own story around this topic. But before we go in, I just want to say one thing, which is that we cannot uh at at this time in our lives as a as a nation and talk about freedom without mentioning and praying, Davening all of us together and use this moment uh that all of our dear hostages uh who don't have any kind of freedom except maybe one very small kind, too small, the freedom within their own skull to to to connect to what they all remember over there is their main the main thing in their namot their main thing in their identity. The stories that we hear are amazing but we have all these people who are still in captivity and uh we should all remember and all the time have them in our hearts. I just uh just before going to bed a few uh few hours ago uh I did get managed to catch a few hours sleep. Uh I read the stories are now surfacing all the horrendous horrendous details of the hellish torturous situation that they're in uh just beyond words. So, I hope that we'll we'll carry them in our hearts and every you know bit of Torah that we have, every bit of uh connection to our own Yiddish kite and to Hashem in this in this time that we have together now, we should dedicate it for to them and that they should uh be free be free in the simplest of ways. We're going to talk about, you know, subtle, more subtle versions of freedom and more inner versions of freedom. But we have to remember that there's basic freedoms that we take for granted. Not being a a slave, not being in bondage, not being in captivity, which is the the first and and the first and simplest form of freedom that we cherish in PES. We should really should all have it. So, amen. Um, so I I want to start by just sharing a little bit of, you know, where I'm from and what's my story. Um, because it's very vital to the topic that we're going to talk about. And it's also uh maybe a little bit of a different perspective than many other people if I I I don't see any faces. I don't see names, but uh judging by uh coach man and and Usher and um Oh, nice. That's nice. Nice to see some some faces. Uh it is now if you if you turn it on it's gonna sort of wake me up a little bit also I need waking up you know I have coffee that's that's one part of one part of one part of freedom more external freedom but then we need a panim panim um so um so my story is vital to the question because it's it's a maybe a different perspective than at least some of you so um I'm I'm 50 years old I um I grew up in Tel Aviv and what we can call the state of Tel Aviv, right? That's how we call it Medina Tel Aviv. It's a world uh in and of its own. Uh and basically as far away from Midishk as you can uh as you can imagine. Um my mother actually grew up in an ultraorththodox home, but she really left everything. But my father grew up in a kibbutz and other than being a lover of the Hebrew language uh he was very cynical and very anti uh Judaism. Now not only that uh but he was uh a celebrity in Israeli culture. He was very very well known like you couldn't walk down the street without people people knowing him. He was known for writing uh political satire and being on TV and writing in the paper and doing political cartoons and it was all very very left-wing uh very secular. Uh much energy was devoted to making fun or not only fun but you know poking arrows shooting arrows pointing fingers at um at the at the F community whether it was the you know the settlers who are basically they're ruining the the peace process or the you know they're taking advantage of the state and this is the landscape that I grew up in and it was also a very very very liberal home a very liberal home even more than most in the secular. He didn't have enough freedom and he was a rebel even in the in in comparison to the ideological community of the kibuts. So he basically there were very little rules. We could wa see everything. we could watch everything and very very liberal open home. And the other aspect of this home is that it was very universal in the sense that my father is a world traveler and our home was like a museum. Uh it had you know objects from all over the world. There were African masks and horns of animals and Indian, you know, idols and um and pictures and and also a lot of things from nature just really like like an exotic museum. So everything basically but Judaism. Uh so just to give you a tiny little example, uh when I was uh uh just going up from first grade to second grade, I was a little kid, I was six, seven years old. Uh my parents moved from their Tel Aviv apartment to a more uh open or more a bigger Ramadan right the suburb like a like a home like a two-story home and um and they were very proud of it. They built it. They designed it and so everyone who came they gave them a tour and the tour was very little but they made an impression on me. The tour always began with the same sentence. The sentence was as you can see there's no muza in our home. I didn't know what a muza was, but I internalized from a very young age that it's something very important. You have to make sure you don't have it on your door. And uh so that's just a tin little example. So it it was very it was very open, a very open home like all uh in Hebrew we say all the all the four directions, all the four winds of the earth. uh but without uh so in English say the winds of the earth in in in Hebrew you say the winds of the heaven all directions but but but without the heaven the heaven wasn't there uh there was no spirituality there was no words for it when I asked about god these young kids you know as a young kids you have theological questions it's it's people think the theology is something very lofty it's with the top of psychology the top of but really for for for many people it's the first questions they when they start thinking about the world is who created the world why is the world why does it exist is there god they told me we don't know nobody can know there's no way to know they didn't tell me there isn't a god but they told me that we have no way of knowing and there's and that's the end of that and so I grew up with more with you know science and Darwin than with that so I I it was very universal very very very cosmopolitan very very liberal and what happened with me was that I became even more of what they were so I was even more universal I wanted for me it wasn't just I wanted to be as more universal than they were and by the way my name wasn't Nil it was now it's Nil and in the Bit Mil they called me Nil but the whole story was my grew up is Neil I had a very American kind of name western name Neil it's very uncommon in Israel at least back then in the 70s now it's a little bit more in Tel Aviv but when I grew up it was very uncommon to be Neil and I felt that basically the story very very shortly is that they wanted to call me Neil and then they told people before the Brit that that's what they're going to call me and then people told him it was still the 70s they told him ah it's too much of a goisha name today it would have been oh but welcome but back then they said no it's a bit too goish so at the very last moment on the bris they called me nil and then shortly afterwards they said no we're we're not listening to everyone we're we're going to go back to Neil they went back to Neil years later as I'm doing chuva I hear that the Arizal said that when the parents give a name in the British they doesn't matter who they are what they thought what they had in mind they were pressured not pressured and so I said they going they called me I looked up near I knew was a field was a plowed field that's in the Mishna but it turns out in the it's also a kingdom and it turns out it appears one time in the whole Torah the whole five books one time in the para that was born parat which of course my parents didn't know so it was quite amazing And the other amazing thing was that my father always told me that neil is a plant and neil is the plant that you make a color out of. You make the pigments. You get the pigments for the indigo. It's a kind of blue out of the the plant. So, and he always said it's mentioned in the Talmud. You know the neil plant that you're named after? It's mentioned in the Talmud. I I grew up on this and then I said I looked it up and it does appear in the Talmud. What is it? It's the plant that the cheaters used to fake the palace for the titis from that plant. So it appears in the Talmud but in the in the worst possible context. He said two remarks on my name. Anyway, I had this name Neil and his name was I felt connected to Neil Armstrong and Neil Simon and all kinds of Neils in the world and Neil Young and um and so I felt that uh especially Neil Armstrong that's him more than others. I felt I want to be an astronaut and uh some people say I I I fulfilled my dream. So uh I I when I finished the army the the one thing I had in mind was I have to run away from this country. I basically I was born a Jew by mistake. I have nothing to do with Judaism. Zero. I am a I'm a man. I'm a human being. I'm a man of the world. Uh and this identity was imposed upon me. I didn't choose it voluntarily. I as a free individual did not choose to be a Jew. I felt it was like a Hitchcock. I don't know if you know Hitchcock but Hitchcock was this you know movie director with a lot of suspense in Hitchcock someone you know pick up the wrong suitcase or you you're identified for someone else and then people start chasing you and you find yourself in this drama and you're being mistaken for someone else. People want to kill you and you're in this adventure and you're suddenly in the world of espionage and you have nothing to do with you. So I felt I was in this thriller that I was someone put like a yellow, you know, star of David on me and told me I'm a Jew. I'm not a Jew. I'm just a human being. But I'm mistaken by others by by the Froom people and by anti-semites. Basically two people that they call me a Jew, but I'm not a Jew. I'm just Neil the human. That's what I am. And so I wanted to be a man of the world. And so the moment I could, I stopped reading Hebrew. Just so you understand the when I was 12, I got through a novel cover to cover somehow a regular novel that's not in, you know, dumbed down and in English. And then I stopped I almost made like a vow. I stopped reading Hebrew. I said, I want to be better in English than than all the Americans and the English put together. I want to be uh the most eloquent and the they have the best vocabulary. And Hashem, Hashem turned it all this way that I can also now teach in English. Now I have a Hebrew YouTube channel and English YouTube channel. But that's the way it was then. I wanted to be as far away as I could from Yiddishkat and from Judaism and from Israel. So I I stopped reading Hebrew and the moment I could after the army, I went to England to study art. I went to England. I find myself in a school in an art school and I'm in a dormatory like nine stories high. It's a big building with people from all over the world. A dream come true. And it was like I couldn't believe my eyes. I couldn't believe my ears. Uh I was in the in in one building with u like a like a like a poster for diversity. That's what it looked like. And diversity was very big then. It was the '9s. So uh we had the European Union was forming and people were and the Oslo agreements were Rabin wasn't killed yet and the Oslo agreements were in full power. We had the feeling that uh the Mia the secular Msiah is around the corner. Uh, it's going to be John Lennon is going to come back from the dead and be our Messiah and and it's going to be there's no nations, there's no borders, there's no religion and and it's just all these people with different shades of of of of skin and different colors of their it was Beniton. There was this the the fashion company with the United Colors of Beniton was everywhere in the '90s. And we felt I felt I was living. It's not a poster. It's a real thing. I'm living it. I'm with I'm in a run room with people from Africa, from Europe, from India, from the Far East, from the Bermuda Triangle, from America, from every corner of the world. And and I was drunk on this. I was just drunk on this for a few weeks. After a few weeks, because I was a little bit interested in history, in culture, I wanted to ask people, tell me, please tell me about your your own cultures, you know, where you're coming from and and what is your history? What is your uh folklore, mythology? What is your what are your religious roots? Tell me about your cultures. You know, we're we we're right. We it's this amazing mosaic. And each one has its past and its history and its heritage. Tell me about about your cultures. And I went around from one to one. There was the girl from India and the and the girl from Zimbabwe and the guy from from Finland. And one by one, one after the other, they couldn't tell me anything. They didn't know anything. And I was so frustrated. They could tell me like maybe a title like the name of the Finnish, you know, mythology. It's called Khalva. I still remember it. But what is it? What does it tell? What does it speak of? What are the stories? I don't remember. I didn't really listen. And then, you know, who cares? You know, I listen to pop music. What do I What do you want? And then the and then the Zimbabwe girl, you know, she's she has there's must be some Zimbabwean heritage or culture, whatever. No, she grew up in this, you know, like a like a diplomat school and it's all English and she didn't know anything. And then I I started realizing one of the the most profound realizations of my life, which really is a segue into our topic. I realized that um these people are the the freest and the most open, the most universal. Uh they each one apparently came out of their bubble, their national bubble, their boundaries um and their limitations. But all this just created another bubble and it's a worse bubble. This bubble is the bubble of the cosmopolitans of the universal souls and they're all sitting together in one room or they're going to some festival like of of music or of cinema and they feel that they're all free and they're all universal but they don't know anything about their own heritage and everything is so open that it's just another cage but it's a transparent cage and that's the the the concept I want us to have in mind now. It's a cage that you don't realize it's a cage. You think you're free. You think you're entire. You think you're you transcended your limitations and your borders. You have everything, but really you don't know anything about anything. It's not a mosaic. It's as deep as the Beniton poster. It's as beautiful as the Beniton poster, and it's just as deep. It's paper thin, and there's zero depth to it. And of course, the biggest shock was when I realized that I'm I'm I'm the same story cuz I didn't realize it. I was getting angry in my inside myself. I was saying, "You're just a bunch of spoiled liberal kids uh who know nothing about your own heritage. You're such bad ambassadors of your own cultures. You know, you should be ashamed that you know so little about where you're coming from. And what's the point of us being here in this world that's beyond borders and that we can travel in throughout Europe and we're going to have this utopia, this liberal utopia if you don't know anything until all of a sudden one someone asked me, "What can you tell me about your own heritage? What can you tell me about Judaism?" And then it hit me that I'm just like them. They're a mirror. They're a reflection of myself. And that was the earliest earliest he didn't do chuva the next day at all. It was like three is a more than three a few years in the future when I'm actually going to actualize or work um uh implement what I started realizing at that moment and what I started realizing at that moment is that you don't choose everything. There are parts of your identity that are chosen for you. There are limitations ingrained inherent limitations in the world in life. in your in who you are and it's as much as part of you as the parts that you choose and in a way it's an even more profound what you choose is based on what you already know and you already understand what you don't choose what is there all of a sudden telling you that you are a Jew for example or that you these are your parents you can't have any other parents this is your life you can't have any other life you can't live all lives even if you the limitations, the constraints, uh where our freedom is chipped away. These are chosen for me, but really they challenge me to go beyond what I know, what I want, what I choose. What I choose is based on what I know that's based on my own limit limited worldview. what I don't choose, what challenges me, what annoys me, what I what I find that I need to deal with that beckons me or invites me to start going into the unknown because I need to ask why is this so? Why did Hashem once I put Hashem in the equation, it becomes from some random arbitrary tragedy to something that is that means something that this this and that fact like the fact of me being Jewish or the fact of me being a man. Maybe I want I wanted to be a woman. Maybe I was I thought when I was young I thought I should have been born not in the sense that in the radical sense of today but I had this idea. Why was I duffka born a man? I think a woman is amazing. she can give life to the world. Why am I embodied in this particular all these limitations? Why now in history? Why these parents? Why this people? Why this country? Why this circumstances? Why do I find myself in this and that circumstances? And all this challenges you to go beyond what you know what you understand. So basically just to to sum up my own little introduction which has become a bit longer than I thought. um I started realizing something very profound about choice and about freedom and about identity. We can take this in a host of directions and hopefully we will now we we'll start some questions. Um but the the the concept here is the the interplay between the chosen and the unchosen where you're free where you're not free. This is where the magic of life and the magic of the soul growing happens. That's what I I I strongly believe now and we'll talk about some uh some of the the other aspects of this journey and these thoughts uh as we as we proceed with our conversation hopefully. Okay. So that's uh opening his a little bit of his background. Now let's get into the crux of let's get into depth. So we're going to first start off with poll questions. Everybody answer just is all theoretical. Let's get feelings. Let's get your thoughts and then we'll really get into it. A lot of good questions tonight. Number one, how do you define freedom? Four options. Choice, being able to make decisions for yourself without interference. B, expression, the liberty to speak and think freely. C, opportunity, access to choices and work, education, lifestyle without discrimination. Or D, independence, living without being controlled by others. How do you define freedom? Second question, how do you think the concept of freedom fits into Yiddish? Number one, freedom is the best is best realized through the Torah and mitzvah which Wait, but you can I scroll this? Yeah, let's finish it. We We're going to repeat it. Number one, how do you think the concept of freedom fits into Yiddish? Freedom is the best realized through Torah mitzvah which guide us to meaningful life. B. True freedom includes responsibilities to others emphasizing community and mutual care. C. It provides a framework that promotes personal and spiritual growth. or D. Living freely means fulfilling our divine purpose as outlined in the Torah. Third question, what do you think is the main reason people feel trapped even when they have external freedom? Four options, lack of inner clarity or purpose, B overload of choices and distractions, C emotional wounds or unresolved trauma. Or D, social and financial pressures. Rab, you can vote and we'll see what everybody says. These are all just people's thoughts. What people think, what people feel. There's no right or wrong answers. What's missing for me is an option five, which is all of the above in uh Well, that's the point. The point is that you want to see which ones are talking to you. It's always if it's going to be all the above, everybody's going to vote all of the above. Okay. Uh that would be my choice. Do I have to vote? Everybody's going to vote and then we're going to review. You can see people, but they can't see it. But when then we're going to review it together. Uhhuh. So, five more seconds and then we'll review it and then Rabbi N will take your take on every question. You can break it down to us your opinion and what your thought is and then we'll uh take live questions and we have questions that came in and tonight's thoughtprovoking program. It's a tough competition with all these answers at least in the first question. Second one appears the second one tells me about the audience. That's right. Here we go. We're going to end it now. Okay, now let's share the results. How do you define freedom? 32% of people feel choice. Being able to make decisions for themselves without interference. That's the number one answer. Expression, the liberty to speak and think freely. 24% opportunity to access choice in work, education, lifestyle, and discrimination. 28% independence living without being controlled by others. So basically, they're all pretty much tied besides one of them. choice is basically freedom to make your own decisions, make your own work, education without discrimination and living without being controlled by others. It doesn't seem like people are so into the liberty of speaking and thinking freely. I guess we don't live in that like you know Iran Syria type of world where or China where everything is very you know uh controlled so we don't even have this concept. So that's that's the first question. Any comment on this Rabbi N? Uh not yet. Okay. Second question. How do you think the concept of freedom fits into the number one answer 50% of the people are saying freedom is best realized through the Torah through following mitzvah which guide us to a meaningful life. So there's freedom but if you follow you get to feel meaningful through that freedom. Only 6% of people feel true freedom comes with responsibilities to others emphasizing community and mutual care. 13% provides framework that promotes personal and spiritual growth. 31% the second answer living freely means fulfilling our divine purpose as allied in the Torah seems very similar the first and the fourth answer to me I'm not seeing the difference but it seemed very similar to me any comment on this raer who who who prepared the the answers can't say but his name starts with chat and chat I know that was I was going to say I was going to say any comment on this not yet the third So sometimes people like to make the you know the the points. What do you think is the main reason people feel I'm internalizing I'm I'm absorbing sponge. What do you think is the main reason people feel trapped even when they are have external freedoms? So the number one answer it's actually tied one one and three are tied. Lack of inner clarity and purpose is number one. This the f the runner up is emotional wounds and unresolved trauma. Overload of choice and distraction only 6% and social and financial pressure is only 8%. So almost everybody here believes it's because it's a lack of inner purpose and clarity or emotional and unresolved trauma. No, the per the purpose is there's one vote more than the other one. Correct. Okay, that's our polls. If we keep Can I keep this open? You could do whatever you want. You can exit whatever. We're done with the bowls. Anybody wants to ask question? Rabanir is a brilliant man. He has a whole life story. Feel free to ask him anything. And we'll start with the first question. First question. Rabanir. I bashm I have money and I don't need to work full-time. So basically he has a lot of free time. I have a lot of free time tom but I still feel a tremendous amount of pressure and stress from many different things I deal with. So the question he has is he has really the freedom like every man dreams, right? if I didn't have to go to work and I didn't have to be stressed at my job, then I could be so relaxed and be so free. But he has that and he's still feeling the same stress and pressure. So, he wants to understand why he finally got to that goal. He finally has the $30 million in his bank account. He can sleep till 12:00. He can go to Florida, Europe every day he wants, but he still feels pressure and anxieties. Why is that? Yep. Okay, great. So, that's a great um question to introduce. I think the first concept that we need to introduce in really understanding also it goes into the first question in your poll. How do you say Paul? How do you say P? Yeah. Yeah. You you're right. It's P O L but you pronounce it pole. Um you pronounce P. So the first concept um that we need to differentiate this is a philosophical differentiation but it it translates into something very very real is the differentiation between negative freedom and positive freedom. So what is negative freedom? Negative freedom it's not that it's bad it's very good but it's negative in the sense that it's all about taking away constraints. Negative freedom is when you don't have handcuffs and you don't have uh the Iranian regime or the communist regime uh threatening you with their uh secret police or not so secret police that um that you you'll be taken away. It's not being a hostage in Gaza. Uh it's being able to move and and go freely. Basically we can say that in our Jewish world pesak to a degree at least the outside of Pesak the the on the surface it celebrates this kind of freedom. Today in the west we are privileged. Uh just like Asher said, we are privileged to um uh live in a world in which we take this kind of freedom for granted. But many people have fought for this and have fought very hard for this and worked very hard to get this kind of freedom. So this freedom is called negative freedom because it's all about you're free from all kinds of constraints and they can be they can be taken you don't they don't limit you. You can get up in the morning you can say whatever you want. You can go wherever you want. You can't do everything because your the only limitation is other people's freedom that you can't take that away from them. That's basically the idea of liberalism. Liberalism is let's maximize individual freedom and the only limit the only constraint is that you can't take away other people's freedom. Basically, it's a very simple Torah. There's one mitzvah, there's one mitzvah is do whatever you want. Just do it. Do whatever you want. And the and the the only mitzvah say the only do not is but don't impinge on other people's freedom. Don't take them but don't coersse. Don't take away. It's a very simple. It's a very simple ethical system, ethical code. The problem is that's not what freedom is all about. It's only part of what freedom is about. It's a very vital part, but it's only one part. The second part is positive freedom. Positive freedom is when I have a purpose. This is not freedom from constraints or handcuffs or laws or or or governments. It is the freedom to realize my calling, my purpose, my mission, my ideals, my goals. I need to have goals and ideals in this world. Now before going into the into the the the the answer to that particular scenario that Rabasher just uh gave us I want to say something again a little bit from my perspective my my journey. So when you grow up in a liberal society, you cherish, you only talk about basically you only talk about negative freedom. When you say the word liberty, liberalism, freedom, you don't even realize it, but you're only talking about the negative kind of freedom. And then you get to a the a paradox. That's the freedom paradox we have in the title. There's a few of them. That's one of them. The first of them, the first paradox of freedom is that when the ideal of freedom is number one on your list, that's the ideal you cherish the most. That's on your written on your flag, that's what you fight for, that's what you say when you get up in the morning. When people ask what's the most important thing for you, you say it's liberty, it's liberalism, that's how I grew up. You paradoxically become bound to this freedom. You feel obligated. You feel that you have to realize that freedom. You have to make use of that freedom. You have to go through all the experiences. You have to do everything. You have to uh you can't limit yourself in any way. And you're you're lost. It's like being in a landscape that's totally flat. There's no mountains. There's no valleys. You can go wherever you want. What happens? You're paralyzed. You're just paralyzed. You run aimlessly. a little bit here, a little bit there, a little bit unless you have some sort of sense of a value system or an ethical system or even a sense of who you are in a very deep way. But it's hard to find who you are cuz you're running outside towards all these options that are open to you. They want to realize all of them and you feel if you don't realize them, you don't make use of this freedom. So you have the negative kind of freedom and you don't realize that you don't have the positive kind of freedom. If pes is the negative freedom in a way pes is the beginning of a seven-week journey to shuot shauvot is like rabbi coach said in the beginning it's being also an evid a servant of hashem and we get a Torah we're limited by the Torah but in a sense we get to a more profound sense of identity and mission and calling and meaning and we know what we want to do. So now today many people they do have the the mitzvot and the Torah and they have this limitation. So first I want to tell you if you grew up from you should appreciate this more than maybe you do appreciate this because what happens in today's world is that any community and that that's the majority in western culture today. Any community that uh places the idea of freedom which is really negative freedom just the freedom from constraints places that on the top of the hierarchy of values it gets lost very quickly. Only communities that have another value system to which freedom is secondary. Freedom is a per is the best second value to have. It's the best thing to have as number two in your list. If you if you put it at the bottom of your list, you live in a very coercive society. If you put it at the top of your list, you're not free. You're lost. It's so open. It's so vague. It pulls you so much outside of yourself, you become lost. But how do you survive? You survive by saying, "I cherish freedom. I cherish liberty. I cherish liberalism." And it's it's really the the the the least worst uh uh political system that we can have. We're very privileged to have it. And we should cher also in education. We should give, you know, our our children space to to live to to make mistakes to be without feeling that they can be, you know, judged or they they they're they're dead or they they don't have any right to exist if they don't do. We need a kind of it's it's a it's being liberal but is second to the Torah. Torah is having a purpose and having a goal and that is the positive kind of freedom. So that's a very very important differentiation to have. For me, it was mindblowing to realize that I'm not really free. Although I live in the freest society growing up in the freest house and the freest community and you're not judged, but then you realize that you need to find a certain goal and purpose and that goes along with taking away some of the negative freedom. And then I felt what I felt was that my this flat terrain all of a sudden became when when I went into Judaism and I discovered the Torah. And now I discovered for example example. I was young. I was 25. I was unmarried. I was looking at you know the opportunities I have in terms of women in the world. All of a sudden when I said I'm going to be Jewish. Most of the women of the world they're outside of the sphere they go. It's it's billions right? It's billions of women that are that are now out and you see in Jerusalem you see a lot of tourists but all of a sudden they're not for you. I'm Jewish. I'm going to marry Jewish. Before there wasn't obvious at all. It was uh it was it was like a dream. The dream is to marry non-Jewish. That was the dream. So but all of a sudden that is out then the flat terrain becomes more interesting topography. There's places you can't climb. There's places that you can fall and there's you still have a lot of choices and options. You can navigate this terrain but you're not as lost. It's not as aimless as before. You have some things that this is not for me. This is these things I cannot do. It's forbidden for me to do. These constraints go along. If it's just the constraints, it's it's uh I feel that I'm my liberty is taken away. But if it goes along with a sense of meaning, mission, purpose, then you know where you're going. Now let's take this to the individual level because the question here was so I have money I have a car well I I I you described him I said oh I want to I want to be there I'm not there but uh but I know we should all know that even if we get to that place that money is not a problem that I can go wherever I want I can travel I can buy a ticket many people today because it's such a wellto-do society are are close to that we're getting close to everyone having it. But you should know that when you get to that point, you can also be as the most lost you've ever been s because if everything is open to you, if you can go anywhere and you can do anything but you're not connected to what it is that you want that who it is that you are, not just collectively as a nation is the Jewish nation, but also individually. Individually, you have to have an inner sense of connection to your own individual and your own individual here. I think having a having a sense of mission that I came the reason my nama came into this world is to fulfill a certain mission or a set of missions. Maybe it changes every few years. Maybe it's one general theme, but then there's variations on this theme like in music. But that's usually how it is. But if I if I'm not connected to this thing, if I don't know what it is that's my story, my contribution to the world and and my my main desire should be that I should discover what my is and that I should dedicate my life to it. And my biggest my most profound prayer is that when I finish my life at the end of the 120 years I will have fulfilled my mission. And the worst fear is that I will finish those years and I will not have fulfilled my mission. I need to dedicate every living moment in a very relaxed way because this is the I want to be free also in the first sense. There's this constant tension of being in a mission and being laid back also to give room to the other people in the story in the room in the family. But without this, I'm lost. So these are the two aspects of freedom. I want no constraints on the outside or as little constraints. And but when I don't have constraints, it's just a reminder this is what I have to play with. But the main thing I mustn't lose sight of is my own inner sense of where I'm going. I just heard just before opening this doom, I heard a beautiful thing that in the there's this thing called positive psychology today and they're saying we're not homo sapiens. Homo sapiens is the thinking man. That's that's just the beginning. It's not the it's that's okay. That goes without saying. We can think but what do we do with this? And and so they added they called it homo perspectus. the planning man. We're not just thinking. We're we can project a future. We can project into the future. But that means you need a an inner compass, a moral compass, a spiritual compass, and a psychological spiritual compass that tells you what your story is, where you're going. And then you can start navigating the terrain. And then you don't care so much about the limitations. The limitations are opportunities. Say, "Okay, so I can't go here. I'm going there." But it starts with the inner compass. Oh, okay. Let's go to the first live question. Yes. Hi. Um, so my question is very simple. Freedom as we know it nowadays is not what freedom is or was on a Torah level. So and nowadays as you said before it's it's having money is not what creates real freedom on a Yiddish level. How do we put the freedom that we know from that we know from the generations into today's life with all the distractions that we're facing? So so like I said so PES is about not being in captivity and it isn't a value that we cherish. And then shot which is the end goal of this journey is receiving the Torah. But then realizing that freedom is what is called finding your letter in the Torah. The name is the word is explained sometimes as saying There's a way of saying ribbo 10,000 like uh 60 score I think there's a word anyway there are 600,000 uh letters to the Torah the initials create the word is meaning each one has their own letter their own letter is again my personal place within the Jewish the Jewish world um I think that is the the the the profoundest kind of freedom we can of 600 grand. Freedom that that gets you. Sorry, somebody said 600 grand. That's just uh to get you started in life. Um I heard someone told me recently that uh his father says his father has this saying that he's fond of I'm working on my second million now. I gave up on the first one. So um anyway the I think so the sense of freedom is built out of finding your letter in the Torah. Their letter in the Torah is the part of the Jewish story. The part of your it's not just the Torah is here. It's it's wider than it's deeper. It's it's it's it's it's what your uh what is your special light that you have to give to the world and how do you have to give it to the world and then hang on and one final thing and then it's a dialogue between that sense of mission and where I am right now in the world. This is more complicated. This is where it becomes there's a distance. There's a gap between where I want to be, what I want to do, what I feel my nama came into the world for. And then where I'm right now, maybe I'm depressed and maybe I'm confused and maybe I haven't settled on on how to raise my family or even have a family or whatever it is that I'm dealing with. And and this means being very much in touch with your neph is basically it's bridging the nama and the nef. The nama is your mission, your calling and your nephesh is you don't want to jump over that. You don't want to skip over that. If you only delve into we had it before in the we talked about being uh healing from trauma and what was the other one next to that? Emotional wounds and unresolved and lack of clarity and purpose. And it was almost a draw and that was very telling that the lack of clarity or purpose that has to do with your nishama what what your nishama came into the world for and the unresolved issues that you have that's your neph and it's it's I I like the fact that the nama got one point more than the uh than the nephesh but I also like the fact that it's almost a draw because there it is the inner balance that we have to strike we have to find that's a that's a life journey you know in and of it in and of itself. Well, the word freedom that we're using here tonight is not really the word freedom. It's the more we're connected and the more we're bound with the divine with Hashem. Basically, in our terms, it's we're not free. We can do whatever we want. So, the freedom is what we talking is not it's not the 2025 freedom. It's the going back freedom. It's both. Yeah. It's both. It's both. That's why I talked about the outside of the external freedom. What I call negative and positive freedom. It's also the external aspect of freedom and the inner aspect of freedom. And of course the inner one is the is that's the soul of it. That's the heart of it. That's the the ultimate meaning. And that's definitely like you're saying that's not what people call today freedom. What people call today freedom is only the outside superficial aspect of it. Thank you very much. Let's go to the next question. Hi Rabbi Manusi. Um I just have a going back on this is more of a philosophical idea and I have another question as well. Going back on the idea of getting fulfillment from your inner your goal in this world your tough kid. Um so first of all I mean you kind of pointed it out. It's hard to find out once tough kid, which a lot of us in this world, we think about it and we think about it. Sometimes we hit the right target and sometimes we're not sure we hit the right target. We just think this is the what we're here to do. But and maybe you want to elaborate on that, but my question is more of um there's people there's there's other there's other beliefs of other, right? They they believe that this is a tough kid. Like how do we know the spiritual sense of satisfaction that we get from our tough kid is how do we know it's not just a placebo like other people also have tough kid and maybe the toughkid is wrong but they feel they're fulfilling a tough kid or maybe someone from our thing maybe they're doing someone's doing the wrong tough kid but they just feel this is their tough kid so they'll get satisfaction. How how could one differentiate one who's really pursuing the real tough kid versus someone just has believes in some sort of tough kid and is also happy like if they're both happy? So I mean like what does tough kid play a role over here? And the second question I just want to ask it's a very practical I'm sure it would come out somewhere here. Me went to yeshiva grew up and everything. I'm it's good to have a let's get real you know it's sometimes hard to I always worry about how am I going to keep all mitzvo and every day I for sure feel you know from all the more we go through the generations there's more to keep I mean you know I'm just saying when they started more to keep I feel I feel there's less to keep every generation I well let's just say from the just now I have a sh and this I have to have more for more I have to have I have to do every day which I don't know I don't count I don't do the calculator every day I for sure don't maybe I make and yeah I definitely I forget to do the before like how do I there's always that feel I'm just never what do you want to call I don't feel free and as just a huge burden and like where are we getting it wrong okay okay beautiful wow I'm so happy you asked both questions. So um one one by one. So the first one it's interesting we're coming out of parat and you said the word I said mission and all the time you said we're coming out of in I I said in the at I saw my little daughter my 10-year-old daughter. She got a tapid at shul. She did she became the babysitter of the of the the Rav's uh the shuls rav's children their little children. And she was just in in a state of bliss. She got a tapided. You could see a little kids. They're lost. They don't know what to do. We're new here in town. We don't have so many friends. She got a tid. She was just in a state of bliss. She she knew where she was. She had a thing to do. But as you said, it's not so simple finding your tkid. So I think from my experience and the way I I've thought about it for many years, u the the it's a very big question to know what your tkid is. And I think the the the telling signs are they come from two totally different parts of of of life. One of them comes from a very very profound inner sense of what my story is. And you can find it by going over your life and trying even to write it down. What has been ever since I was a kid? What have been my passions, my hobbies? What gets me going? What makes me happy? What am I talented in? The talents I got are clues. My hobbies, my passions, even if they're totally not holy, doesn't matter. Um, they tell me something about my mission. For me, this really helped. Growing up, I was I I loved languages and I loved being into translation. As a young kid, I started translating a book. What did I not I also translated some books, but my it told me something about myself that I'm about being like an explainer. I want to take profound Toras have this ra of Ginsburg right very profound and and a great innovator but very few people understand it I want to translate him it's not translating from language to language it's translating from a spiritual language to a language people understand and I I loved this as a kid I loved you know looking into words and meanings for other people could be told different things when you go into your hobby and I loved I loved illustrating I was an illustrator I'm not an illustrator now but I illustrate meanings, you know, I illuminate, I illustrate what things mean in in words in and when I write, when I teach. So, if you go into into yourself and what and into your personality and your again your hobbies, your talents, what you're attracted to, it tells you one thing. That's one side of it. The other side appears to be the total opposite is not you. It's what's happening on the outside and it's leading you places. It's throwing you places. It's you find yourself in situations. Right now, this is really Hashem speaking to you via this is basically this is like the idea where you see that no one is reacting to something. No one is doing what they should be. No one is being a mench. Then maybe you're the mench. If you notice a problem in the world and other people haven't noticed it, maybe you're the one to try and solve that problem. If you're in a situation that you didn't expect, you find yourself in a situation with certain people and they have a problem, they have a thing that they're worried about and it wasn't something you would have arrived at through introspection. It's something you arrive at through extrospection. is just you look at the world and the world led you to a place or or sometimes it happens again and again that you find yourself confronted with a problem people have. If you would have introspected and kept the diary and asked yourself what your passions and hobbyas are, maybe you wouldn't have arrived at that. But reality is telling you, we need you. Ask not what your country can do for you, what you can do for a country, your country, your people, your neighborhood, your family, your friends. Something places itself in front of you and tells you, can you help? And now you have these two clues, these two compasses. One is Hashem speaking to you through hashga and you're asked to do something. You're beckoned. You're called from the outside. And the other one is what am I good at? If you only have the one on the inside, you can be lost in your own subjective world of imagination that and then it's all just your fantasy. You want to do something, be something that you're not, you're not supposed to be. And it's the world is telling you something else. If you only listen to the outside world, you can lose your own sense of self and then you'll be dragged into things that have nothing to do with you. But if you listen to both voices, to the inner whisper, the small subtle voice of who you are, what you're good at, what you know you can do and what you know you can't. You have that voice in the inside and you also listen to the now we're in it's the that's how we should think about it. This is the year to think about practice how everything is divinely ordained and leads you every leaf that's blowing in the wind the bal said every every blade of grass that's going here and there it's all divinely ordained to the utmost detail to the tiniest most detail so uh everything that happens you don't go crazy with every blade of grass but you listen to voices that come up and if you have these two things I think you can find your tapid I think you can find your tid So, um, it's still a journey of discovering it is. And also, you fine-tune it as you go along. You try things out. You realize it's not so good. It doesn't work so well. Maybe the world wants it, but it's not good for you. Maybe it's good for you, but it's not what the world wants. And then you find a balance. That's answer number one. And your other question was about feeling that there's all these more and more and more and constraints and al and everything and the the days become crowded with all this and all these you run from one it's one big to-do list right Judaism has become one big to-do list and and pes even has even more than other times of the year. So here I'm going to say something really amazing that I I think is also life-changing. the the sages they asked what is the greater kind of mode of living whether it's or is it greater to be uh obligated commanded and then you do out of a sense of commitment because you were told or is it bigger more profound greater to do what to do the mitzvot even to do what you need to do out of a sense of uh not being obligated, not being commanded, that I want to do it. And very characteristically, they went for the first option. They said if you're doing but if you're doing it because you want to, what's the what's the big deal? Uh it's what you wanted to do anyway. The whole idea is that you transcend your own ego. You transcend your own self. You sayishma and you do what you're obligated. Generations later, millennia later comes into the picture and tells us something very very beautiful. is, you know, the typical the archetypal conservative revolution. It's revolutionary, but it's it doesn't break the vessels, right? You don't send to the guillotine. You don't throw away the old books. It's a conservative revolution. It's it's it's chaotic lights in vessels of tikun, vessels of rectification. So it says, "Of course, of course, were right, but as we're moving into the future, and I always say this, I I feel that we haven't discovered Judaism yet. We're pre the future Judaism that I I live the the feudism, the Judaism of the future that I'm I'm we're still discovering. It's being broadcast from the future." And this is what is for me. So is the Judaism of the future. And it's being broadcast from the future to to the present. And now we're we're uh tracing we're going upstream into this future. And it tells us that the more we move into messianic consciousness, then it transitions and the greater becomes the not being obligated. You have to internalize and connect to the spirit and the essence and the connection to the Torah and mitzvah to the point that you feel that you're doing it because this is what you truly wanted to do. You're connecting to your godly soul, your divine soul. And for that for that soul, it's natural. And what that does is it doesn't take away all these items on your list, but it totally changes um the tune and it changes it makes it more relaxed and it makes it more about the inner connection. And even if I skip the uh you know if if I say one part faster and the other part but the the the whole ambiencece of it the whole feeling through the day is very different because I feel that I want to find like I said before my letter in the Torah and that's totally alive for me and Torah has to be alive even if it's just one part of the Torah it's the part that I feel that I understand that I know and that glows for me right the there was the saying In the Talmud, they ask one another, the Reb, which which commandment your father was most careful about. Abah it was more careful doing. Favorite mitzvah. But the word to be careful in Hebrew comes from the same root as Zohar as light as illumination like the Zohar book. So the idea is that the the the my connection has to glow. I have to find the the point, the moment, the the aspect, the letter of the Torah that glows for me. And if I really connect it to that and I live it and I do something meaningful with it, I write something about it and I I do whatever it is I need to do. Maybe I I do a campaign, maybe I get kids excited about it, maybe I I try to to share on social media something about whatever it is. If that is my where my heart glows, I'm going to put more focus on that and and it comes from what I want to do, what I feel that I want to do. And then all these external things they become bearable. The light is the load is lighter. That's how I experience it. That's the way I see it. And that's the inner spirit. A lot of nominally have lost this feeling. But if we regain it, if we awaken it, uh that's the true essence of in many ways. And um I hope it answers your questions. Thank you so much. Hi. Hey, I could ask now. Yes. Okay. Sorry, I sound a bit tired because I'm really tired from doing meaningful preparations for PES. Um, so I have a question. I understand a lot of what you're saying and I also hear Kabad principles resonating very clear. Um, the question concerns the following. When we're raising a family, building a home, working within structure, feedback, right? Tuning into ourselves where we glow, the gifts we have, we can direct our energies and our life to purposeful living. Now, so my question is what about people who are retired, people who are elderly, people who are in nursing homes, how do they continue the passion and uh attachment of their new tap family's already raised, children are married, um they're not reporting to jobs 9 to5, right? They're not cleaning a house for Pesak. So what message are you go can you give to those people who are retired who may have limited abilities? Some no longer have their full intellect. Yeah. But there is a tough kid for every nish that's here until the last day until the last moment. So perhaps if you can give us some information, we can help those people so they can continue their tough kid. Wow, that is a very beautiful question. I thank you so much for this question. and you're bringing me back to the days both my parents have passed but uh both of them I had uh the time that we know that you I took care of them you know and uh when they were in those states um and you're really bringing me back to those times I think I was thinking as you were speaking and it's not it's not only thinking it's it's sensing feeling and finding the the soulful aspect of it. What I think is that the purpose you play in that in that station in your life in that moment in your life is by virtue of your presence you have already done in terms of you spoke you did you acted you raised you worked you instilled the values that you wanted you did what you could you didn't do what you didn't what you couldn't and what you now is the time that you're giving mostly by being there being present The presence of the older generations, the presence of someone who's lived a great chunk of life, who's experienced and learned, and you see the wrinkles and the wrinkles are also in their hearts in the their all their battle scars and all their everything that's been engraved on their hearts from all their experiences. Um and you see that with every time that you see a grandparent and a grandchild, they have a connection that you don't have between a parent and child and the child and parent, right? Uh there's an affinity between the grandchild and the grandparent that is something unique. It jumps over the right because the parent gives you so I'll use a bit of a cabalistic term. The there in cababala we have the inner lights and the surrounding lights, right? It's called the and the or in another term it's called the the light that fills the world and the the light that surrounds the world. Right? So the parent gives you the inner light the he fills you up. The parent he or she they fill you up with knowledge with wisdom with guidelines and and they sustain they nourish you. They raise you. What the sabah and the sava do is the so it's not it's the same the surrounding light the canopy uh the ambience it's like the kupa that surrounds the family that guards the family. So the surrounding light isn't there to tell you something to give you to hammer something into you. It's just there, but you're based in it and it it filters in and it gives you something that is coming out naturally out of the life experience and out of where they are. Um um so so I think that's a purpose that's a purpose to play the fact that you have lived and absorbed and you have all these layers within you and you're just there you're kind you can do whatever you want you smile you hug you're you're with the grandkids you're with them you you you you project everything that you did in life that serves a purpose that's even higher in a way in a in a very profound way than all the functioning adults can ever give because they give you something from the revealed level the inner lights, the the mima lights, but not from the higher, more profound, more deep surrounding lights. And just another metaphor for this, we talked about the the mim versus like the word sabah and sava, but another term is that the parents, it's like they give you rain. Rain in the sense that it nourishes you, it makes you grow. And and also you, if you're a good kid, you get rain. If you're a bad kid, you don't get rain. Like we say, if you keep my mitzvah, he'll give you rain. If you don't get mitzvah, I don't give you rain. It's conditional. The grandparents give you due d do the right dw. The do is always there summer, winter. It's not as loud. It's not as it doesn't, you know, it doesn't help the the plant grow in the in the in a in a clear overt sense just like rain. Rain gives you what you need. But the dew also serves a purpose and it's constant and it's quiet and it comes at night and it just materializes right it appears there. It's just there. You don't hear it falling but you get up in the morning and it's there and it's always there even in the summer. So that's like the grandparents that's the do and the and that's the surrounding lights the the is knocking on the on the door of the in the song of song said open up my head is full of dew wants to come in so it's it's around it's above your head this is this is the canopy that the grandparents the elderly give all of us amazing amazing concept that you're bringing Perhaps I think what it was brought up by the question. It was a it was awoken by the question by the I think what we discussed before you know trying to find your sometimes we have to stop like to listen to that inner voice that that you discussed to hear that sometimes you have to get to that place of stop doing and spend a few minutes being Yeah. Yep. And then and then you can you can get connected to the Saba within me to the elderly with within me both to the child right mo most of us here right we're maybe not but we're adults but we have like the grandparents the the elderly above us and then we have the little kids below us but these two levels are very vital to be preserved we talked before about the neph and the nishama the neph is like the child within me the nishama is like the grand the grandparent within me even if I'm not a grandparent yet I'm not a grandparent yet but I have this old man within me who's like beyond life. I have the kid within me that's just new to life and that's uh that's discovering and there's the old person within me who's on top he's above everything. He's like a little bit outside of the world already. And the sed knight by the way is really connecting to both because we have the child who's asking the questions and it's all about on the other hand we have the is to be a little bit outside and it's being like a like a sabah is when I become I I I channel my inner old man my inner grandfather my inner sabah haba right I go to the outside and I'm just uh observing what's going on I'm not I'm not pressured. It's like I'm not in charge. I'm not the parent. I'm the grandparent. I don't have I don't I don't need to control anything. So it's beautiful. I'm in the I'm in the in the story as like a little kid, but I'm also outside of the story like a grandparent. Right. So we hear a lot the concept of the inner child to connect inner child. What you're saying now is also to connect to that elder elderly wisdom from the from going wisdom and also freedom that you don't you don't feel pressured you don't you're not uptight there's something laidback that's the it's laidback and it's something that you that I think is the the most vital ingredient that fkite Judaism is missing today it's a sense of um uh you know wondering being a wondering Jew we have the answers we have the schedule we have the things we have to do we have the to-do list uh what we lack a little bit and you see it very much in the f literature the the the books that are for kids is every time you know what the next page will say you just know it you know you know what the message is you know it's going to be very educational it's very didactic and we've become too didactic there's very little room today for artistic freedom the freedom freom just to explore and not know what's happening in the next page and and the freedom to you know you you we walk in straight lines we run we rush from one station to the other station you people they tend to walk quickly because they're walking from one mitzvah to the other from one thing to the other but stopping and looking at the flowers and looking at the sky you know used to say did you look at the sky today did you do you did you remember to look at the sky today every every day they take a moment and the sky is always different and the clouds are always different. There's something so um so looking at the sky and the flower it's it's adding this element of of searching of seeing where Hashem is is again glowing or talking or speaking to you but um um but in a way that's surprising that's not routine that's not that's different every time right it's more it's leaving things open-ended open-ended and I think I think many people have the fear of sitting in that space because if you know we're used to knowing we have to know what's next what you know if I'm sitting in a place where wait a second uh in in sometimes where I have that fear but we have to learn how to be there to be able to hear those inner voices to connect but here's here's a question maybe taking it making it more practical that somebody sent and never feel satisfied with what I have. So, you know, they always need to buy new gadgets, better clothing. And he writes, "I'm actually rebuilding my house now. What am I missing?" So, the Labereb used to say, "I'm always happy. I'm never satisfied." He wasn't talking about household appliances and furniture. He was talking about his mission. That was the main thing. He didn't like the fact that in America people become so crazy engrossed with having the the latest uh uh innovations and he he wanted people to remember the the way it was in Russia that you settled for very very very little. Uh it didn't work out for him. All the kabadnik today they whoever can afford it they live the best lifestyle imaginable. But the main thing he gave I think that's a very important motive to have in life. I'm always happy I'm never satisfied. Every day we will be able to say this. So it's both both are hard to do in a way. It's hard to be always happy with what you have and what you don't have. To be who is the rich the truly rich who's happy with their lot. So to be always happy that's very hard work. Uh it's also hard work to never be satisfied in the good way in the spiritual way right to always say I I can do more I can add more I can do something else what did I do what did I not do until now and then and then your um in a way by the way being always happy comes from the grandparent within you the older parent within you because they're satisfied with very little as you my my mother my late mother used to say as you grow older you become like the little prince who's living on a tiny little planet. If you know the book, the little app your your world diminishes more and more until it's finally you get rid of of your your your possessions and ultimately you live in just a little room with a few things and that becomes your cosmos. It narrows. So in a way you settle for less. When you're old you don't need so many things and you shed away a lot of unnecessary. So being always happy is channeling the older person within you. But never being satisfied is the child who's only beginning and who wants more to do more and aspire to more and and do more. And then you have the glint in your eye, the youthful exuberance that you don't want to you don't want to lose. And and and it's very hard because you you tend to be satisfied. Ah, I did enough. I did I did I did I'm doing enough. I'm doing and but there's something exciting exhilarating about not being satisfied what you do and never being satisfied. So for me that's a a life moto. I'm always happy. I am never satisfied and it it channel and and always happy also has to do with external with money with possession and happy with what you have physically materially settling for what you what you have and spiritually it's the opposite you have to be greedy you have to want more and more there is the there is the concept of the spiritual also um for us human beings things con we have to be able to give ourselves feedback that we're doing good to be able to continue. So you're right it's the word satisfied. It's not like not like um feeling okay. We need echo. We need echo. We need validation. We need to see that things are working, things are happening. They give us they give us you shouldn't be in a place of done. Yeah. That means not satisfied, you know, just to to to be able to continue. Yeah. to continue. Um, hold on one second. What's the time? You want to ask a question? Keep on by raising your hand. Yeah. Hi. Hi. Hi. Do you want to ask a question? Yeah. I want to comment on what the uh earlier person asked about um purpose of older people. Um so my husband and I cared for our elderly parents for many years and I felt um that the I I felt first of all that it was an example to my children of Kiba. So even if they themselves, you know, weren't doing something productive, but I felt that the fact that they needed care and my children were able to see how how that was done was very important. Um and I also felt that it gave tremendous to my husband particularly my husband who cared for his father who had dementia for many many years and um you know what made it easier for me to let my husband do all the things that he needed to do for my husband for my father-in-law was the fact that you know it's such a tremendous cost that he had for this. So I wanted to mention that and I also wanted to ask a little bit about your you know you you mentioned a little bit about what started you questioning but what brought you to Yiddishkai and how did your parents react to that considering there yeah I just saw that some that someone wrote uh uh directly for me you didn't see it you don't see it on your chat but I saw it uh someone asked that people want closure to the story or the continuation of the story the rest of the story. Yeah the rest of the story. So um so I'll share a little bit some more and and I'll try and also keep it sort of at least the themes of freedom to to be there so that we're focused because it's you know you can tell the story in so many different ways. Um but um basically what happened was that uh after that year in in England and it was England and America also I came back to Israel basically with my tail between my legs because uh I came back realizing that I cannot be a man of the world without knowing where I'm coming from. Right? Dama in Bata. And so I came back and I moved to Jerusalem. I grew up in Tel Aviv, but I moved to Jerusalem because I felt I wanted I still wanted to feel like a tourist. And for a for someone gupping in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem is like you feel like you're a tourist. You feel like it's a different world. So I went to Jerusalem and there uh I started encountering the Jewish world. You can't ignore it in in Shalim. In Tel Aviv you can ignore it a little bit more. Uh but you cannot ignore it in Shalim. And you have all these F people everywhere. And the bus taking me from my secular neighborhood in Rakavia to my secular university on Mount Scopus goes through Gaula. So you every day twice a day I go through this very this other alternate universe of the fume world and then there's a lot of also you know yarmuka kipa wearing people in the university very modern kind of religious people but you you meet them and then at some point you realize that almost all the non-religious people you meet are ex-religious so it's like everywhere you're surrounded by this you can't run away from it and at first it was annoying but then it would became more interesting And and then I was very fortunate enough to meet someone at the university who broke the main stigma that I had. The main stigma that I had is that you can't be very f and very widely educated at the same time. I knew people were very very f but they didn't have any they didn't have what I considered to be wide education and broad horizons. And I knew these very modern data people in the university that they had both worlds but they didn't seem very the to me. They seem to be it seemed to be very compartmentalized. They would they would study they would I feel they were secular people but they then they also had they they would they went to shul but it was two different split worlds. Then I met someone who was uh very profoundly you know data and and god- serving and god-fearing and he had the paos and he had the beard but he was also uh in the university and studying history philosophy and I only then did I realize that the babeba was was another example of this and we had he was still alive at the time Rabbi Adinstein and who's still alive today Rabbi Ginsburg for me there there's a there's a bunch it's like a it's like a a a group of people interesting group of people there are interesting subsection for me I needed to know that it can exist that you can really have both you don't have to throw away say psychology or history or knowledge and at the same time be profoundly you know religious so meeting that guy was was transformative for me it was life-changing and that got me on the journey now it wasn't short it wasn't fast and it went through a whole year of just uh exploring notish exploring religions and spirituality is a very newagy year of everything you know Buddhism and Christianity everything opened up and I even contemplated inventing my own religion that we should maybe in the postsecular age that's how I called it I'm post secular I'm not the tea I'm post and I want to um maybe maybe we should have a lot of different religions and I should invent my own religion I played with that for a while it didn't go very And um and but then gradually I realized all the arrows were pointing at Judaism. Why? Because I was looking for different things. And then it hit me that Judaism is all of them. I was looking for one mystical system to follow because there's so many religions, so many paths. You need to focus on one just focus. I was also looking for an ethical system because I felt that the newagy world, it's very spiritual. They have these festivals and the music and meditation and yoga but the ethical system is very vague and the commitment is very vague. They don't have a sense of commitment and I felt that in order to be a good human being you need to have a very very clear path of what's right and wrong. So and that it didn't chime well with the spiritual types looking for ethics. I was also opening up to right-wing conservative thinking and realizing that we can't get rid of nations and your national identity is part of you and and this was long before October 7th, but it was the second inifat for me that broke my leftist uh utopian naive worldview that we can just have a peace contract and it's just going to be fine. And it totally broke for me in the second inifat if you remember those days that they were offered basically 96% of the of the West Bank and they refused and and then the second inifat broke out for me that broke my naive leftist worldview. So I was looking for a mystical system an ethical system and I was looking for something that incorporates my national identity and I was looking for something that also uh would would be good to raising a family. That was another thing I was started to think about very deeply. I wanted a sense of intimate connection and commitment of you know having uh raising a family that didn't didn't go well so much with the with the other systems but I want I looked for all of them and then it hit me that Judaism is all of them and it was the worst moment of my life because um uh that was the last thing I wanted. It was the last thing I wanted is to become f. But I I I I saw very clearly all of a sudden that everything I'm looking for is found in Judaism. It has the it has the cabala. It has the the Jewish family. It has the the nation and it has it incorporates the right and the left. Also, there's right-wing values in the Torah. There's leftwing values in the Torah. All the prophets, they sound totally leftwing. If you listen, if you hear the the the prophetic visions, it's very leftwing. And so I everything was there and but I I it was the worst moment. It was a nightmarish moment. But then I told myself, okay, relax and take it easy. And and that's a good thing to to learn. I I I I was taking on limitations, taking on borders, taking on constraints, right? The davining and the kosher and the learning of the Torah and understanding all this all this system of life and Shabbat. And but I took it from a place of I wanted it to glow. I even the idea ofishma I wanted it to to resonate in some way that I can even when I start doing things that I don't agree with or understand at least that principle I understand and that is a very vital aspect which I also try to give my kids. So my kids are obviously from from birth cuz that's how I raised them. But I try to give them that feeling of exploration and excitement and discovery and freedom to ask questions and freedom to make mistakes, you know, and and to give it to them and to talk openly about things. Talking openly is a very very important that's the deeper essence of pes of of provoking questions. I want them to ask questions. I'm not afraid of the questions. Now as to what my how my parents reacted that's a very beautiful story. So the story is that uh again my father was not only very secular but ideologically so and public as a public figure like he was there uh you know in in front of very well-known and well known for being very anti-religious and all of a sudden he's realizing that his son who was exploring who's learning who's thinking uh is reaching all these places that's the last thing he wanted uh he wanted it to go. It was very challenging for him and then uh something very beautiful happened that was able to sweeten things. The the the end is very so it start it started out very bad a lot of arguments and a lot of uh you know really heavy arguments into the night and I was also in a way attacking him. I was I was basically attacking him that he was a bad influence on society that he represented things that were not good uh that he was irresponsible that he would write satire that was wasn't uh you know very tenua for example what the way he wrote you know the jokes that he would tell things like this and I was attacking this and and he was and the the the result was horrible the result was he became even more secular and even less sua and and I realized what's happening is that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm I have one major commandment. It's one of the ten commandments. I need to respect and honor him because I'm not doing it. He's taking back the honor he's not receiving in the worst possible way. He's just going I'm going to be I'm going to double down on everything that I did and I'm going to go even even harder because I need to give myself psychologically, subconsciously the respect, the honor that I deserve for my child that I'm not receiving. So he doubled down. His writing became even worse in terms of you know how it was. I was broken by this. But I realized in a way it's my fault. In a way it's my fault. And then I made a very big decision. My decision was that I'm not going to educate my par my father. I'm not going to to rebuke him. I'm not going to attack him. I'm not going to criticize him. Everything that I disagree with, I'm going to take on to myself that I'm going to be better in that. I'm going to change that. and I'm just going to focus on working on myself. That was my individuation moment of I'm going to honor him and respect him and be very very polite and but everything that I disagree with I'm going to say I'm going to do I'm going to be different. I'm going to rectify that. I'm going to be the continuation of my father. But the continuation is a sense of rectification which is really the the best the best continuation that you can imagine is to improve and to rectify and to be and it's all realizing also that this is my father and so it's my mission to be part of that same heritage but in a good way in a in a better way so I started doing that and then came the magical moment the magical moment was so you have to know my my father he was again he was very well known he had a very distinct appearance he was very big and he had um uh a kind of a French, you know, a goati, a goatee, how do you say, right? A goati beard and but very big. And he had like a like a cap like a Greek kind of uh Bohemian, you know, Mediterranean kind of hat that you put on like a little cap. Casket caset. Maybe it's French. I don't know where it's coming from. In Hebrew, we call it casket. It's not Hebrew. I think it's French. I don't know where it's from. But he had it's very typical. Everyone knows him. It was like a walking cartoon. And people made cartoons of him all the time because he had a very distinct the cigarette and the big the round face. You want me to show a picture? I have a picture of him. You want me to show a picture? And now what happened with me was I started being more in the chuva track. I didn't have a keepa and at some point it became unbearable. I had to have a keepa and I I went around with a like a hat, you know, for the for the sun and and then I would when in the cafeteria before I would bench, I would put it on and bench and then take it off. It was very weird. I felt I needed something constantly on my head, but I didn't want a black keepa. What's What's that got to do with me? I didn't want a wool keepaer. What's that got to do with me? I didn't want a bkari keepa. Nothing. I I don't belong to any of these. I'm just on my own journey. And then it hit me. What does a Jew put on his head? He puts what his father puts on his head, right? That's what that's what a Jew does. And so I came to my father. He had like 30 of those hats. And I and I asked him, "Can you spare like one or two that you don't that you're not using so much?" And he said, "Okay, sure." He didn't really get where this was going. Uh so he went to this big uh this the two you know shelf that he had with all these piles of hats that he collected over the years. He was a collector. He had many collections. He also collected those hats and um and he gave me a few and said I'm not using them so much and I took them and then I took them home and I and I put them in front of the mirror and I got used to looking at myself this way. It's a very kind of Jerusalem look. You know in Jerusalem there's a lot of people who they don't want to be categorized. They go with a kind of hat like this and and I and I liked it. A little bit of a beard already. And I put it and I said, "This is vague. I like this vagueness. This is for me. I'm going to put it on now every day." And I started I went to the university and I wear this hat. And I I thought people would react like crazy. They're going to think I became No, nobody reacted. It's It's uncommitting. And two weeks later when this was already on my head all day um and my father just you should know he's every all the time he's with this. People thought he was only on TV. He would get up in the morning and the first thing he would do is like his moan was to put that hat on his head. He didn't go dalote without his head with his head revealed basically right this uh so um I come I come in and I knock on the door or I open the door. I didn't knock on the door. I had a key. I open the door. He's there. He looks at me. I'm wearing his cap. And at that moment, he's realizing that I'm I put on his cap, his hat. But the context is that I'm now going into the chuva. I'm becoming more f. But the it was a very weird moment, confusing moment because you don't know what you're feeling. On the one hand, this is the rebellious moment, the rebellious act. This is when your child is telling you, I'm going in a different direction. On the other hand, I look like my father. I look like him. I'm a reflection of him. And and he looked at this. He looked at me. He saw both a reflection and a rebel. Someone who's becoming closer, but someone who's also pulling back and going in his own direction. And and uh he just burst out laughing. He just burst out laughing and he totally got the whole situation. And it was like a it was like brilliant. And I tell this to ballet chuva. So that particular situation with the hat, it's very individual. But find a way as you're distancing yourself from your parents to at the same time drawing even closer to your parents at the same time. I was able to do this in one object, one artifact was able to both be the the object of distancing and the object of being closer. You can find a way of being closer to your parents as you're drawing away from them. Make it up for them, but also in a profound way, the distancing, the finding your own path, that is the truest continuation. They need to feel that. They need to feel that you're closer now than you were before, not that you're more distant. So that was and what happened was so I I put that on. That was my act of of rebellion, but it was also my act of reconciliation. And it was symbolic of me respecting him, but also respecting myself and my own path. And a year later, he was he paid me back in the most beautiful way. I spoke to him over the phone and I was a year wearing that cap, but it was very uncommitting and very vague. And I felt that I needed to be less vague. I wanted to marry. I wanted to become more obviously fume. But it was very frightening. It was like coming out of the closet as to put on like a keepa that you know that orit to take them out and to make it clear that I'm not this vague Jerusalem kind of Jew. I'm I'm going with I'm going with the Torah all the way. And I told him I shared with him that I'm I'm very afraid of this moment that I'm afraid of what people will say and how they will react and maybe they will be disappointment. my secular friends, they may be disappointed in me. And the moment he heard those words that I'm afraid of what people will say, the individual rebel within him, the secular rebel who left the kib who was very, you know, he had this and he wanted to annoy annoy everyone. He said, why do you care what people say? And then he said she he said she can't translate it is is you can't you can't translate it with with nice language. I don't know how to say it is like f them basically. That's what he said. It's like f them. That's what he said. He said and he said f them to all the secular people who are not going to like you being becoming the tea. And that was his moment of telling me uh giving me this rebellious sentiment and basically giving me his blessing to go in the opposite direction of him but using the same energy as him. this rebellious secularbut kind of energy. F them. Do whatever you want, whatever you believe is right and and go with it. And that was unbelievable. I have tears in my eyes just thinking about this that he was able to tell me this and he was loyal to himself and loyal to me. And I felt that he was um the he was paying he was before when I rebelled against him in a negative way, he doubled down on his secularism. when I started respecting him and putting on his hat and and just being there and coming for Shabbat and and he was with the TV. I was doing the kdushes and learning Torah as the TV was, you know, blaring away, but I respected and I hated it. But I I I it was very important for me to honor my parents. He the he paid me back by giving me this blessing, this amazing blessing of of you don't you don't need to care what people say. You need to do what's right. It's the first, right? The first you shouldn't be ashamed of what people make fun of you. You have to to follow your truth, the truth of the Torah. So, uh, and and so that moment was uh was was very vital and it has to do with taking on boundaries and rules, but being on the inside very very very free. the more rules I took up and the I adopted like I I was sh before I was sham shabbat being a sham is the the the most extreme kind of not having freedom right there the the basic freedom to touch and to do whatever you want you don't have it anymore for me it was liberating I can't tell you how liberating it was it was liberating because then I was focused on what I really want I want to find the one and I want to raise a family with the want. I don't want anything else. Anything that's partial, that's halfway, that's in between, that's here now, gone tomorrow. None of that. I hate it. It's I didn't I never wanted it. I did it because society told me that's the the the best way to be young or to live your life. But when I was able to let go of that external freedom, I got my inner freedom. So I was taking on more and more limitations and constraints but I was becoming free and freer in a way in a deeper way. What you're making also is that every mahalak whether it's from or liberal everything has its freedoms in its own right and it has its own it's like you know the it's like the the knife has this double-edged sword right you could it's like a double-edged sword right if you're you can do whatever you want but you you're you're forced into that culture and that society if it has the freedoms of being from because you're choosing and that's but then it has the other things that that are not it's not like there's never like there's everything has two sides yeah also I mentioned the paradox freedom. There's more paradoxes. Another paradox is the more you're doing everything and eating everything and drinking everything and and the more you're accumulating experiences, uh you think you become richer and everything is opening up. But the more you do this, there's one experience that you get less and less of, and that is the experience of tumimut tumimus, of being of of not knowing something, of not experiencing something, of something being mysterious for you and and something being having that child within you that has this this um this this uh wholeness, this sincerity, the simple straightforward approach to life, this tamim way of life. So it's always it's always this balance which I think Judaism is the the greatest gift that it gives us is that it gives us this balance of we need freedom we need giving other people space getting our own space exploring learning not being pressured into things on the one hand if we do it right but in the other hand having all these all these boundaries. Let's try to grab a few more questions. Sure. Okay. Hi, I'm Hi. Hi. Um, I have a question. I I came in a little late and I will afterwards listen to the very beginning that I missed um because it sounds incredibly interesting um and important. Um, so I have this vision for myself like one day to be able to go through a pesa where I feel a sense of freedom from something and I I feel like um where I experienced the CS M the Jews um leaving Egypt. Um I like just to feel like the seder has some meaning to me and I'll tell you it doesn't. Um, I I I had a lot of I struggle with like a a lot of mental health issues and I do know that when I was well I I was I you know I tried a lot I was able to try a lot harder in my in terms of my sky but I'm just somebody whose life lost like just kind of barely just just just trying to make it and be alive and be continuing to just keep going um till they one day find something that works better for me. And so I'm I'm still trying to have a meaningful whatever but it's not very meaningful and I I would love to have that a place where I I want to understand what is and so um thank you so much uh for sharing this. So you'll have a dispos to have good hope and good uh optimistic feelings. Um, it maybe is this a good time also to mention to tell you that this upcoming uh Sunday, a week from now, less than a week from now, Sunday morning for Americans, I'm doing a big webinar just on this question on the webinar and what it means to be really free on on Passover and how can we come into the seder night more prepared and more connected because it tends to get lost in all the preparations and the cleaning. We don't prepare so much for the seder itself. if we don't connect so much to the hagada and the inner meaning of the hagada and and what is the right mindset to have going into the seder night and how to make the most of it. Um, and I really I'm doing this uh webinar, this event in order to give people uh really practical advice both on the on the on the struct the inner structure of the Hagada and how it's built to come more prepared and the right mindset to have and uh to really have insights and ideas that you can share because it's this is a moment of sharing and there the the the um mid part. It's like the money time to really come up with and and share something new that would elevate the the room, elevate the table. So, I'm doing this webinar and you're really really invited. I think um Rabbasher and and will we'll share it the link in some way. Um you can maybe they can put it in the chat or whatever it is you have. Uh so really really invited and I'm going to talk for a whole hour um just on just on that topic just on really how to make the most of that evening because it's once one one time a year well for people outside of Israel it's two times a year sometimes I envy you even that you have it one day after the other I had it only once in my life that I was um I was abroad and I kept the two uh I was abroad but I was a shalik and as a shalik it turns out. Usually if you're an Israeli and you're abroad, you do one seder. But if you're a Shalia, it's like you're living there. I had to do the two sitters. I had once once in my life I had that experience and I really loved it. Actually, the second one was was much more powerful than the first one. You more more laidback. So I'm going to talk about that. Uh but just to uh say something uh you know the sense of liberty comes from it's it's a it's it's something on the inside of you and it means being really re um uh mindful or remindful you need to remember it and be mindful of it of God's presence in the room and in your life that God is there every moment and every second and he's taking you out of Egypt now and Mashiach is coming now like the Mashiach told Zakai and uh it's happening now. It's happening in the moment now. And it's now that we're coming out of Egypt. It's now that Msiah is coming and it's now that we have to be present in this moment. And and every moment that you get that experience, it's magical and it's miraculous. It's the it's Nissan is the month of miracles. This is the miraculous entering the mundane and we have to strive on this and work on this every day in our life. Life is a struggle. It's a it's a strife. That's what life is. Life is strife. But if we can keep our heads above the water, it's an amazing thing. And that's where we we breathe in. David was grateful to Hashem for every breath that he took. He was very very mindful of the fact that nothing is taken for granted and the fact that he is sane. The first king wasn't sane. He lost his sanity. David was grateful for his life and grateful for his mind, grateful for his sanity. He could pretend to be crazy because he was really sane. That's a luxury to be able to pretend that you're crazy. So every moment of sanity and mental health and every moment of breath is a moment to be grateful for. And and this consciousness this is messianic consciousness. Mashia Ben Davidid is that you like Davidid you appreciate every moment every breath God is giving us the kiss of life. Every breath he's right. It's a mouthto- mouth resuscitation. How do you call mouth to mouth? How do you call this in English? Yeah, he said it right. Resuscitation. That's what he's giving us every time that we're It was him breathing this breath into us. And the more you're conscious of this, the more uh grateful you become. Beautiful. Okay, let's go to the ending, the closing of here. First of all, a big for coming on tonight, waking up early. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. We're not over. It's not over. Just get up. It's tremendous is a very, you know, as much as it's an abstract topic, it's actually very, you think the topic is very on point. It's very interesting to both. So, really appreciate that. And next Sunday night, uh, April 6 will be the last show before Pes Yseph Greenfield from Chestland here in Lakewood. Big Revel over here in Lakewood will come on. Hopefully will be something about PES. We didn't confirm the topic, but obviously something about that. Everything is recorded.com. If there's any questions, please email coachmail.com. if anybody wants to get a hold of you or what what's the what's the quickest easiest way to contact you? So I gave you a bunch of links that you three links that you can put. So one is to subscribe to the I call it the soul of the seder webinar and there's a link there that gives you all the links. Uh there's a link to join the WhatsApp group. That's the easiest way to get updates is if you're in the WhatsApp group, you get all the less all the YouTube videos that I upload, whatever it is, whether it's YouTube or Spotify, whatever you prefer to listen to watch. Um, I have, you know, a bunch. There's a blog, there's but the main thing is on YouTube or Spotify. If you look up my name near Manui, you you'll get uh to all those links, but also uh you can share them. Maybe I'll share them also. Uh here they are. Send them out. I'm gonna send them out. I'm gonna have them posted already. Okay, fine. Very good. And um Okay. Yeah, great. Thank you. Let me just continue over here. Okay. And tonight's shares 226. Any wants to hear it on the phone? The number is 732305911. Thank you to all the advertising sponsor Elliot Elli Central from JCN. We're going to go to the closing. I'll speak first and then Rab will wrap it up with closing words after close to two hours of speaking over here. As I said, the things that come to your heart as you just speak. But I just want to say it's it's a beautiful topic and at the end of the day we we re really said it properly with all the liberal freedom and all the you can do whatever you want whenever you want. At the end of the day it's its own box. It's its own confinement in its own way. It seems free because you could do things that oh I want a cheeseburger. I want to go here. I want to whatever I want to do. But every everything comes with a box. Everything comes with an everything comes with what I could do what I can do. And um ultimately freedom is really just doing the right thing and being happy with what you do whatever it is. I'm not even pushing you know you just got to just you have a drive. You have you know without a drive and without without rules and regulations the world basically becomes a complete crazy place. And when we see revenue you chose to be you chose to keep Shabas. So you you're you you took that restriction on you. So by you it's like you could say I chose the the restriction cuz I want to be free. When you're brought in from from birth, we always feel the opposite. We're forced. You know what I mean? So like everybody has to be really otherwise it's always we're forced. But you know, you know, that's that's that's the highest level. So as a person that's from from birth, it's something that we we take for granted and we view it as restrictions and we look at it like if we just had that and like you see from the question tonight even the guy who has the money and has all the you know things that we aspire as a man to be or the woman aspires like when you reach that you just you have other problems and you have other issues and there's other restrictions. So I don't think there's really an answer out of it. There's no bliss that we could just be you know in that world and then you see all the all I'm throw this in here. You see all these, you know, political organizations, whether it's, you know, the gay rights or this rights or whatever it is. They they they go so psycho because they have to live for their they have to live and die for their meaning. They can't just live and let live. It's, you know, they have to be 100%. Yeah. That's what makes the whole craziness and that's what makes them louder than everybody. It becomes like its own religion and its ownidus and its own power. So just want to say it's a very fascinating topic and everybody should just really when you do a mitzvah when you do yushkite do it because you choose to do it not because you're forced to do it. If you're forced to do it then you're not really doing it. You should you're not you know you have to do it because you're deciding you're doing it. Nobody's forcing you at this age. You're not 10 years old to keep or to keep y or to keep you're doing it because you love them. It's at the end of the day when I the g people that I work with and they see that I turn off my phone. I'm involved in things and they can't get a hold of me. the concept for them that they could turn off their phone and I'm I'm I'm I I actually upset sometimes I can't turn off my phone on Sunday or Monday or Tuesday. Like the relaxation that my body has on job is from the restriction of not being able to use my phone is the most liberating thing for my internal but yet it's so restrictive because I can't make a phone call. I can't look up the news. I can't do what I want. But I'm so happy to choose it because it makes me so happy. I just wish I had the power to choose on Sunday. So, but whatever we do, we should do it with with appreciate it and do it with the right mindset and there the other world is not we know we know because we're taught from for birth that it's not so gush that it's not so great. So from Rebe who's been there when anytime you see a Baltu and they had it you're like what's wrong with you? You had it. You could have had anything you want. You could have had the McDonald's you gave it up. I have a good friend of mine who's a Baltu and he says he doesn't miss anything about Baltu. said, "But he misses the the French fries." The French fries were so good, but everything else he says is garbage. But anyway, thank you, Rean, for coming on. Yeah. Um, is that we should be baluous. We should become baluas. Uh, like the the mush that we were born on the mountain on Mount Everest. And then the guy after climbing and climbing gets up there, he sees this little kids we don't app we don't realize what where we are and we don't appreciate it but by listening to you being able to see what we do have and uh like I tell many people you have to stop and start again we're doing everything right you're doing you know what to do you grew up with it but now stop for a moment and connect to it start realizing why am I doing what I'm doing you know start fresh so we should be we should uh become belchuas And the the idea to understand today you have so many options of flavors and ice cream store. It you know it sounds like we should be the happiest people. But the truth is like we heard tonight, if if we have the possibilities of doing everything and the connection of realizing affluence versus depression, the medication that people need to take today because everything is open and they can do whatever they want. So that it's all lost. No guidance, no mission, no personal what's this all about? But when you realize no there's there's Hashem there's a tells you yes and no it makes so much easier and it gets us to our mission in general and like we heard to be able to connect to our mission you know every person their own which can take time I do want to mention many times people walk around their mind says how do I know it's the right one how do I know it's the right one you're always walking around with this feeling I don't know I don't that that could be the not wanting allowing you to just you know and be happy with where you are. It's it's a discussion to see where the satisfaction is or just don't be happy with who you are. But to see what does Hashem put in front of me now and that's what Hashem wants from me now in the bigger picture. You can work on it like we heard. Tune into that, you know, that that that inner voice and then look around. What's something that you enjoy? But till you get to that, just to realize where does where did Hashem put me today? Where does he put me now? This what does he want from me now? This is my this is my mission. and barashm we're so privileged to be here to be born here and for those who got here who weren't born here to realize that this is where we need to be and dance every day. Thank you so much for this year to have the should take us out from this we should all be in. So you both spoke about being a balchuva despite being [Music] uh from from birth. So for me it's I already have that problem. It's enough years into you know I became a doser already. I'm already from now I to do the same thing. I'll share just one little thing which is a line that was life-changing for me is one of the first things that I heard from the guy who opened up Yiddish for me. He said the ideal is to be to have a to have a a secular head, a secular mind that's open, that's exploring, that's you know uh uh tethered um on the one hand but in a in a body in a from vessels. Basically he was translating the concept of into spoken language lights of chaos in versels of rectification. That's how it's called. So we need to be this is the balance. It's it's a blessing to be born into Yiddish kite. There's something so pure about it and so safe about it and so connected about it. And then like you said, Rabbasher, you don't find uh replacement religions in all kinds of ideologies that be really fill the void of needing to have an a religion to have something absolute. You don't invent all these idols in order to fill this void because the void is filled. On the other hand, we need to be constantly singing a new song to Hashem. The new song has to come from a sense of of renewal and rejuvenation. Now it's it's the time of the the first of the month, the first of the of the time of renewal at the exact middle midpoint of the year. We need to connect to this sense of renewal. And this is so for me that line having a a secular mind, secular heart, wild heart. uh at the same time while having all these limitations that's the essence of of uh the Torah the essence of so we should all aspire to keep this balance and again and again and it all starts by remembering Hashem and feeling him present in our lives and then the world is created a new every moment thanks thank you everybody for joining tonight on the show we'll see you next week Greenfield R have a wonderful day. You're amazing. Thank you so much. You too. Bye-bye.