The Keys to Successful Dating & Marriage - Rabbi Alon Anava

good evening everybody we want to talk about a very uh very important subject is because unfortunately in our generation there's so many people who are still looking for their for their soulmate to the other half and just a few months ago we had a beautiful big purim event and during the event i stood up and i started giving bajo to everybody in the in the room and after i finished i told my wife look at that besides two people everybody here is single there were two people who were married and then everybody else in the event was all singles older you should get married you should get married you should get married somebody stopped saying you should get married i said all of you should just get married so this situation is not how it should be this is not okay that so many people are struggling to find their other half but unfortunately the reality is that many people find it very very hard to find their other half now comes another problem once they really find it him or her then how do you maintain a good marriage there are many different problems there's a lot more to talk about but tonight we want to concentrate about one channel one way how one can better their opportunities and focus on what they need to do and you know some of the lectures they come off very easy and very soft and sometimes when you need to get something done you need to be a little bit more harsh and a little bit more straightforward so please don't take anything personal that i say but i sometimes when i want to get a point across and it has to come out and not always it comes with the with the padding on the on the hands sometimes it has to be a little bit harsh especially when it comes to find the other half because i meet so many people that the reason why they don't find another half is because the list of the demand is out of proportion we have a beautiful yeshiva in el tisrel we have a seminary and mid rashford women we have a lot of things going on and of course because of that because we have the institute for the men and the institute for the women so by default we do a lot of matchmaking and a lot of times we get students we focus a lot on on more mature people i don't like saying the word old but we have in our men's yeshiva a lot of older men i mean our oldest student is 84 years old 84 year old a man in his 70s did chuva now he sits and learned torah and on the other hand we have an oldest student on the female side she's 79 years old so bo hashem a lot of our a lot of our people are older or mature and needless to say by default a lot of people come and tell me maybe you can find my my wife my husband not too long ago one of the students came with a list of demands maybe you can help me find my other half of course joe will do our best is there anything that did i need to know what you're looking for so i'm not joking we pulled out a paper okay uh she has to be five six and a half what if she's five six and a quarter that's not gonna work so the list of the demands was very very long and at some point they told you very sorry i can't help you he's like why can't you help me that's not nice i said it's not about being nice i can't help you he's like why don't you help me i said because what you're looking for that creature doesn't exist it doesn't exist such a thing so i see that many times people their criteria so the demands are not in proportions and has nothing to do with the reality and usually your real other half is going to be completely the opposite of what you pictured what you imagine what you dream and what you really want because the kadosh bro says that's not your other half the other half is something completely completely different now first we need to understand what does it mean other half the zorg explains that the female part and the male parts are one soul and before that soul comes down to the world there's a certain angel in the heavens that cut the soul in half the female part goes into the woman the male part goes into the man one falls in new york the other one falls in none in a world london and then they lived their life for 10 20 30 40 years and finally they somehow meet up in some random way fall in love and then they live happily ever after that's only happening in the movies it's not the reality there's no happily ever after but nevertheless that's the situation and many people unfortunately they meet their other half but they pass through him or her for whatever reason maybe the nose was too big the car was not weird it was white and many other situations and a lot of people they're you know wrath of expectations is so out of proportion that when you actually see or meet the other half it doesn't match the the demands so the majority that the the list of the demands is so high that it becomes an obstacle for them and that obstacle stops the person from fighting their other half now i like being more straightforward and not smearing things a lot of people say don't worry and do this and do that and i don't think this works i like seeing a problem and and and exposing the problem because if a person lives in some type of a state of denial then i'm not helping him if i come to a person and tell him you have a certain issue and if you're not going to work in it you're not going to be successful then i'm deceiving that person so first we want to understand why did hashem create the situation that must be a man and a woman in in a in a form of a marriage because if hashem wanted us to be fruitful and multiple he could have created a system that you don't need to be married to have kids but when the world was created only adam richon was created to be exact dazzle explains that the damage on was created in in a form of a man and a woman together the man was in the front and the woman was in the back and i know the the famous story that people uh know that adam arjun was put to sleep and then there was an operation and took out the rib so this all explains it wasn't exactly like that it was the side that we needed to come out but nevertheless in the beginning madame then it was separated and right after that the damage was in a very spiritual very high spiritual level and the story says that in the beginning adam richon was sitting on a kiseka vote on a chair of glory and everything was brought to adam shown to be named everything all the animals all these species everything and adam alicia was in such a high spiritual level that he was able to see the godly power that enlivens everything and name it according to the energy that enlivens that thing yesterday we had a beautiful lecture about the secrets of the name that we have but the letters in our name what does the letters mean how does that affect my life how does it affect my my my personality and we explain there that everything in the world is built from these letters building blocks of the universe the godly power that enlivens the universe and adam richon was in such a high level that he was able to see not the design of the world rather to see the spiritual structure of the world so he was able to see the code of the program if you're looking at a website and you see a beautiful website beautiful colors beautiful design you click a button opens a page this is just the design of the website what if you hypothetically would be able to remove the screen of the of this of the computer then you would see the code that creates the the website same thing here the world is created with a code and adam richon and many others that they came that we know throughout the years were able to see past this design past the screen and see the godly power that enlivens the world and this godly power is built from letters very soon is going to come the prophet says everybody will see that the mouth of hashem is the one that creates the world the screen would be removed and we would see the godly power that enlivens the world adam roshan was able to see that so everything was brought to adam richon he would look at a line and he would see the letters alifresh youth in hay in them he says oh that's arie that's a lion then they brought a ox in front of him he saw the letters shin vavresch okay that's a show and he started naming everything but as everything was coming in front of him he noticed that every animal has a mate and in hebrew the majority of the animals have different names to the gender the the male has one name and the female has a different name a lion in hebrew is aries and the female line is levia an ox is a sho and the cow is a para so like this is almost all the animals so at some point the damage wait a minute if i don't have a mate i want also a wife hashem was like are you sure are you are you sure with this no problem i mean you asked for it i'll give it to you up until today we're praying for that but no offense yeah but that motion says i also want away a mate no problem hashem right away put him to sleep and he brought he separated from him but comes a big question why did hashem create the system that has to be a husband and has to be a wife because the first commandment that got is to be fruitful and multiple provo but technically hashem could have done a system that we just look at each other and a child comes or some type of a system why does it have to be a man and a woman together so you know the talmud says that a person that lives without a a mate without a wife then he doesn't have any happiness then doesn't have any any light doesn't have anything good going on in their life and you know the kamala is talking in the tents of a man but it's applying to the same thing to a woman it says a man without a woman is constantly no happiness no simcha and no osher no and so forth so technically one can ask why you why is it manga saying that hypothetically when you're single life is kind of better you can go whenever you want to wherever you want you can do whatever you want nobody runs your business nobody tells you what to do nobody tells you to pick up the socks on the floor you can do whatever you want you know when i was single i would learn like 16 hours a day torah now to help my wife carry the the shopping help with the kids do this do that technically sometimes i look at people and tell them why are you complaining i wish i would be now single ah no i don't have to pay for such a big house tuition you know what situation six kids oh so when you're single ah you can eat here today today you're there tomorrow you're there technically when you're thinking about it it's kind of easier better in a more free life when you by yourself why is it talmud saying that if you don't have a wife then you don't have simcha i know pray you know pretty a lot of people when they're single they have a lot of simcha but nevertheless the reason why the talmud says that you don't have simcha is because when you live by yourself you cannot refine yourself and really the purpose why we came down to this world is not to watch movies not to go on vacations definitely not to be a member of facebook facebook has enough accounts it doesn't need you to have another account why are you here in this world if you ask this question to yourself why am i here in this world when i came here just to to go from another vacation to another vacation and work all my life and have a purpose in this world and if i don't know my purpose then i'm in big trouble i need to find my purpose in this world and what is the what is the kalos but was expecting for me i didn't come here to live 67 years just to spend my life on nothing so i need to have a certain path in my life and to know what my purpose in life and one huge part of my purpose in my life is to refine myself each and every one of us has a soul the soul in the eyes of hashem is like a diamond and the kanojo who gives us our soul when it's dirty and damaged and he says now refine it now clean it i don't know if you ever saw a diamond coming out of a of a diamond mine it's dirty it's not refined it's not polished now you start polishing it if you cut it nice then becomes a beautiful valuable expensive diamond so we all come down here to this world and we have to refine ourselves the great student of the arizal rabbi vital he says in his book one of his many books in the book called charak dusha that we came down to this world mainly to refine our character traits we have to learn we have to do these are tools to assist me to refine my characteristics and each and every one of us will be born with some good character traits and some bad character traits you can have very positive character traits you can be generous you can be very hard worker you can be honest you can be a giver and many other things and on the negative side you can have a problem with anger with patience with being judgmental with being jealous we all have a long list of good and bad character traits i need to know how to recognize my good character traits so i can empower them and i need to be humble enough to recognize my bad character traits so i know what to work on now most people their ego is a little bit out of control their gerva is a little bit too high and if somebody will approach and tell them listen you have an issue with anger i don't have an issue with anger yes you do but they don't want to hear about it or you come up to a person tells them listen you're a little bit not responsible i'm not responsible how dare it i was i showed up this week one time on time so most people don't like being criticized and they get offended mainly because they know it's right but it doesn't mean you're a bad person each and every one of us possesses a a few sometimes some people it's more than a few but some negative character traits doesn't mean that you're bad it just means that this is the portion of what you got that you need to work on so first of all regardless to what we're talking tonight a person has to be humble whether it doesn't matter right now married are not married or putting it as a side note apparent a person has to be constantly be humble enough to be able to look in the mirror and to see his own thoughts and to say yes what am i kidding i have a problem with anger i'm judgmental i'm very narrow-minded whatever it is i get jealous like that i'm very impatient most people they wake up in the morning and they come to look at the mirror wow shem outdid himself here this is like the the master of perfection so that's about most people they look in the mirror and they don't see faults they just see wow the world has to thank me today so but the reality is that the right person has to look in the mirror and says oh am i kidding i woke up at 9. i should wake up at 6. who am i kidding i'm late to the meeting who am i kidding i treat people disgusting so and again it's not about putting somebody down it's seeing the reality and it's important that you understand that it's not about putting a person down to making him feel bad it's to understand the tools that what hashem gave me if you go to a job and the boss tells you listen the job is not necessarily what you like but what you're gonna do you gotta pay the rent and your job today the definition of the job today is to do this task and here is a tool to do this task i need you to dig a hole here's a shovel i need you to paint the wall here's a brush so hashem puts you in this world and tells you i need you to work on your anger here's a lot of people who will annoy you that's it and then hashem gives you a few tools how to deal with it and then go ahead start refining your character traits so the teachings of the student of the resolve he says we came down to this world let's to refine my characteristics so different different sages different rabbis in the generations called it in different in different terms the gone from vilna calls it le chaberet amidot to break them you don't you have a bad meda break it don't don't let it cause to you an obstacle now each and every one of us has a long list of midot of characteristics that it has to be refined now how can i refine it i need resistance if you go now to a gym you pay top dollars to the best gym in your city if you go in there and you just sit like this next to one of the machines you think that is going to happen nothing's going to happen you need to start moving around you need to push and to pull and to lift into you need resistance and even if you're going by yourself and you start doing like that what's gonna happen nothing you need resistance that when you push that thing is pushing you back when you pull then it's holding you back so i need to refine my character traits i need something that will cause a resistance if i need to work on my patients if my character trait is a problem with that hashem is going to put all the people in my life that are going to cause me to lose my patience and if i need to work on anger then hashem is going to give me a wife that's going to drive me nuts a boss they're going to drive me crazy kids they're going to put things on the floor all day long and and why because that's my task or my mission in this world that doesn't mean you're stuck with the stem mission their whole life could be that from age 10 to 20 you have to deal with one thing age 20 to 40 drill deal with another another thing you need to be humble enough to be able to receive the job offer from the kalosh bahu to understand what does the shim want for me how many times things don't work out in your day and you stop then you're saying what do you want from me wouldn't it be great to get like a whatsapp message saying well i want you to be a little bit more polite ah why don't you say so so we constantly ask what do you want from me just imagine how cool it would be if hashem would answer you but the point is that he does answer you you know he answers you he puts people in front of you everybody in your life are mirrors your parents your siblings your friends your boss your neighbor and if you smart and mainly humble you look at every person in your life and you recognize what does hashem want from you and if hashem wants you to work on your anger and your patience or your generosity whatever he will put those people around you and you just have to have the right perception to understand that so when the talmud says a person that is not married doesn't have simcha doesn't have a blessing doesn't have happiness why because you don't have the resistance you don't have the partner to make you work on yourself that's why you can reach to the real ultimate level of simcha because if i have to do a certain task in the world that my wife will be the one who's going to cause that unfortunately society has poisoned our minds through movies and media and advertising and so forth with what marriage is about you ask now a person what is marriage about you thinking you're walking down the the the coast the beach holding hands and like you know love you know these hearts everywhere and that doesn't doesn't even work in the cartoons so people you know they're imagining all sorts of things marriage is not about walking into the sunset then i love you it's just it doesn't work like that it works on the first day then that's it and then the the whispering is like shut up so so really this is you know and i grew up very very not observant so you you know the media brainwashes you and you see commercials sometimes and the commercial is you know the the message behind the commercial is so refined that it affects your subconscious and we are really affected by media and commercials and movies and most people think that marriage is literally about romance and love and this is not marriage i don't know many couples they walk hands and hands and they kiss and this is good for maybe the first three months so the thing is that when people are looking for the other half they have some type of a dream she has to look like that and if she doesn't then no no i told you not too long ago another person came to me and he told me the same thing when he wanted me to help with finding mashido and he told him she has to be 5.6 feet and i said well i have a wonderful lady really she's gorgeous really yeah and she has a lot of money wow and she's this since you're that but she's only 5'4 no i don't want her are you serious you're talking here but i know so bend down a little bit what's the big deal so sometimes people are stuck on so many things then of course you can find your other half now when i became observant and i was looking for my wife then i went to the first matchmaker and she told me what are you looking for i said i'm looking for my wife okay like what are you looking for i said uh my wife you don't have any requests or well she needs to be jewish of course she's gonna be jewish but what are you looking i said i'm looking for my wife i don't know how she looks i don't know how she acts i don't know if she's fardy or shkinaz i don't know if she's tall i don't know i never met her but i'm looking for her the the shakhan couldn't figure out what i'm saying i said why don't you understand whatever you bring me i'll i'll analyze it and if she fits it fits and you know the first date i went on she was divorced with a kid and i'm like 28 i'm like okay if my wife has to be divorced and come with a kid then that's my wife what am i gonna shoe her off because she's coming with baggage i also have baggage most people say no no divorce with a child no no no no it's not for me i'm gonna raise somebody else's kid but if that's what if that is your wife what is that your other half you're gonna shoot off because it doesn't fit well into your to your imagination so most people they have it completely completely wrong they draw a certain line what needs to be how it needs to look and then when you're looking at the actual i don't want to say the word doesn't sound nice but when you're looking at the product you don't recognize the qualities of the product because you're looking at something completely else and this is a problem with many many people and i know a lot of people say no no it's not me i don't know what he's talking about well if you don't know what i'm talking about then good but i see with many people that the list of demands is is out of proportion i know you you should have a few little things with yuan you want her to look a certain way or behavior somewhere but but this is so irrelevant the look you know after 10 20 years after five six kids you know the looks completely changes you know the other day i took a haircut i know it happens sometimes i barely have any hair but i took a haircut i came home and i i took off my yamaha and my kids started laughing i was like why are you laughing i was like how are you bald well why don't don't say to the world that i am i wear a big yamaha so you're not going to see anything but they were laughing me that i don't have any hair and i said well every year you know i lose hair the yamaka becomes bigger and bigger and you know one point i'm just going to go with a helmet so but they were laughing at me that i that i was losing hair and and and i was like you know what i don't care if i if i lose hair it's irrelevant so what but that's that's how hashem wants me to look what i'm going to stress over the fact that i'm losing some hair but for them it was very amusing that i i look a certain way and it only means you know it's so irrelevant how the external part looks the what's important is the internal parts you know when you look at the product from the outside you might be fooled by the design the inside is what makes the difference our sages two thousand years ago says don't look at the you know in english they translated don't look at the the cover the books cover look at what's inside about two thousand years ago twenty five hundred years ago our sages said in the mishnah don't look in the in the in the jar just look what's inside so sometimes the answer to all my questions is right in front of me but i'm ignorant enough or my ego is out of control that i don't see what's in front of me and the thing is that like i said before my wife is my resisting tool i know it sounds very mechanical but i'm saying my wife is the person that is placed in front of me that will touch all the buttons that need to be point that needs to be a pressed to get me out of my my my killing to get me out of order so if i need to work on anger my wife will be annoying if i need to work on patients my wife is going to throw things on the floor all day long whatever it is my wife is the one who's going to make me work on myself work on my middles now the first step and most important as that you can think only of yourself most people when you come and ask them what do you want in your other half she needs to look like this he needs to look like that minimum and md a bmw and 170 000 a year so there's a long list of demands which is okay but i never heard anybody saying who cares what i want let's see what the other side wants have you ever thought of that usually when you come to look at your other she needs to be like this she needs to be like that he needs to be like this and it's like that i know never heard anybody saying oh you know what i don't care on the i care what can i give my other half how can i make my other half feel better make her life a little bit better and so forth so the first and most important is that person has to stop thinking of themselves because this is the number one recipe for disaster in marriage is when you think of yourself and a lot of people they don't get married not because they're not worthy or what because they're not proving to hashem that they're ready to go into a relationship because hashem says listen i need you to treat your wife nice because your wife is a diamond and if you're not ready for that why should i bring her to you most people in relationship this is the the recipe for disaster and all relationship is when one person is selfish and they're thinking of themselves what is what is in it for me if you're going into marriage and your way of thinking is what am i gaining here then even if you find your other half it's not going to be successful because marriage is about what can i give the other person this works in everything in life in business and partnerships when a person is selfish thinking of themselves they'll never be successful in anything even in a business partnership in anything so much more so when it comes to marriage if your agenda if you're sitting in a date in front of a person and you're saying what is it in it for me because that person needs to be attractive or financially stable or whatever it's i'm thinking of myself i'm not thinking of the other person try it wants to shift the whole method of thinking is marriage is not about me it's about my wife i don't want to say my husband because that's not going to sound nice and with all these cameras saying my husband people be like oh husband so so i'm gonna say wife don't don't don't take it personal but i'm saying marriage is not about me this has nothing to do about me and when i counsel couples about their life style and their marriage then it's less relevant for single people but when i talk to married people and they have different issues i always tell them the same thing before you come into the house after a long day of work or whatever it is take five minutes take a deep breath sit outside read some tea lime go and pray meanwhile get all the the pressure off your mind that when you come into the home you don't come in like a gladiator and start screaming you come in soft and nice you don't know what the other side went through through the entire day the fact that you had a bad day you don't have to throw all this on your ma on your on your wife the problem with the most that i see in disasters in relationships is when a person is selfish and they're only thinking what is it for me you have to completely switch the way of thinking that it's not about me it's about the other person this is the foundation to any successful relationship so much more so in a marriage now when i thinking only of myself i'm actually not fulfilling my part in the universe i have a part in this universe a lot of people think they have a very low self-esteem and they think that they're just another screw in the system but the reality is that each and every one of us has a huge part in the universe and if hashem found it right to put you in this world is because there's a reason for that so you need to understand that you have a huge part in in this world but when i'm only thinking of myself then i'm not fulfilling my part in this universe now if i'm single i don't have the way to work on my middles i need to find my other half that will assist me to work on my middles and my characteristics so that starts already in the process of the dating i can't come to the date with a list of demands i can't come to a date thinking how am i getting the most out of that person to satisfy my needs and this is the wrong way of looking at it this is not how things work so how really do you find your other half what's the what's the method behind what's the secret then i'm going to disappoint you there's no secret there's no hocus pocus but let's go into history and we'll see how it worked originally who's the first one who looks for shiddu yeah he looked for shiddu for his son he sent eliezer but really when you want to go back into history who's the one who was looking for shidduch where we see in the torah the torah is the source for everything now avraham avinu we when you say the word of hamavin you're imagining like this old man with a camel and you know abhamavino was a tycoon he was a trillionaire he was a minister he could control the entire world kings came to him and bowed down to him he was something huge reimagining some old guy where you know shaking hands in the shaykh you know in a tent he was like the man of the century now his son itzhak was attractive strong smart rich the son of avraham avinu technically it's how couldn't get anyone he wanted technically just think of the dynasty who's of hamavinu where they come from that wealth and and status technically could get whoever he wants he could have gone to any single bar lean on the bar hey wanna marry me but it didn't do that shaq was sitting and learning torah abraham avinu sends his servant alien to look for uh to look for shidu most people they go after their eyes whatever the eyes see when people go into shidduch you know there's so many people that when they're looking to get married they go on all sorts of different websites and they put you know a profile we started now because we have baruch hashem such a big organization we started doing shidduchim like matches but in a completely completely different way there's no profile you don't post your profile for other people to look we take the profile we have the matchmakers and we go in a very sophisticated way how to match the people we have a method and we take all the information and the match is done not because when you see each other you go on a website and you see profiles what are you looking for you're looking for the picture looks and if there's a profile without a picture you skip that in a second i want to see how the person looks try to go once on a date without looking at the person you know why because the look is deceiving and you're looking for something in the face and if the face is not positioned exactly how you want to you you skip it over and this is the biggest mistake when he was looking for a shidduch he wasn't looking at faces he wasn't looking at bank accounts he wasn't looking at resumes he was looking for one thing good midot good character traits that's how brahmavir was looking for ashidur most people when they look for jidor they look for how it looks on the outside because i i mean it has to be attractive and and wealthy and so forth and successful but this is the biggest mistake most people they go after what they see and they most people don't understand that this is the way you fail because the the the looks as a man i'm not talking about necessarily the appearance but the look is very deceiving that's not how you find uh your other half and a lot of people like i said before they're mistaking marriage that it's all about love really i can tell you from my own experience really to fall in love is not before the marriage you really fall in love after the marriage when you really learn about who's that person how can you fall in love with somebody you never know you don't know who that person is real real to fall in love is when you live with the person and you see the kindness of the person when the person cares for you when you look the worst and that person is looking at you you know last year maybe maybe somebody remember i came here last year on another on a tour but before that i was going down the stairs in my house and i fell and i hurt my back i had a hernia disc i wasn't in bed i couldn't move excruciating pain and this is the first time when i really realized how much i really appreciate adore and love my wife why because when i was at my bottom at the lowest that's when she came to help me to care about me to assist me nobody else cared i was flat on my back i couldn't move pain excruciating pain this is the time when she put the socks on my on my legs when she tied the shoes when she cared are you in pain can i help you can i move the pillow and i didn't i didn't look nice i wasn't you know i wasn't in my best i was in my worst and that's when i saw that that's when she really cares if she wouldn't care i would be sitting sleeping on the bed it's in agony and i was like look at that this is this is the real wife and she cares about me when i'm in pain and when it's hard for me and when i'm suffering and that's when i was like wow that's when it hit me i had a lot of time to think i was flat in bed it was also impossible to read because i couldn't even hold the book it was the first time that i actually heard lectures online i was like ooh now i understand why people go online listen to lectures all day long somebody walked into the room and i was listening to myself it was a speaker but nevertheless i had a lot of time to think and that's when i was like you know what that's when i realized that when i fell in love with my wife it's not when i saw her it's that time when i actually realized wow she actually cares about me it's real caring it's not fake and this is the real love the where the marriage is not about holding hand in hand and you and you'll fall in love with what's now it's what comes much much later and if you're smart you see a little bit into the future looks change money goes money comes very good friends that when they got married the husband had a unbelievable job was making an exorbitant amount of money a beautiful house a car everything and when she got into the marriage everything was beautiful seven years later he got fired things went down he lost all the money he became depressed sick don't ask the worst of the worst and she was smart she was a true a true trooper she sticked with him oh gosh now things are better but it just goes to show you that sometimes at the time of the dating of the marriage things are one way and things can change any second so you can't judge things by by things that will come and go you have to look in a person what stays forever not too long ago one of my students tells me i'm dating a girl i like her she looks fine and everything so far is good but what really should i really look into her and i told her just look at the middle just look at the characteristics look if she's she's caring if she's loving if she's courteous if she's charitable look at these things these things don't change these things don't change and you know put her into through some tests sometimes you know when you go on dates you're looking at the external part this is the wrong thing put the the person on some tests see if the person how fast the person loses their temper how patient the person is take them on a drive on the big cure stand in traffic for two hours traffic is the best way to test your nerves so you want to see if a person is angry angry or aggravated or gets you know upset or just take him on the right let's go when i go to date yeah let's go and uh drive on the big qe for like uh just from this exit to that is it why you know you know just see how fast the person gets upset when you know the ones who go like this does exactly and they get upset some people unfortunately when people cut them in the street hashem what comes out of their mouth they curse of the parents they know the profession of the mother they know everything so real love is tested when you are in the worst place in your in your life not when you're in the peak and that's how you test if you really want to be with another person when the person comes with makeup and a beautiful dress and everything that's very nice people should go on dates at seven in the morning when their eyes are like that and then you know the hair is still sticking that's how you have to go on a date not at nine o'clock at night when the person is relaxed and you know three hours of makeup and the whole thing should change completely go meet the person six o'clock in the morning hi i just wanted to [Music] see how you look in the morning you think after the wedding you wake up in the morning and there's makeup no so you can't fool yourself this is this is what the problem is a lot of people fool themselves and they want to see something that doesn't really exist you have to be realistic now going back again to the to the love part the real love is not when you date the real love is developed through the years when it's really your other half the love grows you know in a lot of groups and hasidic groups and and and different orthodox groups you know there's a match and they don't really know each other they're going two three dates everything seems to work well that's it they get married they don't even know who they are they look at each other and they're wedding oh that's you so but nevertheless these in a lot of the cases these are the most successful marriages because it's not based on anything external it's based on perimeters and you know it doesn't it works i told you now when we're doing all these matches we don't show each other profiles people say show me how she looks i'm not showing you anything i'm not showing you how she looks you're going to go to the date what a blind date no i'm not a blind date we're going to go through all your information for your information we match it like they used to do 2000 years ago you know what the match is perfect why because there's no there's no schmutz around there's no financial status there's no looks and the love is developed as you go a lot of times i hear for people that are dating but i don't really love him i love him you know for three and a half weeks what do you mean you love him what did he do to prove to you that you can develop love so first and most important that you have to be extremely not selfish and think of the other person not to look at the external part we have to really look at the inside the mute of things and not the external part external things they come and go so this is one of the most important things there's no hocus pocus but how do you start looking for a other half when eliezer the servant of avraham of you know went to look for shidu if you remember the story he came to the well and he was looking for a girl why would he go to the well wouldn't you go like a club why go into a well because he knew that if he goes to a club she'll be dressed with makeup and a dress and she would look the the best he says i'm going to go to the well where she's going to come dirty the hair is not going to be oh in a ponytail she's going to be working you know going to work with high heels and makeup so he went darker to the whale and he says i want to see the girl that's going to do hesit he was looking for the one who was going to care about somebody else and what has he found a girl that cares about the thirst of an animal she gave water to the camels and it's like that's the one that will fit my master's child and along this line this is where we have to think what is good for me not how it looks that's why you know going to a club to look for your other half you're not going to find anybody i mean okay so once in a blue moon you hear about a couple that met in a club you don't meet your wife in a club and you don't trust me don't want to meet your husband in a club because it's all fake this is not where you're going to find the real other half now you can lie to yourself live in denial get married in 10 years get after that get divorced why because it's you know you dated for three months everything looked good and then things passed the real other half the connection is spiritual it's not physical has nothing to do with the physical now don't get me wrong has to be compatibility in the physicality has to be attraction has to be you know a lot of common denominators it's something i'm just saying go completely blind but that has to be secondary needless to say of course it has to be some type of an attraction and and things that you like about the other person but the real search is coming from a more deeper place now like i said before a lot of the times people don't get married not because they're doing something wrong it's because they're not proving to hashem that they're ready for marriage and hashem says listen your other half is ready you're not ready and i gave a lecture a month ago you can look at it online where i'm explaining how and this is source in the torah that if one person is in a certain spiritual level and the other half is not in the same spiritual level they might not find each other because the one who's much much greater in their spiritual level they're going to match to that person from the heavens a person in their level and then you don't find your real other half i know it sounds very very sad but that's what the torah explains and i always give the same example that many years ago when i got married we were a group of friends and around the same year everybody got married besides one girl and she couldn't find her husband and every event that we went everybody was married she was the one sitting by herself and there was nothing wrong with her she was young she was very attractive very successful smart an amazing catch could not find her husband and as the time goes by you know we all started at the same time to have our first kid and the second kid and we're kind of the same group of people we grew up together and she was by herself you know sitting always by herself in the you know the web the weddings she was all by herself we couldn't figure out why she can't get married but hashem four years ago i lived in new york and i made earlier to health island before that i lived in los angeles for about a year okay we moved to los angeles we were like visitors there we were new my wife tells me don't ask where are we going to eat on shabbat so i'm like okay who she's like remember so and so of course she lives here she invited us to shabbat and i was like oh great beautiful news and she tells me she's married i'm like what what amazing even better news okay we go there on shabbat beautiful house we meet the husband like a mr perfect tall handsome huge beautiful home good job very stable sharp courteous politely literally like a perfect husband again we're talking we see a little kid running around like a perfect life wow of course we're so happy for her and you know as the conversation were going we were like so you know how did you meet where did you meet long story short she was an observant girl she did chuva she was observant when she was looking for a husband she was looking for a husband that learns doa that's praised three times a day she specifically was looking for a husband with a beard she was she had an okay i want an observant husband we found out that maybe a year before they got married he became a belgiuva so ten years before that when she was looking for a husband he was on some beach in india doing i don't know what but i know what he was doing i don't want to say that publicly but but when she was looking for her husband he was in a completely different place so she was in a very high spiritual level he was not lucky for her that they didn't match to her somebody else from germain because the torah says there's enough sources that explain that if one person is in a much higher spiritual place they'll match to that person somebody in their spiritual level even know it's not the other half and the other one will have to wait or whatever it is and there's many different scenarios in that specific case she didn't get married for so many years because he was in his journey and finally he did shiva hashem smacked him in his face he woke up and a year later he was already in yeshiva then he looked like what she was looking for and finally they got married so many times it's not that something's wrong with your other half sometimes something's wrong with you and hashem says you're not ready your other half is already reached to the place that they're ready you not you need to step it up a little bit so we have to understand that i have to prove to the economy that i'm ready to get married getting married is not just putting a ring on and that's it it's a lot of hard work a lot of hard work you have to start developing this relationship with the with the with that person and usually you know the first month or two is okay and that's it then you start saying wait a minute i'm not i don't like this person so much it's not what i wanted but that's not necessarily the situation sometimes it's exactly what you need so first of all i have to also prove to hashem that i'm worthy now really when i look for the best advice to give somebody to get married is to stop thinking of yourself that's why i started the lecture by saying if i say something that sounds a little bit harsh don't don't take it personally don't offend it but most people are selfish they're thinking of themselves and the way to know when you think of yourself is when you looking for something too much and you're looking at the person you start in the date and you start judging the person he eats like this it's like that she talks like this she talks like that and the voice is annoying and this and that's when you're thinking of yourself because you're saying that person is annoying me my highness i mean she's annoying me maybe you annoying her maybe she's not happy so much without you holding yourself so really the first and most important rule how i see it is you have to stop thinking of yourself and when you're already looking at the other person the best is to test a person in the most extreme situations that's why i told you don't go on a date at nine in the evening go to the date at seven in the morning take the date on the drive on the bqe let's see how much patience the person has so you missed a joke you walked in a little bit later we said the joke before the point is that you want to see when the person is not shaped up and maked up and all that you want to see when the person is real and that's really the way to look for your other half is to for to look between the lines not to look for the fakeness not to look for the external part rather to look at the internal part and really there's so much more of what to say but i believe that when a person really humbles themselves that's how i found my wife and it's not that i'm different than anybody i also got married pretty late and you know what when i was going on dates and looking for my for my wife on this one i didn't like that one i i was very open to let's see what hashem wants because you know most likely my wife is not how i pictured her she's not going to be the same height she's not going to look the same she's not going to come from the background that i was expecting and you know the more you are willing to give in the more you'll be surprised the more you're coming with a list of demands then you get disappointed but the more you're saying hashem just send me just send me the right person and you'll see how the kalosh turns things around it gives you exactly what you need not what you want and when i was going out on dates so in the beginning it didn't go out so well and i was like you know what i was only 28. i was like you know i don't think right now is the time for me to get married you know what i'm gonna do i'm gonna go yeshiva i'm gonna study for like two years and you know i'm gonna achieve after two years it's a nice amount of time to learn torah i'm still young i'm gonna be 30 and then i'll look for my other half and the second that i committed to go to yeshiva and not to look for my wife two weeks later i found her so okay you can uh you can uh blame it so to say on the on that the yetzer i didn't want me to learn but it's nonsense the fact is that i was ready to subdue myself hashem you just send me what you want whenever you're ready whenever it's the right time whenever you want me to get married then you'll do it so i have to also learn to to give in and to subdue myself to the schedule of the kardashian most people they they they don't include the shame in this you have to include hashem in your prayers you have to include hashem in in in your in your actions you can't not include hashem in this and you know sometimes you have to step it up in your in your spiritual work and usually it's going to be a test i don't know a lot of people they come and tell me listen you know yeah i know you tell me to pray i'm praying already for two years but maybe it requires two and a half years of prayers and yeah i talk to myself all this mitzvot all the rabbits tell me to take on myself is vote to make a click well you didn't lose anything and maybe that's what you really need to do maybe your wife is in a much higher spiritual level and you can't find her because you're in a much lower level so to kind of summarize exactly what one needs to do is needless to say there's no question that a person needs to constantly involve hashem and you do this with prayer and you do it with your actions you have to be humble you have to see first of all not the other person's faults when you're sitting in a date is to see your own faults and to see how am i how am i making that person's life better not how that person is making my life better when you switch the whole pattern of thought you see things come and look become completely different and of course most importantly that you need to be humble to see that everybody has faults you also have thoughts and you know when i was looking at my wife when we were going on dates i was i was not looking at the good things i was looking at the bad things i was looking for faults has to be something that i need to see what i need to work with and you know then very quickly i found okay that i'm not so crazy well these are not so crazy about it but whatever you know the 70 that is good 30 is not the best whatever but it's it's workable it's gonna help me become a better person i can help her become a better person the marriage is about building the relationship and the marriage is not only about me and her because then very soon after that comes kids and then the focus is not on the marriage the focus is on the kids so marriage is much more than just going into a chupa and finishing with it and some nice pictures it's much more than that and of course like i said needless to say one needs to include the in in everything that they do and pray now is a very auspicious time in the month of elul to really look at my previous year in dutchuva in a very auspicious time now before rosh hashanah our sages explained that on rosh hashanah everything that you're going to get in the next coming year is decided on rosh hashanah so you have now a whole month to prepare yourself spiritually and emotionally and mentally to the day of washington when you come there you pray to the kardashian for the right way that he will send you exactly what you need at the right time the right way you have to be very very uh humble in front of hashem and to understand that the qadosh bow has a certain schedule he works on his schedule not on my schedule and i find that the more humble you are then the faster hashem delivers your other half and the in the best way possible unfortunately we we suffer from this this disease called an ego and it's about me and how am i what am i getting from here how is that benefiting me this is not to my liking so the point from now on to take is not to just sit here and i see a lot of heads like agreeing i don't know if they're agreeing or just saying okay shut up you said enough but you know the heads are like well you know i think there's this dog and they put in the dashboards and you know the chihuahua so the point is not to go like this the point is to say okay let me take something with me tonight that i can apply to change my life if you go to a lecture and you're sitting and you're going out of the lecture and you then don't take something out of the lecture which started breathing the air here and worn back up a chair you didn't do anything you wasted your time i know that most people they come to a lecture they don't take anything with them they think maybe a cd or the the flyer for the next lecture the point is to go out of the door and to say okay what am i taking in my life that i will change something in my life so my recommendation is you take with you something spiritual so you take on yourself a certain mitzvah that is uh difficult for you to do specifically something that is difficult because you want to have resistance difficult mitzvoth was causing you to grow spiritually and needless to say that you you want to choose something that you're not going to do it for three days and stop that you're going to be a persistent with it but more than that the the the best practice one can do is when you look in the mirror every morning is to look at yourself when you tell yourself listen i'm not doing great myself i also have faults and you know it's if i'm changing my my way of thinking that it's not about what i get gained from that it's what the other person what can i give another person when i in my mind make a switch that i want to be a giver i want to care about the well-being of somebody else where can i make somebody else's life better you start thinking more about the other person than yourself you're proving to hashem that here i'm ready to go into a relationship because a a successful relationship is not about me if you're going into any type of relationship and you're thinking only about yourself it's not going to be successful so this message is the same to somebody single somebody who's already married i see so many people they get married they already passed the barrier of finding the other half they just now they're in the marriage and they just don't have a good marriage why because all they're thinking about is what is in it for me so this is this is the deal breaker you have to switch your whole pattern of thought is what can i do to the other person and it's not again like i said before it's not only in in marriage it's in partnerships and business in anything you have to think what can i do to the other person so i will bless you especially in such a beautiful and auspicious month that hashem should bless you all if you looking for your other half that you should find the perfect and the right other half and hashem should give you the common sense the the the understanding to see really your other half when you see it and you know it's not going to come in the colors that you were imagining it's like ordering a car and you have a dream that the car has to be blue and then they don't have blue we only have the red one sorry stuck with it for three years so shalom this is not the same with marriage but usually it doesn't come in the color that you ordered and hashem should bless you with the right common sense to see things clear that you'll be able to recognize your other half not too long ago one of the her students she came and she was like i'm going on a date and oh hashem for months she was waiting to find somebody finally boko haram there was a date and she was like what should i do before i go on the date so i told her instead of being in front of the mirror for three hours with the mascara and the lipstick be in front of the mirror for 10 minutes just put a little bit of makeup that you will look nice and for three hours before the date read the lim premium maybe go and do some act of kindness help somebody that you have the light of christ shining from you that you sit in front of that person he was not going to look at your appearance he's going to see this beautiful energy radiating for you why because you did this huge mitzvah prepare yourself for the to the date the right way don't prepare yourself in front of the mirror that every eyelashes in the right direction every hair is like i might just look normal that's it a nice clean clothes and but prepare yourself spiritually you know why because when we do good acts we do mitzvot acts of kindness charity and so forth your your shama is radiating and you're projecting this amazing light that people see this energy not the external the physicality so basal hashem and i want to wish you all to be successful and i hope to get many wedding invitations after tonight and hashem should bless you to find your other half and build the bait name and israel and you should merit to stand under a chopin this coming year and marriage to have a beautiful home in the nation of israel with many kids many healthy kids the house of torah a house or a house of iraq and the most important thing that i can leave you the message that you should leave tonight is what can i do to the world to make the world and specifically my other half better and i can guarantee to you that's how that's how you convince the the master of the universe that you i'm ready to a relationship is to be much much much less selfish when you start thinking of others you'll see the okay now you convince me now i see you're ready to go into a marriage and you'll take care of your other half you'll take care of the kids and you're going to think just of yourself and hashem with this good decision and this powerful month of elul hashem should bless you that's everything that you do and bazaar hashem i hope we met to get many wedding invitations