There Is Only One Source of Comfort In Life Tisha B'av 5786, Rabbi YY Jacobson

the yeshiva.net net >> basm next week there will also be a class next Tuesday with God's grace and then we will be taking a summer break for a few weeks I'll announce next week the exact dates but next week we will be having our class everybody is invited today's class is dedicated by Shira Galman in loving memory and the elishmas her parents Rab Mosha bak in honor of a second yard site and her mother Lia Basmo in honor of her 19th yard site. May they be militer and for their children, grandchildren, all of our soldiers and all of the Jewish people, all of Kl for all the blessings in the world with abundance. Amen. Thank you very much. also dedicated by Rifki Seroda in honor of Ray Manaka Mendel Ben Esther Rahul's birthday on the 12th of the month of Manakimov Yudbeakov may Hashem bless him with long healthy years a happy birthday dedicated oh also by Lent and frank families by the Lent and frank families in memories of their dear father Abram Abish for his yard site on the 21st day of their father epitomized a life of hats modesty, sincerity, living humbly with sincerity and kindness to all. We find ourselves now in days that are very charged and they could be charged in different ways. At the surface, it's a time of negativity and sadness, a time of availab on Thursday. But like everything in Yiddish there's a silver lining because on a deeper level it's really days of transformation. The Rambam says kazal say that all of these days are going to be transformed into holidays and tishov is going to be the biggest yumptive. That means it's not just a day of sadness which we hope to get rid of but it's much more than that. It's an opportunity that invites the blessing of transformation. Transformation always means you're transforming something. What does transformation look like in our personal life? What does it mean to be able to go into those places and not only not break, god forbid, but actually transform? There's a mediki that there's no yumpt that's going to be as great as tishov. The question is, I understand it's going to be a nice day when mashia comes. We'll get rid of all the reason to mourn, but why should it be better than any other day? Should be like a regular day. The answer is because every darkness on a deeper level is an invitation. It's an invitation to much deeper awareness and transformation. Even if it doesn't feel that way certainly initially, that is what we want to address through the prism of how our sages saw this time of the year. We begin with a little story in the Gmorrah. Little historical context would be interesting. One of the greatest sages of the Jewish people in our history was a man named Rabbi Yahushua. Rabbi Yeshua Ben Kan. he was called. He's known as Rabbi Yeshua, Rabbi Joshua in English. He was also the fiercest debater that the Jews had. Which means whenever the Roman generals or governors or philosophers wanted to debate the Jews, who did they choose? Rab Yeshua. He was the spokesman. Besides being a great sage and giant, he was brilliant. He was sharp. He was profound. And he was the manua. He was a ley. He was still one of the vocalists in the second basikt. You know, every day they had a concerto in the besame mikt when they brought the carbon in the morning and he was one of the vocalists because the levim would play the music in had musicians and vocalists up to 120 and he was one of them and he saw the destruction of the second basikdash and the talmud the gamarra describes a major debate that took place between 60 philosophers and him. One Jew against 60 sages of Athens. Athens was the capital of Greece and the center of Greek philosophy. It was a very very active place then in terms of scholars and sages till today you can go to Athens you go to Greece you visit the Acropolis and other places where Greek philosophy flourished for so many centuries and they're called in gammor sabi debuna the elders of Athens sabi is like sabah the elders of Athens atuna is Athens Greece and Rab Yeshua debates 60 philosophers of Athens and the garra decides to record the entire entire debate a few pages in track. The fascinating thing is the entire debate takes place in riddles which means when you read it it looks like little children who are fighting with each other and you can't understand why are sophisticated people having this debate and not only that it's recorded in Shabbal for posterity it's recorded in Gmorra and it's learned till today that means they saw in it something very significant questions that are very very strange one of those questions we're going to learn about today okay let's take a look in your first source you See, this is where it is in the Talmud track. This deals with the male firstborn animals and the laws connected to page eight. You have it also in the English, but we also have the Hebrew. This is the question the philosophers of Athens posed to Rabbi Yeshua. Deiss rats is a chick. A chick in an egg is called rats in Aramaic. Ratuts means smashed together. Ratuts. Ratutsum in Hebrew. Because when you're in a little when you're a chicken, a little egg, it's pretty tight, right? Once the egg hatches, the egg cracks open. There's a little more space. And then the chicks start running around and they grow up to be wonderful roosters or hens. Ruts the miss. This is the question they asked them. A chick died inside the egg. Okay. Inside the egg, the chick died. Sometimes you open your egg and you find what's called ablute, right? Which is why why is there blood in your egg? Because a chick started to develop but didn't have time to develop. But here it actually developed and it died. From where does it spirit exit? This is what they ask for. The egg is sealed from all sides. The chick died inside the egg. Where does its soul, its consciousness, its spirit, its ru where does it go out from? And with this they tried to disprove Judaism. You know what his answer was? Three words. The same way the spirit entered. That's the same way the spirit left. Rashi says is a little chick which dies in the shell of the egg inside. So Rab Yeshua says the spirit went in the same way it went in it went out and he won. He won the debate. That's all. Now you have to figure out what are they talking about? Was this really bothering them? What does this have to do with Judaism? How is this part of a debate? And there's a series of conversations like this. We spoke once about one of them they brought him two two eggs and they said one was one was laid by a black hand, other one a white hand. Do you know which one is what? And he said I don't know. You say you see Jews Jews lost. Judaism is defeated. So he took out two pieces of cheese. One came from a black goat. One came from a white goat. Do you know which one came from what? They didn't know. He won. And so debate we did that once in a class a number of years ago. Debate after debate like this. Very very strange. They once asked him uh they once asked him uh how do you u when salt when if how do you preserve salt from getting rotten? So he says, "You put it in the amniotic sack of a mule." So they said to him, "But a mule doesn't have a amniotic sack because it doesn't procreate." He said, "And salt doesn't go bad." Okay, that like a whole debate. So over the generations, fascinatingly, many of the greatest of commentators try to crack the egg, pun intended, crack the code behind these debates. What is going on here? And you have literally generation after generation fascinating commentaries on this debate with the egg and the chick the spirit coming in the yak of yf one of the great students of the bos has an amazing explanation that it's referring to how people dav the process of davining there's a explanation of the vagon there's an explanation of breast Isaac today I want to discuss one angle of this based on the mah one of the great commentators of the gammor the marsh and the shamish who both give a very fascinating interpretation and based on this we'll explore what this means and how it connects to this time of the year and why this was a debate between Kan and the great sages of Athens in order to appreciate this we're going to change the subject mash we're going to get back to it everybody knows the famous PK which is the of the next Shabas called Shabas the Shabas after we begin the seven called and the first one which is going to be next Shabas is perme the fourth chapter of the Nvi the prophet and it begins with the famous words as you see in the second source which literally means find comfort find comfort my people thus says your god and he continues speak to the heart of Jerusalem very moving word speak to the heart of Jerusalem and call out to her. Her distress is filled. Her sin is believe is is removed. She has already taken double for all of her mistakes, for all of her transgressions. This term is a very unique term. We have it almost nowhere in the usually it says Here does your God say he doesn't say how to find comfort. He just says find comfort my people find comfort. But how do you find comfort? This is what your god says in paran has a piece the year which would be uh 1896. He has a piece that we have here. And he delves into the deeper meaning of these words. In order to appreciate it, he quotes a medish in paras. It's a very very strange medish. At first glance, it seems very negative, very harsh. I want to read it with you because when we dig a little deeper, it shows us what transformation looks like. Okay, if you look in the third to the last paragraph of your source sheet, this is the middle of this. I just quoted the whole medish the medish the third paragraph from the bottom of your source sheet. I'm reading nowish and I'm going to translate which means it's parish the second chapter the says everybody knows chapter 20 will answer you on the day of distress. The rabbi said, "There's a metaphor for this." There was a prince who left. He deviated from his father, from his mother, and went into a life of negativity and promiscuity. This is where the word pedagogues come from in the Greek. Pedagogen. He had three pedagogues. He had three mentors, three people who educated and molded and educ and and raised and and inspired and crafted the identity of this prince Omar and they were all perturbed. They were all dumbfounded. Here is a prince the future of the kingdom, the future of royalty. But he abandoned everything and lost it. He lost his moral anchor. He lost his soul. He lost his true identity. What do you do? Each one had a different piece of advice. This is all the med giving a metaphor. in the first pedagogue. We should make for him chains. In Hebrew are chains, right? Anybody here remembersim? >> Yeah. How do you say it in English? Shackles. Shackles. We should make shackles of 100 liter. Like litin is a weight. The time of the was of a very weight lit like today you'll have we speak about liter. But liter in the Talmudic times was known as a way to make heavy shackles that weigh 100 lit which means heavy heavy chains for this boy says no there's no way he can endure that the shackles should be much lighter weight much lighter weight less heavy they should be 12 lit from 100 go down to 12 like not 100 pounds but 12 pounds SO TO SPEAK HOW COULD YOU ENDURE shackles even of 12? The weight of 12 at best it should be a chain of one lit which means very very light very very loose not heavy at all. One lit would be like one pound says the medish. The Jews had three Pentagons says the prince needs chains of 100 leaders says when the prince loses it there will be many many challenges many negative occurrences in exile those are the heavy chains David Oman no Okay. The change should only be 12. One day of how many hours is there IN A DAY? 12 HOURS. SAYS HE SAYS ONE DAY 12. No way. 12 won't work. Even one day 12 hours won't work. chains of one says ace is not a day is a time an hour one hour which means 112. SO DAVID SAID 12 and Yeria says one just like a day has 12 hours but says David said a day is 12 hours said no not even a y ace ace is one hour one period one section of the day which means one out of 12 one liter that's the end of the medish at first glance right to quote the famous this these are the pedagogues of the Jewish people wants heavy chains says okay a little lighter says even lighter is the great lover of the Jewish people the one who after the after they made the golden calf he told Hashem if you don't forgive them blot me out blot my name out of the he is the one who stood up time and time and time again to emancipate to liberate to stand up and rescue the Jewish people on every level and now he is the pedagogue who is advocating to take the child and chain him, put him into shackles, not just that are heavy, but 100 liter of the weight of 100 liter. Number one. Number two, why? Why are they focusing on shackles and chains when somebody it seems like they're saying he has to be disciplined, he has to be penalized, he has to be punished? Shackles and chains are just a way of transporting, right? It's not a punishment to put somebody in shackles. they're putting them, let's say, in prison or they're giving them a punishment. He doesn't focus here on the punishment or the penalty. He focuses on the shackles will just tie up the person. Why is that the p why is that the focus here? And then David goes less and then goes less. What's the point? And also, who cares how thick they are? I mean, the point of chains and shackles is that a person shouldn't run away. So, if they're light and the person can't run away, they still can't run away. And if they're heavy and they can't run away and if they're heavy and they could run away, it still doesn't help. How does that become the huge focus here in the medish? And what's the point? And what what's the lesson here? And what's the message they were trying to say? And is this really going to make the big difference? What weight it is? And seems the greatest leader of the Jewish people and he's advocating for heavier chains. All this is addressed in this. It's a very difficult maj. So let's see this inside. It's a few paragraphs. We're going to learn it and explain it. As you see from the top of the page, it's your third paragraph which is this week. It's the week that is paran. We have the par ofishma here. Oh Israel, Hashem is our God. Hashem is one. That's this is the parish of Krishna which we of course say every day, twice a day, three times a day. Says this is what does this mean? What this means is what does it mean to say? It's not just saying that God is one. There's no two gods. There's no hundred gods of course on a basic level. But he's saying it's something else. You're saying so he explains for a person every day to accept to internalize God's divinity. These are very very interesting words. What does it mean in Yiddish? He would say to accept to internalize every day in you his elus his godliness. What does this mean? to affirm that he's God, that he's strong, that he's infinite, that he's eternal. What does it mean to accept on myself, internalize his godliness? What what is it? So he says to perceive, to hear that Hashem is our God individually. It's extremely individual is like the individual. It's means we say it's ours, right? When kids say our Tati, our mommy, our team, our home, there's something very individuated about that. It's my experience, our experience. So, Hashem is ours. So it's to accept internalize his elus but not just in a collective or cosmic or global way which is of course true but it's also individually as we learn in the opening of the first commandment is speaking to millions of people you should say right and if you're speaking to a few million people you don't just in in English there's no difference between you in the singular and you in the plural you say you to one person you say you to many people. But of course in Hebrew there's a big difference between so the whole which is the one time that God meets everybody face to face by mira he should speak to everybody. What does he say? I am yours individually even though there's millions of people but the point is it's yours. says through this with this the Jew has the ability to celebrate and be joyous with this a whole day a person asks how in the world am I supposed to be happy so he says once you get this once as we say in English once your nervous registers this truth internally. You could celebrate. This empowers you to be joyous, to feel an experiential joy in your body, in your bones, in your nervous system, in your actual physical body in a very embodied way, which is festivity, joy, celebration. as the Pik says, one word fell out here. I don't know how that happened. Okay, is very important. You should love right after what do we say right after what's the next remember was added later because that's not in the so literally mean you should love Hashem your God. He says it actually means something else. What it means is The greatest thing you could love is the fact that he's not just you should love God. The moment you realize that he's this is the most lovable experience in the world. This is something that is the most exciting lovable experience in the world with which can carry you throughout the day with so it's like you'll say to somebody wait till you meet this person you're going to love him right wait till you meet this person you're going to love her wait till you see this place you're going to fall in love wait till you go to this individual or to this experience it's going to be amazing so this says that's what he's actually saying once you realize you're going to love this more than anything else like he says it'll be the most precious thing in the world even more than the nephesh the fact that he's you should love when you real you should love the FACT THAT HE'S NOT JUST YOU should love you should love the fact that he's what you should realize and you'll see how much you want to you could love this yours to love everything that connects you that of you that brings you to the internalization of his godliness. anything in the world which means any mitzvah or any mida any attribute which is yes which is which is holy which is sacred whatever brings you to closeness to godliness this is something you will fall in love with because once you realize when you realize he's this is something you're going to love more than anything else so anything that brings me into this relationship that brings me close to this automatically I crave I have so is not just it's anything that allows me this relationship with that's why this par is always shabas the shabas of comfort what's the connection comfort my find comfort my people find comfort my people says you're says let's explain the p There is enough in godliness. There is enough like there is enough in there's enough in his godliness to comfort us for all of the challenges for all of the distress that have that we have endured and we continue to endure the el it's not just who's saying it it's actually how to find in the that's inside of you. Your has in it the power for there's something very powerful and sufficient in to bring comfort. That's why has this it also has it also has why all this shabas it's not random because ultimately this is the comfort as he says I comfort you. What do you mean I comfort you? What are you doing? It's not by doing something. It's I. It's the presence of I. is this attachment with I that comforts you. This is what this fas is saying. He's going to go to next step but I want to just pause here for a few moments to try to reflect on these very very powerful words. The words sound deceivingly simple or maybe they don't sound deceivingly simple but it's probably I would say that this is probably the greatest casualty of gulos. The greatest casualty of gullos, of course there's all the pain of gullos, no question about it. But what he's saying here is the greatest casualty of gulos is that we lose the experiential experiential embodied feeling of Hashem's presence in our life. And that's the real source of comfort in life. We sometimes look at comfort in terms get rid of the pain, get rid of that which is bothering me, which of course if you could, you should, right? Whenever somebody can get rid of a pain that's bothering them, they should. But we all know that there's things that are painful that I can't just snap my fingers and get rid of. And even not with a snap of fingers, even if I work very hard, there's things I can do and there's things I can't do. There's things I can change and I should change. Everybody should try to enhance their lives as much as possible. But we all know that there are pain. There's pain that is very, very real. It's deep. It's part of life. It's part of the fabric of life. It's part of the fabric of exile inside of us and around us. What's the comfort over there? Is there comfort? There's different approaches. Some people disassociate. Some people go into like this more pseudo bliss by not feeling everything. Some people go into very deep despair, especially if you have a big heart and you're an impath and you're an HSP. You're a highly sensitive person. Even other people's pain could destroy you, never mind your own or your kids. What this is here is telling us here is is who says means your God. It's yours. It's your own internal experience of Hashem. What does that look like? What does that even mean? I know that it's difficult to put into words. I'm just going to tell you how I at least today understand what he's saying or at least a little bit of understand what he's saying. At least one aspect of it because really we're talking about something that's infinite. He said what is what does it mean? It means to internalize. What does that mean? What am I internalizing? Often the way we understand it is you believe that Hashem is always here and Hashem is infinite and Hashem is eternal and he's beyond time and he's beyond space and he created the world and there's divine providence and that's all true. But that's not what we're talking about. Means I'm yours. I'm yours. So this is a very individual relationship. It's not a philosophical statement about who is God. Like a confirmation, you know, checklist. You're infinite. Check. You were always here. Check. YOU'RE GOOD. CHECK. COMPASSIONATE. CHECK. CHECK. CHECK. And now I'm a mess. You're big. You're great. You're infinite. But I'm a mess. What? What? What? What's the issue here? The issue here is I'm not experiencing godliness. means that the person has the deep deep power to work through blockages and internalize the experience of what does divinity look like? What is it? What is what is godliness? What is really godliness? What are we talking about? So, we have no words for it because godliness is higher than creation. Creation is created from Hashem. There's a difference between creator and creation. But because we each have a soul that as it says in so we actually do know what godliness is. We don't know it in a intellectually mathematical way because nobody does. No thought can grasp it. But experientially the soul is a so when you speak about an is not just a mind it has a mind and is not just a consciousness. It has consciousness is not only feelings of course it has feelings actually there's a piece a fragment of the divine. so to speak of inside of us. The moment is the moment I can tune into that godly frequency in my own system, there's very very deep comfort in life's pain. Because the comfort that comes there is not a comfort that says everything is dandy, everything is perfect. It's a comfort that can't even be described in a mathematical equation. There's a comfort from the fact that the person deep deep down knows that they're in a place of safety. There's a comfort of acknowledging that despite thousands or millions or zillions of questions that people have, very good questions, very decent questions through out of all of it, I'm being carried. I'm absorbed. I'm literally absorbed in the infinite grip of Hashem who is the source of all love, all bliss, all infinite connection. I want to share with you a little story because I think it will really bring home the point. My father had a very close friend who was a very well-known Jew. His name was Ellie Weisel. Ellie Weisel was a Holocaust survivor. He was in Awitz. He was in Bkhenvald. He actually grew up in Sigot. Sigot in a from a he comes from a vision. It's a a kidic vision family. Most of his family was killed in the war. He survived and I think a sibling or two survived. And my father was a journalist and Elizel was a journalist. So they became friends in the world of Yiddish journalism in the 1950s and the 1960s. So he used to come to our and we used to my father went to his he was at my bris actually I don't remember and uh my parents were at his son's bris. They had a they had a pretty pretty close relationship over many many years. Ellie Weisel, I don't know if any of you read night. Any of you read night, right? That was one of the big first books on the Holocaust. And it's not an easy book to read. He describes, you know, that first night in Awitz that he saw in the gallows. I'm It's a very very intense book. Ellie Weisel grew up in a he comes from family, but he wrestled his entire life with God. He didn't just abandon he he couldn't allow himself to be an atheist. He was too Jewish for that. He would go to schul on Shabas. He would put on and he would davin. He was very very he loved learning. He was a very he had a very deep Yiddisham. But he struggled with Hashem. His for many many years many years he struggled and he wrote about it. He wrote how Awitz when he saw what was happening with a child he saw that God was also on the gallows. You know it was very very painful painful journey. I remember an article that he wrote era vers Shana in the New York Times I think 1995 50 years after Awitz and I can't remember the headline now it's a couple of years what is it uh 31 years ago and the headline and he wrote in the article he says it's a letter to Hashem in the New York Times Shana he writes we all used to read the New York Times then yeah my parents got it in the house so that's why I saw the article. So Ellie Weisel writes like this. He says, it's a letter to Hashem. He says, "God, I've been fighting with you for 50 years. It's time to make peace." And he writes about his journey and how difficult it was and how the pain and he says, "I always fought with you not because I didn't believe in you, but because I believed in you. My pain came from my faith. My disappointment came from how much I trusted you. what I saw in you, it didn't come because I was estranged from you. It came because I relied on you and that's why I felt so betrayed. But he says 50 years I can't fight you anymore. I want to make peace. It was such an emotional emotional article. And I once heard from Ellie, I think he was speaking at the of my father. I think that's when it was and he was struggling a lot. So my father suggested to him that he should go visit the labba and initially he didn't want to. But at the end he said you know what he's going to come to a fabbran not privately but come to a public gathering he shared this and he said he came in and the rebba was sitting and talking and elizel said I looked at his face and I saw on his face thousands of years of Jewish pain and thousands of years of Jewish joy and I realized that this is a place for me. So then I went to visit him privately and he said we spent a few hours and again he said come back again and again and they developed a very close relationship. Elizel would come visit him. Elizel refused to get married. He felt it's irresponsible to bring children to a world where the same thing god forbid can happen. How can you do this? You're not allowed to do it. He saw what happened to him and his family. He refused to get married. The reb for years was arguing with him to get married. One letter 1965. It's around a seven-page letter dedicated to convincing Elizel to get married. And he writes to him, "You dedicate your life to remember the Holocaust, to remember all the it's amazing. It's important. Don't stop. But the greatest thing you'll ever do is actually bring another Jew into the world and you'll raise him." And he said, "I don't care how you raise him. If you want to raise him as a good. You want to raise him as good. YOU WANT TO RAISE HIM is good. But one more Jew in the world will be the ultimate victory of you against Hitler. And uh to his credit, Eliza listened. He got married. He had a son named Alicia. Was born when I was born because you told me I went to your bris. Your father came to my bris. And he named his son Alicia after his father who was killed in the Holocaust. And he said that at his wedding people sent him bouquets of roses but the nicest bouquet he got from the lab. Now in that letter where he convinces him about this he writes to him about the oh I'm sorry Elizel says once he was by the rebba it was the middle of the night and he looked at the rebba in the face and he said after awitz how could you believe in god he said the rebba didn't answer he paused he looked at Ellie weel and he said these words after awitz in whom do you want me to believe in man. If there's any faith left at all after Awitz, it can only be in something that is beyond the human, only in God. In this letter of 65, he shares with Ellie Weisel an insight about this whole discussion. It says as follows. We all know that the greatest of the great in Jewish history have challenged Hashem about the pain of the world. who is called the first of the believers. He says in paral will the judge of the world not behave justly the one who gives says why did you afflict the Jewish people says why do the wicked prosper cries and cries and cries and all the prophets and theb says toel isn't it interesting that all of these great believers challenged hashem and there was a reason for it because they felt that there is something off about the evil in the universe. If there's no God, if we believe, if atheism is true, then there's no question why there's so much suffering. The very question of why bad things happen is only because you expect otherwise because there's a creator who's benevolent, who's compassionate. SO THE VERY question can only come if there's a moon. If not, there's no question. Then he says to now I want to ask you a question. Why do you think nobody of them abandoned their faith as a result of this question? Why did Abrau not say I'm done? Why did say I'm done? Why didn't they all say you know what this is too much? I'm finished. Why didn't they lose it? Why didn't they lose their amuna? And the answer he gave Ellie Weisel was extremely extremely moving and extremely profound. And I think this is part of what we're learning here about And there's two points to it. Number one, when we think about all the love, think about all the love that you have in your heart. Everybody, think about all the love you have in your heart to your loved ones, to anybody. First of all, to your children, to your family, to relatives, to friends, to all people. Think about all the love that you just have in your own heart right now. Now if we go around the room imagine right all the love that's in this room. Now think if we can expand it to the entire planet all the love that exists in every mother's heart on this planet. All the love that exists in every father's heart. All the love that exists in every child's heart. All the love that exists and that's this generation. Now imagine if we could bring into this room to this class all the love that ever existed since the first day that the first human being was created. And even the love of animals that they have to there all the love that exists. Imagine from the beginning of history till today. Imagine you could bring that all in to the room right here and feel it. What do you think it would feel like? I don't know if our hearts would be able to contain it. Right? Pretty pretty intense. Now let's understand all that love. All that love. Where did it come from? I created love. I created consciousness. I created emotions. I have 70 trillion cells. I can't even create one cell. The infrastructure of one cell is more complex than the infrastructure of London, Paris, Tiv, Moscow, New York, Los Angeles, Honolulu, and Johannesburg together. And that's just one cell. The consciousness of love is so deep, it's so intense. Is it possible that after 25 billion years of a mindless blind cell, one day this this mindless cell just exploded into a consciousness of love? Anything when you have consciousness, if you see a program on a computer, it came from a programmer. Consciousness had to come from a source of consciousness. Love has to come from a source of love. All the love that we have in our life, all the love that we have in the world, it comes from a source. We didn't get it from nowhere. That source is Hashem. If you bring into this room all the love of all of history, all the love, it's a lot. But let me tell you, it's not even 1% of the love the way it's in the source because we're finite. We have finite hearts. So, we channel finite love. Even it's if it's huge. So as much love as we have in our heart. So the Reb is pointing out to all this love all where did it come from? Where did all this love come from? Where does all this pain come from? It comes from Hashem. And it goes much further than that and asked themselves a question. Why are we so pained by the pain in the universe? Why? Why does it bother us so much? Is it just because logically it doesn't make sense? Is it just because emotionally it doesn't make sense? No. They knew that the source of goodness and love and justice is rooted in the fabric of reality and it's beyond the mind. It's not just we believe we should be compassionate because our mind says it makes sense to be nice and compassionate. That from their pain they knew that this is something that pierces through the essence of their soul because their conviction that the world should be a place of love is rooted beyond the intellect, beyond the emotion. It's rooted in some infinite truth. And if that's the case, they realized that then the conclusion of what's good and what's not good can never come from logic. From the very way that they were crying to Hashem and protesting, they realized it's not just a logical issue. THE VERY CORE THE CORE OF THE SOUL IS crying out against it. Why? Because they felt that goodness and love is infinite. ITS POWER TRANSCENDS the intellect. If that's the case, the intellect cannot be the one who will ultimately make the decision of what's good, what's not good to understand why God allows what he allows and what he does. At that moment, they realized that the only real thing you can do is surrender. Surrender not because you're weak, because from their very outcry, they realized how deep their conviction was. And if it's coming from such a deep place, then the mind is a limited tool that can understand certain things but cannot understand ultimate reality. Internalizing godliness, what does that feel like in you? What does it mean that you touch divinity? What does that feel like? The answer to that is when my nervous system, my nervous system experiences the frequency of Hashem's reality. What does that look like? What is that frequency? I can't describe it. But one thing we know, it's one that has infinite love in it. It's one in which you feel that you're okay. You're good. You're okay. In a deep deep place, everything is going to work out exactly the way it has to work out. SO YOU SAY, "YEAH, BUT STATISTICS, I GOT IT. I know all the we got all the questions." And then we come and say, "Intellect is created." And there comes a point in history where intellect needs to unbburden itself from playing God and say I understand what I can understand. I cherish the gift of my mind and then I surrender to that which I don't understand but I know is infinite love and is the source of all the love that ever existed in all of history. All of our love is not even a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the love that exists in that source because we're all literally channeling it. It's like telling me all the electricity in the universe is coming through this wire. I hope it's not because we'll all be our own French toast for breakfast. Thank God our wires are channeling a little little msum a little little tiny tiny it's not even the word tiny of the you know what type of electricity is available. The love that we're channeling is a beautiful tiny fraction of the love. The love in the source is beyond. And if I know that and I feel that then I realize that my mind could never even understand what that love looks like. And that also means that there's certain things I simply do not understand. Cuz if I would, I would be God. As the philosophers say, if I knew him, I would be him. If I knew him, I would be him. So when it comes to the experiential experience back here to what he's explaining, what is find comfort? This is what your god says. Your god could say it's the comes. It's a comfort that comes from the fact not that I comprehend the stories of my life. Not that I comprehend the reason for this loss or that loss. There's people sitting in this room who have experienced major losses over the last few years. There's no way to intellectually, oh, this is why, this is why. It's a foolish discussion. It's sometimes even a cruel conversation. And then there are different types of losses and emotional and psychological and spiritual turmoil and challenges of people's journeys. Where is the comfort? The comfort can't come from the fact that somebody tells me a nice cute little thing that could maybe help me for a few moments. Where does the inner inner comfort come from? This tells us it's when a person says it's to be able to experience in my bones the light, the love, the bliss of divinity. What is also it's infinity. It's at the core of reality. It's not logic. It's beyond logic. It's the source of all existence. It's the source of all creation. We are all inside of it like a womb in its mother. Like a like a baby in the womb of his mother or her mother. We are all absorbed in it constantly. Means that despite anything I saw, anything I heard, anything I'm experiencing very very deep place, I'm absorbed in infinite love. And the moment my bones can experience even a drop of that frequency says there's a joy that accompanies you all day and I would say that this probably is one of the biggest casualties of the gulus. Of course, the gulus is the gullus with all of its stories and events and experiences as we commemorate on tishab. But sometimes we don't talk about the deepest casualty of gullus and that is losing touch with this. Losing touch with an embodied experience of the divine. The divine became at best intellectual. It's something I believe. It's something I understand. It's something I don't understand. It's something I don't believe in. and I do believe in it's something I accept and then afterwards I give this what the gullus has taken away not anybody's fault this is ultimately God's fault but what has taken away from so many is the embodied experience of the divine in my life where actually my nervous system could lean into deep deep deep trust throughout the day. It's not an easy task because the evidence is against it. Especially if you use your phone a lot. Mistake. But especially if you use your phone, you wake up in the morning, you start checking what's going on. Every nerve in every nerve in your nervous system will start screaming danger danger danger danger. That's why we say every single day. It's not just a mitzvah to repeat it every day. It's an experience. Every day again I make a choice and the choice is do I tune in to the frequency of elus to ask myself what does divinity look like in your body. It's literally pinpointing what does godliness look like in your body. I know what blockages look like in my body. I think I hope I know. I know or I don't know what trauma looks like in my body. At least I try to know. I know what anxiety looks like. I know what heaviness looks like, right? Everybody knows exactly what I'm talking about now, right? It's not like divinity. We know what heaviness looks like. We know what anxiety looks like. We all know what worry looks like. We know what anger looks like. We know what blondness looks like. Should I go on? Some of us even know what disassociation looks like. Or we don't cuz we're disassociated. But if you did some work with your disassociation, you know what it looks like. It's like you can almost see your wires separating. CONNECT. BUM. SCISSORS. SCISSORS. SCISSORS. SCISSOR. OKAY. I feel nothing. I'm good. Barm. Everything is perfect, disassociated, calledisha, right? Beheaded emotionally. We know all those. We know what it feels like to have that lump in your throat. You know that heaviness, that heaviness. I sent a text to somebody the other day, and it was a very, it was about a very, very intimate issue. And then I don't know why, but somehow I thought that I sent a text to the wrong person. And it would have been really And you know that feeling? Thank God I didn't. But I but I don't know for like 10 minutes I was just like like my whole body became so heavy with with contempt and shame and and how am I going to deal with it and you know what lie can I even make up you know to say that I don't know uh Trump said it sent it. I don't know like it it was just it was just it was it was like you know I was I I thought I was caught with something. I didn't know the the person had to get the text but I just thought I sent it to the person who was not supposed to get this text and just that feeling and I'm like oh wow how am I going to deal with this? But we all are familiar with these different types of versions of how our body gets filled up with this heaviness or this dread or this burden or this sense of overwhelming grief or just sadness and pain. And then sometimes there's also a very very deep sense of alienation. somebody we were close to, we have such a hard time with. These are all emotions and feelings that are available to us. They're called lowhanging fruits. You can always get them. Guilt, shame, heaviness, blondness, disassociation, contempt, anxiety, worry, concern. These are all lowhanging fruits. You know why low hanging fruits are easy to get? Because gravity pulls them down. They're available right here, right now. Take your fruit and go with it. There are high hanging fruits that defy gravity much more, but they're harder to attain. We have to go much much higher, but they're above the atmosphere. So, they defy gravity. And when you get those, it's much harder because it's not so available. It's not available here. It's like it can't easily latch on to it. Like guilt in a second. Shame pretty fast. Dreiness, blah, concern, overwhelming, all these things are available. disappointment, frustration. But then there are these higher frequencies. I have to climb much higher. But when I do get them, they open a heart and they give me a gift that nothing else can give. And it's not a transactional gift. It's not a gift. You did something good. So you're getting cotton candy. It's the gift where the gift itself is the gift. It's the relationship itself that's the gift. That's how you know it's a it's godliness. Godliness is not transactional. It's where the experience of the relationship itself is the gift. It's not now you're with me so now let's go do this and this is not a means for an end. Hashem wasn't created for something else. Hashem is the beginning and the end and the middle. So it's not a means for it's an end itself. So when you're ever when you touch that frequency, you know this is the end. You're just filled with truth. You're filled with the light of infinity. What does that do? First of all, you'll right away see the worry goes down. Second of all, there's no ego. There's no I don't have to compare myself to anybody. Number three, I don't have to judge anybody ever because it doesn't I don't need to judge anybody. When you're in that space, you don't need to judge. Number four, you don't compare yourself to anybody. Number five, you're not blah. You don't disassociate. You're present. You could look at all the pain and all the reality and you're fully present because you're plugged in to the source. And that is an unmistakable experience that when we say Israel, we are empowered at least for a moment. We have the ability to try to touch it. Now it's not always easy because life can get very very heavy. But here comes all the comfort. What can ever comfort somebody? What can really comfort people? He says there's enough it's it's powerful words has suffered a lot. Says enough in godliness to comfort really. What can comfort people really? We say what what really could comfort people? What is it? The pain is so deep. There's only one thing that can comfort people and that is touching the source of everything. It's the source of all the pain. It's the source of all the love. What happens over there is not ah there's logic now I understand. What happens over there is it's not about a question and it's not about an answer. It's about the experience in which everything is part of an infinite singular loving purpose that goes beyond anybody's brain. It's in the attachment with Hashem. It's in the experience of Hashem in my life where I find comfort for everything because he is this true source of comfort in Alus. is enough to be everybody because alus godliness is the source of all the love that we ever experienced. It's also the source of every experience in life and all the pain that we ever experienced. So says I want you to know that in this relationship with me, Hashem says you're going to find comfort. You're going to find a strength. You're going to find a depth. Theatana writes in Tanya in chapter 47 that is something we do every day, but it's something somebody needs to do and willingly. What does that mean? Hashem is even if I don't say but is the choice that I'm choosing to live in that space. I'm choosing to live in that space. I struggled with this myself because I think I told this to you once in a class. I grew up like many of you. You know, the last generations of Jewish exile have not been easy. Both of my parents came from the Soviet Union where their families suffered terribly under Stalin. Terribly. The Holocaust eclipsed what happened to Russian jury. But Stalin in many ways was worse than Hitler. He was killed more people than Hitler. And generally like many of us we grew up in generations of people who were very very experienced very difficult lives in many many ways. As a kid I used to read whatever I could about the Holocaust. I don't know I had a fascination and I would any book documentary piece of history I needed to read. I had this this eagerness to and and I still after reading it for years I still couldn't believe it happened. I would like read it again and I was hoping that it's all a dream like it didn't really I couldn't believe that it happened till today like it's been a lot of years. I still like a part of it is surreal to me and I almost had to convince I would read again to make sure it really happened and throughout my entire life I would say much of my life I dreamt about the Holocaust constantly very visual vivid dreams about the Holocaust. I'm not connecting it with anything spiritual that I was there or not there because I read so much about it so it could be in my imagination. I don't know about these things. You know I I told you I have enough hard time figuring myself out during the day and then I'm going to get to my dreams. And it was a consciousness that lived deep in me. Jewish suffering, Jewish history, Jew the Holocaust and so on and so forth. And once it was the middle of the night, I was talking to somebody, a mentor of mine. And I was having a very very intense conversation and an intense uh I would say healing experience. And it just came out of my mouth. I did not and I knew that it was true because I didn't know where it came from. And whenever something comes out and you don't know where it comes from, I knew it came from me and I didn't prepare it. And I told this person, I said, you know, to tell you the truth, you know what I feel? I feel the these were my words. You'll forgive me. These were my words. This was my truth at the moment. I feel that at the core of the universe is not Hashem, but Hitler. I feel that he is at the core of the universe, like literally the axis upon which the universe turns. Of course, I have this bleakness in my body. If he's running the world, this is the most horrific place to be in. Even if I'm safe right now, the whole thing doesn't make sense. The whole thing is one long nightmare, one long horror movie, and not movie, but horror reality. I don't feel Hashem is at the core of the universe. I feel that he's at the core of the universe. Like he is the one calling the shots. Now, I knew that Hitler is dead since 1945. Thank God. I knew that. I wasn't expecting that he's hiding somewhere in Iran or in Afghanistan. But I meant the energy of Hitler. I didn't mean the person Hitler, I mean the energy of Hitler. And this person thankfully knows Tanya very well. And the person said to me, you remember Tanya chapter 47? The alterba says it's a choice. You have a choice every day to choose whose world you live in. Do you live in Hitler's world or do you live in Hashem's world? Hashem means that the world there's oneness. It's Hashem's world and we're all in it and it's mine. It's individuated. But the alterbasis clearly says there it's a choice. If you don't make that choice, it's still the truth. But you're not living in that world. So maybe right now you can make a choice. And the choice is I'm going to choose to trust that it's not Hitler's world, it's Hashem's world. And that's the world I'm living in. And I made that choice that moment. I still have to make that choice every day because default mode, I can easily fall back to this. When we make that choice, when we have the courage to make that choice, not just with our mind, but with our heart, with our psyche, with our nervous system, with all the parts of our body, it's a very very profound choice because part of the brain screams, "Oh, you're not going to be safe." If you let go of the pain, of the blondness, of the resentment, of the disassociation, of the heaviness, you're not going to be safe. There's a reason we don't trust. There's a reason we're uptight. There's a reason our protectors do this to us. But it's in this space which is not a lowhanging fruit when you could tune into the frequency. I could tune into the frequency where there's much more trust. There's also love there. There's faith there. There's surrender there. And there's always bliss there. There's always a tanug there. And it's not bliss because everything is perfect and everything in my family. No, there's challenges that everyone is dealing with. I'm dealing with my challenges. You're dealing with your challenges. We're all dealing with our challenges individually and collectively. It's not about not having challenges. is you have these challenges but these challenges are not here to break you and destroy you and crush you and prove to you that the world is bleak. These challenges are here because your soul actually is pure infinity and it's channeling God's energy to bring his love and his trust into these challenges into this family into this place into this location has enough electricity to go around to bring comfort to everybody. How can it be? Because it's an infinite source. And it's in that source where we find that despite everything despite everything and despite the fact you know as I'm talking my animal consciousness is like what about that im just where just now what about that image of the Holocaust it's it's now reminding me of a particular thing that happened during the Holocaust and it wants to tell me that everything I'm saying is fiction because what about that image like how does that fit into your beautiful Rabbi Y why blissful bliss bliss bliss bliss bliss right and And you know what? I have no answer. I have no answer. And I could go there cuz it's such a painful thing that I'm imagining now that happened. One of those scenes in the Holocaust that actually happened and there's like what? Like really? I'm a father. Would I allow this to happen to my child? Never. If Hashem is our father and he's our mother, how do you allow this to happen? I know he didn't do it. I know the Nazis did it, but it's your world. You could have pressed the You could have pressed the brakes. And then this the questions go on and on and on and I know it and I could go into that place and I could say okay I guess my whole theory is is ridiculous and let's we live in a very very desperate and despair world and could different cookies crumble in different ways and I guess we should just fight for justice to be as protected as we can. But the truth is that I will not be authentic then with my soul because the soul knows differently and I know both parts. I know both parts and I know practically in one you close up and in the other one you open up. In one the heart closes because essentially at the core of everything is despair and negativity. And sometimes that's what we do because life is hard. And then it's a choice every day to say I live in a world of oneness. I live in Hashem's world. It's a world of trust. It's a world of bliss. It's a world of purpose. It's a world where everyone is part of it. It's a world in which Hashem loves me. in which I'm safe. In which in this frequency of divinity, we're protected. You're taken care of. You're being held. You have ultimate attachment. You're attached with the ultimate source that loves you more than you can even imagine the depth and magnitude of love. Cuz all the love we imagine is our own finite love. And this is even more than that. And I could really really surrender into that. And this the words that really touched me is when he says, you know, you think how many people went through, they're still going through. And he says that there's enough in Alus to bring that comfort. I once saw a letter from the labba to the president of Israel. His name was the second president of Israel. Anybody knows their Israeli history? Uh the second president, the first one was Whitesman. The second one was Benvi. So he writes him a letter. It's 1953. Beautiful letter. At the end he apologizes. In the titles I didn't write NSI. They call the president nimat. I didn't. And the reason is because from the day I went to from the day I went to school and before that I started to imagine what mashia what the gul is going to look like and I started to ask myself the sh says that the time of the gula we're going to say thank you hashem for doing everything you did how can Jews be do that means there's going to be something about the gula that's going to be so powerful that you're going to look back and we're going to say ah ah now I get it now I get it now I get it which means that the redemption is something so beyond what anybody can imagine because the Msiah we imagine how is it going to justify all of gullas we just think it's going to be a good life it's going to be a good world no the gula is going to be something that you're going to be able to look back and say thank you for everything that happened how can that even be he says so I started to imagine what type of gula that's going to be and the leader of that ghoul is going to be the nasi and therefore forgive me but I can't use that word for you but that idea what he's saying here that there's enough in that because there's something that's going to be that that can comfort everything. Not because logic because our love and pain comes from a place that's much deeper than logic. It's not like I have pain because it's logical. I have love because it's logical. It's much deeper than that. And somehow in that source, everything doesn't make sense logically, but everything is part of an eternal attachment of infinite magnitude that we cannot comprehend in our brain. And every day if I can go into that and I can trust it and I can open myself up to it. He says this is so powerful that it can bring joy a whole day to be to be able to touch inside of me. What does it feel like? That's what that's what we that's what we're looking for. We don't need ideas anymore. We want to embody alus. Ask yourself, what does alus look like? When you speak to somebody and you're experiencing what divinity feels like inside of you, trust me, your conversations will be lifech changers. There will not be a word of defensiveness anymore. You won't have to protect yourself. There will not be a word of judgment or aggression. There will not be a word of criticism, with cynicism. And you cannot do this with your mind. When I was young, by nobody's fault really, because the wires of emotions were cut through the gulus, but I thought that experiencing Hashem is an intellectual thing. You understand, you learn, you dive in, you teach, you teach more, you learn more. It's not. It's beautiful to learn and teach and understand. It's beautiful. You know, I'm not going to knock teaching. It's beautiful, but it's not that's not the experience. It's not the experience. It's not That's not a that's not it's not it's literally an embodied feeling. It's not even just an emotion. It's an embodied experience. An embodied experience means that the body is touching something that is not a lowhanging fruit. It's touching a divine energy in the world. And that divine energy is everything, but it's covered over. It's covered over by other things. I can latch on to different things. I can latch on to jealousy. I can latch on to bitterness. I can latch on to resentment. And there's justification. If somebody hurt me, if somebody wrote something nasty to me, you know, I could go there. I could right away go there and then I need a pause, recalibrate, go back to the core and say which which frequency of life am I touching? And when you touch that space, then you're in such a space of safety and confidence that comparing yourself to others is gone. You're completely present because then actually you become Hashem in a very literal way. I don't mean you become Hashem that now we're all gods, narcissistic gods. I mean you become Hashem because you're channeling Hashem. You're just channeling. Because when our egos die, we channel ultimate reality. Somebody once wrote, "When the doors are p of perception are cleansed, everything appears as is infinite." Because the truth is a poet once wrote, "You're not a drop in the ocean. You're the entire ocean in a drop." That's what Hashem means. Hashem, you're my God. What does it mean? I'm yours. You're the entire ocean in a drop. I'm one drop, but the entire ocean is in this drop. Hashem says, "I'm your God." What? I'm your God. I'm everybody's God. No, I'm everybody's God, but I'm your God. I'm your God. I'm your God means you are channeling everything through your life, through your presence, through your thoughts, through your words. Now, the feeling here, if the feeling that it creates is guilt, I'm so distant and I'm such a this. I don't know what Rabbi Yway in the world is talking about. What world is he living in? What did they put into this coffee this morning? What is what's in this Kool-Aid? Gi, what do you put in? Tell me the truth. Electrolytes. >> Electrolytes. Okay. There's no this not guilt here. If there's remor if I need to do chuva, I'll do chuva. Of course, there's remorse for remorse. But it's not there's no element of self-contempt and shame. How do you know this? The says in Hashem's space there's always two things confidence and joy. In that space, there's confidence. Confidence not because I'm superior to anybody. Confidence is because I'm channeling Hashem's energy. And there's joy because in Hashem there's always joy. He's the source of joy. There's a joy there. Doesn't mean there's no pain. There's also pain. We have hearts. Our hearts have been ripped open. Some of our hearts have been torn. Some of our hearts carry a lot of pain. And when you empathize and you feel other people's pain, there is pain there. But pain is not a contradiction to joy. Closedheartedness is a contradiction to joy. I'd rather all the pain in the world but my heart should remain open than not having any pain but my heart is closed. I've tried both ways. A closed heart is very, very safe, but it's torturous. It's torturous. You're like a dead person. I had a closed heart for many years. It was dead. I was dead person. I figured things out with my brain. I I was like a AI. I was very good AI before AI. I was AI. Not as brilliant as AI. No, not as brilliant. You couldn't ask me any question, but a lot of questions. And I had a little bit of an answer. I mean, not as good as Chad GBT and cloud and all these guys. But I was AI. At least in the sense of AI is that there was no heart. The other day I asked AI a question, they answered me, right? I challenged them because I knew it wasn't true and they said, "Yeah, we lied." That's it. He lied. That's it. Next. Boom. And he says, "And I'm not going to justify it." So you don't have to you don't have to continue. I'm not even going to justify it. I'm going to You hear part of how they program this guy. I lied. He writes to me. I lied. In any case, right, AI is brilliant. There's only one thing with AI and that is it will not substitute a genuine authentic relationship of soulto soul. It's good if you have a headache find out what to do. And I asked them what to do with my chickens and I asked them about different sprays and different this and different that and different that. But to for for attachment of an it's a different frequency. Hashem, this is an embodied embodied experience. The gullus besides everything else cut a lot of these wires because the moment we embody these things suddenly mitzvah are not anymore a burden and they're not even more they're not anymore instructions they're simply the most innate organic ways of living right whenever I have to tell myself you're not allowed to speak you're not let us speak lashhara for the next three hours take a cabala not to speak lashhara it's a beautiful thing And yet this represents how deep the gullus is because it's a checklist. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do this. Don't do that. The moment you're embodying Hashem. Whatever the says not to do, it becomes it's like you'll tell me for the next two hours don't eat excrement. I never saw that on a WhatsApp. Make a cabala for the next two hours. Not I'm sorry women. Sorry. It belongs for a men's class. Okay. For the next two hours. For the next two hours. Don't eat carbs and sugar. Right. You see how fast I learn? You see how fast I learn? Everybody's back to life. Okay. Bar, I apologize. I apologize. Scratch it for my resume. Fine. If if if if when when I'm organically connected. So he says, you should love more than you should love that Hashem is. There's no greater love in life. Of course, we love the beach and we love beautiful hotels and we love beautiful food and we love beautiful music and we love beautiful people and we love beautiful surroundings and that's all of it. But what's the greatest love? The reason you love beautiful places and beautiful people and beautiful food is it comes from the source. He says the biggest thing you could ever love is the fact that Hashem is a there's nothing more to love. All love is a continuum of that love. And if it's not a continuum of that love, it's an interruption of that love and it's probably not doing you well. It's even true in relationships. The best marriages are the marriages where the husband is not attracted to his wife. He's attracted to Hashem through his wife. A woman is not attracted to her husband. She's attracted to Hashem through her husband because that's endless. It's too much pressure to put on a woman and in a man to always be attracted. You're attracted to Hashem always through this person. The greatest love in the world that you'll ever have is the fact that Hashem is there's nothing greater than that. There's nothing greater than experiencing that love. More than that, there's nothing there's nothing greater than that. The greatest love is that he is a fact that he is a that this is available to you, that this is your truth, that this is your reality. Not because there's no disappointment. Because even within all of the disappointment, there's a truth here that is infinitely very very loving and very very powerful. And when a person has that in their life, then all the relationships that I have bring me closer to that. So he says, "And then you love everything that brings you to that relationship." That's why he says all the mitzvah, all the mitzvah, this literally becomes a tool of attachment. The question is attachment versus detachment. That's the question. You know, if you have an most amazing marriage in the world, the one question becomes, will the next comment bring me closer to my spouse or bring me further? You have a deep relationship with your children, will this conversation distance me from my children or bring us closer? That's the question. That's where the whole is. Will the next conversation, will my next action, will my next thought create attachment with divinity or detachment? It's not fully detachment. Will it be attachment or will it be some form of conscious separation? And if it's going to be a form of conscious separation, I'm not going to do it. It's too good. It's like you have the biggest love in your life. I'm not going to do something that will consciously separate me even for 20 minutes. Why should I want to do that? So, the biggest thing you should love is that you have this. This is what you have. This I will not go away from. And if this conversation will take me away from it, I'm not going away from it because I'm going to pay for it with my soul. I'm paying for it with my essence. I'm paying for my whole my this is this this is what I am. This is my authenticity. It's like somebody offering you billions of dollars. But you have to give them one thing. You have to give them your authenticity. You remember the story, the picture of Dorian Gray. The picture of Dorian Gray. Yeah. They used to read it in schools. Huh? Not anymore. My mother shared that with me many years ago. Right? So he offer the devil offers him a deal. You will remain young and handsome forever, but you have to give me your soul. You will remain young and handsome forever, but you have to give me your soul. Right? The p the price to pay. What's the price? Not to give up authenticity. If I'm giving up my authenticity, there's nothing left. All I have is my authenticity. That is me. What else do I have to give up authenticity? You know, somebody I asked somebody a question yesterday was something about somebody in my family. So they wrote to me an answer and they just made up a story. It was like it was a lie and I knew it was a lie and I shared it with my wife and she said to me something she said I have so much rahmanas on this person. I'm like why do you have ramanas on this person that the only way this person learned to survive is through lying. Imagine. Imagine how sad it is that I've learned at a young age that the only way to survive in the world and get the love I need, get the money I need, get the comfort I need is by being an inauthentic person. Like, what does that do internally to the nervous system? It means I'm completely blocked off from me. I'm not let even be me. Nobody's even allowed to see me. And I become so wrapped up in that. You know, how how tragic how tragic is that for a person? And even if I have to do it twice in the day or once in the day, how tragic it is. This is what it means. It's not a statement that Hashem exists. We've done that for thousands of years. It's an invitation to live with authenticity. It's an invitation to be able to live in your highest frequency. It's an invitation to be able to feel what divinity looks like inside of me. The place of raw, naked authenticity. The place of ultimate vulnerability. the place where your heart is completely open because it's completely embraced by infinite trust. Now, there still may be a dangerous world and sometimes I have to protect myself and create boundaries. I mean, if a guy is lying to me in my face, it's not a mitzvah to be naive, right? But it it it it's it it's so it's so powerful for us to start realizing the choices we make. And the deepest casualty of gullis is when we don't even know that there's such embodiment available. like what does it even look like? What does it even experience? I have I have I have I have seen over the last years different fights that go on families communities here and I'm no I'm no expert in this. I'm no judge. But I just want to tell you from my own observation I don't think I've seen one fight that is not based on crazy trauma. I don't see I don't think I've seen one fight that's not based on people simply being governed by an inner self-hate or inner inner wounds that have broken them so deeply. And this fight is simply a survival for them to find some place in the world. I'm still looking for a fight that is has anything to do with with authentic internal joy. You know, maybe Mosha and Ky I guess, but I wasn't there. I don't remember it. Right. So it's so fascinating because you know you say don't go into don't go you won't go into any the moment you heal a little bit we need to heal when we heal nobody will have any there won't be anybody in the world you don't speak to why should you not speak to somebody I don't mean I'm not talking about if if you need to be safe or you need to be protected but generally speaking I'm not talking to this one I'm not that doesn't exist it doesn't mean I agree with everybody I can have disagreements it doesn't mean that everybody in my family is my best friend not necessarily It doesn't mean that everybody in my community understands me fully and I'm going to share all my intimate secrets with them. That does not what we're talking about. Of course, there's different souls and different people and different perspectives and that's fine. It's perfectly fine. But the negativity, right, more than getting rid of is get rid of your brokenness. Start liking yourself. Start feeling your godliness. And then you're like, "What? You want me now to devote the next 20 minutes to gossip? Are you crazy? I like my energy too much. Sorry it may sound like narcissism but this is the holiest thing in the world. I remember when I was a bak there was a rav and he spoke out against something and then he realized he made a mistake. So he wrote to a letter and he asked the and he said I hope the rebba won't carry a grudge against me. So he wrote to him trust me I don't have a minute to carry a grudge against another Jew. Right. Where exactly do I have this energy? Do we have this energy? Like why would I spend it? And and I'm not talking about when there's a legitimate debate between people and you have to decipher and you have to find that's all part of t there's debates debate about this debate about that. There's ways of doing it. I'm talking about the fighting the disputations the all of that. I'm sorry Mrs. Klein you wanted to say something you want. Okay. So now I have to tell you I got a call a few days ago from Yudi Herzburg and he asked me to share this story. So I'm going to share it. Yudi Herzburg lives in Pomona and uh he has Barak Hashi and his wife Kumi have a beautiful family and uh last month June 2nd it was a Tuesday yudian 7 he was uh picking up his child from camp or from school or from some program and he told me his wife called him frantically that their 8-year-old daughter Shandel Charlotte has been hit by a car in front of their house. And he told me I was 2 minutes away from the house in Pomona. And I rushed over with my boy. And I was relieved because I saw on the scene two Hatsah people whom I knew very well, both from the community. One was my own kavusa who was insalah and whenever we had a medical situation we called him because he lives two doors away from my house and the other one was another friend also in salah and they were both on the scene so it gave me comfort you know that they already taking care of my girl so then I came out of my car and I took a look at my neighbor who's in the salah and I saw that he's not looking at me I saw he turned his eyes away and then I looked at his car and then he saw his daughter and he realized It was one of his best friends, his kusa who's a salah member who hit his daughter and they rushed her to the hospital and she passed away. This was Yudian Sivven the 17th day of Sivven and they tried to save her but they worked on her for 40 minutes in the hospital he told me and uh Charlotte Shandel passed away because it happened right in front of the house. One of the family members was there. They called his wife and that's why she called him. And uh he basically told me the story that his friend is actually a very very cautious driver and he's the one who always talks about driving cautiously and being responsible and he's he's a big man. She told me he said if you knew my like at always doing kindness and I know how he drives and I know what type of behavior it was. It was a construction site. There was a lot a lot of construction. There were a lot of cones there. It was very hard to see cuz there were like different trucks and pickup trucks and things moving and cars moving and trucks moving and he was driving and she was on a bike and Pasha didn't see her and he crashed in and he thought there was one of the construction items that he crashed into like a cone. So he continued and then there was somebody in a car a non-Jew who started to scream and that's when he came out and he realized and he he tried to save her life but he didn't. So UD tells me, UD Herzburg tells me we were now on the way back from the hospital and uh we were going home, you know, to prepare for the funeral the next day. And I told my wife, I have to make a stop somewhere. She said, "Where you going to go?" He said, "I have to go to my friend's house." And he literally on the way back from the hospital, he went to his friend's house. He went into his house and I said, "Yudi, what did you do?" He said, "I walked in. He was sobbing uncontrollably and I went over to him and I just hugged him. I just hugged him for a long time and uh I assured him that I knew that he really really uh you know was probably driving in a very very responsible way and this was just uh a divine act that was not based on his recklessness in any way. And I said we're together in this. It's my pain and it's your pain and we're together in this. So I asked Yudi I said I just want to be honest with you. Did was your wife fine with this? I mean she's the mother of this girl. So she says listen we learn every single day for years we learn together. We're kus is every single day after work we go to sh our house and we learn his wife and my wife are close friends. My wife knows him as well as I know him. And we know that this person is at saddic. He's at saddic. He killed our daughter inadvertently, but he's a sadic. And I made a choice then. I could have lived for the rest of my life disconnecting from him because he killed our daughter and creating this deep, deep strife and resentment and for good reason. How can I ever look at his face again? So I asked him, "How could you look at his face again? Just forgive me. Forgive me. I just want to understand." So he says, "Listen, Rabbi Jacobson said, I'm not going to tell you that this is not the most painful experience of my life. I am going to tell you that I realized that my friend is a very, very good, pure, and innocent person, and it happened through him, but it was a yad hashem." Why it happened this way, I don't know. But I realized that to keep this grudge and despise him for the rest of my life is not what my daughter would want. It's not what my soul would want. It's not what anybody needs. It's not what our people need. I kept him on the phone for like a half an hour because I said, I'm speaking to a legend. I'm not hanging up so fast. I need to hear more. I need to hear more. I need to hear more. And then at the end, I said, you know, you and your wife are bringing in a big light to the world. And then I corrected myself. I said, the truth is your daughter is bringing in a big light to the world. and thank you for being the channels through which your daughter's soul can bring such a light into the world. And he said, I called you because I wanted to tell you this story because I know you speak a lot for people to say, you know, we could live our entire life with negative energy and sometimes it's very justified. It's not because I'm selfish and I'm greedy and I'm fighting over a couple of bucks and I'm fighting over a house and I'm I could live there. We could live there. He says, "It's not because I was greedy. I could do that but I felt that my daughter's soul was asking of me to do something much different and I said so what's happening now he says we learn every single day I stood a day after Shiva I looked at him and I said we're going back we learn every single day together that's what he told me I have no words to say you get it but when I heard when I heard this I was like I don't know how did you get the strength for this that night like how did you do it and he says I guess it's my daughter he said my daughter's soul and Hashem gave me the kayak and somehow this was what I felt was the proper thing the tr I couldn't bring her back that I couldn't do I would have done anything to bring her couldn't bring her back but to turn this into a whole new saga of negativity I was not ready to do that and I didn't think it was what God wanted for and for my wife. I said, "Your wife is fully in agreement with this." I I'm very curious. So she he says, "Fully, this is one team and I and all your children." He said, "All of my children like wow." I said, "You guys, your your daughter is a light is bringing a light to the world and you're channeling it to us." You know, here I think, you know, what do we learn from this? There's no words really, right? All the explanations here would be ridiculous. Especially, I'm speaking here to a room of of many mothers and sisters and grandmothers and so forth. This person, he wasn't going into the world of and logic, but he was feeling very much into his own is truth in his body as his wife was. So often, you know, when we graduate from the checklist Judaism into the embodied experience of The lus in you could comfort you. It could comfort you. Go into that frequency. There the checklist becomes an issue of a relationship. What's going to bring me to attachment? What's going to take me away from attachment? And that's what it means to live with presence, to live with mindfulness, to live with deep attachment. So now let's bring it all together. Let me I'll say it outside because it's so late. I'll just bring out what he says outside. He says the chains that the medish was talking about are not chains of punishment. They're not chains to lock you up. They're not chains to tie the child down. He says rather there are chains that represent attachment. The deepest thing in the world that we all need is attachment. When you say a chain, you chain two people. You chain up to a situation. It represents something in which I become inseparable. It's attachment with our soul. It's attachment with Hashem that is at the core of everything. The greatest tragedy for a child is a child who loses attachment. A child who doesn't have attachment. We know today that when the lack of attachment, we create fake attachment. When we create fake attachment, we look for it in all the wrong places. Everybody needs attachment. An addict is looking for attachment. In alcohol, in porn, in telephones, in computers, in movies, in in gambling, in drugs. I'm looking for something that I want to attach to. It's just not real. It's not coming from my authentic self and I'm not connecting to anything that really cares for me. So the chains here represent what would help as this fus puts it what would help the person to be able to define themselves to find themselves to reconnect to reattach themselves. Mosher Rabenu as we know was the epitome of truth. He said, "Bring on the heaviest chains." In other words, the deepest attachment. The challenges should be so clear, so penetrating in the sense that they should bring the deepest clarity in the world. Who I am and who I'm not went down your went down because you have to know who you're dealing with. And what that means as follows. You know, sometimes I could live an entire life that's fake and inauthentic and then literally somebody throws the ice cream in your face, right? That curveball comes your way and all the illusions crack open and like, "Ah, I got it." It's the most painful experience in the world, but it's the most loving experience in the world. What's more loving than a person living their entire life in an egg and thinking that egg is reality? That egg is reality. That egg is everything. There's nothing outside of that egg. Imagine I was a chick in an egg. And I imagine that that egg is all of the reality universe. God is in that egg. Life is in that egg. Joy is in that egg. Validation, everything in that egg. And I laminate the egg. I make it nice. And then I get into another fight with another chick whose egg is bigger, nicer. And we have competitions on our eggs. My egg is a little nicer and bigger. And my whole life I'm convinced that this is it. And then one day, nature cracks the egg open. I'm like, "Wow, this is the story of real life." Sometimes I felt that way at some point in my life. I'm in an egg and there's nothing else and then the egg cracks up. Wow. And in that egg there's no way of even knowing of another reality CUZ THAT EGG IS EVERYTHING AND THEN SUDDENLY YOU'RE LIKE, "OH MY GOD, THAT EGG WAS SUCH AN EXILED state of consciousness." That's exactly the story. Soenu says create that powerful powerful attachment to break open all the illusions goes down your mo goes down because it always has to be sensitive to how much the person can achieve. But this says every challenge in life is to crack open another illusion of self that is not based on my true attachment to the divine source. everyone. It's cracking open another illusion of substituting my real life with a fake life. So now the egg, that's what we finish with. >> Exile. >> Very good. Ex. Exile. Are you good? The ultimate exile is the ultimate egg. The spirit, the egg cracks open. I mean the chick dies in the egg. Where does the spirit come out from? Can't come out from anywhere. It's locked. It's locked. And says the same way it came in, the same way it went out. And he's really giving here the secret of the Jewish people in exile. The Greeks were saying you die in the egg and you're stuck and this is it. He said, "No, the spirit that comes in and out is not defined by the walls of the egg. The walls of the egg can separate something physical. They can't separate an energy that transcends time and space. Energy doesn't get stopped by the walls, by the club, by the membrane, by the confinement of the egg." They said spirit can't go out from anywhere. It's all stuck there inside the egg. taught there's the frequency of energy that transcends time. It transcends space. It transcends gravity. And therefore, you're always connected to that source. And in that connection comes the ultimate. May we see it with our own eyes even before. Amen. Thank you. 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