Those Who Sow With Tears Will Reap With Song: A Prayer of a Young Victim of Abuse

i want to thank the shul er hayam for bringing us all together on this day among the many other urim and events and programs and videos and lectures and seminars that are going on here last night and today throughout the day including some presentations by actual survivors of the holocaust which will be later in the afternoon as you could see on your signs here in the vicinity of the show i also want to thank uh shmolinyaza for all the video work for the yeshiva.net where the videos will be posted as well and torah anytime and all the other websites that are streaming live i don't know all the names of them but thank you and welcome to everybody and welcome to everybody who's also with us virtually i uh got an email a few minutes ago from somebody in your shell i am and i have to read it to you because it caught my attention let's see dear rabbi jacobson shlita as i sit here in your sheliam the phrase i want the cake and i want to eat it too comes to a new light my wife and i can actually sit here in jerusalem eat our cake at 9 30 p.m local time and listen to rabbi looking forward okay uh signed pinchas who actually tunes in every day so i'm going to start off with a very famous statement of our sages the gomorrah says this at the end of track daytimeness at the end of massachusetts page 29 are you whoever mourns for jerusalem merits and sees its joy and obviously our sages are trying to highlight the value and the merit of jews never forgetting never forgetting our past our history our story our narrative our tradition our faith our capital our epicenter the besamikth year after year on tisha above on the ninth of of jews get together and mourn and grieve for the destruction and hope for its rebuilding speedily so the gemara says the one who mourns for yerushalayim merits and ceases joy some cipher and i'm going to translate everything into english not because i don't think that many of you understand everything i'm saying in the original but because there's many types of listeners both physically and virtually so i want everybody to be able to understand some cypher was one of the greatest rabbis and sages of the 19th century 18th and 19th century passed away in the year 1839 was the rabbi of preschburg today that's bratislava then it was called freshberg it was in the austria-hungarian empire which was dissolved at the end of the first world war his name was by maisha cypher maisha schreiber many of the sofas or schreiber's are his descendants and he was the great rabbinic leader of preshberg and one of the great rabbinic leaders of his day and in one of his sermons printed in russia's some cipher in one of his presentations he asks what seems like a very apparent grammatical flaw or challenge and that is the talmud says he who mourns for jerusalem merits and seizes joy you would think that it should have been written in the future tense somebody who mourns today for jerusalem will merit and will see its joy just as he or she participated in the pain of yerushalayim in the grief in the morning they will one day merit to see the joy the dancing the jubilation the celebration the expression in englishes if you want to be with me when i land make sure that you're with me when i take off don't only show up for the landing show up for the takeoff as well but that's not the expression of our sages in the talmud expressionist whoever mourns for jerusalem marriage he merits and sees its joy as though that is happening presently in the time of mourning this is the question that some cipher raises often people ignore such nuances but the language of the sages in the talmud was always meticulous there was always precision there and therefore one ought to be sensitive to such nuance and ask is there maybe a deeper message here beyond the straightforward message of the importance of not forgetting and not detaching from the story of our people i'm going to get back to his answer he gives a very brief and short answer but i want to contextualize his answer within a larger context of jewish perspective of jewish history so we'll get back to that blinded-based hashem at the end at the end of this year at the end of the lecture now i want to move on to something else as we speak we speak about mourning for jerusalem isabella your there is one chapter in tehillim one chapter in psalms which is very well known because it is said by many jews many jewish communities every shabbos and yamtif before benching before grace after meals it is therefore by weddings before grace after meals at many festive occasions it is said before benching and therefore it became not only a chapter in tehillim but very much part of the fabric of jewish life and this is the chapter in tehillim chapter 126 this song of tehillim it's very short it's very brief it's concise many of us as i said say it constantly many of us even understand the translation of the words but as is so often the case there are things that we say constantly we read constantly but we fail sometimes to tune in and to focus on the actual meaning of what is being said and allowing ourselves first to hear the questions the enigmas the mysteries of what is being said in parentheses just as a little jewish trivia i would add that maybe some of you know an interesting fact and that is that when israel was considering what should be its anthem so there was very strong consideration that its anthem should be this chapter of tehillim 126 kovhav which think about it would have been pretty appropriate at least on some level especially with the famous tune and song of kazan yasela razenblatt etc but this option was rejected i'm not going to get into the reasons around it that was rejected for a different anthem and when we think about this chapter in tehillim let's let's let's work through it and see what he says on a literal level shira malice means it's a song of ascent malwares means steps it's a song of going up it's a song that's going to be sung when hashem returns shavasiyan the captives of sian of zion those from tseon who were placed into captivity were taken as captives and they're going to return and then he says we were like dreamers which apparently means that we're going to feel as though we were dreamers ayino kahalman which right away one has to ask the question what does this mean were we like dreamers are we going to say it was all a dream does it look like a dream was it really a dream it's gonna feel like a dream what exactly does this mean that it wasn't real it was fake it was like you wake up from a dream and like wow that was a weird strange dream is that's what is that is that what he's saying and what's the source for this and what's the point of this okay our mouths will then be filled with laughter and our tongues will be filled with rena with jubilation describing a beautiful moment when all of the captives who are now redeemed their mouths will be filled with this tremendous sense of joy and laughter and festivity azimules pino and as the governor famously says in brachas this in this world one would not fill his mouth with laughter us it says then our mouths will be filled with laughter us and then suddenly he shifts to the media what's the media going to say about it we talked about jews but now we want to know what the world is going to say oz you know what they're going to say then among the nations the gentiles the nations are going to say you know god really did some great job with these people and now he shifts back to us it's true god did so do something great for us it's like once the say it now we can also say it they wouldn't say it well i cannot show it's such a good thing but once we could see the new york times says it actually they're jews cnn says it also juice whatever i don't know the china press the japanese times the cairo gazette when they say uh you know really god did a great job now we just repeat the same words at last may we can be happy or we were happy you know actually means we were happy what does this mean is it like almost now we have no choice but to say we were happy also very interesting verse if we think we're finished suddenly he takes us into a whole new theme we're talking about the laughter the dancing the celebration the gentiles saying god did something great we've been happy we now speak to hashem return hashem our captives like earlier like the word pity those who are in captivity who need emancipation and liberty shuva hashem shuva bring back return as shivisino our captives those who have been exiled those who have been in captivity like affect him in the negative but what are our victim and the negative what are these are thicker than the neck anybody knows what a thicker means you know what streams very good i think am i like you look at the english translation like streams which means currents of water that are flowing in the negev but if we look throughout the entire hummish for the word afikim we will not find it even once we will find words like rivers naharis somebody said rivers or brooks we have words like mayanos wellsprings ba'arras swells we have words in the column that's pretty often right also rivers we have it in the famous shira and parshas the word afikim we don't have it's very very rare we have it in tihillam once more earlier you remember we're capital members what's an aisle huh like a deer or a gazelle tariq you know what tyrique means huh it pines it yearns it craves it's it's so it's yearning for something sauroid it has this ergo this unique passion and quest alafique this gazelle has been dehydrated like some of us today it hasn't had a drink of water maybe in two days or three days and suddenly the aisle finds the zaffike mayam it yearns for these afique mayan for these streams of water that's where the word afikim is used that's how i pine for you hashem david sama nafshi my soul is thirsty he uses the word thirst but if the psalmist just wanted to talk about a stream a stream of water why the negev why kaffir can be negev is negev the only place where there are streams of water why ban negev why did he use the imagery of negev the negev the south of the holy land to describe these streams of water kafikimba negev okay so we want to return like the streams of water that go in the negev cafe once we're talking about water now suddenly there's somebody planting who happens to be crying hazard those who plant in tears they shall harvest in joy one second god please bring us back back home like streams flowing in the negev beautiful now those who plant in tears there's somebody planting who was ever talking about planting we spoke about returning we spoke about dreamers we spoke about god doing great things we spoke about streams in the negev but now somebody is planting with tears and the one who planted in tears will harvest in joy so perhaps this is talking about some form of exile where we're planting and we're crying and one day we harvest in joy but he continues somebody who's walking around and he's crying somebody was planting and crying but he keeps on walking around and crying how do you translate noise noise the one who carries zara is what the seed zoyum is planting zarya says what's masha khazara we look what is mashachazara anybody so if you'll open an english translation you'll see they'll translate it the one who's carrying the bag of seeds there's only one problem there's no source for that they don't know how to translate how do you say what is measured we don't have such a word when you look around in the tanakh we don't have such a word we have a word that means meshich means to what to pull to draw so he's carrying the pulling of seeds that doesn't make sense mesh we have today people will say a meshman like a continuation of time so what he he carries the continuation of seeds doesn't make sense so that's why they say he carries a pounce of seed or a bag of seeds what's meshach hazar he could have said there's somebody walking and crying the one who's carrying the seeds is just crying okay but boy virina now the same guy is coming back he's returning and he's all happy you know why noise now he's not carrying seeds anymore he's carrying alum what are allah myself sheaves of a hebrew term of sheaves which means bundles of grain when you take stalks of grain and you make bundles out of them what are they called they're called alumas they're called sheaves but the interesting thing here is that that term aluma is very rare in humish not only real it's only one place it's only one place in the whole humish we're right very good impartial that's the only place where we have the term bundles so we discussed kirkheilman we disco we went through the verse and now when you read this and i hope when you'll say this in the future maybe even tonight and uh we think about this mismar often we don't ask these questions because it's not supposed to make sense is it most people don't think that this is supposed to make sense it's just words and if you have yesterday rosenblatt songs so it's certainly nice to do it with the words and you're getting ready to bench and why is this supposed to make sense but but that is a erroneous perception not only does it make sense every word is part of our divine terror it contains infinite significance and wisdom and empowerment and inspiration so let's go one step deeper into this and i do want to trace back my sources for the following explanation which is based on different sources that i'm going to be exploring but particularly i want to give credit to uh my esteemed colleague rabbi david rabbi david forman from alpha beta who always does a brilliant job in linguistic interpretations of the tanakh including this particular chapter of sherham alex so i'm using a lot of what fascinating ideas that he shared with some other explanations and sources beyond that so we start from the last word it's always good to start from the last word alum bundles he's carrying bundles and there's that one place that you all pointed out where bundles is discussed in humish with the word alumais and that is back in genesis and parasha's vayishev yosef our dear boy joseph is having dreams and in his first dream that he shares with his brothers what is the dream you remember we are all binding sheaves in the field they are all collecting grain that they obviously planted and harvested and now they're making bundles they're making alumais and then something happens right my sheath my aluma stands up and doesn't only stand up it's erect it's neat it remains standing in full height and what happens and all of your bundles all of your bundles all your bundles turn towards mine and they bow down they prostrate themselves the brothers don't take well to this dream what do they see here as a message you're going to rule us you're going to dominate us you're going to be the king over us if they didn't like him initially they already despised and they couldn't speak to him peacefully now they only loathe him even more for the dreams wait till the second dream comes so here is the man who is standing with his brother they all have alums they all have bundles his bundle is in the center and indeed all their bundles bow down to his bundle aloo myself if that's the case i go back to the beginning and i say wait hyenu we were like dreamers that whole alumai story came comes from a dream it was all in a dream dreamt he had a dream about these sheaves about these bundles so i have the beginning of a halam i have the end about aluminius is it possible is it possible that there is some hidden intimate reference here to a particular individual and that is somebody by the name of joseph i also see from here that in this dream they don't look at sheaves just as grain because then they wouldn't get upset their sheaves bow down to another sheave they see it as a representation of people basically each of their alums represents them and when their sheaves are bowing down to joseph it's them prostrating themselves to him he is the king which will actually happen he is the king they will bow down to him this is what's bothering them the bundle here is beyond the bundle of grain it's represented by a person but what would what would all of this what would all of this mean i want to now take that strange word ka afikim ka afikim banegath i think him i think him what are really a thicken i think them are not regular rivers they're not screams they're not canals they're not lakes they're not brooks the tanakh has a much more common and accurate word for rivers and streams and currents of water kafikim actually the correct translation of afikimar negev they happen only in the negev you know what our fikkim are afikam are what's called what's called in english flash floods you know what flash floods are they happen in deserts in deserts where the soil is very arid and very dry and therefore the moist is not absorbed and then there is some storm that releases a current of water did you ever see it how does the water travel through those deserts that's not a current of water that is absorbed in the earth so it's a very powerful flood that rushes through the desert in strong mighty powerful ferocious currents because since the soil is so arrogant and so dry and not absorbing so therefore the water just passes through it with tremendous swiftness and intensity and alacrity which is why ka is this gazelle is not just looking to find a lake he is yearning alafique mayam for those flash floods of water samanafshila the kim kaine navsari gelatin i have this tremendous yearning for an intense endless current of water negev what's the negative what's the unique about the negev anybody knows the negev huh i need some participation here i'm sorry ah dry dry as dry can get you can go visit the negev and you will see we're going to come back we're not just going to come back we're going to come back like a fakim like mighty currents like mighty currents by negev that's how we're going to come back it's not just going to be you know a calm cruise a smooth nice current of water that's flowing like people who are paddle boating you know how they paddle boat that's not how it's going to look like kafikimba negative is going to be an intense mighty rush and flow of redemption of emancipation like the negev which experiences these major flash floods now the word afikim you will not find an entire kamishakum shatara you could look there's a lot of words for wells and rivers because those are big themes in creation happens near a river and a lot of shidduchim happened near wells and springs and there are rivers and there are seas i mean water gatherings are a major part of the story of khamish hum shatter of the five books of the pentateuch but not the noun affikim we don't have the noun for afic him but we have a verb that comes and is associated with the word affikim in one place in humish do we have a verb that is associated not a noun not a fickhim but a verb that has the etymology of this word where is it very good very good joseph cannot experience what we call epoch you'll have later in the megillah vais yosef couldn't contain himself haman did contain himself but that's a separate story joseph cannot be misopic he cannot contain himself what can't he hold back what is he holding back tears he's holding back a flood of water he's holding back a flood of tears he's been doing this a long time because he never showed his brothers who he really is but now at last for yacht joseph is epic joseph can't hold back anymore he cannot contain it inside and what happens he bursts out he starts weeping it is so loud that everybody hears it he says i don't want anybody here like nobody was standing there but when they heard joseph cry everybody heard it they heard it in the house of pirates that's how powerful those tears were negev like flash floods in the negev in the negev desert the sand was so dry you don't expect water to be here this is not a place where water flows this is not a place where it rains this is not a place where the earth is used to water this is a place where the earth is dry it's arid it seems lifeless numb there's no vegetation here there's no produce here and therefore when the water does burst out when the water does come forth it unleashes its power with such intensity because it's a negative isn't that exactly what happens at this moment in joseph's life the brothers couldn't expect us from their perception who were they dealing with this whole time they were dealing with a tough dry arid heartless emotionless egyptian dictator they are dealing with a man who doesn't even know how to cry he has no compassion he has no empathy his earth his soil is not wet he is dry stern he's one tough man they know this very well from the moment they met him they were just innocent ten brothers who came down to get some food and bring it back to their home and his first shalom aleichem is you're a bunch of spies you're criminals you want to destroy egypt they're like we're innocent people we are ten brothers we're children of one man we are not spies and he arrests them he imprisons them he tortures them to the point he tortures them in the sense that he arrests them he doesn't torture them but he arrests them to the point that they suddenly for the first time in 20 years feel guilty for what they did 20 years ago they were really hurt at this moment and then he keeps one brother in prison sends them all home forces them to bring back their baby brother binyamin and if not they will not get another morsel of bread in egypt this is not a man of empathy a man of emotion this is one tough tyrant who you do not want to play games with and when they come back home and yaakov is devastated he's lost joseph he's lost shimon and they're pleading with him to give them binyamin so they could go get food and yaakov says no way i'm going to lose now a third son but they say to yaakov there is no way we're getting any food for any one of us if we don't bring back binyamin we will all starve to death and yaakov pleads with them why did you have to tell this man that i had another son why and they tell him the whole story and ultimately yehuda has to guarantee the son now from their perception they come back now everything seems fine and then the oil is forgiven they have a meal they go home only to find out that this man somehow is accusing them of stealing his goblet what type of heart does he have is there a heart is there a soul this is a real desert you're dealing with this is a real negative there's no there are no tears in this person's heart there is no compassion there is no empathy and they all ultimately have to go back and he says your brother will remain here as a slave and you go back to your father now this is from their perspective we know better we know that if you look through the whole tanakh there's nobody who cries as many times as joseph we never find adam crying have a crying nayak crying i mean i should have been crying a lot after that flood okay he had an alternative he said avraham cries only once once at the death of sarah we never find sarah crying what about yitzhak we never have him crying we have yaakov crying he meets roccal he cries but he says how many times does maesha cry we don't know doesn't say we don't even know once the hummus records seven instances of voice of crying in the whole tanakh you don't have somebody crying so many times in the tanakh this is a man a young man of deep emotion he's always sobbing he always sobbing he meets his brothers the first time and he cries he meets binyaman and he cries he hears them regretting what they did and he cries but he makes sure that they never see it he cries in the private intimate chambers nobody sees joseph crying he comes out by his apac it says that's the first time he contains himself he he dries his fa he cleans his face he dries his tears and he says tom it's time to eat he's a professional he's a prime minister he's running the economy of egypt the superpower of the time he is not from everybody's perspective a mushy lovey dovey fellow who sees some guys from is from kanan coming and melts away in tears no we know better we know that he doesn't stop crying but all clandestinely but then comes a moment when he hears when he hears from his brother yahudah that his father yaakov his father yaakov didn't stop crying for him and that yehudah cannot take back go back without benjamin that his soul is intertwined with his soul and when i come back and he sees that benjamin is not here he's going to die yaakov is going to die and yehudah says how do you expect me to go back to my father without this child without benjamin his soul is interconnected with his soul please i will be a slave i will remain here bin yaman must go back to his father and now joseph cannot contain his flood of tears those tears that built up in him those tears that nobody ever saw vaitena yosef starts sobbing and he tells them just a few words he tells them anni yosef i am yasif is my father still alive the brothers are astounded they could not believe that this person is their brother and when they see his tears they're not regular tears what's the best way to describe those tears two words yosef cannot contain anymore that flash flood it comes bursting out like a negative these are not just regular tears you can imagine the scene after 22 years of separation all the pain all the mourning all the grief all the devastation all the brokenness everything that this boy went through everything from the moment he was thrown into a pit to sold into slavery accused of doing horrible things to potiphar's wife cast into a prison cell meeting his brothers and not telling them who he is all of it comes out in this moment it was all hidden in his heart but not forgotten just hidden hidden behind the wall but now that tsunami the thunderstorm this great tsunami unleashes its power kaffir can be negative he doesn't hold back that flash flood that's that moment when he's reunited with his brother when they see who he is but wait there's somebody else planting and he's planting while he's crying hazard and if you don't think it don't think he's just plants once he's walking around crying wherever he goes with seeds he's crying he's just crying basically he's planting seeds he ever planted seeds you plant here and you plant in you walk around and you throw the seeds everywhere maybe a better example for 2019 is pouring salt on the snow you don't pour salt in one place right you walk around you walk around you throw the salt that's what farmers do if you ever saw farming you're going to get into farming you walk around you plant seeds here and here and here and there and you hope it all grows but at least part of it will grow holla hey look wherever he goes he's crying because remember he's planting with tears if joseph is crying that one moment who is the person who doesn't stop crying who is the person who's walking around whose life is one continuous experience of crying and that's of course his father yakov the oyster just cried now this one time but yakiv the moment yaakov saw the blood on the tunic of his beloved child and he said taraiv taraf yays of my son was devoured by a wild beast he did not stop sobbing as the torah says wept for his child and he refused to be comforted he told his sons ayred el avi yoga i am going to go down i'm going to go down to the oil i'm going to go down to my grave in mourning and sobbing in grief for my child he does not stop yahudah tells this to yais of 22 years later that yaakov always remembers that boy that he lost and if he hears about binyamin now being lost he will not be able to survive so yakriv is the one who's he continues to cry but what is the what is the meaning of this what is the reason for this the target says two words he refused to be comforted why why people are sadly rahman al-islam struck sometimes with difficult tragedies but yaakov refused to be comforted for the first time in his life he could not make peace with this so rashi quotes the famous statement of our sages in the madrid and says there was a decree that was put into history into the story of the world that when somebody passes away we grieve we cry we weep we sob we never completely get over it but there is some form of closure that people can experience closure doesn't mean they forget closure doesn't mean everything goes back to the way it was closure doesn't mean they get over it it's foolish when people sometimes come to other people and shiver and say oh time yeah just let time heal it's sometimes a very insensitive thing to say time does not make people forget but closure doesn't mean forgetting closure means the ability to be able to say one chapter closes i'm starting a new chapter one door closed a new door opened one window closed i opened a new window when i was sitting shiver from my father there's time somebody came to visit me at shiva and he said something very insightful and very penetrating and he said that when your parent passes away a ditch opens up in the depth of your heart a hole and he says imagine in your home in middle of the kitchen a middle of the dining room there's a huge pit a huge hole and every you're not it's a sudden new hole so every time you walk through your dining room you fall right in you fall right in every time you just fall right in and he looked at me and he said but as time goes on the ditch doesn't go away all you do is you learn to walk around the ditch it's still there you can see it you notice it you observe it you just walk around it he says but not always once in a while you're walking you don't realize and you fall right back there and you get out again and then you walk around it it was an extremely penetrating insight and a very true insight when somebody says goodbye to somebody they love and they're close with venom shakshura bin abstra it doesn't go away time doesn't heal people don't forget what happens is people learn to walk around the ditch to look at the ditch to look at the hole to look at the cavity once in a while they fall into it maybe on a yard site maybe a few days before yard said maybe when they see a a picture or they hear a story or something comes up they marry off a child and they bring a child to the chupa without that beloved father or mother or other beloved person in the family grandparent or whatever close friend and that's when they go right back into that place to that deep pit of sadness but there's a certain closure in the sense that a person says now i'm going to walk around it and continue living and loving says rashi that rule exists for those who die not for those who live even though yahkov thought the isis have died but subconsciously there was a voice in him that told him that joseph may not be dead and therefore there is no closure on somebody who didn't die this rule doesn't exist via mainly he can't move on he can't walk around the ditch he's always living with that pit in his stomach with that deep pain in his saintly chest because we know and on some level he knows maybe unconsciously that his son never was killed his son is alive you know i remember the years saskari obama's body was just returned right for burial after how many years skye obama was killed in july 1982 that's 9202 37 37 38 years later his body was returned to his family sky obama was killed at the lebanon war in killed at the sultan jacob battle 20 soldiers were killed that day 20 soldiers were killed i think 30 were wounded very badly and a few went missing and for 37 38 years the family didn't know what happened to him they hoped his father if you remember his father traveled the world to try to find any information about his son his father passed away 10 years ago but his mother was still alive when she got the call from prime minister bibi netanyahu that russia managed to obtain the body from syria and he was brought to burial a few weeks before pesach this past year there's no closure there was no closure gilad shalit's mother you would tell her during the five years he was by hamas it's time for closure there's no closure on a mace there is terrible sadness but you know what happened you know where the soul is you know where the body is there's no closure so rashi says yakov refuse refuses to be to be comforted that's the story and now now i want to ask you a question we all know that story when joseph isn't down in egypt we now go to joseph's perspective he's in egypt and he's a slave and he's bought by potiphar and potiphar loves him how do i know he loves him he makes him the ceo of the company he trusts him he likes him joseph says so to his wife your husband put me in charge on everything besides you i'm the man i run this place he doesn't even know what's happening he knows nothing he's on vacation in hawaii or at the delta at the nile delta sipping latte and reading the cairo gazette i run this whole place that's what he tells patifa's wife wow so he's reached some level of success and we know the story how potiphar's wife does not stop trying to seduce him i want you to be with me she begs him and she pleads with him and she warns with him it says caddabre it wasn't one time it was every single day she asked him to be with him because he was so beautiful you faith however you femara and the terrorist says one word vayim he refused he refused and you remember the note on that mayan remember the note it's a unique rear cantillation you have it only four times in all of humish i missed four times right it's a shallower very interesting why the messiah tradition shows that chelsea i mean your boy comes to you and says ma i want ice cream but he already had six ice creams and the dentist said no ice creams so you want to tell your boy no so what does it sound like so you say you're a jewish mother you say my malach no or my darling no or my tired and no or my this guy no or maybe no but did you ever hear a mother say no no to me that sounds like a yes if you would ask me my mother would say that i would go straight to the ice cream interesting no no if i am just say no hold back wow this is a pretty festive no against ellis but then comes that day that day comes and joseph comes to do his work vainish man shabbas nobody is there it's just joseph and her and this is the moment she seizes and she says she me come lay with me and the mario messages rashi quotes it quotes an argument raven shmuel what a strange term he came home to do his work what type of work did he have to come home to the middle of the day and the famous opinion of the talmud or my argument raven schmuel whether it's literal or it means something else it's a euphemism that joseph after all surrendered he surrendered to her quest to her demands and we can understand why the gemara says in yumad aflame hey that patifara's wife not only begged she also threatened she threatened and yiddish and if you don't agree positively i will force you she threatened him to poke out his eyes she threatened to destroy him to torture him to kill him she threatened him to imprison him for life she did well on that the gamora says it was so challenging that she used to dress up in three different outfits every single day in order to appeal to joseph feel bad for potiphar's credit card three times a day different outfitters mario says you could look it up and how old was joseph joseph was 17 years old an orphan he had no father his father was in kenan his father thought he was dead he had no mother she was dead since he was nine he had no brothers he had no sisters they were the ones who sold him into slavery he had not a friend in the world he didn't have he didn't even have a lawyer in america you have a lawyer a jewish boy is born and his mother hires a lawyer he didn't have a lawyer he had no friend in the world he was supposed to be a slave for life according to natural circumstances he had nobody know when he was only 17. he says also before the terror was given and potiphar says i want if his wife says i want five minutes from your time and you'll be the boss you'll have a good life and if not i will destroy you so our sages say that the isis came home and decided to surrender but what happens at the last moment at the last moment the madrid says the gemara says the zohar says rashi quotes it the muslin he saw the visage of yakov's father in the window vayanas vayetze and he fled he ran but of course she had his cloak which she tore off and she used that to prove that he was guilty he was the culprit he was the violator and she throws him into prison where he would remain for life supposedly but ultimately only for 12 years only i mean he would stay there for 12 years in a cell in a bird in a pit in another boy this is the second time he's in a boyer remember the first time he was in a buyer same word buyer by means a sister in a pit like a cave in the ground but it's not a cave it's a pit it's a bure it's empty we even haven't perceived his bur vam or an empty person a head that's pus it's empty it's an empty cavity in earth he was thrown in the first time into a pit by his brothers they took off his shirt and they threw him into a pit the was an empty pit without water and now in the same exact portion a few verses later somebody else throws him into a pit it's not his brother's it's his own master it's his new family his new family throws him into a bird that's how the terror refers to the prison bay saw surim a prison that it calls a boy it was some some type of underground subterranean structure as rashi and other commentators explore but it was called a pit it was a large pit it was a structure there were other prisoners there obviously it was an underground structure but it's called a boy or a pit so that's where she throws him in asia's plateau for after after all of this i want to ask you a question how did the rabbis know that he saw the image of yaakov in the window where did they know this from and just says he came home she asked him to lay with her he ran away where did they know this from that he saw the image of yaakov well you say that's what the matter says but madrish i always explain in a lot of classes madrid is not just some you know let's add another part to the story madrish is always the harmony to the story it's the it's what harmony to a song is madrid to the passage it brings out the inner story the khazal were conveying an oral tradition teresha that brings out the deeper layers of the story how does this come into the story he saw yaakov why did he see yakov maybe he saw something else maybe he saw rocco maybe he saw leia maybe he saw avraham maybe he saw yitzhak maybe he saw something else he saw an image of yaakov in the window bachaloin he saw him in the window how did they know this where did they get this from anybody who learned even basic gemara mishna knows that one of the most important formulas of interpreting tara is a formula or a methodology that has two words shovel shava i called today in our language today copy paste copy paste xenoshaver basically means there's one word here and the same word is employed somewhere else we can equate the two there is a similarity there is a connection here and it's not just a coincidence there's a word here it's the same word here let's think about copy paste i didn't mean that as a joke in the old days when i grew up my father was a journalist he had a typewriter everywhere in the house everybody remembers typewriters alayhim hashalam tahini samsura but some of us grew up with typewriters something else i grew up in my house were ribbons because to have a typewriter you need ribbons we had ribbons everywhere in every joint the dishwasher you could find ribbons in bookcases my father was afraid of there's going to be a third world war and he will not be able to produce his newspaper if there's no ribbons food mela but ribbons so i grew up with typewriters and ribbons clock clock clock clock clock what happens if you made a mistake if you made a mistake you had white out right you remember white out oliver shalom and you would white out that page what if you made another mistake another mistake another mistake you picked up the paper you tore it up you threw it in the garbage you put a new paper into the typewriter those days are gone today nobody makes mistakes anymore you made a mistake you cut and paste if you don't want to cut and paste you copy paste every word is redeemable every letter is salvaged every sentence and paragraph can be used in another instance in another location now there is deep spiritual significance of that in terms of jewish history and our march towards redemption but that's not our topic today what i want to bring out today is what if god wrote the title like that it was copy paste he didn't rewrite it it was copy paste if it's copy paste the xero chava actually is a real thing because it means that he took the first word and put it into the second place it's the same word if it's the same word of course there is a deep connection it's that very same word when joseph refuses patiphara's wife the word that's used as vayima'in it's not a very frequent term it's a unique term by him it means he refused but when is that vaimayan used earlier in hamash just a few verses earlier about his father it says he refused to be comforted by and joseph immigrants patient for his wife now when it says he refused to be comforted the terror adds one scene vayakumo noise all his sons and all his daughters stand up to comfort him they all stand up to comfort him and we are all astounded we never knew he had daughters this is the first time we heard that he had daughters we knew that he had one daughter dina who certainly gave him one big headache suddenly he has vaccular bunch of daughters we never heard of them where were they growing up suddenly he's sitting shiva and everybody came out of the closet 12 girls popped emerged from where from what from when rashi says where did they come from were they twins were they daughters-in-law who were they is it possible that every shavit had a twin girl and why here suddenly why don't you tell me about all these girls in the house so the er gives a fascinating interpretation er says because it's relevant here terra is not a history book it's about relevance it's relevant here this was the comfort this was the comfort look at all your sons look at all your daughters this is where it's relevant imagine the scene it's friday night the boys want to start singing and yaakov is weeping joseph joseph so they took they'll turn to yakov they say tata father look around the table you have 11 boys you have 12 daughters look at them look at who they are look at your beautiful family rauven an extraordinary sensitive boy a deep deep kid of empathy and love shimin levy a saint saint yahooda leader is he's going to support all the moisture satire all the moisture all because dinners hospitals school and butte a confidential man you don't know what he's up to naftali is running marathons mama shot kid is shamed shamayim he's been kind of she's running marathons from here to egypt god is an entrepreneur if god the good will negan says he was an entrepreneur and then you have us as a happy boy he's making kedusham and parties holy boy and look at your daughters yaakov valedictorian beijakov valedictorian there's one boy isaf let's face it he was always the black sheep of the family we knew that weird dreams busy with his hairdos busy with his halloymus he's going to take over the world listen you have a family of 24 kids you did not bad 23 out of 24. has they run the whole orthodox community they run everything one boy statistically you gotta lose one right the statistics you know when this statistic specialists start describing things percentage-wise what do you want i mean it's not so bad 24. and you realize he was an orphan the psychological stuff going on also and his dreams and there's this and there's that joseph you're a success story maybe look at the bagel instead of looking at the hole inside the bagel maybe look at the cup that's half full instead of the cup that's half empty this is how they were trying to comfort him the titan is not telling you a story about daughters that was that was the comfort look what you have yaakov looked at them he thanked them i'm sure he appreciated what they say what they said and then he said very mine i'm sorry you guys got it wrong you think i'm just an old man who's trying to complain and be pessimistic no you don't understand boys you don't understand who joseph is the problem is you think he's dead but joseph is not dead joseph is alive zaira allah but there's a deeper place i know the story of joseph is not over but over he had a father who preserved he remembered those dreams i want to use this as a paradigm i want to use it as a metaphor like every story in terror it's also it obviously happened to the gemara says but i also want to use the terrarium a lesson sometimes you have a family a beautiful family beautiful children there's one child who ends up in a pit there's that one yosef a beautiful kid but he ends up in a pit he ends up in a pit of depression or in a pit of addiction or in a pit of very difficult challenges within and without and then he's sold into slavery which represents a person who loses his independence who loses his freedom isn't this the exact definition of an addict and people sometimes come to a father to a mother and they say but look at the other kinder look what a beautiful family you have it's time to forget this boy closure close the door forget him and also don't let him come back he's going to ruin the whole family this is not the boy you want contact with this is the boy you have to say goodbye to he died if not physically spiritually it's time to say kaddish that's what everybody could say but not a father a father stands up and says my boy is not dead my boy is alive i will not give up on my child i believe in my child i know my child i know joseph duran i know joseph's heart i know joseph has potentials and i know joseph has resources and i know joseph has a depth and a holiness that your you his brothers don't even understand you never understood him but aviv shamres hadover always held on he didn't know how the dreams will work out but he knew that joseph's dreams are going to take him to places that nobody else can go and at this moment yaakov says my son is not dead my son is alive i will never sever my cords with my child i will never throw my child out of my house i will never close my heart to my child i will never ever despite experts say this child has no place anymore in my family or in my heart or in my soul my joseph is not dead my joseph is alive even if he is on a very different journey this is what yaakov is experiencing and therefore you know what happens hundreds of miles away you know what happens there's a 17 year old boy who's stuck in the quagmire of poetifer's home and there's a woman there who is trying to convince joseph to betray his soul to betray his morality and she's almost successful it's that faithful day nobody is home joseph is as vulnerable as it gets and this is the day when she turns to him and says joseph this is the day and the ghazal save ayova habbasi he surrendered but at the last moment something happened what happened he saw the image of yaakov his father what was the image of yakov's father what did he see he felt even if he didn't see he felt in the window far away he can see a father who never ever stopped believing in him a father who never ever detached emotionally from him a father who never ever severed the cords with him a father who said i will refuse to say that this boy is dead and what happens the value mine of yaakov empowered the vaimain of joseph it's the same vayimo it's the same by your mind copy paste yaakov's refusal to stop believing in his child is what empowers his child never to stop believing in himself a boy a girl needs a mother and a father to believe in them that results says joseph is called yasuo i'm an orphan yasayim is an acronym an orphan you faith toyah via feymar that's what arizona says in eighth grade a very strange acronym but what happens is joseph knows that he has a father he sees through the window afar his father's image and he knows that yatliff never gave up on him yaakov believes in him yaakov knows that he's still connected yaakov trusts him the word vayimaein what's the etymology of the word vaimain very good imun muna trust what's imun immune confidence trust emunah faith i trust my boy i have confidence in my boy i believe in my boy by your mind of yakov triggers it arouses it inspires like a domino effect the voyamine of joseph joseph looks at patti for his wife he sees her he sees everything about her but through the window through the window he sees yaakov and when he sees yakov what happens he sees himself in a new way there's a chernobyl of art the most of aviv doesn't mean he saw the image of yaakov in the window the musd he saw his own image from the perspective of yaakov he saw his own image shall yapper have taken from yakov borrowed from he saw himself the way yakov sees him oh so what's the great cantillation for the word vaimayin shall shell us what does shall shells mean a chain you know why joseph could refuse petit first to pity for his wife's pleadings and threats because the chain was not severed because jacob never said you're a dirty lousy ring on the chain i'm cutting you off you're not part of my family you're not part of my mishpochah you're shaming me in my community you're harming the shidduchim of all your siblings if not for you my life would have been a blessing and mommy would have had sleepful nights because of you mommy sleepless nights tati sleepless nights you give her a heart attack you give me a stroke zadie died because of you the elder bub is turning over in the grave because of you you're not part of the shall she less you know why yahshua have had the ability by your mind what does the governor say avraham avraham had a son his bed his family was wholesome wow so everybody says because jacob hit the jackpot he had to drag the muzzle of rome wasn't a good guy he was a very good guy but nishmoth wasn't a holy jesus language a little bit it was not a din in the children it was a din in yaakov the metasurah wasn't a gedder in the shematim it was a gether in yaakov meaning you know why yaakov had metastasima because he saw his family as mitasa sleima it would have been very easy for yaakov to look at joseph and say another one another one bites the dust yaakov chose to see mitosaur he chose to see the divine perfection in every child so he sought how do we know this one word when he wakes up from his dream on his way to build a family he dreams he's sleeping he dreams first great dreamer and when he wakes up he has a few words to say and that is god is right here but i did not know i did not know god is here but i did not know yaakov's unique ability is to be able to say hashem is in this child hashem is in this place hashem is in this person hashem is in this counter even though i may not fully get it i may not be fully conscious of it i may not figure it out i may not be fully aware of it but you need one condition and this condition comes from the whole eponymous office who says the balaflaw who says in his commentary he says grammatically we have a serious issue here in this passage you don't say lawyer imagine in english i don't say and i i don't know unless i'm writing a poem but in a regular sentence you don't say and i i don't know you say i don't know either or lawyer and i i don't know and the panamera says that's what yaakov was saying to be able to see how god is here it's the i that i must not know it's darnoity it's the sense of ego that obstructs my conscious ability to be able to recognize god right here very often you look at a certain child he's not made out of your model and it's my ego that tells me it's the i that i must stop knowing can i transcend my eye my ego my expectations the way it has to look according to my brain and say ah can i open myself up to the divine truth in the soul of this child who is a helicopter piece of divine or no i will remain stuck in my anointing in my egotistical expectations and if you don't fit into those expectations you must be rejected from my life that was the active skill which is why yaakov instituted that fila of myriff yaakov phyllis irvis the gomorrah says in the brachas in the fourth chapter why myriev is the first prayer it's the evening evening in judaism comes before morning the answer of course is philosophers yaakov is the one who takes night darkness nobody sees the sun and he takes darkness and he turns it into a fila tv in hebrew means connection from the darkness of might if he creates and weaves a connection with the reborn of shallow not only with his son even within himself there are moments when you could see god in a very vivid and present way and then there are moments where you say it may be a moment of struggle of strife of difficulty of challenge god is here but i don't know but for this i have to be silent from the anarchy so that my eye can be sensitive to the thou this is old musd sees himself the way yaakov saw him how did yaakov see him my children are god's children they're beautiful even if each of them has different journeys and when joseph could see himself from yaakov's perspective he could look at patiphara's wife and say i am bigger than this i am greater than this i am a piece of infinity i am a reflection of the divine in this world he doesn't remain stuck he runs out to see the horizon the infinite horizon he goes outward that is what joseph experiences at that moment of yakov empowers the mind of yosef wow so something happens joseph runs and he goes into egypt he's thrown into a pit and 12 years later he comes down and becomes prime minister of egypt and now he's feeding grain to the whole world alum is the bundles of grain he's feeding to everybody he's in charge and finally his brothers come and he sees them he see them and he gives them grain too he gives them bundles of grain too and they come back and they come back and they're back and forth and then comes that moment when the afique negev when it's time to reveal himself and he reveals himself and the brothers are terrified and what does joseph say right away he says don't get depressed don't even get don't even get flustered don't get overwhelmed don't get dejected and we're wondering they shouldn't get ejected they are the perpetrators he is the victim he's the one who shouldn't get dejected they should tell him joseph don't worry it will be good suddenly he's calming them down they're the ones who the perpetrators he's the one who suffered for 22 years away from his father and family and he's calming them down and he explains to them he says you did not sell me. hashem sent me here in front of you before you to give life to you and to the whole world and to our father and to our whole family because there's a huge hunger there's no alum ice there's no grain no bundles no sheaves nobody can eat anything that's the food that yosef can provide so i was sent down before you in order to be able to create a situation where we could save the world from famine where we could save the family from famine where the jewish family could continue and not die and the world could continue and not die so yosef turns to his brothers and says don't get upset what about he what about joseph i knew there was a mission here kilimithya shalom so how did this happen by joseph how did he develop this consciousness joseph was thrown into a pit twice he was thrown into a pit twice by his brothers and by party for his wife a pit he was thrown literally into the earth what happens when people are thrown into the earth what happens it represents the end the end but what happens when you throw a seed into the earth what happens something else happens it's not the end it's a beginning when a seed a little seedling is planted into the earth the seed doesn't say to itself wow look what a victim i am i used to be on a windowsill in their home i was beautiful everybody saw me look where i am today the seed knows no no no this is the moment this is not the moment that you're being destroyed this is the moment that you're being planted it's a moment that's going to create new beginnings new beginnings there's a whole different reality going on i was not cast into the earth the seed says i was not thrown into the abyss i was planted and when you're planted it's just your beginning great things great harvest great alumas great trees delicious fruits wonderful grain great legumes of vegetables or all types of produce and vegetation will come from you joseph was sent off sold sent off he was a 17 year old boy and what did he see himself as he saw himself as a little seed that's what he tells his brothers hashem planted me and literally the word is planting what did i produce all this grain all this food is for me i'm the one who advised pyro i'm the one who he appointed i was literally planted by the master of the world he transplanted me literally uprooted me from kanaan planted me in the land of egypt in order lost some left inflate in order to rescue all and to give you life and sustenance which is the function of what this seed does when it produces food and grain i became that seed but wait is this a fear comparison how does a seed grow what does a seed need to grow what does a seed need to grow anybody besides water and sun what else earth a seed needs earth you can't grow without earth soil so how can be how can jesus be called a seed but was joseph put in the earth joseph was put on the earth he was put in the earth twice he was put in the earth by his brothers he was put in the earth by paitifah's wife he was put on the earth so now come back with me to the passage in tehillim there's somebody walking around and crying where do i have the word meshech as a verb in once where do i have it where does it say joseph he's in the pit by himself they pulled them out they pulled him out so now joseph could look at himself and say one of two things i was thrown into the earth i was cast into the ground they wanted to bury me alive or have me killed by snakes and scorpions that's who i am i am a dead man walking or joseph said to himself god planted me because something extraordinary has to grow noise he carried that seed he will soon see who the he is carried that measure hazard that seed was pulled up and it was being carried but wait a seed can't only survive on sand soil and earth what else does a seed need water where was joseph watered was his seed watered yes what was the water that watered the seeds it was the tears of yaakov who refused to be comforted which watered and irrigated and quenched the seeds of joseph it was the tears of yaakov that deceit unconsciously or consciously or semi-consciously or both experienced deep in the seed it felt that nurture that love the tears of yaakov who refused to stop crying because he felt that joseph is not dead those tears that connection that yaakov said i never ever stopped thinking about you i never stopped loving you believing in you praying for you trusting you being emotionally present for you waiting for that bright day i never stopped those rains those currents of tears never ceased you know what that did he allowed the sea to felt to feel carried noise means carried and uplifted the sea that was pulled up from the pit was pulled up on a dual level it felt carried by yaakov embraced can convey that confidence to joseph who may have not known how it would work out but never for a moment did you feel that he was just a pink punk ball thrown around in life cast into the earth abused ejected which is the only answer one can give to this following big question if you were a ceo of a huge company or you were the owner the boss of a huge company and you meet a 17 year old boy and you look at his resume he was nine when his mother died he was 17 when his brothers kidnapped him and threw him into a pit sold him into slavery he has not a family or friend in the world what should be his diagnosis emotionally and the answer of course is this kid is traumatized how could it be otherwise would you take a traumatized boy who was thrown into a pit sold as a slave and turn him into the ceo of a very successful company and go on vacation and say you do everything how did joseph manage to get such a job of course when you looked at him you did not see a traumatized broken devastated depressed boy you saw a person who was filled with joy as the posix says filled with reign grace and valor in prison as well even more how did this happen only one way joseph looked at himself and he knew he cannot rewrite the script of his life but he knew that he could answer this question was i cast into the earth or was i planted by god in the earth in order to create a revolution was i sold or was i sent am i just a victim to the things that happened to me or was i carefully planted in every place i went in the first pit and the second pit i'm not in a pit i was planted this doesn't mean it's easy always to be planted perhaps the mission i was sent on is painful but i was planted carefully protected shamres that little seed was placed exactly where it has to be placed given the exact amount of soil and oxygen and sunlight and tears and water that it needs in order to be able to become what it has to become so when joseph looked at his life at every point of the game and every stage of his life he did not see himself as a victim thrown around cast around buried in the abyss how did he see himself he saw himself as a messenger a divine ambassador an ambassador of love of light of hope of vegetation of produce of alumos of great sustenance and vitality to his family to the world that's how he saw himself when you look at your own life or you look at your children's life you can't always rewrite your past who could when you look at the life of claudius the history of the jewish people the long narrative of the jewish people there is a past that is often drenched with a lot of tears and a lot of blood and a lot of sacrifice jews were thrown into a pit more than once and when do we remember it more than on tish above and if you look in your own personal life i know there are people sitting here in this room who as children as youngsters have experienced profound moments and experiences of abuse i got an email last night 11 47 am 11 57 am but sorry shabbos i'm sorry pm yesterday 11 47 p.m i checked my email today and i sought and this is a boy a young boy he's in his early twenties and uh there was a collective tish above and there's a personal tisha buff and he wrote to me about his personal tisha buf he was a boy whom i have met a few times in the past he was comes from a very very prominent family a very distinguished family a very good family good you know that perfect family and very successful on many levels in the jewish community and he went to a very good yeshiva and for three years he was molested in that yeshiva abused and when he shared it with people on the top they either didn't believe it or didn't respond to it the way they did and it shattered his life so he writes to me a personal email and he writes and i quote word for word what i mourn on tish above i mourn the loss of control of my body i mourn the loss of my childhood i mourn the loss of my teen years i mourn the loss of joy i mourn the loss of happiness i mourn the loss of peace i mourn the loss of self i mourn the loss of trust i mourn the loss of intimacy i mourn the loss of relationship i mourn the loss of freedom i mourn the loss of love i mourn the lack of family his family also didn't believe what happened i mourn the lack of support i'm on the lack of appetite i mourn the lack of caring i mourn the lack of understanding i mourn the lack of empathy i mourn the lack of awareness i mourn the lack of connection i mourn the lack of touch i mourn the loss of self-confidence i mourn the loss of positive body image i mourn the loss of autonomy i mourn the loss of an inner child i mourn the loss of a clear mind i mourn the loss of blissfulness i mourn the loss of trust in a community i mourn the lack of seeing god i mourn the lack of seeing good i mourn the lack of seeing positive i mourn the lack of seeing optimism i mourn the lack of seeing hope i mourn the lack of seeing me i pray for the end of trauma i pray pray for the end of pain i pray for the end of loneliness i pray for the end of sexual fears i pray for the end of ptsd in my life i pray for the end of my nightmares i pray for the end of my codependency i pray for the end of my suffering i pray for the end of being single and alone i pray for the completion of healing i pray for the completion of redemption i pray for the completion of love i pray for the completion of happiness i pray for the completion of family i pray for the completion of self i pray to god please let me be able to love you as much as you love me some people may be hearing this and saying oh stop being dramatic rabbi why why and stop being dramatic whoever wrote this email but that only comes because you are clueless you are really clueless you may be thinking so how do i know you may be thinking so because once upon a time i also thought so so i don't judge you i also thought so stop being so dramatic but he's actually not dramatic he's actually being less than dramatic because what he's describing about himself is a truth that happened to him this is what he's experiencing this is his perception of life this is his experience of tish above and what is the psalmist telling to this young man to this young beautiful soul who at the end of all of his trauma says god allow me to love you as much as i love as you love me i know deep down that this is not the case if he wouldn't know deep down it's not the case he wouldn't mourn you mourn for something that you lost if you never had it there's nothing to mourn comes the cipher and says whoever mourns for jerusalem merits and seizes joy how can it be that 1 900 years later jews are mourning for a home that's not been here for 2000 years as we sat last night and this morning and read four chapters of a book called echo lamentations written by jeremiah the prophet gabriel navi around 2500 years ago we're reading it 2500 years ago and jews remember it and learn about it and are nostalgic about it and the level of sincerity is not as relevant as the fact that there are millions of jews who think about it who pray for it to cry for it or talk about it ask some safe how does such a thing happen at some point in history the jewish people should have said it's time to move on the sages say they say come try out other things it's time to move on forget it time to close the lid kalamazoo yet the jews don't forget jerusalem they don't forget to be they don't forget mashiach they don't forget redemption says that some say for how and the answer is because it's not dead it's alive if it would have been dead there would be closure but it's alive if it's not alive physically it's alive spiritually in the hearts and the souls and the minds of knesset israel it's alive calamis abba you shall i am the very fact that jews mourn for you right now you're meriting to see the joy right now you're meriting to see something that's vibrant that's pulsating that lives in the history and the story in the daily life of the jewish people men women and children in the holy land and the whole world and therefore you know that physically it will also be rebuilt it's already now that you see it's a it's alive there's a vitality within the jewish world it's true when anybody mourns for something when anybody mourns for something it means there's something to mourn for there's something you miss there's something that was part of you this young man says i mourn you mourn for these things cause they're there because they're part of you somebody tried somebody tried to rob you from them somebody tried to deprive you from them somebody did rob you from them but but here is the real real truth and that is that just like by joseph nobody can really snuff out your true power your true confidence your true love your true trust your true infinite potential why because you are a piece of the divine and just like hashem hashem just like nobody can destroy god nobody can destroy your invincible mal and i tell you young man that even though you look at yourself as a little seed shriveled up emaciated lifeless numb dead they took out all the sap and vitality of it certainly nobody nurtured it into a sea that will blossom i tell you that you will be able to find that invincible seed that was planted it was planted in many difficult places it went through many many challenges but that seed will blossom great great fruits will become a source of tremendous healing awareness integrity truth and inspiration to so many people i just bless you that you should be able to see it as clearly as i see it you should be able to see it in yourself as clearly as i could see it in your very delicious and moving and powerful email that you sent me on the night of tisha b'av tough shania in test and if you want a vivid example of the story i'm looking at this image that i assume many of you saw last week a woman 104 years old is celebrating her 104th birthday her name is shoshana ovitz and her children say ma what would you like for your 104th birthday and she says i want all my descendants to come to the kaisalama ravi to the western wall and it's not an easy job because there are thank god many descendants and many live outside of israel but last week they managed to gather together 400 of shoshanna ovitz's descendants kanyebu to be together and daven together at sridh makhai magdashenu at the remnant the last remnant of the basal mitraj salama ravi for her 104th birthday and i'm looking at the picture that the family took and i know that there are approximately 500 descendants but they met kane year but they managed to get 400 and you look at that picture and shoshanna is right there in the middle sitting in a wheelchair holding the hand of a six-year-old great-great-grandchild with beautiful curly chrysal toupees it's a family mostly of vishnu sid and the grandson who's around six years old is looking at the 104 year old great great grandmother and their eyes gaze at each other and i have a flashback in my mind of this shoshanna just 76 years ago or 74 years ago she was in auschwitz her father was gazed she saw her mother snatched away by dr joseph mengele and auschwitz birkenau the infamous doctor who made his vicious brutal sadistic experiments on hundreds of thousands of jewish inmates snatched her mother away murdered her entire family murdered she survives auschwitz alone this shoshannah did you ever see the pictures of the jewish inmates in auschwitz on the day of liberation january 27 1945 when the soviets liberated auschwitz actually soon there'll be a lecture by uh rav what's the name of schlesinger right huh he gave it already who davin's with us in the morning every morning was in auschwitz you ever saw the pictures i have no better description than an emaciated seed no skin left skeletons muslimen mummy skeletons they looked like you could see the bones you look at a seed a human seed it's emaciated it's shriveled it's the closest thing to lifeless and so many did die on the day of liberation this was hoshanah and seven and a half decades later she has 500 descendants and celebrating her 104th birthday at the kaisala maharavi at the western wall in our eternal homeland near the place of the bay san migues seven and a half decades later from a shriveled seed a matriarch of a family of hundreds of descendants proud jews breathing their history their heritage she came out of auschwitz she met her husband young man dove deuteros lost a wife and four daughters in the gas chambers and crematoriums of auschwitz and they met and they marry and they go to austria to look for family they find nobody they come illegally to israel they move to haifa she's a seamstress he's a owner he opens a store she helps him in the store they have a few children and seven and a half decades later a whole nation surrounds her with so much love with so much grace as this seed blossomed to your adam ate sod into the most disincredible harvest and the most incredible fruits of children grandchildren great children great-great-grandchildren in the hundreds if that is not a miracle what is a miracle how did she do it how did so many of our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents do it how was this young man doing it this person ordered me how many so many of you do it in your own in your own little tish aboves or big tissue above that you experienced how did shoshana's shriveling seed blossom into such delicious fruit and the answer is never for a moment did she fail to remember that she does not belong in the abyss but that she was planted and never for a moment did she not feel the presence of the water of the tears of her parents her siblings her grandparents her great-grandparents all the generations which nurtured that seed and allowed it to see itself as a seed that's destined to blossom so s when the psalmist wants to describe redemption we were like dreamers we were like dreamers somehow he takes us back to the story of joseph he wants us to remember the story of joseph joseph's redemption as a paradigm as a prototype of our redemption but particularly ayinoka home in a dream why a dream the brisker of once said what's the difference between a dream and reality you know some of us have nightmares at night some of you may have nightmares of being in the holocaust some of you may have nightmares of being in other dangerous situations and in the dream it feels so real it feels real but when you wake up you're still under the spell of the dream you're like oh my god am i alive but five minutes later usually it's like it's a dream it's a dream it's gone but what about somebody who actually experienced abuse i can't tell this to this person what happened to somebody who had the trauma what about that person who was thrown into a pit he wakes up in the morning he wants it to be a dream but it's not a dream go tell a holocaust survivor was a dream it was not a dream i dreamt that i was in the holocaust i dreamt it more than once but i wake up in the morning and i'm a free man and there's food waiting for me but i look at another person who lived decades before me only two mortgages beat them all just happened only two mortgages ago not a long time ago he or she wakes up in the morning some of you had parents who woke up screaming in the middle of the night because it was not a dream what is redemption in the jewish world what does redemption look like i cannot always rewrite my past we cannot always rewrite our past you may have been through difficult challenges that you can't get rid of but the power of the human soul is that you are capable of becoming a truly free human being to the point that the trauma affects you to the degree that a dream affects the person who dreamt about it you find the courage and the infinite divine resources within yourself to be able to contextualize your trauma and pain within a story that you choose to tell was i cast into the abyss or was i planted in the earth in order to bring light and sustenance to the world what happened i know that i was in the earth but what is the meaning of that is the meaning of that i was thrown into the abyss and i am forever a loser a smarter a valueless lonely dejected person looking for connection looking for love looking for happiness looking for bliss looking for my inner child looking for my god or can i look at myself and say the real eye the real true eye which is one with infinity one with the divine is not shattered it cannot be shattered no abuser in the world can take that away from you and therefore at this moment i'm going to operate from a place of invincibility of complete power and confidence and strength not because i don't know how to cry but because i cried to the point that i could now discover an inner core that remains unshattered the jewish people will emerge from exile not as a traumatized broken dejected people who are free but really never free will be able to look at our pain you could look at your pain and say of course it was real and of course it was very painful but ultimately it will not define me i will define it it will not define me i will not remain a slave to it i will define it it will not put me into its context i will put it into my context i will put it into a context of freedom of joy of google of redemption i will define it i won't let it define me and how will i define it i will define it as a springboard and as a tool of healing of awareness of communication of maybe helping others and reaching out to others hayinu then our left mouth will be filled with laughter joseph knew had to cry but therefore he also knew how to laugh because he never shut off the faucet of his emotions so we described that day of return when that dream that he had that great dream of you then our mouths will be able to be filled with laughter and the nations he was cast among the nations like the jews were cast among the nations of changes the world just as the role of the jewish people who were sent into exile to change the world and we could look at ourselves and say ah that was the purpose of being planted or as the seer of lublin decoys of leblind once said why why why and the jews will say you know why says the holy choice of because we never allowed ourselves to fall into the spear we always held on to that core joy to that core faith to that core confliction so we say there was plants planted with tears but it's harvested with great joy of the patriarch of all the jewish people and then when yaakov comes down to egypt what happens he walks around the same walking around with joy no sailor myself now he's carrying all the alumni which ones the ones of joseph and the ones of all the brothers at last all the sheaves those sheaves that once bowed down to yosef they're now all united there is a single family that's united the picture was came up to a completion to a closure no you say the same one who carried the seeds is now carrying all the bundles remember the bundles are not only bundles the bonds are also people he's now carrying all of them together no you say allah myself this is the image that the psalmist wanted us to envision to understand the cycle the transformation from exile into redemption from planting with tears and harvesting with joy by yavai virino noise may it be speedily in our days already this tish above amen kenya he ratsen amen [Applause] um