To Live, Love, and Lead With an Open Heart: Podcast "Speak & Be heard"

the yeshiva.net. [Music] Welcome back to another episode of Speak and Be Heard, the podcast where your voice matters. Today's episode is very special. I'm honored to sit down with someone who has deeply shaped my spiritual journey and someone who brings so much clarity and wisdom to the world. Rabbi Y Jacobson, known for helping thousands of people uh with Torah and teaching so many people so many wonderful insights. And so, Rabbi, I want to ask you, I feel like the Jewish people, we're in a time of so much ache and so much pain. And so, what would you say, how is it that we can transform our pain into strength? And what does it mean to use our voice in a time of such, you know, deep sorrow and deep pain? Wow, Shiffra. First of all, before I answer your question, your pretty uh profound question, very profound question, I just want to salute you for your podcast and also for your work which inspired your podcast to literally I think you're an example of taking pain and transforming it into a source of light and strength and empowerment for yourself and for all your friends and community and ultimately all your listeners and viewers. And I'm sure the audience will expand more and more. So that's number one. So maybe the first answer to your question is look in the mirror. Wow. Thank you. Look in the mirror and see how to do it and then teach all of us how to do it. I will and I'm not going to take back that answer because it's a genuine answer. I'm just going to add. As a Jew, you always add something, right? Yes. And there's yes and not but. But and somebody once taught me don't say yes but. Say yes and if you say yes but the person becomes defensive. Say yes and we're just adding. It's a it's a good principle. So yes, look at yourself and show and teach that to us. And it's true about every single one of us. We begin with healing ourselves. You know I I have been speaking to audiences and lecturing around the world for many many years. It's now close to 30 years. And even before that, as a youngster, I was teaching and speaking quite a lot. I learned over all these years, but especially in recent years, that the real and deepest and most powerful work we do within ourselves. And it's especially true, you know, I'm a father. I'm a husband. Thank God I have seven children. God bless them. I have an amazing wife. God bless her. And as a father and a husband, you know, you think sometimes I'll change, I'll inspire, I'll educate, I'll teach the people closest to me certainly. And then I realized that the greatest change that changes everybody is when I change myself. And not because it forces change on anybody, but by osmosis. You know, when you're playing chess, I can't change your pieces. I can't I could only change my piece. I could make a move. Maybe it's a small move. My pawn moved one step, my bishop, my knight, my castle, my king, my queen, whatever it is. A leap one step, but I can't touch your board. Can't. I only have access to my own pieces. But what happens when I move my pieces? You start moving your pieces accordingly. When I change the dance, you change the dance. Wow. And I feel that this is so true about our times. You know, people want to heal. They want to heal their families and their spouses and their communities and their students and their schools and and it's amazing and it's awesome. You want to heal the world? Really, really, really heal yourself. The BMP said, "One of the greatest truths, the world is a mirror. What you see in another person is only a reflection of who you are. This doesn't mean that other people don't have issues that you don't have. What it does mean is what I'm really seeing in you is all based on who I am. Literally, one of the most beautiful beautiful insights of the BMP. It's based on the Gmorra attracted rash page 23. I think the Talmud says that the sun never saw the dark side of the moon. You know why? Because when the sun faces the dark side of the moon, what happens to it? It's not dark anymore. It's illuminated. So the bash says when you're a sun, you never see the dark side of anybody. You know why? Cuz when you're looking at them, automatically they're reflecting so much light. It's a reflection of who you are. It's a reflection of what a powerful insight knew about people's challenges and problems. And he knew that you can't always influence everybody if they're not ready to change. Right? But even that, even when you're noticing that what you will see will always be a reflection of where you really really are inside. Now, I grew up with this insight, but I never understood how real it is. I thought it's a nice concept. You know, everybody is a mirror and if you're seeing something, you know, look who you are. I thought it was more cliche, right? But today I realized this is something to literally live with, right? It's all internal. Everything is internal. You really want to change people and change the world. Change yourself. Change yourself for real. Because then the energy you radiate is a different energy. You become the sun, right? And when the sun looks at somebody, they start they start becoming bright, right? Yeah. Wow. There's so much power in that. So, how does one tap into that? Or is it you know, we we focus on oursel is is essentially what it is that you're saying, right? So, we tap into it by focusing not just on ourselves, you know, in the terms like all I'm doing is I'm I'm, you know, engrossed in myself and my needs. I don't want it to come across as you know a form of selfishness and egoentricity and self-absorption. We're talking about focusing healing the self that is really in touch with the frequency of divine oneness. Remember we say in the hashem the only reality is hashem is reality. The part of our self that feels it is our divine soul which is says in that every one of our souls is a piece literally a piece of God. So our soul is part of that oneness that frequency of oneness. So when you really focus on that self automatically you become an agent of love because the world becomes a unified space. So this is a self that right away wires you in and connects you to the entire universe. Wow. Especially to the people around you because this is your divine self which is always living and in tune to the frequency of hashem of infinite oneness of hashem. It's the most beautiful place to be. We have other parts of oursel that don't experience that frequency of oneness. Those are the parts of us that are anxious, that are embarrassed, that are guilty, feel guilt and shame and overwhelmed and jealous and hateful and just, you know, tortured and shut down and numb and all the, you know, all the good words. That's the part of oursel, what we call the animal consciousness that doesn't feel that oneness. So when I talk about when we talk about you know healing yourself it's really confronting my blockages not allowing me to experience my divine frequency because the moment we go into that frequency and it's really daily work but when we go into that frequency the self that emerges is as bright as the sun and when the sun looks at you it never sees your dark side. Wow, that's very beautiful. Um, so I want to speak about also about speaking up. Um, and so I I also I want to backtrack a little bit. So would you say that ties into and having trust in in Hashem and God as well? Um, because when you have trust in God, right, because if you you wouldn't be so worried or have so, you know, anxiety. I want to just tap into that a little bit. Beautiful question. So when we speak about and trust in Hashem, yes, absolutely. This is directly connected to that because what does really mean? You know, trust is not a intellectual word. It's a embodied experience. When I trust somebody, my body feels it. It's a physiological state of being. When you're in a place, when you're in the frequency of trust, you can feel it. You can feel it in your muscles. You can feel it in your arms, in your legs, in your abdomen, in your torso. You could literally feel it in your chest, in your heart. There's a certain openness. The heart is open. The heart is loving. There's a certain expansiveness rather than being tense and uptight and and and and mistrusting. You know, when I'm mistrusting, I'm uptight. I'm defensive. You could see it in my gestures. You could see it in my posture. You could see it in my facial features. You could see it in my body language. You could certainly hear it in my voice even if I'm concealing it well because I'm a good actor. So real bet means what does it feel like in my body to truly trust Hashem? To truly believe and feel. What does it feel like? Not just to believe, you know, up here in my mind that it says in the holy books, but to really experience in my body a sense that God really, really loves me, is holding my hand, is taking care of me, trusts me, empowers me, appreciates me, values me, respects me, and is my biggest fan and my best friend, and is really looking out for my bliss. and my good every single moment of the day. If I would believe that in my body, what would I feel like? What would that feel like in my body? Right? That's where things change because when we open ourselves up to that and it is a lot of work. It's not it's not I can't just snap my fingers and get there because there's so many parts of us that don't trust, right? And that's why, you know, I don't appreciate sometimes. I got an email, I think it was yesterday or two days ago, but I've gotten this question quite a few times over the years. Somebody asked me, "If I have anxiety, is it a sign that I don't have amuna?" Because people say, "If you would have more amuna, you wouldn't have anxiety." Now, I understand what they're saying, but sometimes it's very, very unfair to tell that to somebody. It's really unfair because sometimes people have a very deep condition of anxiety and just to tell them to override it through amuna is not fair. They can't. They've been trying for years. They're reading books now. The truth is if they would learn how to experience amuna in their bones, it would help for their anxiety, but nobody is teaching them how to do that. They're just telling them you have to have amuna. What's that supposed to look like? So, I'll read another book about Amuna and I'm going to scream at my anxiety. You idiotic stupid anxiety, shut your mouth, you idiot, making me miserable. You know what's going to happen? The anxiety is going to get much, much worse. The anxiety will see that it can't trust you at all. And it will become tougher and stronger and more defensive. It's going to make you more uptight. Your heart is going to become more contrite. Your chest is is going to feel more closed up. and your heart is going to be less trusting than ever. How do I know? Because I've been there. I've been there. I know. I I I I I have anxiety and I had anxiety. So, I know about this. I'm not just talking theories. You've experienced when I was a kid, I pulled out a lot of the here of my head. I had this crazy habit of pulling out my hair. And it was in pure tremendous anxiety. And anxiety was something I chose. I didn't choose. I didn't wake up in the morning and said, "Rabbi, why I think it's a brilliant idea to have anxiety." Nobody chooses their anxiety. So we come to somebody and say, "Oh, just have a moon and you'll get rid of your anxiety." It's cheap talk and sometimes it's very very insensitive. Extremely insensitive. Right. I agree. Yeah. If you don't know the work of dealing with anxiety, just be sensitive and humble. It's a lot of lot of attentiveness. We need a lot of sensitivity and empathy and compassion for what's happening. Right? Ultimately, if I can experience beten in my bones and in my chest, my anxiety could start trusting me and I can become more regulated. But this is not something you can just override or snap your finger and then tell your anxiety. You know, my wife always makes fun of people say, "You should you should you shouldn't have anxiety. You should be happy. You should have a muna. You shouldn't be afraid. Thank you, genius." As though it works. Right. Right. So it's about embodying it as well. It's about embodying in order to embody it, I have to be able to release from the body, right? All the stress and all the fear and all the anxiety and all the wounds that are embedded in my cells, right? And literally in my physiological systems, they're embedded. They're embedded in my muscles. They're embedded in my tissue. They're embedded in my bones. Yeah. So, wow. So for anyone who's you know struggling with anxiety anyone listening I would say first step is to you know notice it befriend it don't uh don't resist it right embody it and this can help you get uh closer to God as well you know instead well the first thing is yeah respect it there's a process here and breathe into it and give it a little love and give it a little empathy and give it understanding and don't be afraid of it right it's actually in a funny way is trying to protect you right you know all these types of emotions they're trying to protect us in our own way. Yeah. You know, our animal consciousness and the Tanya explains the animal consciousness develops all of these types of emotions and instincts and in its own way it's trying to keep us alive, right? This anxiety somehow in its own, you know, perspective of life which is limited. It believes that if I have anxiety, I will have a better chance at living and making it through this world. Right. It's a protector. It's a protector. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I know somebody shared with me the other day, they are hypervigilant. They are hypervigilant 24/7. They second guess everything before it's happening. They imagine what everybody needs and what everybody's going to say. They're constantly. It's like they have, you know, 10,000 video cameras attached to every part of the body, noticing, noticing, noticing, noticing, and alert every single moment. And the person told me how they became aware how this is their template of survival. If I'm not secondguessing everything and everybody, if I am not making sure I am prepared for any scenario, if I let go of my hypervigilance, if I let down my guard, it's literally dismissing the security guards and who knows who's going to attack you. You're in a war zone. This person feels like they're in a war zone, and it's not their fault. No, just tell them, "Believe in God. Believe in God. I'm trying to for heaven's sake." First of all, they have issues with God, too. They blame God. Yeah. I think it's very So, it's extremely important that we have to re redefine our template what God is and what our anxiety is, right? And confront these things. Now, thank God, God has given our generation lots of healing modalities and we should take advantage of them because they are, you know, it's the Gmorra says before there is a a illness a malady in the world God provides the healing opportunity before the illness even though it may take some time to emerge and it's interesting that we're living in a time when you see that there's so many different healing modalities that have emerged in recent years and I believe that they are divine gifts I mean I think it's obvious that there are divine gifts and it's a tremendous tremendous opportunity you know God knew very well the crisis of our times and our generations. I mean, history is full of crisis and our generation is no exception. And there are so many amazing and beautiful healing opportunities. Yeah. For people to be able to connect to themselves in a such a more beautiful beautiful way and connect to others in a more beautiful way. And uh you know I always I encourage all my students and friends like we can all do this work like it's such special work. the work of of opening yourself up to your divine soul, opening yourself up to Hashem's love, opening yourself up to bliss. It doesn't mean that we're naive and there's no pain and there's no disappointment. You know, the world is filled with pain and every life has pain. You know, you're not a stranger to pain and so many listeners and viewers are not strangers to pain. Yeah. But the question is, what is my schema? What is my template? You know, what is the underlying template of my life? Is it one of curse, one of negativity, despondency, melancholy? Or it's one of of love, of beauty, of so much promise, of so much trust, of so much faith, which requires a lot of surrender and surrendering even the mind and the ego, which doesn't understand so many things in this world. And yet we could still live with an open heart. An open heart and not twisted like a pretzel, tortured, anxious, fragmented. disassociated, judgmental, and you know, talking about people half the day, right? Yeah. I think it's such a reminder that, you know, God is really always here and he's holding our hand and everything is happening for us. Even things like your anxiety, right? It's something that's it's trying to protect you. You know, it's not out there trying to to get you or to make things hard for you. So, that's a that's very very powerful and very, you know, truthful. Yeah. Generally when we look at our various you know insane instincts and insecurities as as protectors you know very very skilled developed keen bodyguards who have become the managers to manage our life and they don't really trust us right and they protect us and we can give them breathing space and appreciate their struggles and really really hold space for what they're going through and even show appreciation and gratitude and they could see that there are adults in the house who can take it over from here and we can unburden them and disentangle them. It's a very very powerful moment. Very powerful. Yeah. So what would you say we can do to support each other in something like this or even with you know speaking up or using our voice in a way where we can um support people in this and bring them closer to it's a beautiful question. What we can do to support each other is literally create opportunities like this podcasts, classes, WhatsApp groups, uh, seminars, workshops, shabatones, retreats, fabans, people getting together, community. We live in my Okay. My wife, God bless her, started a Tanya class. like 30 40 50 women come maybe more every other week in somebody's house here and it's not people who grew up with Tanya at all. It's from completely different backgrounds, you know, and she sends some of the recordings to me and I listen. I say, see, this is what every this is what we all need, you know, women and men coming together, women with women, men with men, and addressing these dimensions of life. Not just telling people what to do, teaching them the laws which are all important. Telling them what's forbidden, what's permissible, how to p not to say, how to dav, how not to dav, all amazing and beautiful and should be with tremendous. But we need to go one step deeper now as the gula is about to come. We need full healing healing. We need full intimacy with Hashem. And for that, we need to address our wounds, our pains, our fears, our defense mechanisms, and the bulletproof vests that we're walking around with, keeping our hearts small, narrow, and we remain in control, but we remain ultimately half dead or numb or frozen. And I think in every place, you know, open the conversation, create safe spaces. I don't know if we should use that expression, but create create I'm going to say create sacred spaces where like-minded people can meet and talk. You learn a text, a sacred text, you do a meditation, you know, you do a breath work, a somatic experience, but let's open ourselves up to the inner work of of emotional growth and transformation. And these things travel, you know, they travel very very powerfully because, you know, viruses can travel from China to New York to the United States and shut us down for 7 months or for a year. Imagine holy positive energy how fast it travels. There's so much power in that. The ripple of, you know, the ripple effect of what we of what we Yeah. And in all the schools, imagine, you know, every high school needs these types of conversations. Boys should be able to be open about their struggles. Yeah, girls should be able to be open about their struggles instead of being judged, right? And feeling that I have to fit in. And if my teacher knows the truth and my principal knows the truth, I'll never get into seminary. I'll never graduate. I'll never get a shiddok. I'll never get into yeshiva. My other siblings won't get into yeshiva. Nobody even know gets to know themselves. So much fear and so much pressure. That's true. And I'm not judging anybody. Everybody's trying to do the best they can with the tools they have. That's the joke my son makes when he wants to make fun of me, my 14-year-old, my 15-y old. He says, "Tati, you did the best you can with the tools you had." Right? So, yeah, I understand that. But we got to upgrade our tools. Yeah. We got to upgrade our toolbox, right? And the reason is because God in recent times has upgraded consciousness. Consciousness has been upgraded in a very, very expedited way. Right? And if you don't want to, you know, in traffic, if everybody's going, you know, if it's a 70 mph highway and you're going 20 miles per hour, God has expedited consciousness. It's been upgraded in an amazing way. So those of us who are trying to live and give life to others, we got to feel the rhythm of the youth, we got to get out of my own box. We got to we got to dance to the beat of God's world. Thanks to the beat of life says Hashem recreates the world every moment. So it's always living now. What's what's going on now? You know what do they say? The presence is a present. It's the greatest present. Right? So when we appreciate that I think we realize that there's such a tremendous opportunity today and our youth I think are craving for this. Wherever whenever I speak to them, all the schools and any anywhere everywhere in Israel and in America and in Europe, everywhere, literally from Australia to South America, like I think our teenagers, especially in our children, they're so craving like authenticity, vulnerability. Like, don't just preach to me how bad I am and how good I could be if I do the right thing. Talk to my soul, from your soul. Speak to my heart. Speak from your heart. Don't tell me how perfect you are. Tell me about your flaws. Tell me how vulnerable you are. Show me your vulnerability. Don't show me your your your talents and skills. We we have to learn this, right? I should say especially rabbis and and and and also rabbitson, right? You know, some of us come from a um a perception and I I really get it. I really get it that the way to educate is from a place of aloofness and and detachment. You know, it's teaching people to be foot soldiers and do the right thing. And maybe that's how some of us survive. So that's what we want to give to our children and students. But it doesn't work right. It's really does not work. It works for a very very small percentage of people. And even for them, I don't know how much they have to close up for it. How much they have to shut their hearts. Yeah. And there's so many people even if they completely stay in the system, but there's such a frustration and an emptiness and a void and a bitterness and an anger. I just see it everywhere. Yeah. So, and people are afraid somehow that if we're vulnerable, Judaism is going to fall apart. Why do they think that? Where does that come from? It comes from because so many of us have leared not to trust ourselves. We have learned that we are really bad and we should never trust ourselves. We should override ourselves. We always need other people to tell us what to do because we on our own left to our own devices are pretty horrible. We have big saharas and we're dangerous people. We're just a bunch of gangsters waiting to do criminal activities. I'm being a little dramatic. I think that's a big part of it. Another another another part of it is, you know, people think that Judaism is so hard and if you don't guilt people into it and you don't shame people into it, they're all going to abandon it. It's so unfortunate because I Judaism there's so much beauty. Somebody told me once, somebody told me once. I shared this with and I shared this this week in my class. I give a weekly woman's class in my on the yeshiva.net. And I shared this with the women. And I said, somebody shared with me that my classes are really not doing a service to the Jewish people because I'm teaching people to trust themselves and really people should not trust themselves because if they trust themselves, they're going to be doing horrible things. They should learn not to trust themselves and always consult someone more knowledgeable, more respectful, more holy, more moral than them what to do because then they will avoid all the horrible pitfalls. And the person really meant it. Wow. Wow. So if this is deep in the template, you don't trust yourself. So of course you don't become vulnerable, right? You cover up your vulnerability. You hope nobody realizes and you just try to create an atmosphere where people could just continue. And you may do it in a very nice way. Actually, I want to say this, not everybody is trying to be harsh. Some people are very good people, nice people. They just want to create a beautiful environment where everybody just goes with the flow and does the right thing. And we talk about how beautiful it is and it's amazing. But when you ask them, can you can we be vulnerable about our challenges, about our tragedies, about our pain, about our experiences, there's no room for it. It's like we're shaken to the core. It's like, oh my god, what's going to happen? But it's really the other way around. Actually when we strip when we strip all the external layers and we let go even of our spiritual egos and we become very human and very simple and we learn how to cry. We learn how to look into each other's eyes with empathy and with connectivity and with authenticity. We discover our deepest deepest soul. We discover our deepest connection to God. And it's organic. And then we pray. We learn Torah. We observe mitzvah from a place of inner inner commitment and conviction and compassion and oneness. And we don't have to judge. And we don't have to look down. And we don't have to live in a tortured space or in a space of guilt. But I understand for this I have to look at my emotions. I have to confront my wounds. I have to deal with parts of my heart that I shut down a long time ago. I get it. I understand. You know, I was there once. I was there once. But I've learned from my own work and my own life and my own experience. And I have my wife and my children to thank for so much of of helping me go on this journey. I've learned that this is this is the best place to hang out. The place of authenticity and vulnerability where people could really really connect. Being vulnerable. Yeah. That's how you connect. Or you can't connect if you don't open up. You're not vulnerable. Right. I once asked a mentor of mine, a very very deep person, very authentic person. I asked this person, "Do you want Mashiach to come?" The person said, "Yeah." And I'm like, "Why? Tell me why. And I thought they're going to say, you know, the usual answer, all the pain in the world and the crisis and the shik crisis and tuition crisis and kamas and October 7th and terrorism and which are all good reasons. They're all very very good reasons, but they're not the real thing, you know, because Mashiah is so much deeper because this is basically saying, you know, if life could just be semi-normal, we really don't need Msiah. This person said something so deep. The person said, "Cuz I want to really be able to have fun with people." I'm like, "What?" So the person said,"I really want to be able to have fun with people, just to have really fun, connect." Like, "What are you talking about?" This person said, "We live behind so many masks, behind so many walls. We don't know how to have fun with each other. We don't know how to be playful. We don't know how to celebrate each other. We don't even know how to do that. We're so defensive. We're so judgmental. We are so insecure. We are so anxious. We have so much anxious attachment or avoidant attachment. She says when Mashiach comes and the frequency of oneness, we'll pervade the universe and we'll be able to live in that space. Wow. We'll be able to have so much fun with each other. It was just it was such an authentic real description. You know, it wasn't Msiah and the clouds, you know, these big miracles are going to happen. It was like the real real thing right like life we'll will be able to see the bliss of living which today you know we see it as such a such a burden for so many of us we try to escape from one distraction to another distraction to another distraction to another distraction but deep inside you know we sometimes feel like a twisted pretzel like I'm always chasing my tail looking for another high and another distraction but deep deep inside there's like an anxiety that sits there and to be able to really live in a different space. Wow. I just really appreciated that answer. No, I think that's brilliant. I think do you think um speaking of Mashiach, the concept of Msiah is uh because I was talking to a friend about it, right? What does it mean when when Mashiah comes? What does that mean? So, is it uh would you say it's a higher level of consciousness that that we're going to be at when Mashiach comes? So, Msiach it in it includes certainly first and foremost a state of consciousness. The Rambam says writes that the end of his book, he quotes a verse in Isaiah that the entire earth will be filled with divine consciousness like the water covers the sea. In other words, our identities will be submerged, literally submerged in the water of divine conscious, divine awareness. The awareness of the oneness of Hashem who is the source of all bliss, of all fun, of all joy, of all love, of all goodness, of all creativity is going to be cruising and vibrating and pulsating through each of our arteries and bones and and senus complete bliss and muscles. Yeah. Yeah. So, it's a state of consciousness. Of course, it's going to be ushered in by a person that Yiddish identifies as Msiah who's really a person who's going to embody this consciousness and uh you know tri arouse it, trigger it in the entire in the entire planet. I think it's a beautiful way to put it because I think Msiah like at least me growing up, it was never um properly explained what it is, right? Like you said, I Mashia is one of those concepts that remains either very superstitious or very strange or like very heavenly, certainly weird and for some even fearful. Yeah. People have told me, you know, I really I don't want Mashiah to come. I'm going to be punished. There's going to be this crazy and I'm going to be, you know, and people have been also warned by their parents and teachers that when Mashiah comes, it's going to get much worse, right? They're going to be the ones who will not pass. So, I think there's such misunderstanding. Yeah. And a lot of dread. It comes from basic underlying misunderstanding of some of the basics of Judaism. That we see Judaism essentially as coming from a vindictive God who's out to get us and if you do good things, you know, he won't get you. But the whole premise is one that is very very twisted and very torturous. It's like do me a favor. Get me out of this anxious religion. Right. Even if I'm doing the right thing, there's so much anxiety. Yeah. Yeah. And it's really nice. really going back to the basics of of of who I really really am. And it's hard because there's so many voices and so many wounds and so many experiences that live inside of us, right? Like even as I'm speaking to you, there's a voice in me that's telling me, "Oh, you don't believe any of this. You know that the world is a crazy torturous place." It's the critic that's the likeara. No, in the head. Yeah. It's it's it's it's an anxious animal soul that has certain experiences of life and wants to keep me distracted. It wants to keep me hypervigilant, stressed out, self-conscious. It doesn't like surrender. It doesn't like the frequency of surrender, trust, love, faith. It's a dangerous frequency, right? I get it. Yeah. I'm going to calm him down and say, "I I got it. I got it. That's fine. I get you. You're frightened." Yeah. You're frightened. Yeah. And it's so easy to live there. It's very easy to live there. You know, I struggle with this every day. I struggle. It's it's it's a tugofwar between different parts of ourselves, right? But there's no way without identifying the struggle, there's no way I could live with an open heart, right? You need you need to you need to befriend them instead of resisting. You have to befriend it. You have to create a relationship with it, right? You have to even marvel at their brilliance. Wow, you're so interesting. Like they come up with such brilliant ideas constantly. Yeah, they throw images into your head. They throw thoughts, instincts, fears, whatever it is. Like now it's like a wawa you don't believe anything you're saying. Okay. Right. Hello my friend. Right. You have to even give it names. You have a bunch of personalities. They have names. You have to give them names. I love that. It's like I imagine them. I I have I have a picture of my head of one of these guys in me. He's always wearing a uh cowboys hat. uh little skinny face, good-looking, handsome kid, young like, you know, 14 years old, maybe 15 years old. And we do a wave to each other. Love that. I love that. That's amazing. Wave to each other. Hi, I'm here. Yeah, I see you're here. That's amazing. And and then you'll find that it won't be it's not your enemy, you know, and it becomes less intense. Yeah. In a way, you can even love him. You can even love him like he's really trying hard to protect me. He's really like he doesn't want me to be disappointed. If I go into this if if we speak about this consciousness you talking about leave me alone. You're going to be disappointed. It's going to be a let down. It's not for you. Yeah. Let's stay let's stay here. Let's stay grounded. Let's stay very practical. Let's be cynical. Right. Right. Let's make believe, you know, that God is not really relevant to the real, you know, embodied life. Right. Let God be a piece of information that we use when we need. Right. And I get him. So yeah, I mean I I I want to um It's too good to be true. It's too good to be true. You don't want to be stabbed again and again. You know, I'm going to tell you every day that you won the lottery. How many disappointments can you deal with, right? You didn't win the lottery. You didn't win the lottery. You didn't win. Just stop trusting. Like forget about it. You know, most people live lives of quiet desperation. There was a poet who said, "So I I really I I really understand him. I understand them. Right. And yet I think that we are capable of choosing to live in a space of very profound love and oneness. Not in a place of judgmentalism, right? Not in a place of ego, right? Not in a place of protecting my shadow and protecting my skeletons and vulnerability, but really in a very joyous space with an open heart. living with an open heart even when I was hurt. Yeah. And it's a blessing. It's such it's it's such a blessing. A mentor of mine once told me, "I would rather feel all the pain that my heart is experiencing. I would rather I would prefer and choose that any moment over living as a dead person with a numb, lifeless, and closed heart." It's true. It's true. Because that's torture. It's such a gift to feel. It's true. torture when that heart closes down. Yeah. You're just in this blind. It's It's such a nauseating place. In Tanya, it's called the place of kipa. The place of shells and husks. It's like living in a in a in a nauseating closet, crushed and just I'm becoming nauseous as I'm saying this. Yeah. It it's a very it's it's such a it's such a confined confined space to live, right? You know, I'm always keeping the score, you know, taking brownie. It's just calculating. It's quit per quo. It's defensive. It's accusatory. It's feeling either guilt or shame or accusing others and blaming the world for my problems and how bad this one is and that one is and how crazy this one and I'm the only normal person in this universe. What a lonely, pathetic, desperate place. And then all I have is distractions. You know, I'll read a book, then I'll eat some pizza, and then I'll eat some cheesecake, and then I'll read another book, and then I'll take my phone, and then I'll watch. It's just distractions. Emptiness. Yeah. It's running from distraction to distraction to distraction. And it's a very, very empty horrible place to be in, right? The place of an open heart is a place of authentic communication. You connect to people. you really connect to people. Maybe you're not connecting to everybody, but you're connecting to who you want to be connected and even people that you may not see as your best friends. You're just authentic. You're not wearing masks, right? What a gift to navigate the world without masks, without disassociating, without judgment, without um without preparing for every encounter, you know, just to be spontaneous, be authentic, like to be fully in the moment. It's a gift. It's a gift. It's a gift I need to work on every day. Sometimes I'm successful. Sometimes I'm not. Yeah. I mean, we're all a work in progress, you know. It's really about just doing your best and, you know, living with an open heart, like you said. Um, and so I just want to make sure that we that we speak about this. What would you say to someone who grew up in the Jewish community, right, in the religious community, left the community due to maybe how they were brought up or, you know, in things were taught in a negative way and then they want to come back to it, but they want to come back in an authentic way to God, to Judaism. So, how do they know they're doing coming from a place of of authenticity or with an open heart? The answer is twofold. Number one, when we realize that the primary the primary aspects of our relationship with God are happening in the privacy of our own life without anybody seeing it because that's the litmus test that it's completely from within. When much of my Yiddishkite religion, Judaism is what other people are seeing or observing, it's always a question. When you realize that the primary experience of a Yiddish is internal, even when nobody is there, then you know that it's authentic. That's number one. And number two, there is a calmness. In authenticity, there's a calmness. When I'm inauthentic, there is a desperation. There's a rage. There's an anger. There's a discontentment and I know it. So there's there's a lack of calmness cuz I need your accolades. I need to impress my mother, my father, my teacher, my reb, my kusa, my wife, my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, whatever my whatever there are, somebody I got to impress. So there's always a desperation. In an authentic relationship with Hashem, there is a calmness. There's a serenity, there's a tranquility. Those are the two things that come to mind. Yeah, I think it's beautiful. I think it's beautiful. Um and so any advice for anyone listening on um using your voice or speaking up or when you know within this time that we're in as a Jewish community how we can we think we live in a time when anybody who has a voice that is channeling authenticity has a privilege to use it right we have suffered because of the silence of good people or the silence of people who were ignorant either by choice they chose to be ignorant or they were really ignorant but the result was the same silence. We can't afford that anymore. We need to speak up. Anyone who has a voice that can channel authenticity has a privilege and a duty to speak up because it saves lives, right? Let's face it. There was an entire generation of kids who were molested, who were raped, domestic abuse of all forms, and nobody was talking. And when people started to talk, they were shut down. And they were accused of being slanderers and gossipers and wararmongers and and and criminals who are trying to stir the pot and get attention and accuse innocent people. And a whole generation of youngsters were raped and molested and nobody said a word. Now, a lot of people didn't know, but some people did know. Now, a lot of people knew, but they were ignorant. They didn't realize the consequences. They didn't realize the emotional toll. They didn't realize what it leads to. They didn't realize what emotional murder is. They didn't know. Okay. But now we do know. Now we do know. We have enough awareness. We have enough knowledge. We've seen enough death and suicide and drug overdose and marriages breaking up and nightmares and anxiety and and and torture. We have seen we've seen the emotional death toll of the youth that has been sexually abused or abused in other ways. So anyone who has a voice that can channel authenticity has a privilege and a duty to speak to speak in every possible way and at every possible occasion and to every possible person where it's relevant. Yeah. I don't think our community does any better by shushing up the voices of sanity and authenticity. I don't think we do any better. Do you think there's any power in silence? There's power in silence when I'm meditating. There's power in silence when I'm communicating with somebody I love. Right? And the silence allows us to go into a deeper place. But when my silence is covering up the cry of a child who's begging for help, that's criminal silence. That's not spiritual silence. That's not silence coming from strength. That's silence coming from cowardice and a being an accomplice to evil. There's two types of silence. There's a silence that comes after you said everything and then you go into a deeper place of silence. That's incredible. That's where we meet our soul. But when the silence is a substitute for words, it's a copout. That's not a silence from strength. That's a silence of fear. When silence comes from fear, it's horrible. When silence comes from the yearning for transcendence, then it's beautiful. You see the difference? Yeah. Let's not confuse the two, right? Right. Very important. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Sometimes silence is a kdeshm, right? And sometimes silence is the greatest, right? It depends how you use it. Depends how you use it, depends what it's channeling, depends what it's accessing, depends what it's the context is, what the backdrop is, depends what the purpose is. Right? If the silence is to bully and scare everybody into submission to the authorities who don't want to confront the insanity, that's criminal silence. Run for the hills and scream and yell and shout. There's a fire in the building. There are murderers in the building. There's an bomb about to explode. Yeah. Where a bomb already exploded. And let's expose those who are holding on who are planting a second bomb or those who knew about the bomb and are not ready to say anything and they'll be quiet again. Then we have to yell. We have to yell on top of our lungs. It's a big mitzvah to yell. Don't stand idly by the blood of your friend. You yell, right? Right. When they scream, nobody says silence. We're middle of No, no, no, no silence. Kipper. It's a mitzvah. Suddenly when it comes to this area of children not being safe, oh it's the middle of davening. Silence. Sorry. Don't disturb our community. Silence. Woe to such a silence. What a disgrace to God if the silence is allowing sick people to hurt people. That's not a silence we should ever condone or embrace. That's a silence we should loathe and reject with every fiber of our being. I think God wants us to say I scream enough. No, this is good. There's so much power, so much so much wisdom in what you're saying. It's the truth. It's not mine. This is not mine. I'm just trying to say the truth. This is This has very little to do with me. I've seen enough suffering though not to be quiet, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's it's our duty. I think it's everyone's job to speak up. And like you said, too, you know, you everyone has gifts and everyone has a voice and it's our obligation to, you know, create these safe spaces and that's the mission of Yeah. And you know what? It's very freeing when you work for God and not for anybody else. It's such a liberating experience. Yeah, it really is. When it comes over the years, I've been pressured not to talk about child abuse, not to talk about molestation. I spoke a lot about agunos, you know, people who refuse to give a get. Yeah. Men who torture their h their husbands who torture their wives by not giving them a get. And sometimes the other way around, right? Wives who torture their husbands by not taking the get. when both of them mothers or fathers who use their children as missiles against each other you know and sometimes the feedback is not always praiseworthy people have all types of different comments you know and I I know listen I don't know everything I don't I know very very little and when I make a mistake I will humbly say I made a mistake but when I see around me pain and agony and anguish and community people and sometimes leaders and asanim and activists and philanthropists they protect They protect males who are abusers or females who are abusers. They instead of realizing our greatest task in the world is to protect the innocent to be there to fight for the impoverished. Right? The prophet this one of the greatest outcries of all of our prophets, all of our at the end of the first B, this was their outcry. You offer offerings and you pray to God and the most important thing is the chapter 50 he says you think I need you to fast God says you think I care about your fasting you think that's what's going to make an amazing day of course I want you to fast but that's not the main thing I want you to remove the shackles through which you oppress slaves and widows and orphans and innocent people and broken people and you allow them to be abused and you allow them to be crushed to manipulate and exploit. I mean, he uses he uses very very amazing graphic language in this in in many chapters in Isaiah and Jeremiah and other prophets. It's incredible incredible this, you know, the call for justice. We're commanded to respect our wives more than we respect ourselves, not denigrate them and torture them, right? And when a kid is is is crying out with silence because he's afraid to speak, we need to believe our children, not doubt them and second guessess them and and make them feel guilty that they ever told us the truth. Right? How many people did I hear from, you know, worse than the original abuse was when they came to their parents and their parents said, "It can't be true." Boom. That's the worst. Yeah. Your cousin, no. Your uncle, no. The baby suda. No. The counselor. No. This rebi? No. You sadic. Not a sadic. He's a sick pathological liar. Not a sadic. He needs a lot of help. Yeah. Yeah. You should go get help. Yeah. Don't let kids suffer. As you realize, I'm passionate about the subject. Yeah. I well I think it's very important and I think that it's very important to speak about it because there's people out there that are really suffering even today and there's people that you know my brother was someone who suffered from sexual abuse and he you know went to drugs and he and he died and so these things happen there. How old was your brother when he died? He was 20. He was 20 and he was sexually abused and then from there he went to drugs. Yeah. Mhm. And that was his way of numbing it because he didn't have, you know, a safe space to go to. And he could have been blamed for the drugs, but really the drugs for him was the solution. Right. It wasn't the problem. It was his way of numbing. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. The problem was that he couldn't he didn't have any other way to deal with it. Right. Right. Right. And this it's happening today as well. You know, you see you see all over. So it's just I think it's very important to speak about and I really think speaking about it can really How old were you when your brother was when your brother died? When he died, I was 12. Wow. You were 12 years old. How did you process it? It was very, very difficult because I mean, I was 12, so understanding what was happening. And even then, he was, you know, an addict. I didn't really know I was 12, you know. I learned that a little bit later. Um, lots of therapy, you know. I mean, it's it's hard. It's not something I I still, you know, it's still with me. It's 18 years, 17 years, 16 years, something like that. 17 years, I think. Yeah. Yeah. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. That means a lot. Thank you. I'm very proud of you. You're a source of light and inspiration. Thank you. And authenticity and vulnerability. You know, I always tell myself and others, I say, we have one choice in life. We have two choices. Either we become part of the problem or we become part of the solution. Ah, I love that. Yeah. There's nothing in the middle. Right. Either I contribute to the problem or I contribute to the solution. Well, you're contributing to the solution. Shafra. So, thank you. God bless you. Thank you. That means so much. And thank you so much for taking the time to be here. I really appreciate your wisdom and your warmth. And you have so much to offer. And so, thank you for doing what you do. And I really think this is going to help a lot of people. And so, thank you so much. God bless you. And God should protect all of us. And we should all live a life with an open heart with love and light. Amen. You know, it says that everybody has a little spark of Messiah inside of them. And when each of us reveals that spark, all the sparks create the collective mashiach. Oh wow, that's beautiful. Yeah, the writes that. So that's really the goal. That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Thank you so much, Rabbi. Awesome. Thank you so much. And together we're going to transform our pain into strength. Together, we're going to learn how to speak and be heard. Thank you so much. Thank you. This class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net. Please help us continue the classes. Make even a small contribution at ww.theaysha.net/donate.