Trauma, Childhood Pain & Healing - Parshat Vayeshev - Rabbi YY Jacobson

Yeah. Okay. Good morning everybody. Let's begin. Welcome. Let's begin with one chapter of Tahillim in honor of our brothers and sisters in the holy land. We'll say Daled 124. 124. Kufal 124. Welcome everybody. Thank you for gracing us with your presence especially in today's weather. As the airlines say, you had many options this morning. You could have sat in front of your fireplace and even listened virtually, but you came out here. So, we appreciate it very much. And all those who are with us virtually as well. Just to announce next week there will also be a class. Next week will be the second day of Kaneka Hashem. So, there will be a class, a Kaneka class. That's next Tuesday 9:30 a.m. Bleeder. The week afterwards I'm away but next week there is a class on Kaneka. Also tonight in honor of which is the of the alterb the balata known asidus and the yards of the holy mag of misich. There'll be a big fabangan tonight by us in the schul on 24. It will be livereamed on the yeshiva.net 8:30 8:30 p.m. tonight. Everybody is invited to listen or watch the actual fabangan is for men because of the size of the shul for men and boys but you can watch it online the yeshiva.net. Okay. Today's class is dedicated by the prominent Reichman family nishmas in loving memory of Rabiel Isaac Shakna Benim Kim Schwarz in honor of his first yard site yesterday on Utkas Kislv the 18th day of Kislv as a teenager in the campsil Isaac Shakna was in Bergen Belin by the Nazis he refused to eat on Pes subsisting only on potato peels for eight days he was a devoted Talmid of the great Vay of Pa and after moving to Muny in 1977 he established the PUA cahila here in our own community in Muny served as a living example to all those who knew him what it means to be a true eid Hashem a real Shamayam a god-fearing Jew always striving even in his advanced years not to relinquish any of his uh commitments and dedications and love and ya and aid hashem and in honor of his first yard set We dedicate this class in his loving memory. May his holy soul be a continuous source of inspiration and empowerment for the family, the community, and all of the Jewish people. Amen. These are from the that uh have really rebuilt our entire people from the ashes. So may this class be this class is also dedicated by Samantha and Daniela in honor of their amazing mother Greta on her birthday today. Maztov happy birthday and a year of success and prosperity and abundance and and nas and many long happy healthy years and a complete and speedy recovery for Miriam and Maladina basic. Thank you very very much. Okay. [snorts] Sometimes, you know, you can hear something as a child and it gets entrenched very deeply because children are like wet sponges. We absorb everything. As adults, we can discern and discriminate. You know, this I like to hear, this I don't like to hear, this I shut down. Now I'm going to ADHD. Now I'm going to go on my phone. But as children we still have that innocence and purity and we absorb and absorb and absorb and some things we absorb are very positive and loving and sometimes there's other messages. I want to take today with this class a very famous medish and rashi that uh probably a lot of you have learned when you were in school. And at face value it can it can be understood in a very very uh diff challenging or negative way and it can have an impact because the way we perceive it the way our neural pathways develop as a result the way our system our convictions our faith these can be affected. Um some people call it religious trauma. It's the trauma that comes from religion when it's communicated or conveyed or taught in in a in in a certain way which is very narrow and very limiting and can be very very restrictive and debilitating for people. And it's important to be able to recognize these patterns and to be able to open ourselves up to shift to expand our consciousness to open our heart not without acknowledging the pain that sometimes comes with it. And the truth is in our communities this is a very common thing now people who grew up and there's a lot of negativity in their perception of Hashem of Tyra of Yiddishkite and uh you know people who don't have it don't have it but people who have it it can be very very deep the therapist who told me Rabbi Shiman Russell that he's wanted to open up maybe he opened up a group in your called um SA you know what SA stands for some of you probably know what it stands for okay you'll You could look it up, but he wants to open up a group called essay shul anonymous shul anonymous people who have a difficulty going to shul. So we're going to take a rashi and a medish that seemingly could seem very very difficult very disheartening and try to really unravel it on a deeper level. Also, this addresses probably one of the most it's probably one of the most powerful messages when it comes to various challenges that people have especially when it comes to their family lives. As we shall see the name of parv this week is as I just said. I gave it away. Every para has a name. tells us we have another three etc. Every para has its name. Now sometimes people look at names as more random. You need a name. You need a way to identify it. Which week's parish is it? So you need a name. So you give it a name. What's the difference what the name is and once you're already choosing a name they took one of the first words of the portion. So bes is the beginning is the third word. is the first is the they take a word from the first verse. So it's like more random. There's nothing really to talk about. Why are you discussing it? But that's a mistake because if you look at the par we once discussed this in parish and paras you'll see sometimes it's the first word sometimes it's the second word sometimes the third word sometimes the fifth word and it's not always so clear. For example, as I told you then, no should have been called and told us should have been called, right? It says why does get the third word and gets why does get the third wordy and gets the second word that's I'm sorry and told us gets the second word. So you see that there's some theme here and the truth is that in Yiddish names are significant. The name of a person is considered a channel through which your soul vivifies your body. The name of anything inesh anything in Hebrew represents the energy that actually animates it. That's why names are very significant and each name is a different channel based on the letters because the letters in the Hebrew alphabet are not just random letters characters. So we should be able to identify words. They're actually the letters through which the world was created and is created. So the 22 letters of the olive bays have a holiness in them. That's why it's called lushes. Why is it a holy language? You could say holy people spoke that language, but holy people sometimes speak other languages too. It's a lashes because it's a language that that that that's that that captures the holiness of the world. It's a lush through which you can be appre you can appreciate the divine energy in the world. It's a lush that describes the inner holy divine energy of everything. And that's why Adam was asked to call names. He's the one who gave the names. It says for all the animals and the birds and so forth. And the Med says that that's how Hashem proved to the Malim Adam's wisdom. Now, what's the big deal about giving a name? You call a camel a camel and a donkey a donkey and a lion a lion and a squirrel a squirrel. But that's that's not the case. The name for Hebrew for camel guml is a very significant name. Donkey and lion or do beer or cat. These are not random names and you could have just changed it. A is a chair and a is a table. These are names that represent the physical and spiritual chemistry of the thing that was given the name. That's why the Gmorra says that used to be meticulous about a person's name and he learned a lot from names. The name Vesv therefore which is the name of the para seems very striking in its complete uh lack of synchronic synchronicity with the theme of the para because what does the word vayv mean? The word ves means settling v the opening as you could see in your first source sheet veseritan has been a long journey he's been away from home 22 years it's a long time in this time lots of things happened the end of these are long intense ardous years filled with beautiful moments and filled with very very challenging moments. And now he comes home and what's the feeling? It's time to settle down. He has good reason. He's 108 years old. No, it's time 108, right? Even those who work and work and work and still go skiing at age 99 and open their store in the morning and go to gym three times a week and are 5 in the morning at 108. You let her relax a little bit. So Jacob settles down means he sits but here it means he dwells from the wordash what's means a sense of calmness serenity means when your mind is settled it's calm you could think about things pleasantly with tranquility without a sense of urgency and anxiety and stress that's whatas means it's a very big blessing you say somebody has vadas This is the word vayv. He settles down in the land where his father lives because is still alivean which is of course in the land of canan. It seems like a very idealic verse. We're hoping that that's what's going to be and we'll end the story. They lived happily ever after in his father's home. But right away in the second verse everything starts uh shaking starts off with the story of Ysef who's 17 years 17 years old and his brothers despise him and loathe him and he starts sharing with them his dreams and they hate him even more and the whole para continues with a very dramatic and heart-wrenching saga how this family splits and What's the name of this para va? I don't know if there's one para in the tra that is more unsettling than parases. Many portions are unsettling but I don't think there's any portion that is as unsettling as devastating as a par that represents the uprooting of all serenity of all tranquility than vayv. Anything that is predictable falls apart, gets in disintegrated. Anything that we thought was cohesive and workable ultimately turns out to become another challenge and another tragedy. So Yakov is was sitting by and a terrible terrible conflict erupts in the family to the point that Ysef his 17-year-old son is almost killed. The Tyra clearly says he came to visit his brothers in where they were shephering the flock of their father. They were all shepherds. And the plan was to actually kill YV, kill him and throw him into a pit and tell their father that a wild animal has mold him and devour him. It's the end. At the end, instead of killing him, Ruian suggests, let's not kill him. Let's throw him into a sister, into a pit. His plan is to bring him back to his father. But at the end it doesn't work out because ultimately they take him out of the pit and they sell him as a slave to the Egyptians who go down to Egypt. And in this Egypt he gets sold as a slave. And if that's not enough, what happens? He gets accused of doing something very promiscuous with his master's wife, trying to do the unthinkable and violating her and he gets thrown into a prison cell. That's not the only story that happens in middle. Yehuda also leaves the family after Ysef is sold is considered the leader. The melat he also leaves Rashi says the family also dethroned him after the whole episode and Yehuda leaves and over there also goes into a whole story that is a very complicated story ends up at the end by mistake almost killing his own daughter-in-law Tamar who's pregnant with twins. He ends up almost killing her. At the last moment, he realizes his mistake. He confesses and saves Tamar. She gives birth to the twins, Parrots and Zorak. And then afterwards, we go back to Ysef going down into Egypt as a slave. At least he was somewhat successful and okay, settled. And then, of course, he ends up into a pit the second time in an Egyptian cell for 12 years. At the end, we're coming close to some hope for for redemption because there's a butler there who's going out of going out of prison. And Ysef begs him, "Go plead my case. Tell Parro that I was stolen. I was abducted. I was kidnapped. I don't belong here. I'm an innocent person." And we're hoping maybe some some redemption at the end. And what's the last verse of the butler leaves? He forgot about Ysef. He went back to his life. And this is the cliffhanger where Vayeshv ends. Ysef is in prison all forgotten because the butler also did not remember the favor that Ysef did. Where is Yakov the whole time? So the Tory says Yakov told his children, I will go down to my grave in grief. I will go down to my grave mourning for my son who in his mind was killed because as you know after they sold him, they slaughtered a goat. They dipped his tunic in blood. They sent the tunic back to their father. And for him, this was proof that a wild animal has destroyed his child. >> Why I said that? >> No, I just meant he was sold to Egypt. Ysef was sold to the Egyptian to an Egyptian master. Who exactly sold him? That's complicated in the dash. bomb. There's different interpretations, but ultimately he was sold to Egypt. So, so from the beginning of Aayish, at the end of Aishab, what are we left with? Y is separated from the family. Yehuda is separated from the family. Nobody knows where Ysef is. Even he himself doesn't know what's going to be his future. Yakov is completely crushed and devastated. This is a story. It's a very intense story. The now if you had to give a title to the story okay if somebody asked you could you title this whole story in one word you know people have to write a novel and a novel needs a name and it's always good to have a oneword name it's powerful one word sometimes one word captures it more than a whole sentence what would be the name if you were chosen if you were part of a committee that had to decide okay here's the story >> huh >> so you're calling it trauma any other names >> turbulence >> turbulence huh Dun. >> Dysfunction. Okay. Heartbreak. I hear a lot of different names. Anybody else? What would you name it? Huh? You don't even know. Okay. [laughter] Tragedy. Yeah. All makes sense, right? Tragedy. Heartbreak. Yeah. Devastation. Family falling apart. >> Huh? >> Family. >> Family feud. Okay, that's two words. But nobody, nobody, let's face it, would consider the name tranquility, serenity, calmness, settling down. [laughter] Settling down. Really? Who's settling down? It's the most unsettling experience. And yet, from all the names, they chose the name Vayesh. And there's a second word there. Yakov. It could have been named Yakov. Could have been named Ysef. Would have actually been pretty appropriate. That's a second or another name. But from all the names we chose. Now it's not like the names have to be the first word. Is the first word already is not the first word. Is not the first word. Ver is the first word. Is not the first word. Tus is not the first word. Viet happens to be the first word. Vish happens to be the first word. Mik is not the first word. So you don't need a word ves. Obviously if a name represents the key of the the core of it, it means that somehow this name is capturing a soul in the para which is about va settling down internal serenity. But that seems almost like an absurd cruel joke. Now there's a rashy on this par on this P of Yakov which only exasperates it only intensifies the issue that we're addressing. If you take a look at Rashi it's the second source in your source sheet and Rashi is quoting this the Rash is quoting the Medish. So this comes from our sages in Medish Rabba and other medrash. Rashi says as follows, I quote, "Our sages have added another explanation, another on the word." And they said as follows, ves represents not just a physical settling down, but a quest. Means he see like he seek, he wanted, he craved. to be settled down. He wanted to live in tranquility. Lev means to live in tranquility, in calmness, in serenity. What happens to love? The troubles, the pain around jumped on him. Kafet means they jumped on him. In other words, it was spontaneous. It was sudden. He didn't see it coming. It's like when something jumps, somebody's driving on the highway and the deer jumps out. You didn't prepare. Kaf means from the word, right? kaf it jumped on him. So like in this in this craving for tranquility something unexpected out of the blue dawns on him this rock that falls on the windshield and and and breaks up things the pain of so that's what Kazal said. Now it's interesting what was bothering them on these words that they had to say this that va doesn't only mean he settled it means he wanted something and the exact opposite happens and they give here a statement of what hashem says I want you to listen to these words said I'm sorry I skipped a few words the men says let me tell you this is a way this is the way it works righteous people, good people, they want to live in tranquility. Hashem said, now there's no question mark here. Didn't write with question marks. I'm giving a question mark the way most people would interpret this. Hashem says it's not enough for the sadikim what has been prepared for them in the world to come. They want to live in tranquility in this world. >> Good question. Good question. >> Why not? >> That's what she just asked. Why don't forgive? Yeah. It's almost like a crime against humanity. [snorts] YOU WANT SERENITY. IT'S NOT ENOUGH WHAT YOU HAVE IN THE NEXT WORLD. You want enough in this world. And as a result, what happens? Not only are you not going to have the serenity you want, even that which you have completely will be taken away from you. You'll be deprived of your own most beloved child and everything else that unravels and falls apart in the in the in the in the story. This is a very very difficult thing to digest. What does what's the message here? It's as though the request for serenity is bad. It's criminal. It's evil. It's it's negative. It's narcissistic. It's selfish. And the response of Hashem seems so difficult to comprehend. It's almost like, okay, he's asking for serenity. So maybe God says no. Also difficult to understand. Why not? But it's not. He doesn't say no. He says, "Oh, you want serenity? I'll show you. And what happens when people read this? It sounds like as a result of his asking serenity which is such a bad thing to do. So not virtuous so immoral. This is the punishment and everybody says what's wrong. If your child at any age even if your child was 108 that means you're 115 or whatever 120. Yeah. You know the miser, you know the story. There was a fellow 82. He comes to the doctor. Doctor checks him out, says, "What's your schedule?" He says, "I'm in the gym two hours every single day. I work in the office." Unbelievable. The doctor says, "I know you have a heart of a 12-year-old." It's amazing. It's amazing. Wow. Some healthy genes in the family. Tell me, till how long did your mother and father live? My mother's still alive. My father's still alive. Really? How old? 97. Wow. Amazing. And what's his schedule? What's your mother's schedule? Yeah, my father exercises. My father runs the marathon. My father still opens the store in the morning. That is absolutely amazing. That's incredible. Wow. These jeans are like mamish mamish. Blessed. What about uh what about uh And he says, "Unfortunately, there's a tragedy and that is that my mother uh my mother uh my mother died and uh my father is going to remarry. He's going to remarry." Wow. How old is the woman? She's 94. So uh the says, "That's amazing, but does it make sense for him to get married at such an old age?" He says he doesn't want to, but his mother tells him he has to do it. [laughter] I forgot it in the middle. So, so if your if your if your child if your child came to you, the child may be an old man and says, "Ma, I want serenity." If your child came to you today, think about it. Mom, I'm looking for serenity. I'm looking for tranquility. This is a parent's dream to be able to provide their children with calmness, with tranquility, with Yeshua, with vayv. That's like basics. any father, any mother, if they're just somewhat healthy and functional and and decent and human, that's what you want to give your children. Shalva, people work so hard to be able to provide serenity for their children. I don't have to emphasize it in this room. In fact, some of you made a promise to yourselves that the shva you may have not received in your own life or in your own marriage or in your own youth. You want to make sure that your children are not subjected to that. People make so many sacrifices just to be able to give shalva to their children. And yet here the response seems so anti not only anticlimactic but so difficult to digest BECAUSE IT'S NOT ENOUGH. It's not enough. Wow. Terrible. And that's why I told you I began that many people who learn these types of madrashim feel that deep down God is out to get them. Really people have told this to me God is out to get me. He's really out to get me. This and then this and then this and then this. Look and look at this medish. And what's my crime? My crime is I was looking for a little happiness. I wanted to relax. I'm a little older. I want to calm down. I don't want to be stressed. It's like as though he hates me. If I'm crushed, everything is perfect. If I'm happy, everything is imperfect. And people sometimes look at life's problems. I don't have to tell you how much suffering there is in the world. And sometimes people on an individual level, on collective level, and it seems to confirm to confirm all this. And this is a difficult task. This is a difficult challenge because it lives inside of us. And we need to have a lot of empathy, a lot of compassion for that part that feels that way and experience his life that way. It's important to be able to have compassion for this. And yet in this class, Berm, I hope I could be I hope and pray I could be a channel. We want to be able to look at it maybe a little differently without taking away the need for having compassion for every emotion and experience that people have, but to be able to go a little deeper. And what I'm going to share with you is something I heard 40 years ago. It was a few months after my bitzvah. My bitzvah was in 1985. I'm still a baby as you can see, a little older than I was, but younger than I will be. That's not unusual. That's [snorts] not my line. And uh this was Shabas Parishes Vesv. That would be the end of 1985. So I was 13 years old, 13 and a half years old. I grew up in Brooklyn at the feet of the labba and Shabas ves Shabas he would have a faban very often. most Shabbas not every shabas but most and I still remember this fab in this gathering the rebb had shab at the end of 85 and uh in the middle of that fab and the rebba addressed this rashi in this medish and the name vayv at length and uh he gave an insight then that I still remember I could in my mind's eye I can see the reb and hear his word saying it I didn't remember all the details from then I went back to look at the transcript but certain key phrases I recall very vividly and it has helped me a lot in certain difficult moments in my life. This has given me a tremendous perspective and inspiration and empowerment. Really when we look at Rashi and Medish there's already a clue that there's something missing in our understanding. And what's the clue? The clue is if you notice Rashi and the medish make this blanket statement that who is the one who asks for serenity? Not everybody. Who does it say? Who asks for serenity? Sadikim. Sadikim. Interesting. Doesn't everybody want a calm life? Do you know somebody who says I would love to have the craziest most insane? I mean yeah maybe you have a few fine and I wonder why they even ask for that. You know what type of trauma they're dealing with? This is a regular request. Here it says sadikim ask for it. So this is something that's something unique for sadikim which makes the question even stronger. So all the sadikim are doing the wrong thing. Like sadikim are basically doing the wrong thing and God is upset at them. So why don't the sadikim decide to stop doing it? They're called sadikim. Sadikim by definition means amazing people, good people, holy people, righteous people. And all the sadikim are doing exactly the same sin asking for for shala. And God is like, "Oh my god, what's a you like in Mahaba? You have an amazing smoggis board, amazing vianese table. You can't even imagine what I prepared." And you know supper here in this world no way. And yet they're called sadikim. So you'll say, "Well, maybe they're in other areas sadik." But it's a funny thing that all the sadikim keep on making this mistake. God is very upset at them. Why are you calling them sadikim? Or why don't the sadikim learn their lesson at some point? What do we see from said that we have to understand it differently? This is not a bad thing. This is things that sadikim do. In other words, this is a quest of a sadic. And that's why they continue to have this quest. But then the question is even stronger. So give it to them. Provide it. Why are you getting upset and you're making it as though it's a sin and it's a crime and you have to be punished for it? It's like it's not enough what you have there. IT'S LIKE SO NARCISSISTIC. You have there so much and you want EVEN HERE. NO WAY. WHAT'S WRONG? Why can't people have it good here, have it good there? crash just because tomorrow is going to be good today has to be miserable. It seems like a very unjust experience. Why would you want to do that to some level? Let me give you good today and good tomorrow. You want your kids to be happy tomorrow and happy today. Happy and this is your so people could say we don't understand. Okay, we don't understand. God is beyond fine but there's a statement. He's saying something. If he's saying something and the kazal are communicating it, obviously they want us to learn something from it. They're not just saying, "Okay, they're suffering. We don't understand." He's responding to their request. But instead of maybe reading it with a question mark, it actually has to be written written in a completely it has to be read in a completely different way. So the Reb's reading of this rashi was the exact opposite. Mama is the exact opposite. It's a very very I have to tell you it's a very intense explanation. It's a very emotional explanation and but as you'll see it's really captures the essence of what's happening here. It's not easy to understand. It's not easy to digest because it really touches on some of the deepest chords of our emotional relationship with life and with our loved ones. But it really shows us an underlying truth that is sometimes easy to ignore or maybe not to know and sometimes hard to know. Let's read the words again invading it. Yakov wanted to live in tranquility. So what happened? The exact opposite. THE PAIN OF YSEF JUMPED ON HIM and destroyed everything. It's like I want one thing. And what happens? The exact opposite. AND THEN GOD SAYS LIKE, "WHO ASKED YOU TO WANT THIS? THIS IS NOT WHAT YOU SHOULD WANT. AND THEREFORE, I'M giving you the exact opposite as a punishment. But maybe it has to be read completely different. Yakov wanted to live in tranquility. And therefore, and therefore and therefore because he wanted tranquility, therefore Therefore, the pain of Ysef emerged because he wanted to live in truly. What does that mean? It's not a rejection of his request. It's the fulfillment of his request. You're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. That doesn't look like tranquility to me. So, what does Hashem say? Hashem says, Sadikim want tranquility in this world. So Hashem says it's not enough what's prepared for them in the next world. They want also in this world. So everybody reads it with a question mark like it's not enough that you want it there. YOU WANT IT HERE. NO WAY. HERE YOU'RE GOING TO BE MISERABLE. So no read it without it's not a question mark. It's a explanation. Sadikim don't only want Shala in Mahaba. They want it also in Haza. It's not enough for them to have serenity in the next world. That's why they're sadikim because they're sadikim. They don't only want serenity in the next world. THEY WANT IN THIS WORLD. OH, if that's what they want, if that's what they want, therefore the whole story with happens. So the reading is the exact opposite. You understand? I'm soon going to explain what that means. But you understand how the change is. It's not Yakov wanted sha so therefore something happened in the opposite way. You could sit here. You could sit. It's not so therefore the opposite occurs in spite of him. And God says this is a wrong thing for it's the opposite. Therefore, and Hashem explains want not only that they have they WANT it's not a it's not a criticism. It's a compliment. It's extolling them. It's glorifying them. It's not enough that they want shva there, they want shala here. That's their beauty. That's their holiness. That's their greatness. And as a result of that is One second. What does this mean? The sha, the serenity that Yakov is looking for is something that's similar to Haba. That's what Hashem says. You want Haba here. What type of shva is that? What type of shva is the sha of Alam Haba? You see, there's two types of serenity in the world. There's a serenity where everything looks good on the outside. Everything looks good. I'm sitting on the couch. I'm sipping a coffee, an iced coffee in this weather, a hot coffee, hopefully outside of the window, you could almost see the cold with your eyes. You could see it. You could see how the trees are cold. You could feel it. But you're in the house bar. have heat and you're sipping your coffee and everything looks serene and tranquil. That's one type of shalva. And then there's even a better shalva when the weather changes. Even better, then you can get out of the ca up on the couch and walk outside and climb up khaki at park or go on another hike and enjoy the weather and enjoy the outside etc. There's a better shva. It would equal salva. The bills are paid. big thing. There's physical comfort. A person is physically healthy. One cannot underestimate the power of the shva. But when we speak about the shva of alamhaba, the surren of haba, it's something much different. You're talking about shala in the deepest core of the self. The challenge is what does real shala mean? Maybe my physical self is tranquil, but sometimes there's so many cover-ups in my life. there's so many blockages in my life. Real serenity is not just the weather is good, the bills are paid, but an internal calmness of the soul. That means you experience bliss at your core. You feel how much you're loved. You feel deep, deep self-love. Your internal critic is calm. There's an inner sense of intimacy with your soul, with your loved ones, with the world, with Hashem. You living in a space of complete internal safety and security. Not just physically which is very very important but emotionally spiritually it's like a negula consciousness. The real serenity is not only on the outside that helps but people can have serenity on the outside but internally there's a war. How many of us people look at their lives and say wow she has a perfect life. I wish I can have her life. And you think to yourself, if only people knew anything about what's happening, what's happening in the bedroom, what's happening with my children, what's happening in my marriage, what's happening in myself, what's happening in this aspect, what's happening in that aspect. People look and say, "Wow, wow, Zo, wow, God, why them, not me?" But the truth is we know really nothing about anybody unless what they share. And even what they share sometimes doesn't allow us to know because sometimes people themselves don't even know everything even if they want to share. So there's two types of shva. There's a shalva on the surface level. You know just relax it up leave me alone. But we know at the surface things could be calm. What do they say? Still waters run deep. And sometimes at the surface it's calm, but deep down it's anything but. Real shalva. I can't re forge. I can't replicate. I can't brand it. I can't can't enter item that I sell in Starbucks or even in Costco or Home Depot. Real shala. What do they say? You can buy a house, you can't buy a home. You can buy a clock, you can't buy time. You can buy acquaintances, you can't buy love. You can buy information, you can't buy wisdom. Shalva, where do I buy it? Where do I buy it? I can have every toy in the world. I can go on every vacation in the world and it's beautiful. But the torture inside the soul that I can't buy, I can't purchase. That's a very, very deep state of regulation, of safety. It's a space in which you feel an internal intimacy with Hashem that you're loved, celebrated at your core. Your relationship is not transactional. It's not for a certain deal what I'm going to get from you and you're going to get from me. There's a space of inner inner calm and stability that touches you. And it's not something you can even describe in words. It's something that one can only experience in their bones and in their nervous system. And that's why it's even hard to talk about it in words because when we talk about it in words, we only really desecrate it because words just give definitions and descriptions. Ideas you could convey in words. But the real experience of something, you could talk about it, but it doesn't come to the experience because the experience is something very very internal. This is not something that many people ever get in life. This is a different type of shalva. We strive to the first shva because that we feel we could control. I'll work hard and I'll build my company. I'll work hard and I'll make my money. I'll work hard and I'll gain my success. I'll work hard and I'll buy my dream house and I'll have a pool and a jacuzzi and a all the systems. Maybe even a schvitz and a tennis court and I'll grow my own basil and my own tomatoes and my own cucumbers. I could work on my marriage. I can work. I could work. I can try to give my kids beautiful times and beautiful shabas tables and and it's very important that that's what people do. And it's not a negative thing at all. try to climb the mountain of success. Every community based on what they define success or that's what people try to do. And some people are more successful, some people are less successful. But then sometimes when you come to the top of the mountain only, you know that the shalva, the real shala is still eluding me. It's a different type of shalva. And I can't fake it. I can get up on stage. I could speak in front of 10,000 people. I can have 3 million viewers on a YouTube video. It's nice. It's beautiful. Well, it doesn't have to do with this shva. This is a shva that's irreplaceable. It's not a sha that you can get from the outside. Even if 7 billion people adore you. Even if you're rich more than kak. Even if you buy for yourself every single toy, which is amazing and beautiful and it feels good and it's nice and everybody should have all the toys in the world and every all other blessings in the world, but there's an inner inner sha. That's what is haba doesn't just mean the next world where there's a paradise. There's no crisis. You don't owe anything on your mortgage. You have all the bedrooms you need. Things are fine. Your husband mak this one. Things are normal and good and there's no Kaneka stress and whatever. You don't have to go to any Kaneka parties. Maybe that's true. I don't know. I'm just joking. Khan parties are beautiful. Just as long as we go easy on the lotus and the donuts. What we haba even says haba doesn't mean it's in the future. Haba doesn't mean it's not here. is a state of consciousness, right? It says about the hab is a state of consciousness. It says when walked in to get the blessings of what did smell the smell of ganed. How do you smell the smell of ganed? Because haba is something that's here right now. It's a state of consciousness that's going to be manifested for everybody because when the soul leaves the body, there's there can't be any blockages anymore. So it's like everything is clear. So you have the full experience of what life is at its core. In this world there's so many distractions. I don't even know who I am, what I am, why I'm here, what belongs to me, what doesn't belong to me. This is aim. We get mixed up. We're entangled and imshed with so many different stuff. We have a body and an animal consciousness and it becomes very confusing and have so many cravings and so many anxieties and this thing is stressing me out and that one is stressing me out. that sadic always wants to live with alam haba not even as a reward because I want my cheerios or I want my chocolate danish but that's the craving of I want to be in the most authentic space of realness every moment I want to live in this consciousness of haba what's haba place called a place of truth what does truth mean there's no blockages nothing mamish nothing now think let's think about this what would it feel like if [snorts] I could show up to the world. If you show up to the world without any blockage about your life, all the truth about you is completely revealed. How comfortable would you be? Huh? You wouldn't. Okay. [laughter] Ah. Yeah. In other words, it's a complete that's that's why they crave. They crave the am because it means I am so worked out with my stuff that everything can be transparent and I celebrate it. Now, it doesn't mean I didn't make mistakes. It doesn't mean I don't have to apologize. On the contrary, I made mistakes and I apologize and I'm accountable and I have remorse and I fix it and then I say now it's time to let go and go in to my inner divinity. And that's what it means. I once heard from one of my teachers he said there was a bach yeshiva student and he went in for he went in for a private audience to the labba and uh the reb asked him a question about his life and he answered. So the Reb said, "These four cubits are a place of truth." So please go out, remove the garments of lies, and when you're ready, come back in and we'll continue talking. And in life, we we can appreciate what that means. A real sadic lives in dollar am is truth. It's truth. It's authenticity. I don't live what the Tanya calls the snake of the skinish. I'm sorry. Snake skins. You know from that snake I could live in snake skin. Snake skin could be nice. You know that. Very nice. Ems, you're a designer. Snake skin could be nice. Just don't get into a fight with them. Take it when they're dead. Also the serpentine gate is very sophisticated. You ever saw the serpentine gate? They don't walk a very very like interesting but their bite can be venomous. So sometimes a serpentine sophisticated gate with [snorts] decorated skin and even colorful skin could be venomous. That's called of soadikim looking for the shva of alamaba means the greatest shalva is the truth. Truth is the deepest form of serenity. But not only truth you say the truth is sometimes painful. It's true the truth is sometimes painful but the real real truth is to be able even to get beyond the pain of the truth and to come to the bliss of the truth the love of the truth the essence of the truth. Hashem is described. We say in now is not from the words is then but the added the word em that's from another what's the idea what's the truth of this that real shala means that the world may see it or not see it but internally you know what that means it's a dialogue we spoke last week the dialogue of the self with the self remain means alone. It's not on YouTube. It's not on social media. Nobody sees it. There's nobody there. It's alone in the middle of the night. YOUR OWN SPOUSE IS not even there. Everybody was on the other side of the river. And that's when Yakov needs to battle with only one person, himself, Ishima. And he goes through the name change from Yakov to Israel. And that's when Yakov gets to this new name. This is a different shala. This is the real real serenity. The bal the once told his son on a Jew you have to look the way he or she is experienced in God's primordial thought when Hashem thought of conceiving them which means like this I want to ask you a question all of us are here thank God we were conceived by Hashem we're here for a reason every one of us Hashem conceived you in his mind that's called in Kabala his you know when you built something you first plant it in your mind when Hashem conceived you or you or you or me what did he see what did he see in you when Hashem conceived you in his mind the first moment before your creation in a physical body what did he see in you so the alterba said when you look at somebody you have to be able to see that and that means yet when you look at yourself you have to be able to see that can you see yourself the way you were conceived in God's mind when he conceived this woman, this person, this soul, what did he see in you? And how does that match your perception of yourself today? And how much is there a gulf between those two perceptions? This is what it means to really see somebody. To really see somebody means to see them in their greatness. To see them not just you believe that they're great. It's actually seeing something in them that is infinitely powerful. [snorts] But the only way I could see this in you or in anybody is if I could see it in myself. I don't think there's anybody who can see their children if they never saw themselves. We try so hard to see our children. But it's not anybody's fault. I simply don't know how. I'm not It's not like I'm not trying to like somebody gave me a metaphor actually yesterday. He gave me a wonderful metaphor. He said, you know, a father wants to give a huge amount of money to his children. and he loves his children and he's a wealthy guy or at least they think he's wealthy. So he gives them a check and he gives each child a check for a million dollars. Beautiful. They go home. They're so excited. Two boys, everybody got a check from. Not so bad to get to their check from your father for a million dollars, Em. Okay. [snorts] And they go and what do they do? They cash the check. You know what the problem is? There's no money in the account. In the account, it says $4. So, one guy gets $2 and the other guy gets $2. Now, here's the response of the two kids. Different responses. One response is my father aan a shakan, a dysfunctional narcissist. He has to torture me mish till the end. He has to make me think he's good. Such a low life. He goes to his therapist that day and for an hour pays for a double session because he needs to talk about his father. Okay. First he gets a from his that you're allowed to speak about your father in therapy and it's not cuz you need it for because if not you have to call the kadesha to buy you a plot. That's how much resentment you have. And the double session remember double session it cost him 800 bucks. double session and uh for two hours he goes on what a blow selfish whatever I'm not even going to use all the words he used in therapy but you get the point his father is the other guy is also disappointed and he comes home and he tells his wife you know my father he's trying his whole life so hard he's trying he's so kind he wish he wishes he can give us and he lives in delusions and he just lives this fictional life he just never can get it together and like is his last attempt to show us a little love. He gave us this check of a million dollars. You think I didn't know he doesn't have two pennies to his name? But shine he's trying hard and all I can do is have empathy for him. So these are the two children and we all have in ourselves those two children. But do you know what the common denominator of both children is? Nobody got a million dollars. You know why? Because the father didn't have it. We try so hard to give things to our children. The first thing is love. I cannot give any love to my child if I don't really love myself. Not because I don't want to because I don't have the money in the bank. And there'll be two types of children. One child will say, "My father, he didn't know what it means to be there for me even a drop." And the other son will say, "I have to have empathy. Do you know how my father grew up? Do you know what he went through?" Of course, he didn't know. But the common denominator is they both don't have the money. They both don't have the love. Because I cannot see anybody if I don't see myself. Sometimes we fail. We'll fix our problems through our children. If I make you a success story, if you become the blessed giant that you're supposed to be, I'm going to live vicariously off this nas. That's not shala. That's actually subtle, desperate manipulation. It's living off my children's credit card. It's living off a credit card. It's really saying, "God didn't create me. I don't really have it. My child is going to compensate it for me." And you know what? You give your child then? You give your child the feeling that they cannot have it for themselves. They just need to have it for their child. And people do this unconsciously all the time. And not because they're ill, not because they have any ill intentions. They actually have very good intentions. I want to give my kid a million dollars. I would love to give every one of my child a million dollars. If you can give me $7 million, I'll give them each a million dollars. I have no problem. I'll take a little percentage. But if I don't have it, I don't have it. So to see, to really see, to be able to see, I need that inner shva. There's no gift that I can give to somebody that I don't have. You think it's true about money and it's not true about emotions. It's much more true about emotions. If I cannot give you money that I don't have, how in the world am I supposed to give you an emotion that I don't have? When an emotion is so much more abstract, so much deeper, so much more transcendent, so much more divine, so much more spiritual. Of course, I have to have it. I can't give it to you. Where am I going to pick it up in the garbage can and throw it at you? So, the father says, "I love you. I love you. I love you." It's good. It's nice. Today, in our generation, it's a big mitzvah to say, "I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you." previous generation it was like an aa you said I love you and your son is going to become a gangster he's going to become the head of the mafia if you give him too much love he's going to become a narcissistic entitled spoiled brat who's going to go to banks and rob banks you don't tell him I love you and you don't tell him I'm proud of you let him make it and maybe when he's 79 years old you'll tell him not bad today the mitzvah became the opposite I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you and I love you beautiful but you know what the common denominator of both is I can't give it if I don't have it. I could say it and it's nice to say it's much nicer to say I love you than I hate you. It's beautiful words but words is not shala. Words is not not experience. Experience is a different type of relationship with life. It's called embodiment. Now let's face it for some of us who don't have that experience we substitute it with intellect because intellect is a very good substitute. It explains things. It defines things. It measures things. It categorizes things. And it's a beautiful tool. It's a tool. It's not life. You can't eat cake with your brains. Did you ever try to eat cake with your brains? I always try. It doesn't work. Somehow the cheesecake does not go in through my brains. If you want a piece of cake, I'm not suggesting it. But if you do want a piece of cake and without cholesterol, you can't eat it with your brain. You got to EAT IT WITH YOUR taste buds. And then you say, "Ah, if you're going to give yourself a treat of a piece of chocolate today, you can't eat chocolate with your brains." Now I'm talking, right? Chocolate. Finally. You can't eat it with your brains. You need to eat it with your mouth. You can't live life with your brains. It does not work. I tried. It does not work. We live life with experience, with embodiment, with emotion. Emotion is energy in motion. The divine energy in motion. Emotion. Energy in motion. That is emotion. That's called embodied as my spirit is in my in my body. Hashem is with me. So now are looking for the sh of that's pure purity, truth, full presence, no coverups. And that also means working through every last element of shame and guilt and the need to disassociate. It means that I could feel completely safe and secure as though I'm in Hashem's bosom embraced like a infant in its mother's arms as we always talk about in that feeling of trust and safety. You know that at that moment mother and child don't have to communicate through words. You don't have to look at the infant who's 6 months old and say, "So, describe to me in words what you're feeling. There's a reason he has no words or she has no words. You don't need words." And the mother could use words, but it's not relevant. The words are not relevant. So, how does the child know that his mother loves him? They feel it. It's a feeling. Now, you think strangers feel it and our children don't feel it. Our children are the most hyper sensitive to every emotion. You think strangers know what I'm feeling and children or children know what I'm feeling before I know that I'm feeling it. They know your subconscious. By the way, it's cheaper. Instead of going to therapy, just have a conversation with your kids. They'll tell you all your issues and they do it for free and they'll give you a few hours. You don't have to book a double session. They'll sit with you all night and tell you all the mishagasan, all your free. [laughter] But it's easier to hear it from the therapist, right? Because you're paying money. Your children is likeahutzbah. You can even get a triple session. They're so hyper sensitive not only to your conscious emotion, even to your unconscious emotions. So this toddler, this infant experiences it. There's something called experience presence. And there words, you want to use words, fine. You can use a few words. I'm not going to be the one who's going to criticize words because for obvious reasons. Look who's talking about not using words, right? So, uh, I should, you know, be quiet about my criticizing of words. And words are beautiful and they can be eloquent and channels for for for truth, but only if they're channels. Only if they're channels. They say in the name of Breast that the purpose of life is to stop talking and to start singing. Because if I'm giving a speech and you start talking in the middle of my speaking, what is it called? Interruption. But if I'm singing a song and in the middle of my singing, you start singing, what is it called? harmony. So there are people that they're talking through life. They speak their way through life and everybody's interrupting them, especially their spouses. Instead of speaking, there's people who sing life. David says, "I sing through life and then everybody is harmonizing with them." If you're speaking, people interrupt you. If you're singing, everybody's harmonizing with you. The do the the truth is that some people even when they sing they're speaking. And let's hope some people when they speak they're also singing. But the purpose of life is to stop talking and start singing. Because the idea here is that the experience of presence of regulation of shala is not words. It's experiential. It's presence. And a song captures that often much deeper than words. You know that if you ever sing to yourself the niggan of the alterbas can like this right it's the experience it's you feel the experience of life it's not this word or that word explanation so that sadic wants the sha of inhaba you can feel god's love to you that is infinite his bliss in you and you could feel yourself the way you're experiencing hashem's primordial thought and the saddic wants to live with that in this world because that's the only real way to live. I don't want to live with cover-ups. I don't want to live with blockages. I want to live with real real authenticity. I don't want to live with any distraction. I don't want to run from one distraction to another distraction. I want to live in absolute shin absolute presence. That's of what the saddic wants. That's not a bad thing. It's a beautiful thing. That's what a sadic is. Saddic wants to be a channel. A sadic wants to live in the four cubits of Emis. And that's why when he saw Jacob walk in he said this I smell ganed that's what he was looking for that's what he prayed for that's what he craved for so what happens the story of jumps out at him now open your hearts because what really was going on let's understand Jakov settles with his family on the outside everything is nice everything is good but what's happening on the inside on the inside this family has challenges. Of course, we're talking about people on a very high level. We're talking about sadikim, but I'm applying it to our lives and in their lives, it's on a higher level, but the concept is the family is torn apart inside. On the outside, it looks it looks good. There's a nice Shabas table. Ruven finished seven times. Shiman finished yami. Leashiva Yehuda is the biggest tycoon in the whole Middle East. He's a feron. He's a mel. He's doesn't stoping and he's our and is and he made hot and miss he's the biggest in rock lane and in night tri-state area and New Jersey and you should know what he did in Lakewood and Burough Park and Muny and Monroe and Crown Heights. Unbelievable what he did. Unbelievable. And Dal Mish it's a family thehat are all over the place. the call. I'm saying Leia is getting calls 24/7. 24/7. Okay, Dino, whatever. Some people have issues. Fine. But basically, it's a beautiful family. Perfect. Perfect. This is our family. It's the Jewish family. If they weren't perfect, who else is perfect? And yet, inside there was an infection. There was a deep infection. The infection is so deep that however we explain it and there's so many different ways of explaining it, but the brothers were ready to kill their own brother and then throw him into a pit and then sell them into slavery. Until this is not unraveled, you can't have serenity. You can have fake serenity. You can't have real serenity. Sometimes parents want the whole family to get along and it's beautiful, but they're not ready to look at real real dysfunction at real real pain. And I we understand it. We want at the Kaneka party. Everybody should be there. We want at the Everybody should be there. Smiles. Just smile. Hi. It's nice to see you. Drop dead. It's so beautiful TO SEE YOU. WOW. OH, YOU WENT THERE. REALLY? OH, and you bought a house. Amazing. Get me out of this place. I don't know why everybody almost is laughing, but I guess there's one or two people who relate to what I'm talking about. You get my point. Now I understand people who are clueless think everybody else is clueless. There's no healing without honesty. There's no healing without authenticity. It's painful to say. People have been trying thousands of years to play a game. But if there's no real authenticity, if I'm not ready to face meas I can never experience shaize. >> Good question. Good question. Good question. >> Good question. >> Great. We're going to get there. And if I could apply this sometimes to our families, sometimes you look at families, your own family, and you tried so hard and really you tried hard and people tried hard and you're talking about good people. Nothing of this is sinister or in a judgmental way. It's just the way we live and cope and and we think sometimes we're doing the right thing and the family looks so perfect in so many ways and then suddenly you see this thing jumps out on you. You didn't expect it. Suddenly one of your children starts unraveling. I get constantly emails. My son was in yeshiva 17 years old. He was considered the top of the class. My son is 20 years old. He went to Mir every he graduated valadictorian. He was taken this one and that one. He was in Brisk for four years and here for four years and now suddenly he came home and everything's changed. Suddenly unraveling. So you say okay there's a fluke. Something I don't know. I don't know somebody influenced him in Jerusalem. Somebody gave him to drink something in the lafa in the in the schwama. They put something in and then suddenly your daughter starts unraveling. What's now? Who do we blame now? So we blame somebody else and then somebody else starts unraveling. This is it jumps on you. Things start jumping on you. What's happening? What's happening? So people go into different places. Some people go into denial, tremendous denial. That's very very normal. Some people go into tremendous anger. They're just angry, angry, bitter. Some people go into cynicism. They just shut down. They're cynical. They close their heart. It's too much pain. Some people get into negotiations with God. You know, Hashem, I'll dive in for another five minutes. I'll say I'll give if if if. We start negotiating things. We make a deal. The vendor machine. I'll put another few quarters. Send me out some good danishes with sushi. We negotiate. We negotiate. And then something else unravels. And then sometimes something in the marriage appears that people didn't realize or expect or maybe they knew about it but it was dormant and latent. This is what love means. Things jump out on us and you see it constantly happening. You see it constantly happening and it's good people. And a father looks in the mirror, a mother looks in the mirror and says, "What did I do? I understand if I was an abusive, raging, alcoholic, codependent, sinister mom or dad. I understand. But actually, this has been a pretty normal house, nice vacations, a Kaneka vacation, a yeshiva week vacation, a mid-winter vacation, good camps, good summers, good schools. I took them to a thousand therapists from the age of one and a half. Good nutrition. Nutrition. No seed oil. It was good stuff. Good stuff. No sugar, maple syrup instead of sugar. If you needed sugar for the muffin, it was coconut sugar. So, their genes are good. their nutrition is good. They have an amazing mother and incredible father. What's going on here? And it's very easy to go into a blame game or conversely to go into a self-lame game of shame and and and and shutting down. And these are very very normal reactions that people have. And this is what we're learning here. Open your hearts. When you understand what's really happening, this is the response to Yakov's request for Shva. It's because your soul actually wants real shava. And for your soul to experience real shava, we need real healing. And for real healing to happen, things need to unravel so that we can look at them, embrace them, and ask myself the deep question of what is this telling me? Somebody once told me, a very wise woman once told me, she said, "Our children embody for us the fragmented parts of our personality that we never dealt with. The wounded parts of oursel that we never had the courage to look at. Our children suddenly manifest them." It's like the BMP says, "Everything is a mirror." So you're looking at this child and they're mirroring a fear, a lie, a cover up that I never dealt with. It sits in me and there have the courage to manifest it. Wow, what a gift. What an opportunity. Instead of blaming others or even going into blaming myself of how evil and bad I am, which just shuts me down and paralyzes me and usually just comes out as anger or terrible frustration, it's an opportunity for true true healing and transformation. I know in my own family some of my children really put us through the ringer Barakashem and for myself it was in the initially a shock and very very difficult and ultimately I see it as the beginning of a tremendous journey of growth a tremendous journey of healing but there's always one condition you have to let go of what people are going to think about you have to let go of living a life for others as long as we're living a life for others That's the ultimate gem. You know the word for ganim for purgatory and tanak is right said I'm going to go down to the abyss is the same letter as like the word sha you know what sha means a borrower because the worstim is when you borrow somebody else's life. I look at somebody and I'm busy impressing. I'm busy being yer. I need to fit into this box, that box, this family box, this community box. And then I can't be authentic. To be a borrower is because healing is about your own energy. It's about channeling your energy. It's not living off somebody else. I can't live off anybody. I can't live off my children. I can't live off my spouse. We can get support from people. And we all need support. Heaven knows we need support. We all need support. We all need a good hug, and we need a nurturing place where we can be honest. But the energy you need to get from yourself. Hashem created you. He created you to be you, not to be me. Created me to be me. The only way we can go on this journey is when we let go of two things. We let go of expectations and dreams. What our family is supposed to look like. And we let go of the need to please anybody else. As long as I have a dream what my family is supposed to look like, what a Shabbas table is supposed to look like, everything is going to be murderous because you're constantly going to be shattered. It's called living with the moment, living with presence, opening yourself up to the true light that God wants to manifest through each one of your beautiful loved ones and yourself and the people around you with a complete complete sense of openness. And that means I allow the pain to flow through me and then I can also allow the Drew to joy to flow through me. That's number one. I have to get rid of those expectations and also expectations of others. As long as I'm in this orbit of what does she say, what does he think? There's no work here. This is just it's another cover up. Another cover up. It's just what do they call throwing the can further down. What's the expression? >> Yes. So I kick the can down the road. So in the three years something else will unravel. It's like an infection. Somebody has a disease, they tell the doctor, I don't believe in surgery. It's violent. Surgery is violence. We don't believe in violence. We're liberal, wonderful people. The problem is the disease is there. So they start the surgery and there's pain and there's blood and you TELL THE DOCTOR, "SHUT COVER IT UP." What did I do? I just kicked the can down the road for another few years. The same is true emotionally, spiritually. To be able to clean things up, I have to be able to touch the infection. It's not easy. It's vulnerable. There's grief there. There's tears there. But they're not bad tears. They're tears of renewal. They're tears of rejuvenation. They're tears of awareness. They're tears of authenticity. They're tears ultimately of love. And you know what happens when you work through those infections? You know what you're going to see under them? You're going to see how much love you have in your heart. You're going to see how much beauty you have in your heart. You're going to see, of course, I made mistakes. Of course, parts of me were shut down. But why? These were coping mechanisms that people developed to do the best they can with the tools they have to survive and give the million-doll checks to the children, hoping hoping that the check will cash even though my bank account is empty. That's what people hoped. They prayed. They made goodlas and kabalas. They went to the problem wants you to have a million dollars in the bank. He doesn't. He could give you a million dollars. He wants you to have it. But for that, I need to be able to go into my soul. I need to go into my heart. So what happens here is there's the gift. There's opportunity. You're going to see it's true for all of us. When I'm ready to work it through, you see on the other side, you're a good person. You're a beautiful person. Hashem conceived you. He didn't make a mistake. God doesn't make mistakes. He conceived you and he got the wrong one. Like, oh, I got the wrong Sorry, wrong address. [laughter] He conceived you when kazal say every person as I say for me the world was created it means serious that means every person sitting here when you wake up in the morning hashem is saying I want you to believe that the world was created for you really what else what else is because of me is that narcissistic personality disorder it's actually no it's actually reality it means that there's something so beautiful and real about you that the whole world is looking for it so why am I the only one that doesn't feel it Cuz I look at I feel so really I feel like that's the anxiety. I feel dirty. I feel filthy. I feel like a liar. I feel immoral. It's hard. It's we get so entangled in the mesh. This is called kipot. It's the skin snake that entangles us. And I don't even know who I am. So I have all these snake snake skins and I think it's me. My suit may be dirty. This is actually hopefully not dirty but sometimes but I could take it off. But what happens is it gets so confusing. That's the real challenge. People don't really know who they are internally. Maybe intellectually we say it says so it's beautiful. Everybody has a but I'm talking experientially. Can I feel myself in that space? And the truth is we don't always. We go in and out and in and out and in and out. And that's part of the you don't have to be disappointed about that. We have a divine soul. We have an animal soul. We have both. And we live in different frequencies of consciousness. But we need to be able to know how to hold those different frequencies and know that in truth in the deepest place you're beautiful, you're gorgeous, you're sacred, you're whole, you're harmonious, you're divine, you're perfect. EVERYTHING UNRAVELS IN PAR. Everything everything is being destroyed at the surface. Life is coming to an end. Everything a man built 108 years. One purpose to be able to create this nation called Amrol. It's all being destroyed. If the brothers can kill their own brother almost, they were ready to kill him. And if they didn't kill him, they sold him into a slave. What's left? So, we're back to As and then Yehuda leaves and everything else that happens. And then what's the name? The name is Vayesv. You see the name is Vayesv because the Torah is saying the truth. The truth is that real calmness, real serenity doesn't always look like that at the outside. Sometimes you come to two classrooms, one classroom looks perfect. Inside the children are suffering. You come to a home, everything is perfect, clean, a real balabusta. Everything on the outside is impeccable, flawless. a shabas table. Oh my god. 11 courses. When I grew up, there was one dip if you were lucky. There was geila fish, salad, and one dip if you were lucky. Soup, chicken if you were lucky. Was rice. Today, if you don't have nine dips with your salad, they call. They want to know what's wrong with you. Something is wrong with her. Child protection services. Maybe you need therapy. Maybe Shabas, whatever, something. Right. So, I'm just joking. We love the dips as long as they're healthy. Less mayonnaise and less sugar. Less mayonnaise and less sugar. I could go into a Shabas. It's beautiful. Beautiful the dishes and the las and the cutlery and the food. But as the Malik says in Mish, I'd rather eat hard bread with a friend than the most delicious meat with somebody I don't like. Would you rather live in a house that has 14 beautiful bedrooms, stunning home that everybody should have, but the energy in the home is stifled and there's no trust, or to live in one bedroom with a spouse that you love and loves you and there's complete trust and openness? We should have both of course vayv calmness doesn't always look that way. Sometimes things are unraveling. Sometimes things are mummished. There's a ruckus. There's tumultuousness. And that's sometimes the deepest moments of repair because your nervous system is trusting enough that it's going to allow you to see everything. Imagine how much growth there is in that. Think about it. Our nervous system for many years won't allow us to see things because it knows we can't deal with it. So it covers it up. When it knows you're strong enough, confident enough, safe enough, you build capacity. You build capacity. Your caum now could accept the big lights, the of the now your vessels are big and expansive. Of course, you're going to feel much more. And that's where people make a big mistake. They start a journey of growth and healing and transformation. And then things come up that they never came up and like I must be on the wrong path. [snorts] And as they're in the middle of the marathon, they just quit. It makes sense. On the contrary, things came up because you're healing. Things came up because you're looking at them. Things came up because you're going deeper. Things came up because you build capacity. As long as you know you're authentic, you're not here for vengeance. You're not here to make everybody miserable. You're here to bring love, bliss. You know that. Ask yourself. Talk to God. This is real. If you're real, trust it. Trust your soul. Trust your creator. This is part of this is vay. Vayesv is real shva. And real shala means I have to be able to expose my infections, to expose my flaws, to expose my disabilities, my paralysis because that's the only way other things can happen. What happens at the end of the story? Does ever get that? >> Of course. Of course. What happens at the end comes down to Egypt. The whole family is reunited. The whole family almost left. Remember there was a whole story between him and Bilah and he was almost exiled from the family. Shim and Ley killed out. They were almost rejected. Yehuda was rejected and left. Ysef was thrown into prison. Binyammen was almost lost. Look what happened. And what happens at the end? Everybody is together. Everybody. Yo turns to his brothers and says, "Don't be depressed cuz you didn't sell me. God sent me because of what you did. The whole family was saved." You didn't know that. You guys made a mistake. But there was another story happening while you were making your mistake. That means sometimes I'm a victim of crazy dysfunction of somebody else and yet on another level, God was orchestrating everything for me to be able to shine my light. It's not easy to get to this place. But that's what Ysef really embodies in life. Sometimes you think you're being buried and really you're being planted because when you take a seed and you put it under the ground, it looks like you buried it, but really what did you do? You didn't bury it. You planted it. Come back in a few years and you're going to see the beautiful apple tree, the beautiful orange tree, the kiwi tree. You're going to see the cherries, the blueberries, the pomegranates, the citrus, the peaches, the lemons, the peaches, the plums, whatever it is, the sabras. You're going to see this beautiful. Where did it come from? It came from being buried. Yakov lives his last 17 years. The says 17 is the of the best years of were the years init that's holiness is precisely because over there suddenly all the darkness was transformed into light. At that moment there was a serenity of a different type of serenity. It was an immob serenity. It wasn't a serenity where things look good. It was a serenity that came from truth. Everything was worked through. Everybody went through the crucible. Everybody. And they emerged as real people. They emerged as a divine family with differences with different perspectives. Every shva has its own path. But it was deep. It was real. Now somebody asked the galdic a question and that is did Yakov not realize all of this himself? And especially it says Yakov represents truth. How did Yakov himself not realize all of this? And the answer is in serenity itself, there's two states. There's a shva that a person can ask for. And then there's the shva that hashem wants to give you. All the serenity that I can ask for even from the most genuine space is always finite. It's human. It's my imagination. It's my dreams. And our dreams, as deep and beautiful as they are, are finite. But your soul is infinite. So sometimes I ask for one level of serenity and it's true for me. But Hashem says you deserve the ultimate serenity because you're deep down you need infinite serenity. Deep down you need deep down you need the deepest form of wholesomeness. That's a whole different type of shva. Your soul, your saddic, the saddic in you wants real shala, real serenity. But then there's even a deeper serenity. And for that serenity, all the superficiality has to break down in a way that nobody can even understand. And it cracks open the last vestigages of my ego so that it can become a channel. And when you're looking at being cracked open, when life is cracking you open, it's so easy to fall apart. God, what do you want from me? Why you cursing me? So what's the name of the parisha? Vayesv. At this moment, it didn't come yet together. Things did not come together, but you're holding on to something. What are you holding on to? Veshv. Vayeshv means there's a deeper purpose. There's a deeper serenity that's waiting to unfold. There's a deeper love at the other side of the tunnel. It's not just the light at the end of the tunnel. You are the light in middle of the tunnel. And that means ves is I'm holding on to a vision that all the kipas are there and they're strong but I'm working through them. So when I come out on the other side, oh my god, the love that's going to come flowing through this family, the light that's going to come flowing through your family, through you, through your loved ones, through your children, it's going to be infinite. It's going to be so infinite that you couldn't even imagine it in your greatest dream. But it's a different type of shva. It's not the shva form and and and and people I mean whatever realim. Yeah. But it's not the shva for for you know WhatsApp. It's not social media shva. It's shva. It's truth. Nobody has to know it. You'll know it. God knows it. And let's face it, that's more important than anybody else knowing anything. If two if if if the most important thing is to know that God is okay. God is okay with you. He has you. He has this vay and as a result of that it's a person realizing that yeah some of us surrender for a more fake shalva you know what and if it's really working for somebody let's forgive let's forget beautiful it works fine everybody has their own journey nobody needs to judge anybody else in life it's anyway foolish but the saddic inside of you wants a different type of serenity and you're not being punished with this it's actually fulfilling your deepest quest. You're looking for the real shala. So don't shut down. Don't become paralyzed. Don't start feeling guilt and shame. And there's no need to blame yourself for all the mistakes you made, which is just going to make you feel that you're the most horrible person who lived. and don't look at other people, but rather surrender to the infinite path that God has put you on with tremendous, tremendous precision and love. We don't always know how it's going to unfold. We don't have to. In fact, if I would know, it's probably not what I'm looking for because if I know how it unfolds, it's limited to my expectations. And that's not the real shala. This is the sha that's even deeper than yakov shva. That's why it's not even named va yakov. It's vayv. Veshv yakov is what yakov wanted. Veshv is what hashem wants for yakov. Two people fail in life. Those who don't have a plan and those who stick to their plan. It's good to have a plan and then you got to throw out your plan and say what's your plan and really open myself up to it. I was once I remember I was once speaking to a woman and a lot has happened in her family. a lot of problems, you know, some difficult challenging stuff. And uh and I remember what she was telling me was how this one is a problem, that one is a problem, that one is a problem. And she has to deal with all of these crisis that come up. You know, in the amusement parks, they have these games where you have to shoot those things. They pop up and another one pops up. You know what I mean? And you never get them down because another one pops up, another one pops up. So that that was what she was describing. So I told her, you know, I say, I can tell you what I know for myself. Instead of putting out fires everywhere else, just go to the source of all the fires. Your eggs are infected. Why don't you go to the chicken? Go to the hen that laid the eggs. No, no, no, no, no. It's hard to hear. It's hard to hear. It doesn't mean the eggs don't need help. It doesn't mean the eggs don't need help. But the best thing the hen can do at this point is help herself. That's what Hashem told Ara. You want to move, go to you. Go to the places you never went to. Leave. And it's true for all of us. Some people grow up with so many dreams. We have these dreams of in terms of ourselves and our family and our and so many other things, spiritual and physical, and everything is predictable. And then I go into depression. I could become cold-blooded. I could become cynical. I can become completely completely surrendered to negativity, to anxiety. Or I go from distraction to distraction to distraction. Or I could take a deep breath [snorts] and I can embrace this reality and say, "Wow, this is a different type of vayv. It's not the va I expected. It's not even the va that Yakov expected because Yakov is em but it's a human ems. It's a human truth. And here I'm being summoned to go into a place of infinity to go into the divine. It takes me into a completely completely completely different place. It's not an easy journey. It's a journey that's sometimes very very difficult. Whoever experiences this journey knows how deep it is. It's very authentic. This is very authentic things. This is not like sugarcoated with nice words. This work is very deep work. It's experiential. It's real. And you know what makes it so real? Because it's godly and Hashem is real. Whenever you touch God, you're touching something real. It's real. Things that are real are real. They vibrate with realness. Words are not necessarily real. Take it from a speaker. Words can be nice, camouflaged. Hopefully, they're real, but they don't necessarily real. Sometimes the most theatrical presentations and the most beautiful words are that's what they are words. They're nice. People give a standing ovation. They may give a nice check but they're not transformative from within. When you touch realness, you touch realness. And and since today is Utesv, so I'll just conclude with this note and that is that utkis was the day that the alterba the balata whose ter we often learn was liberated from prison. The reason he was thrown into prison was because of uh msro was he was informed that he's destroying the Russian empire and he wants to overthrow the zar. He was sending money to Israel for the poor people. wants to help Turkey overthrow Russia and it was a horrible horrible situation but really what was happening is that in heaven there was the opposition what's called a kit to the revelation of the teachings of the balv and the mag and the balat the teachings ofus and kabad which is the soul of there was a tremendous kit in heaven and the he was liberated 1798 that's 227 years ago became known as rashashid so to speak. Why? Because it was the day that heaven gave the energy, the redemption, the gula that this terra should be revealed. And the reason this terra was revealed just in the last generations of gullis from the time of the bump is literally for this reason. Because as the gullus became stronger, you needed a vayv that can be able to hold you in the tumultuousness of things unraveling. And the gift of the balm of the gift of the maga, the gift of the alterb is the gift of this vayv to be able to know that you're infinite even when you're in the midst of darkness. I don't know if there's a greater gift in life. To say that I shouldn't have darkness. Well, my soul came down into this world. So, my soul wants to h wants to deal with darkness. That's the purpose. It's a nice idealic thing. There shouldn't be darkness. But till Msiah comes, there's darkness. The greatest gift you can give somebody is to be able to know your infinity in the darkness. To be able to know that you were sent into the darkness. You're not the darkness. You could look at it because you're not part of it. That's the gift. That's the gift of That's the gift of the It's the gift to be able to really embody and experience that you weren't punished. You were sent like Ysef. You weren't punished. You weren't sold. Ysef wasn't a bad boy. Ysef wasn't a bad girl. Ysef was sent. Ysef was sent into these places and because he knew who he was, he can go there. He can be present and not fall prey, but rather completely completely transform them. Have a beautiful week. Have a beautiful day and a lot of see you next week. Thank you. >> Thank you for your beautiful question. How was your