Win the battle against your ego

[Music] so everyone at some point in their life if they're approaching Judaism will do some kind of like heavy self nullification I don't know what that is for different people but I know what it was for me and I know what it is for many guys in yeshiva I don't know what girls do exactly maybe they like buy a new wardrobe that totally that that nullifies anyone paying any attention right anyway but there but I myself I remember that the day I took off on my hair and went for the full you know like self nullification but would I not realized was something amazing is on my way home from on my way home from the barber I was on my way to the old city and I realized that I've become totally anonymous no one's paying any attention to me at all like I'm just like I'm like an extra in a film like I'm just not of any consequence whatsoever and no one paid any attention to me I just walked by I mean if I didn't say hi to someone no one was gonna be saying hi back I had a mirror looking at me at all which was the first time I realized after a long period of time that I had been drawing a lot of attention my way and which way which was pretty interesting you could give me a favor and sit like I don't know maybe right in the center of this camera or maybe you just one of you volunteer to sit right maybe that seat back there it's perfect yeah that's good son good oh yeah yeah I just I feel bad that the people watching the live feed are some may be feeling like I'm looking at everyone but them this way every time I look at you I'm looking right at the world now anyway so I realized I'd been drawing a lot of attention toward myself without even knowing and I was unconsciously doing that and I and I didn't realize I had that fringe benefit with my hair and but it was a fringe benefit and the hair is the ego I mean it for men and women and you know something interesting about hair is a couple of interesting things about hair one of them is one of them is that my haircut now is the inverse of might makes right cultures you know the might makes right cultures are are they're generally will shave right here they shave the sides of the head you see like a lot of macho guys old shave over here and leave more hair up here but it's not just that as the Mohawk Indians our warrior tribe hardcore warrior tribe and then their hairs up here shaped on the sides the UH mamama Indians of the Amazon forest are also what yeah Roman style the the yamomamo Indians also just intuitively like that's the haircut you might have seen in National Geographic looks like a mushroom they have really fine straight hair just kind of mushrooms up and they shave around the side and they but you noticed also an athlete since you know aggressive sports they'll often shave on the sides and leave here on the top and the Nazis also shaved on the sides and it's there's something about it that's aggressive and it's hard to understand exactly but it's aggressive and aggressive means ego because because my my ego wants what it wants which is basically recognition and significance and and power and and I and I will be aggressive if someone messes with that power and you know that's the place that people will most likely be aggressive is if they're if their powers being at all as being at all what's the word I'm looking for compromised by another and and so those are games men play I imagine women play similar games with the power but I don't know what it is exactly but it's probably also related to hair in somewhere no now the Torah prohibits certain hair cut some men one of those is to cut the beard that's that's one of them men do get away with loopholes using like electric shavers where the blade doesn't actually touch the skin so it's like you know that I mean these are like what God's really saying is have a beard you know he's saying don't cut these areas you know he's he's saying have a beard and and it's very interesting that he says have a beard because because do you realize that if there's a man and a couple your own father or brother or someone close to your grandfather if they don't have a beard you realize that you have no idea of what they look like I mean you don't know what God gave them as a face this you don't know what their faces and hear you've been relating this person who's pretty close to you for many years and you have no idea what they look like you don't know the face God gave them there's no way to know that when and that gets really interesting when you start to realize that we all relate to each other based on our looks at least in certain to a certain respect we are relating to one another based on our looks yet we've all been relating to people that we don't know what they look like we have no idea what they look like we all we're seeing is just some some adulterated version of a girl's face because they've shaved off their and they've left the girls face cuz women thank God don't grow facial hair at least till they're really old and hopefully deal with it unless you live in my courtyard in Jerusalem where you just become the bearded old lady and the anyway but they the so so who are you really relating to and when when someone's got their their face you know altered by my hair removal and it's so accepted it's it's very strange how it is considered an accepted norm to not have facial hair which is like God gave you I mean even identical twins apparently I've heard don't have like they could have everything the same including the hair on the head but their beards could come out totally different like one guy's got this like big split down the middle and you know he's got what they're flying over his shoulders when he walks this side and that side and the other guy's got this like totally squared off thing going on and then I mean they could have totally different beards identical twins and because the beard is unique and specific too and they were great Kabbalists who who used to speak on beards so they they could actually read your your I mean they could read faces in general but beards were telling a lot of information and it's and why men get beards and women don't is because the the beard is drawing down the mind to the heart which is a difficult thing for men men men are are less likely to connect emotionally with thoughts than women are women it's not a long trip between thinking something and crying about it you know you can think it it's the tears will come quickly men doesn't come so quickly unless they're trained I'm trained if I if I think it and it said I will be crying quickly but it took me years to do that I was a he-man you know like surfer guy like you know karate man bruise on the inside and I was not going to cry over anything and I didn't cry for years and eventually realized that that was affecting my happiness because happy people cry a lot and it's if you're gonna be a happy person you got to be you got to learn to cry cuz the valve it's a valve called emotion and the same valve for joy is the same valve for sad and so and so if you can't have it both ways you can't lock down your sadness and expect the joy you have to be able to express both and then you have full use of your emotional system now women's hair is also very interesting in one thing is that men don't realize like you men don't realize that who are in this class that women notice that you check them out because and the reason is because you checked you out way before you way before you know you realized it was on the radar okay women have they have a an instinctual awareness and they and if you check them out you're so busted and and because you don't even know they notice except women give a little clue that that they've been checked out and the women cannot help from doing this it's a it's a trick that a lot of men don't know about but you can always tell if a woman knows you checked her out and the answer is that they will touch their hair and they cannot stop themselves from doing it again stop themselves on doing the second the second you check out a woman she will touch her hair by the way your mitzvahs not to be checking out women as the Taurus says yeah men are not to be checking out women as the Taurus says lo tattoo no sir I say LaVon I mean it'll machetes any much for him don't stray after your heart and after your eyes now if you're just trying to get around town and your eyes you know just in your own navigation can't help but notice people and including people the opposite gender okay you know as rabbi north Weinberg's that solve the previous regime of a shatori used to say that the first look is free because you're just trying to get around town but the second look now you're gonna pay yeah because we because the tour command does commands us not to be you know having our eyes stray after our desires toward commands that and so so we've got to work on that in fact the Kabbalists teach us that there's an angel in each eyelid and it is its job is to locate its job is to locate women for men and and you could see you could be walking out a busy street and and like a block and a half two blocks away in the you know the mix of Manhattan or whatever it is there could be just one woman way down that you'll see her that's the one you'll see and and there's two angels that are there to direct you to them to that focal point and they're good angels they're actually good angels yeah yeah they're there I mean they're kind of neutral it's hard to say whether they're good or bad but but they direct the man's eyes to find her and and the and then what happens when he finds her is he now averts his eyes from there and when he averts his eyes from there to fulfill that commandment of not straying after one's eyes when he averts his eyes there's a window of prayer that opens and he can ask for anything he wants in that moment most men blow this you know most men most men no window hey the window open but it was closed as soon as he looked again because this job is not to looking at and so it's an actual prayer moment and why because he's his sight his showing of strength showing of strength the raising of the soul strength over the bodies base desire that show of strength that's called strength by the way in Judaism because a Zugibe or who's the strong man the one who has control over himself so if he's able to control these urges he is considered strong and when he shows that valor he shows that strength it opens up a prayer window and he can now answer for something very specific and now this doesn't work if you just go out to do this you're not supposed to just go out to do this this all reminds me of a really funny story and the funny story was that we were at Asia tour here in Asia tour and at the poram party where men are drinking wildly and dancing and and there was a women's section up above it's our current base majors our current study hall there's a women's section up above where it say about a balcony and the women look down from there but all the good your Shiva boys are dancing away in a big circle dancing around dance it's like a mosh pit of like 1015 drunk thick and and just cruising around the mosh pit the whole time with a live band and and but what happens after a couple rounds the you know these guys they can't help but just they take a little peek up to the balcony which you know and when they do they see there's a big sign that none of the women can see they're all at this balcony with a guard rail you know like a you know a glass guardrail there with what do you call that it's tinted yeah I'd say what is it in a nice glass it's kind of green and frosted glass yeah it's not transparent it's translucent and and the frost glass - the big sign there that says the first looks free so if you watch the guys dancing around you would see them crack up yeah you just see a guy start laughing all of a sudden cuz he saw the sign that said the first looks free but here's the funny part that's not the funny part even though Aviva thinks it's the funny part but it even thinks every parts the funny part so so no no the event the funny parts coming so so the so it turns out that underneath that sign that you could never have seen at full dance mode underneath that time was another sign hanging under it that says now you're gonna pay you could only really see it if you looked back another you know after another 10 rounds around the mosh pit you know you finally it got the better of you and you looked up and it says now you're gonna pay and that's still not the funny part there was any even finer print little sign underneath that one that said now you're going to hell which is just for fun obviously in Judaism I know Christian's taking hell really seriously Judaism we tells just something to make jokes about no it's not that we don't believe that everyone's gonna pay for every thought speech in action of their lives but but we have it'll first of all a little easier in that we have Yom Kippur every year so we do get a factory reset every year which is obviously fabulous addition to being Jewish and you know of course the the one day you do not want to die is the day before Yom Kippur and ideally the best day to die of the entire year would be the day after Yom Kippur but but you do get it that doesn't mean like you know where I hate Arab t-shirt in the Arab quarter let's don't we do that on the day after Yom Kippur because that's suicide and you know not not an option anyway but the but we do get a factory reset every year and and no we do believe in it we do believe in it but we use it more for a joke so anyway the fine print was now you're going to hell so you would see people really crack up when they would go around the circle and notice the fine fine print of that third sign now you can laugh at these oh I didn't know you could do that on command that was good okay now that's I didn't realize I could just ask you to laugh and you do it yes that's what I meant on command okay anyway but women do touch their hair now now you'll notice that the ego of women is also the hair one example is is and when I say the ego what is the ego of a woman what is her power so the power it's interesting the power for men is usually if you look in history it usually a stir with property I mean also has to do with with conquering a female but but it's an s2 it's mostly pretty and it has to do with security and meaning amassing wealth so you're more secure you're more virile you know you could outlast things by having you know savings and you know the a lot of external signs of showing showing a materialist success these are all signs of male power for females they also have different versions of their power but one of their most important methods of power is power over men power over men which obviously has kosher and non kosher expressions it does kosher nun culture expressions you know the non kosher expressions is where is where they're there they're you know whatever just trying to you know they're making up you know this whole male hierarchy you know packed and what's called the patriarchy you know that whole patriarchy you know identity politics garbage stuff that's the non rectified parts but there is a there is a more rectified power that women have and that is that is there their ability to guide their husband and and also not just to guide their husband but to maintain their husband's attention because men are by nature polygamous whether you like it or not it's not very nice but by nature they're polygamists their conquerors and they move on to their next kill that's the way men work and the and so when a man makes that great sacrifice of all women in the world to his wife the wife is empowered obviously because she has won the contest she has beat out you know three and a half billion women you know in the you know it's no small things and something to be proud of you know she has won the one the race of three and a half billion women and that's a small victory but she cannot rest on her laurels because the nature of men she has to conquer him constantly and just to conquer him wisely wisely because if she tries to conquer him jealously art or you know harshly so what's that gonna do what does the man say if his wife's overly jealous and overly overly expresses jealousy of his interaction let's say at work or in any other professional place why that was so well said in your Guatemalan accent learned another one well no they're not gonna necessarily get divorce but but may but what men often do if their wives are overly jealous in their conquering that they someone told me that rhyme what was the rhyme what was it if you pay for the crime if you've paid that if you if you do the time you might as well do the crime something like that no but in this particular case the man will say like he's spending all his time behind bars of his jealous wife so he's like might as well do the crime if I'm already doing the time you understand so so if women don't realize how badly it can backfire to be jealous really not good and especially for a man who's good you know but we have to work on that so if a man shows the wife then there's bigger issues they need help quickly yeah they need help quickly and they need intervention the woman's jealous of the of the husband as long as he's you know as long as he's in the clear mean he's got to speak to his own mentor make sure he's being appropriate but it as long as he's being appropriate then then you know she needs to you know work on something sometimes there was an abandonment had many cases where you know where the nothing bigger than her parents went in when putting hypnosis she got down to like two and a half years old her parents went away for three weeks and she only found this outlet this only was was confirmed later by her own parents that the that their parents went overseas they would have come back but there were over citizen and the babysitter except explaining to him that she's too young to understand that I keep telling I keep telling you her she's they'll be back in three weeks you know you just gotta they'll be back in ten days but the kid wasn't old enough to to process that and so the kid just spent she slept by the front door she wouldn't sleep anywhere else she spent we should come home from playgroup and just sit by the front door played by the front door she just kept waiting and she finally give up she finally gave up never and she was never the same meaning after her I don't know into the third week she was done she was done then she mourned warned them and then they came home but it was over yeah and so now she's married for like decades and and the husband can't make a move without getting the third degree you understand like I finally told the husband like listen something strange happened on the airplane with some lady who like went schizo and like had to be removed from the plane if you're gonna tell that story when you get home for Shabbos make it a man just make it and tell the story about a man that went schizo just change I mean that's how bad it so like just change the gender and and he did and it's been a lot better here there are no females in the world for this family you know for this husband you know every gender is shifted for their interactions so that he's not triggering maybe wasn't man maybe they maybe really was a schizo man pretty good anyway so that's another form of power another form of ego and and what's interesting is how that that shows up so powerfully in the hair and you'll notice that a lot on in like commercials how in commercials you'll see for example uh now by the way I haven't seen a commercial on the television God knows when but but I do recall that a commercial might be it might be difficult to tell if it was a car commercial or a shampoo commercial I mean in the end it was for a Corvette or something you know it was for something like man car you know but but there was some woman you know like moving her hair around a lot on the sitting on the hood you know for the whole car commercial and it's like I mean can you be any more like explicit and base about this you know the marketing of this car but it was definitely about her hair it wasn't just the woman it was her hair was being featured majorly and her hair was like in every kind of possible position throughout the commercial there yeah Oh meaning to me to get back some ego with this yay so he's bringing up when observant women wear wigs that they're they're often fancy or maybe even nicer than their own hair I mean that's what happens if if a woman's hair isn't the softest hair in the world but there's money there so why not spend 3 grand and suddenly have the softest hair in the world and the and so that certainly happens a lot and yes what about it yeah yeah I don't know we should discuss wigs so much here you know before someone starts throwing darts you know the it's an interesting thing the whole wig thing I think this is one of the things you can trust Bali Chu BOGO meaning people raise non-observant they develop that when they become observant they develop certain sensitivities to things and they and they one of the things they're most incredulous about the word incredulous a fancy word of saying that they just don't understand like they just don't get it is wigs like if a Bali chievous don't understand what why women decided to cover their hair with more hair why are they cutting their hair with more hair that is yeah you'd agree like that strange any other but people weren't raised observant here you're right you weren't raised observant way that a little strange they would cover their hair with more hair don't know no big deal for you why what their real hair yeah maybe they're just gonna keep on the fake hair what [Music] we're just discussing whether covering hair with hair is strange business you raised observant okay anyway it is a little strange I personally I personally so far i've married off two daughters and both of them are wearing these these things on their head that look a lot like someone's hair and that is yeah I can't even say the word and anyway but well for me it was hard because because I was very excited to have graduated this little tiny kid that I held into an adult married woman like that was my excitement like that oh my gosh what a what a victory like - especially in 2019 - take a take a kid a baby and in mature her all the way to full responsibility at aura home you know I go that's I can't think of anything that's a bigger challenge or a bigger mazelTov if you do it like a bigger victory everyone who said Mazel Tov to me that night if I didn't take the Mazel Tov it's like Mazel Tov on the marriage I took the miles of typhus Mazel Tov I'm pulling off the ultimate feat the ultimate you know incredible challenge that you that you pulled this off and by the way I have a lot of friends who became observant at the same time as I did who made all the commitments I did and they're very there kids are all over the map meaning they're very far from being able to have these weddings happen at such time you know such timely fan I don't know who's responsible for that is that my wife is it me is it both of us it's a community we live in is it the hussy do the Hasidic group were part of like I don't know how we did it I really don't know how we did it cuz you know I'm basically a meshuggeneh and but maybe yeah but I make a kiddush like I'm what you're gonna do and maybe that kid issue was like you know daddy takes Mitzvah seriously you know and they saw me shaking my you know my cosmic vegetation every circus and and my suka holds a hundred people and you know I take I take these mitzvahs all the ways I don't know if that was because I know other people who did that and kids are far from marriage able anyway so here I was having this victory so Hera is having this victory and I wanted that they she shouldn't still look like a bara you know the buffer I she shouldn't still look like a like a sink a buffer as a Hebrew for a single girl I kept her all that the wedding happens and she looks like a single girl only in fancier clothing and and nicer hair it's like what about this is clearly a married woman here where's the victory and you know if I want to see the victory I don't want to just you were probably raised observant you guys tell a twig a mile away she has such depends depends depends you can you tell them that way I think different pit you can tell I think what happens is it depends there's two personality types ones who noticed details and others notice how do you say the gestalt that's the right I'm a meson saying I'm not seeing like what's real what's not on the detail level okay that's a French word means insane Nissan sin I probably can't use that I love of words from because I'm a public speaker but that one's gonna fall flat on a lot of people I think I never heard in my life with me sun-sin what you say it's probably a good English I didn't hear which already asked twice it and asked a third time hair you go so so in power and that's kind of our discussion for today so oh yeah so that's the last point I want to make on this subject is is something very interesting and and the question is and here's I'm gonna ask you all a trick questions I'm already letting you know it's a trick here's the trick question duh according to Judaism does a married woman have to cover her hair now obviously it's a trick question because everyone you know was an observant Jewish woman it has Herrera covered so clearly you know whether she wants to or not it's covered cuz obviously Judaism what would you say says you have to cover your hair yes or no for sure 100% that was the trick question no no they don't have to cover their hair and what's the proof the proof is is that you can go to weddings not every wedding but most wedding lots of weddings go to wedding and here's a woman who's been married and everyone's watched it there could be two three four five hundred witnesses well no she's married now and she the rings on the finger the Hope has ended the glass has been broken that me they've already been in the in the private room together and now she dances the night away for the next several hours with her hair uncovered with her hair you know her natural hair is she married her she's not married which one 100% married hair uncovered well when's the next time you see her if you're family let's say right the next day hair covered or uncovered covered now you don't have to all yell this out at once but what do you think happened between the time that they left the wedding hall and the chevre broca's please don't say it out loud something took place without giving it any detail so something took place and that thing that took place has now made it such that her obligation is now to cover her hair from now now why would it what does that have to do with the price of eggs what's the connection what is the connection so so to paint this picture I have to bring it back a few years and back a few years I mean that in two ways one is to take you back to you know let's say 50 years ago more actually yeah 50 years ago when girls got married at much younger ages but if you go back 200 years ago they got married at much younger ages because 200 years ago and still in some primitive countries like Iran the their girls still get married at 12 years old but in the rest of the world girls got married at 12 years old including the Ashkenazic world and the spartak world and Jewish Gentile didn't matter you got girls got married at 12 34 years old because to be a woman is a vulnerable thing and the obligation of the father is to take very good care of his daughter and the way he takes best care of her is to make sure you put her in good hands so as a wife to someone and that's why you dish the word for a son-in-law is a deem ad what's the word ad mean in other word to aid any witness or testimony a do tis testimony so a son-in-law and you dish is called a deem because that son-in-law is testimony that the father took care of his daughter he didn't throw her to the wolves but rather he made sure that she got married and took two and did you know diligent he was diligent with his daughter and made sure that she went straight from his house straight to his house from his house to his house and and so that's why the son-in-law is called a testimony and and so the the twelve-year-old girl or the 30 note fortunate girl however you old she was or young she was lived in a world that was always directed and led by men whether it was the father of the house or the king of the province or the prince or the or the President or the the rabbi of the community or the clergy it was always meant it's always men male male-dominated hierarchies is very very normal now it's often dangerous obviously because hierarchies can shift quickly from a hierarchy of of competence which is what you we wanted like you want hierarchies of competence you're getting surgery you want the most confident it's urgent right you like hierarchies of confidence what you don't like is hierarchies of power and and sadly many hierarchies of competence devolve into our kiss of power very quickly and and that happens everywhere I mean for example even in yeshivas when in Russia Shiva passes away it will often devolve into hierarchies of power left over after the great competent leader moves on to the next world so that this happens natural and it happens in most countries as well our case of hierarchies of the power and obviously that's why Trump is so scary because you know he does want to get rehired as the president but that second term could be pretty freaky because his whatever competence he's shown which I'm not sure because I'm not into politics whatever competence he's shown in the first four years could devolve quickly for a man with his character so that's like I mean we're all every Jewish person is happy he likes Jews but uh twenty how quickly could that shift you know that guy is like he's like a time bomb you know like he's you can't tell he's here today and gone tomorrow so there's no way to predict him so so it's not so simple a second term with a guy like that anyway but back to that is is that hierarchies were generally male-dominated and so if you're in 12 year old girl or a 14 year old girl a 13 year old girl and you've watched the you've moved to so for the last 12 13 14 years in the power of men it's only in that the night of the wedding that she realizes her power you know she realizes that that this man she married has been reduced to a snoring blob and it is like good for nothing now like he's like utterly useless you know and not to mention I'll probably not wake up very well either the next day and and anyway she suddenly realized that he was actually in power subtly in power but she realizes her power and power is power is the is the scourge of spirituality you can't have them both happen its power and spirituality don't go together if you're in a place of power you're gonna have to let go of your connection to God ultimately because because God's the power God is the batter this is why it's so important in speaking of devolving hierarch is it's so important that that one of the things that keeps hierarchies from devolving is that leaders have something above them this was the danger and you see the great danger of atheistic hierarchies like what happened in Germany or what happened in in Russia was there was no one above them and when no one's above them so then they couldn't then the power comes and then if no one's above you man you're the powerful person and you're the power of a person watch out you know because this is no longer about competence but it's about wielding power and and you could very likely and is most likely that the greater the greater skill sets are happening by others why because you're one person in power where you could have millions if not a billion people under you that are breeding grounds for skills and competence and so you can't help but hey there's nothing above me so I'm the top and so I'm gonna start killing people who are threats to me and which is we've seen that have in the last century you know and in some of its worst waste yeah yeah I don't want to comment on the church but the whatever whatever insecurities were going on over there such that they needed to be kind of forced themselves on the world around them it's also it's not so clear with the church because the church was married into a an expansionist society in Europe the the nature of Noah's son Yaphet the oldest son who ultimately becomes if you follow his bloodline it goes straight to Europe and in the word japhet doesn't just mean external beauty which is very telling as well because Europeans Westerners are very externality or into them compared to Semites which are the word Shem means meaning meaning orientation and they're much more meaning oriented whereas yo-yo fie a phase Noah son Yaphet is is external it's gonna be externally oriented but the word Yaphet actually also means expand and Noah's blessing to you fit was that he should expand but dwell in the tents of Shem meaning expand you're gonna be expansionist you're gonna be imperialists but you must do well ultimately in the tent of Shem because if Shem means meaning if you don't have values if you're if your tent isn't dwelling in the values of of semi Semites are interested in value systems in right so that Semites westerners aren't that interested but comes along the church marries expansionist so so you're gonna have an expansionist church and that's exactly what happened with the with the was it called when the church went out yeah that's a Michener's but what was it called a nothing quiz Isham but the crusades the crusades is is you know it's it's a marriage of europeans expansionism with with kind of a godly you know whatever and and not to mention the fact that it's it's more man-made obviously Christianity's a more of a man-made thing and as long as jews are around you're gonna feel a little insecure because they know every christian believes that the torah is divine it's not me and me every Christian knows that it's part of their it's part of their belief structure hence so it's important to them that there are no Jews because if they're Jews that means that the old book is the new book meaning the old books the real book you can't also have Jews around because then that's a fulfillment of the eternal covenant to the Jewish people that we will be the Jewish people will be an eternal nation and so that was a major issue to the Christians and having Jews around was a deep concern for them now they tried to play around with that now it's thousands of years later and we're still here you know we're it's like whack-a-mole you know you can't get rid of us you know that game in front of shopping centers where the mole keeps coming up you have to hit it with a mallet you know Jews are like whack-a-mole you know we we just keep popping up everywhere because the Torah promised that we would we would be here now [Music] anyway but that night she realizes her power and that from that then on she must cover her hair and two as a and that covering of the hair is a humbling so that she can have a relationship with God because power in the hand our in the heart of the human being is incompatible with a relationship with God and and we're not going to have every married woman be cut off from God they're raising our children and if we want our children to have any relation with God it's our wives that are gonna make sure that happens but how our wives gonna have it when they realize that they're actually the power behind everything right behind every great man is a surprised woman that was a joke behind every great man is a great woman and she's really behind there in a big way you know behind the scenes but running the show anyway so today was was all about hair we actually did an entire class about her shallow me room