You’re Not a Grasshopper; You’re an Angel

so today's class is dedicated in the loving memory of rahul bastrop shmuel labe halevi horowitz throughout her short time in this world she was able to inspire her husband her children and countless others to feel hashem's love in their lives and to serve hashem with deep and profound joy and simcha to hate and may her joy remain an eternal source of light and inspiration to the entire family and to all of you to all of us thank you very much so there was once an insecure comedian who got up to do a stand-up presentation and he basically began this way he said did you ever hear the joke about the insecure comedian and his response was it's okay you probably wouldn't have would have not liked it anyway in particular we deal with what is perhaps the single greatest collective failure of leadership in the whole torah let's remember the context the jewish people have finally been liberated from egypt they have managed to cross the sea they have defeated their egyptian foes they're on their way to the homeland not without some terrible stumbling blocks and failures in the interim there was the debacle of the golden calf the creation of the golden calf even before that they were um ambushed and attacked by amalek after that there was a national mourning for aaron's two sons who died on the great day of the inauguration of the sanctuary still after all of these setbacks the jewish people are on the cusp of entering at last the promised land but there is one more thing to do they have heard about this legendary country from their grandparents who have heard about it from their grandparents who have heard about it from their grandparents maisha painted a vivid picture for them of this country as a land flowing with milk and honey a place that they can call home after centuries of slavery subjugation and wandering a place that will ultimately provide that feeling of home sweet home all that's left to do is to enter it to conquer it to settle it but first they need to gather some intelligence what is the topography of the land what are the people like what are its weaknesses what are its vulnerabilities what is the best way to enter enter the spies the scouts the miragulum 12 of the jewish nation's most prestigious and prominent leaders men of distinction men of intelligence men of integrity the terror has brief but potent words to use when it describes them the twelve men that moshe shows were all men and what it means they were all men as they were all you know you say the man the the man of the hour the man of the home they were men they were they were governors they were people of prominence of of depth of integrity of character of prestige rashi says los angeles it denotes significance prominence renown and if you had a doubt about that the terror makes sure to say rasheed banay israel hema each one of them was considered a head obviously using that as a metaphor each one of them was considered the head is the leader of the organism the brain is the father the mother the mentor the guide each of them was a brain in the sense of each of them was a guide a mentor a leader they go they come back and it's a disaster they start with the positive as they return they start off on a positive note and they tell moisha and iron and the jewish people we came to the land to which you sent us indeed it flows with milk and honey and here we have displayed we have brought brac back it's beautiful elegant delicious fruits then comes the dreaded however right you know the however what some people call but right you make the call and you hear all the beautiful things and then there is a butt you don't hang up before the butt or the however well they also insert a however and however is quite dreaded they say however the people who dwell in the land the land is beautiful land has amazing fruits but the people who dwell in the land are mighty the cities are fortified and very large and powerful true kalaev one of the spies tries to divert his fellow spies from the negative conclusions but it's too late the people have lost heart and the spies deliver a disappearing verdict and the despairing verdict is we are not able we cannot go up against the people because they are simply stronger more powerful than we are eretz yeah this is a land that devours its inhabitants meaning there's no way we will survive there if we try to dwell there we will be obliterated they won't be and then they give the dramatic conclusion and just to understand the structure the story of the spies is recorded in two chapters of humish bamidbar parikh ud gimmel and perek udalid numbers chapter 13 and chapter 14. the conclusion chapter 13 describes the mission and the spies coming back and their report and that concludes chapter 30. chapter 14 begins what happens next what happens to the people after their report so how does chapter 13 begin the end the the last pasik and you have it in your source sheets this is their conclusion over there in the land of kanan we saw nephilim are giants extraordinarily great large mighty people the sons of someone called anak minhan philip they are descendants from giants they're not only giants themselves it's in their genes in our eyes we seemed like grasshoppers and so we were in their eyes so they're saying two things we appear to ourselves as grass operas when we experienced ourselves in the presence of these giants we felt like grasshoppers and it's also how they experienced us that's how we seem to them we appear to them but i am this concludes chapter 13. what happens in chapter 14 is chaos ensues the people lose hope they wail sob and weep throughout the night the promise of entering the holy land has been taken from them it's been stolen from them national hysteria breaks out they feel depleted they feel deprived they feel gypped they feel that they have no future and indeed they don't enter the land as the story continues throughout chapter 14 only their children the next generation will enter the promised land together with the leader yahushua joshua was one of the spies for the generation led by the spies they indeed remain in the desert this is just the context of the story now i don't know if there's anyone in jewish history who hasn't had a take on this story of the spies it's one of the most analyzed stories of failure not only in homicide and it's not hard to understand why because the unfathomable dimensions of it are very apparent how could such distinguished leaders chosen by none other than maestro beno himself the loyal shepherd of the jewish people who knew his people and certainly knew the leaders who he has chosen to take care of the people how can they fail so spectacularly i don't know if those two words go together but that's exactly the point how do you fail so spectacularly but today i want to focus on one fascinating interpretation in madrish the matter zooms in from the whole story the madrid zooms in on one small detail of their tragic monologue it's easy not to give it much attention just to gloss over it but the medras somehow sees in these words a key what you call today key words season it a key aspect of the story and probably it's because these words you can call them maybe the nail in the coffin there was a coffin but then there's the nail in the coffin the final words that close their speech and seal their fate so it's not a coincidence that the terror puts these words at the conclusion of peric at gimbal chapter 13 after which we learn of how the nation responded how the nation broke out and sobbing how the nation lamented and cried so therefore the madrid sees these words not just as important but vital vital to the story how do the miragum conclude their report obviously they feel that we can't go in we'll all be killed the men the women the children everybody will be killed there's just no hope this is a dreaded plan this is a strategy that makes no sense it's futile it's not going to happen it's simply we should stay in the desert or find somewhere else to live but what are their last words their last words their final words and anybody who knows anything about communication and presentation whether in writing or verbal you know that the way you end is extremely important it's like the landing of a plane you know taking off is important and the flight is important but landing is a special skill you probably have been on different airplanes and you know there's pilots who land in this pilot there's pilots who land you have to know how to take off you have to know how to fly and you have to know how to end you have to know how to land i was once i was once at an event and an emcee is introduced somebody was in humor and he says this speaker doesn't need an introduction he needs an ending so sometimes you need an sometimes you need an ending but you also have to know how to end the gemara says in brackets when it comes to breakfast it all follows the punch line the kitum what were the final seals like the seal the end the kasima the signature the signature words what were the signature words with which they signed off and the answer is we seemed like grasshoppers to ourselves and so we appeared in their eyes comes the madrish and makes a comment that is both fascinating and peculiar take a look madris tanhuma parsha slach perekyud gimmel this is madhushtankhuma it's also in madrid so it's in more than one space in madrid i quoted madrid because there's a few extra words that clarify it even more let's read umru the spy said in our eyes we were like grasshoppers hashem responds and he says i tolerated that remark i was mavata i could forgo that remark even though i don't like it but i can tolerate the remark in our own eyes we were like grasshoppers on but when they said and so we were in their eyes ah now that was hurtful now i was aggrieved it's a fascinating madrish there's two things two statements they're saying first they talk about themselves we felt like grasshoppers in the presence of such uh powerful cities powerful inhabitants mighty people fortified fortified cities and towns and villages giants i felt like a grasshopper i felt tiny i felt mediocre i felt small vitarti i didn't like it but i was mavata i could forego it i can overlook it but we're really hurt with really pain me is when i heard them say that and that's how we appeared to them that's how we were in their eyes and he continues did you actually know how they looked at you did you know how they perceive you you're concluding here that they looked at us and we felt like grasshoppers they looked at us and they certainly said hey look at those grasshoppers says the message god said hashem said did you know what i made you in their eyes do you actually did you ever get feedback did you ever hear from them how they saw you me yo yes maybe i made you seem like angels in their eyes who told you that they didn't see you as malachim that you came to this dramatic and devastating conclusion that they saw you as grasshoppers that's the end of the madrish so the madrid as always we often said that the madrid is like harmony to a song the pasik tells the story and the madrid fills in the gaps that give us the full resonance of the story so the madrid is saying the spy spoke their words had power and potency hashem so to speak responds to them the matter describes you know what do these words mean from hashem's perspective and here he says the first half of the statement knew i didn't like it but knew as we say nunu the second half of the statement was very difficult to bear who how do you know they didn't look at you as angels now let's try to understand what the madris is saying here when the sages when the ghazal read this passage they felt this disparity between the first half of their statement the second half of their statement obviously hashem doesn't say anything in humash doesn't speak to the spies later in chapter 14 hashem will speak to moshe rabbenu and tell maisha that the jews don't want to go in territory so they won't go in territorial they will remain in the desert for forty years and the next generation will enter into the land okay the rambam writes the rama called the guide to the perplexed and the rambam explains that actually the 40 years of the desert it was not your typical punishment or penalty but it was actually a natural consequence because he says if we were to put it in contemporary words whether you believe you can or you believe you can't you're probably right so if the jewish people really felt they can't they really could not and indeed it would have been a catastrophe and he says they needed to uh build their own esteem and even explain because they were slaves for so many years they cultivated a slave mentality they didn't feel the dignity that they can really deal with the challenge and he says their children who grew up in a desert and iran says when you live outdoors you know you have these outdoor camps it's very good for teenagers when you live outdoors and you have to deal with the weather and the climate and all of the situations when you don't have that natural protection indoors you uh you know you learn about yourself and you learn about your strengths you learn about your weaknesses and you become a much more powerful person so that's how the rambam's explains the 40 years of the young generation growing up and being raised in the desert allowed them to finally see themselves as a nation and enter into the land and settle it so that's what hashem will tell moshe in the next chapter but obviously our sages heard in these words something and they saw a disparity between the two statements to explain to us that this was hashem's feedback now you may ask why is the first part forgivable even if it was a mistake and the second part unforgivable when i say that i feel like a grasshopper hashem says you're wrong but i can tolerate it but when i say that the inhabitants of the land see me as a grasshopper hashem this causes me so much heartache what's the difference is so important to life and so vital to life and it's probably one of the reasons that the madrish point out this distinction even though you would think maida what happened happened whatever hashem's response was in order to teach us about these two perspectives it's obviously not good to consider yourself a grasshopper a hagaf not a good thing but hashem says vitarti i was mavata why because it can have its advantages it can also have terrible disadvantages but it can have its advantages people sometimes are more successful when they doubt themselves when they have a good dosage of humility there's a fascinating teaching of the gemara and massachusetts your third source of base amid base calm attracted yuma 22 page omer 22b yehuda marshmal review huda said in the name of his master of his teacher why did the kingship of the house of shoal not continue on to succeeding generations showel himself was the king and after shoal was killed or died killed himself during the war with the philistines the malchus did not continue why how you boy deufy not the answer you would expect you would say oh he sinned no you know why because he had no flaws la haya by sundayfi he had no blemish his ancestory was unblemished he came from impeccable lineage the foreign quite intense words you appoint a leader over the community a pioneers of the zebra only you'll forgive me i'm translating if he has a box full of creeping insects or creeping rodents hanging behind him what we call in english today he has skeletons in the closet why that would seem strange explains your love so that if he becomes arrogant if he becomes haughty we say to him just look behind your back look what's hanging down your back a kupaso stratson in other words it helps for humility for perspective rashi says shawl had no uh no blemish no floor mishpache nothing in his family and ancestry was anything but impeccable visgo al-yasra so the kings who would come from his descendants would become arrogant they would become haughty they would feel superior to all of the jewish people and that's very dangerous for a king because power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely a king in the ancient world had such profound power without a profound uh counterbalance dosage of humility of perspective of integrity this king could be dangerous aval david ooh the ancestory was not impeccable when somebody didn't like what avraham said he would say are you jewish who is the baba ah ruse i saw the moabites can't come into the jewish people in fact the gemara the mishnah says in your vomits 76 that doing shoals great advisor told show you want to know if david is worthy of kingship why don't you find out first if he's worthy of even marrying a jewish woman because he comes from the moabites from russ what did this do he said this was very good he says that's why shoals kingship can't continue david malik's kingship could continue that's what the gemara tells us in yumadaf base these are powerful words it means that the greatest danger to leadership is horiness the key factor why scholes kingship could not continue is because there can be a sense of arrogance of horniness when the leader loses his or her simplicity their vulnerability their humanness when you start taking yourself too seriously when you can't laugh at yourself any longer you lose that sense of humor about yourself you can become uh you know you start believing what everybody you start believing too much about yourself it could become dangerous what does this really mean what it means is that humility isn't about denying your strengths but humility is about being honest about your weaknesses it's very different people sometimes mistake humility as denying your strengths that's not the humility if somebody is tall and they say oh i'm humble i'm really short somebody's very wise they say no i'm a fool that's not humility that's i don't know stupidity if it's daytime and i say no it's night time it's not humility humility doesn't mean denying somebody's strength when it says maisha was the humblest person on earth it doesn't mean that maesha did not know that he was chosen by the rebel initial islam to be the greatest prophet who ever lived he didn't know it he didn't know that he was chosen nobody else was chosen to lead them out of egypt hashem could have chosen many others he chose him humility always means how i see my greatness how i see my talents how i see my resources they don't get to my head i understand they're a gift much understood if somebody else would have had those skills or strengths or resources or gifts he may have or she may have succeeded even more than him one of the things we learn on the powerful and moving journey called life it's that you know the sign of a truly successful individual or at least one of the signs of a truly successful individual is their humility their ability to be vulnerable one of the great uh therapists of the last generation or student of freud his name was carol jung and carl jung once said i will only change others to the to the degree that i am ready to be changed it is such a profound truth about life i will only change others to the degree that i am ready to be changed it's so true with education it's true with parenting it's true with all forms of leadership i want to change you i want to change him i want to change her i want to change my sons my daughters my daughters-in-law my sons-in-law my grandchildren i want to change i want to change of course my husband wants to change their spouse this one wants to change their mother-in-law he says all beauty all beautiful visions but i can only change others to the degree that i am ready to be changed and feeling that i'm incomplete feeling that i have so much room to grow can motivate a person it leads a person to to scale great heights of success now you have to be very careful with this because sometimes this can be misconstrued as a verdict of self-loathing and self-shame and self-hate and endless and infinite guilt that depletes people from their energy and doesn't allow them to go anywhere and do anything that's why hashem is not happy about the words of the spies and as jews especially we have to be careful because we have a nature to be self-critical and we scrutinize ourselves sometimes too much self-scrutiny is wonderful but self-scrutiny that's excessive you know to make a hajj banana fish in the month of elul is a wonderful thing to make a hajj every single moment of your life can become extremely paralyzing a person has to take when you have a business once in a while you have to stop take a breath retreat and examine the whole picture but if you do it every single moment of the day the business won't be able to generate any revenue so sometimes people become too tough on themselves and jewish guilt and jewish self-loathing are an age-old tradition and therefore to say that i feel like a grasshopper is incorrect it's what i mean it's incorrect as it can have very negative results it's excessive but if you're making that self-assessment with a healthy mindset towards motivation and honesty and growth hashem says no maybe it can be redeemed when you could forgive something it means maybe maybe we could redeem it i had a great great grandfather he was a hustler his name was rob geshenber so when he would go to sleep at night almost every single night he would say the same thing in yiddish he would say morgan duffman ufstain god tomorrow i should wake up as a completely different person that's a type of humility that motivates growth so there is a healthy mindset there it can lead to a positive place they say that there was once a person a jew came to the balsham he was a spiritually accomplished man he had a big mind he was a talmud he was a scholar and he also held himself in grand esteem that a nice way of saying it edgar halton he he didn't think that he was a grasshopper let's put it that way he came to the balchemtev and he asked him if he could give him a path through which he'll be able to have guillory o he'll be able to perceive and see elijah the prophet there were unique souls throughout jewish history who had that extraordinary privilege of having the revelation of elio anovi in their lives so the balshemptiv gave him instructions for 10 years over the next 10 years this is how you should live this is how you should behave in order to be able to achieve this and the man was a disciplined person he dedicated himself to this work for a decade he worked on himself he refined his character he liberated himself from negative qualities dispositions emotions he cleansed himself from all corruption and he prepared himself for the revelation for the grand revelation of elio anovi elijah the prophet after in ten years of intense spiritual labor nothing happened elio elijah did not appear at his front door the man was devastated you know 10 years 10 years of avoid the 10 years of work he returns to the malshemativ broken shattered in pieces sobbing he tells the balsham ten years down the drain 10 years of my life squandered i've worked in vain volume all was futile all was vanity i spent my days in prayer and in study and in meditation and in fasting and introspection i accomplished nothing it was all a heavel villaric garnishment garners as your grandmother would say bopkus f zero no and the mosham have looked at him and says i disagree you accomplished a lot he said what did i accomplish what did i accomplish he says you have accomplished over the last 10 years the most difficult task of all you have become a humble human being it gave him perspective sometimes that can be deeper than guillermo because guillermo is i'm giving my own interpretation now guillermo didn't say this guillermo as elio reveals himself it's amazing humility allows you to reveal yourself to yourself and the revelation of your own self of yehidisha benefish of the core of your neshama could even be sometimes deeper so when the miraglum come and say no i feel small i feel like a grasshopper in the presence of such power of such greatness it's not good but hashem says it can be salvageable i can tolerate it i can deal with it you know what if it motivates me not to stop working not to stop climbing not to stop working on myself shine sometimes if the means bring to positive ends okay we can salvage the statement this sentiment is feeling but then comes the second half of the statement and so we were in their eyes when my self perception causes me to engage in mind reading now i'm busy reading your mind i know exactly how you see me now i'm projecting my assumptions onto others now i have entered disastrous territory why because while my own image of myself can sometimes be a bit excessive in humility some people are excessive and arrogant and some people are excessive in humility again it can have a meaningful outcome you have to be careful that's why god doesn't just say oh i love when you feel like a grasshopper no you have to be careful because again fake humility dramatic humility excessive humility can be extremely destructive for a person's life but if the result is i don't go into a depression the result is i continue to climb as the russians say pajamas when i begin imagining that everyone around me thinks that i'm a grasshopper i'm an imposter i'm a horrible person i'm despicable i'm unworthy i'm a charlatan i'm a liar i'm a thug i'm a shmatter i'm worthless i'm valueless i'm inconsequential and i know it's for sure i see it i see i feel it i hear the kind i i even i almost hear the conversations i hear right before i came in i feel it all over the place now i'm a mind reader i'm a soul reader now i have ruach i have now i become completely paralyzed by an action when i'm convinced that everybody sees me as a nobody it's a recipe for disaster on every level physical visceral emotional psychological spiritual in my individual life and if i'm a leader if i'm a father if i'm a mother if i'm a teacher if i'm a leader and everyone is a leader in their own in their own corner everyone is a leader there's nobody in the world who's not a leader everyone is a leader it could be to my own family it could be to my own corner my own orbit it's a disaster not just in my life but also in the life of the people around me because if you have an exaggerated modest appraisal of yourself okay so we can work on it it's one thing if i keep my ego in check a little too much so i'm always striving for more i want to remain grounded i want to remain vulnerable i want to remain humane again there can be very powerful advantages to that i want to remain a team player i don't want i don't want to get out of whack fine so you know it's probably better than the other extreme when i have a narcissistic inflated hordi ego and i i can't deal with criticism i can't deal with anybody having a different opinion i can't deal with seeing another perspective it's a beautiful expression in jewish philosophy cherish critique because it will it will uh embolden you to reach great heights now we have to understand what critique means critique doesn't mean just plain criticism we shouldn't give people criticism we're talking about feedback that allows a person to hear truth and grows but when the worm of doubt has so infected my psyche that basically i see it now reflected in everybody i see it in everybody's eyes and everybody's faces i feel it in everybody's heart and everybody's attitudes and everybody's dispositions i'm constantly looking over my shoulder consciously or unconsciously deliberately or non-deliberately with reflection or instinctively now what happens i'm terrified to state an opinion i'm terrified to share my truth i'm terrified to make any real positive changes in the world this is a fatal flaw what i find so meaningful about this madrish is something that we have basically discovered now one of the most exciting things about tyra is the madrid says that when hashem created the world he used a blueprint just like when a contractor builds a home i don't know if you ever had to deal with that but a good contra a good contractor uses the blueprint of the architect and a good contractor won't deviate he won't say you know when you ask him why is the bathroom here oh it made sense sure oh i couldn't pull the wires there i pulled the wires here right you know those contractors but the real contractor uses the blueprint hopefully the architect knew what he was doing or she was doing and they made plans perfect plans impeccable plans and the contractor now uses the blueprint to execute and implement so the madrashrab in the beginning of viresh and the zoya ask a question what would the blueprints that the reboiner shalom use to build the world now it's an interesting question if he's god he probably doesn't need blueprints but apparently everything that's built needs blueprints why because if there's a problem you have to go back to the blueprints you always have to go back to the blueprints because the blueprints have everything in them the blueprints give perspective the blueprints are the backdrop from which everything was formed and created so the medrash answers the torah the zoya says was tackled he like looked into the titan he created the universe and the madrid tutorial is called difterroyas or pinkasaurus literally blueprints that the architect draws and the contractor employs to build the world in this case the architect and the contractor were the same that's why it only took six days rather than in your house 16 years you know the story about the jew right he ordered this most beautiful silk fabric and he came to a jewish tailor and he said make me this most elegant suit in the world that should blow everybody away he said no problem give me four weeks comes back four weeks it's not ready it's a complicated job i need two months two it's not ready seven months after seven months the suit is ready the jew is not happy he comes dresses just gets dressed tries it on it's beautiful creme de la creme but he says i don't understand you even god's world how long did it take him to create the world six days and a suit seven months and the tailor looks at me and says how do you compare look at my suit perfect look at the world meshuggah chaos nobody knows if they're coming or going israel can't figure out how to have a government for more than a few weeks look at the little crazy world how do you compare me it took seven months but what's this idea that trying to say something he looked in the toyota and he created the world what's this and if he didn't look same one who made the toyota made the world there's a very profound message here the profound message here is that there's nothing in the world that doesn't have its origin and terror and if you really want to understand the soul of it if you really want to go back to the to the drawing boards pun intended if you really want to trace every reality back to its source in the terror you could see the progenitor the seed the prototype the backdrop for the universe and you could see it from a holistic perspective just like in a blueprint you see it from a holistic perspective i can't see the whole universe in one shot i don't have the bird's eye view so it allows you both to see the true meaning of every individual item in the home but also to be able to get the picture a bird's eye view of the full picture it also means the other way that there's nothing in turtle that doesn't have application and is not manifested somewhere in life somewhere in the world and that's one of the very profound truths when a person learns terror especially when you delve in to the neshama to the depth to the enemies to the core of tara one of the things and here is a classic i'm saying this because here's a classic example for this today there's a word that goes around a lot but it's often misused it's called trauma we've all heard the word i don't know if a few years ago anybody even knew what it means just like ptsd was coined in our own generation as a result of soldiers coming back from vietnam trauma is a recently common term certainly in the vocabulary of the masses but sometimes it's misused actually in very inappropriate ways somebody says i'm traumatized because the taxi did not come i'm traumatized because i'm late to the bar mitzvah i'm late to the wedding i'm traumatized i missed my flight i said you're not traumatized you're annoyed you're annoyed i get it i've missed many flights it's annoying it's frustrating i didn't only miss flight flights get delayed flights get cancelled i've spent many a day in laguardia airport because my soul has many sparks there to elevate and sublimate for whatever reason i get it it's important i'm saying this because it's important to know what real trauma is real trauma is something else real trauma doesn't mean i'm living in brooklyn and my car was towed it's annoying they make you schlep a whole day and you feel like a real shemata but with all due respect to people who have endured that and i'm one of them i've learned my lesson i live in muncie it's one of the lessons i learned [Laughter] i remember the day i moved here i grew up in brooklyn you know there's no parking anywhere so two days after i moved in my wife called me and she said you go to a supermarket and there's parking that was like wow with all due respect to all of those all of us brooklynites who have gotten ticket after ticket after ticket and i once met a fellow of a friend of mine and i saw him park at an event in brooklyn it was a hasanah and he parked at the fire hydrant i said what are you doing you're going to get a ticket he says yeah it's part of the budget for me for me paying a hundred and seventy five dollars is worth the menu fish that i don't have to circle 40 minutes people yeah you pay your lawyer much more money for 45 minutes right you pay him six hundred dollars might you pay your therapist sometimes more says my serenity is worth the money for the ticket i need a place to park that's it i hear you you know you start thinking when you live in brooklyn you start thinking certain ways or you join hatsala that's another option [Laughter] however all of these things can be annoying and frustrating the cleaning lady didn't show up yes very annoying aggravating sometimes painfully aggravating because you're making a shower brokers tonight and tomorrow night you have another event that you're making fine but it shouldn't be confused with what trauma is maybe we need a different word because what trauma really is trauma is murder drama is spiritual murder the posix says and parshas ki said say that when somebody abducts a woman and violates her the terrorist says kashayakum when you take a person and you murder them the terrorist said the traitor makes this comparison not me the only place to tell you to compare something to murder was when somebody took a woman the woman was married and he abducted her and he violated her the terror compares it to murder he didn't murder the woman traitor somehow compares it to murder this means murder happens on different levels does khalilah physical murder there's another type of murder murder is when i steal somebody's eye when i steal your soul i steal your identity we know today that children especially children have been through certain experiences of physical sexual abuse i'm talking about real real experiences of abuse when i say real we don't know exactly what real means because there can be so many different responses in a person's psyche based on how their family for example if somebody has been really hurt by their father in terrible terrible ways but they had a mother that they can speak to and they received a lot of love and a lot of comfort so as best of undercoat says real trauma is about the isolation of it it didn't just happen i'm alone and it reaffirms my aloneness in the world it reaffirms that i have nobody in the world and if i have nobody in the world i don't want to blame my father so i blame myself i must be such a despicable person i must be such a despicable person and that's why i feel so horrible about myself and that's why i'm so self-conscious and that's why i can't trust myself and that's why i'm so queasy and that's why i'm so weird nobody helped a child you couldn't it was pre-verbal nobody helped the child identify we're the real source of their inadequacies coming it's not because you are bad it's because somebody murdered you somebody literally did something and it stole your identity from you and you don't exist anymore and it's one of the most tragic experiences because people who don't know about this really don't know about this they sometimes mock from this language you know i get some feedback on my classes oh you with your traumas you have trauma so you're busy talking about trauma so if somebody doesn't know about this i always say allah and you know baruch hashem you should never know about this but somebody who knows about this knows you know that there was a young man who once told me he was molested for many years as a youngster and he told me that you have to understand this is years ago he told me that if somebody would have taken a gun and murdered me i would have been murdered once today i'm murdered every single day for me to get out of bed in the morning takes so much courage i have to literally fight every neuron in my brain to tell myself there's a reason i can get out of bed now other people don't understand what happened what happened what happened because different people react in different ways some people have had support some people didn't have to be lonely some people have different dispositions but sometimes what happens is a person's identity is stolen from them and you're a four-year-old kid you're a six-year-old child you didn't even develop never mind if you're a three-year-old and even if you're an 11 year old there's also situations that the brain shuts down the memory the brain it's too painful to look at so my brain says it never happened because the brain is trying to protect me our brains are amazing so the entire memory is only on a subconscious level consciously i don't know about it so now i'm feeling forgive me i'm feeling creepy i'm feeling weird i'm feeling strange i don't know the truth that somebody did something to me that stole my eye so what do i say i'm a really really weird weird person and i start believing it and then if i believe it of course everybody believes it because everybody sees the truth so now what happens i'm not just a grasshopper everybody knows that i'm a grasshopper i can't ask anybody of her favor me dirty creepy filthy weird abnormal meshuggen itself i should ask you for a favor i'm not going to even have an opinion i have to become an eternal people's pleaser you know what a people's pleaser is i always you know what a people's pleasers i always have to make sure that i don't toe i don't step out of the line i always toe the line because i could never stand out because if i stand out what might happen somebody might say hey who's that they may notice me and if they notice the real me oh my god that's the tragedy of the century because that eye is the most disgusting thing that ever lived all i can afford is to show up to life with an external me with a bubble with a facade you ever went to a wax museum you ever saw winston churchill roosevelt and the wax museums i had a teacher he was somewhat of an absent-minded professor and in those days he would smoke a lot and he once went into the to the wax museum in london what is it called madame yeah incredible place winston churchill was holding a cigar right he was mama she was in his own world so he goes over to churchill and he asks them for a match to light the cigarette right so the wax museums they're amazing and sometimes what if a person becomes that wax that person of wax i have this whole image like a stuffed doll i'm stuffed up i look real i know what to do because i learned from society what to do but internally i'm not present i disassociated for myself can you understand the depth of the tragedy that this person is dealing with and then they're expected to have relationships to show up in relationships and the person may not even know what they're dealing with and that's what the madrish is teaching us here for yinubai nayem is i look around i walk around the world and i'm constantly imagining i feel it i feel it in my bones what you think about me and it's terrible it's not just i have this extra humility i'm introspective i'm like okay so you have an extra dosage of jewish guilt we have to deal with it we need emancipation mela and if you're and if you're a talented person it's nishka fair look to have a little extra humility it doesn't hurt it doesn't always kill sometimes it's a big blessing humility is what saved him and malcolm's base david we say david malek is also confronted david about what he did with bashava david said two words khattosi lashem i have sinned when shmuel was confronted by when sho was confronted by shmola navi said i really did the right thing he didn't have that vulnerability that had in life so that's one aspect hashem says this hurts because what this means is i'm now projecting on the entire world everyone sees me as an imposter everyone sees me as a loser everybody knows that i'm a criminal everybody knows that i'm unworthy everybody sees me and i never heard it from anybody but i'm gonna even he they won't even tell me the truth even if they give me a compliment that's just superficial i'm living in a completely alternate alternate reality i could tell them i don't i could tell them i don't see you as a grasshopper of course you don't see me as a grasshopper i'm such a grasshopper in your eyes that you have rahmanis on me so what are you going to say i'm a grasshopper so you understand the compliments are also distorted the feedback is distorted why because the tools through which i perceive reality are not tools that are coming from my authentic beautiful self there are tools of trauma and the tools that you use in order to define reality will define reality if i'm listening to you from a place of trauma your compliments will also become a source of trauma it's a very very profound truth that the madrid is saying here what this condition of and how does that affect me it affects me in the sense i could never take a risk i could never show up fully i could never be different i could never be really truthful it shows up in a billion ways that undermines everything most importantly it shows up in my internal self there's no core there's absolutely no core i don't show up to life with a core and that i would say is what murder is what is murder murder is there's no person i've killed the person the neshamas lives but down here then hashem is not in the goof anymore what spiritual murder what's emotional murder there's no person anymore they could still function they can speed they can even be talented they can even be making a lot of money but it's all tarnished it's all contaminated by that lack of an inner core sometimes it's the other way around they become more talented more ambitious more successful somebody once told me say why do you spend 18 hours a day in the office why don't you come home at night he says i have to prove to everybody in my office that they need me i have to prove to everybody that they need me i'm gonna get the validation i need of course i need to get the validation i need it's the only thing that will tell me that i mean something i don't mean anything else if you don't validate me we don't matter what exists what else exists what else exists now don't we all like validation validation is is a good thing it's nice to get validation it's nice to get compliments etc but when validation is survival when validation is my survival there's no survival outside of that now it's not just i have a struggle there's no eye that's struggling the core of that eye is compromised and when a child grows up with that and we the caretakers of the child the mother the father brothers sisters mentors teachers therapists psychologists rabbis rebecca are not in tuned to this level of emotional murder the child is all alone and that isolation absolutely confirms this truth it's not just somebody did something bad to me that bad defines me from today on it's not just somebody hurt me somebody smacked me in the face it hurts it's not nice you should apologize this is where trauma creates imperial self beliefs about myself because my real eye almost it's the tragedy of it it's like been stolen it's tucked away somewhere in the sub sub subconscious layers of the self and i show up to life with a completely fake eye that i created my brain created successfully in order to be able to survive and cope and some people cope amazingly you're almost astounded about how powerful they are and sometimes the person doesn't even know that they're doing this because it happened when they were five and it's a subconscious memory and the subconscious is driving it all but i walk around life and i say not only am i a grasshopper but i know the truth that everybody sees me that way i don't even have to say it i feel it because trauma is also pre-verbal it's not something that has a story because if it has a story it's usually not so devastating if i could tell a story about something i can convey it in words it already is contained to some degree but these are things that's called pre-verbal it touched me in a place that's deeper than words and therefore words actually can't contain it now look at hashem's continuation look at hashem's next words and here is you know i know i painted now with this a dismal picture so the madras continues the meadows continues i find these words not just to be beautiful but also incredibly moving and profound hashem is now trying to shift their paradigm he doesn't even say how they looked at you he's saying hashem could say they looked at you as angels he doesn't say that because the person can't hear those words he's planting a question in their mind you know sometimes you say oh they don't look at you as grasshoppers they see you as angels he doesn't say that he says when you even hear a question the beginning of healing starts with a question it starts with an awareness it starts with the curiosity the inquisitiveness that maybe there's nothing wrong with me maybe that deep deep belief is coming from a place that i'm not responsible for something has been done to me maybe i made you like angels in their eyes the truth is that when they see you they may be seeing a malach an angel can you see that disparity a person told me the other day he needed to call someone for a big big favor that he needed and he couldn't get himself to make the call i asked him why why it was very hard for him to answer ultimately when i pushed a little bit the answer that came back was very very sad and that is i am so frightened of the rejection that i know that will come that i would just rather have the problem and not solve it then hear that frightening no so there's two points here first of all he's certain that the person is going to say no and i said how do you know he said why shouldn't he say no it would be it would be a miracle if he doesn't say no it was possible that i don't deserve was simple to him that he doesn't deserve it for sure the person will say no but more than that it's not just i'm sure you're going to say no and if you say no that pain is not tolerable because what does that mean it means like you're confirming to me what i always knew about myself it's not like you said no okay you said no it's nicer to get a yes i like to hear yes i don't like to hear no but we all must become aware that no is not a death sentence it's no or as one fundraiser told me when i hear no he says here's the rule in fundraising it's a big jewish fundraiser he says here's the rule 1 in 20 says yes 19 say no when i hear no all i hear is i'm getting closer to the one who's going to say yes one more down shot down yes next i like that he doesn't he know they know is a hakone right he can again you're not going to get to the yes without the no sure that comes from a place of of confidence this person not only am i sure you're going to say no but the effects of that i just don't want to go there we have to be aware now all of us have a little bit of this right huh yes some of us have it more some of us have us less this is the human condition we all have this but sometimes a person lives with this they breathe it just becomes their raise on the uterus their m.o their very identity and therefore i can't i just can't put myself out there if i can't put myself out there how can i bring my light to the world i don't even know that there's even i don't even know that there's a light i don't even know i have something to give all i'm doing is i'm dodging i'm dodging i'm literally dodging perceived bullets in my own mind so what does hashem tell this person the spies are a prototype of talented creative brilliant spiritual holy people and he says who says that in their eyes you didn't appear as angels the word malachi means malachim angels but the word malachim in hebrew means rasheed says a messenger because usually means you send amalek is an angel a messenger an ambassador hashem is not just saying who says they don't see you as angels i want you to be able to begin to shift perspective i created you i know you hashem told yermiah navi in the opening of jeremiah he says before i deposited you in the womb of your mother i made you holy before you were conceived you died i knew you now think about that how is a child conceived you have the half a cell that comes from the seed the half a cell that comes from the egg the two merge it creates a single cell doctor am i right okay i don't want to fail on my biology tests the end of the year some finals that one cell is now replicated and ultimately 70 trillion 80 trillion cells you have an organism incredible she says before that cell was formed i knew you i formed that cell i had a vision i wrote the blueprints for the cell i'm the one who wrote the blueprints can you go back to that space can you go back to that space i i know you better than you know yourself because my knowledge of you precedes your existence that's a very powerful idea my knowledge of you precedes your existence in other words your eye is preceded by my awareness of your eye and that awareness is fully divine that awareness is all love i conceived you in love the day you were born is the day said the world is an incomplete place without your light without your contribution and i gave you a mission to do you're my malach you're an angel yes you're an angel and you're a shliyah you're a messenger says the ultimate adam hashem is kamehameha so you're my emissary you're my ambassador you're mine you're my mother you're my ambassador and the moment you can realize this the moment you can really realize this not just intellectually but viscerally in the in your bones in your gut you know says it's not just my head my cerebral mind my my heart my buster your flesh sama what are they called semantic experiences somatic experiences libra you've sorry the moment i can realize that then i will know that people don't look at me as a grasshopper they see me as an angel as a malach because that's the truth of who i am that's the truth of who you are and it's this crisis that somebody else faces they were chosen by moshe shoal is the first king chosen by shmola navi he sent on a mission to destroy amalek the arch enemies of the jewish people the nazis of the day and shall doesn't do it and then schmuel says why didn't you do it then show says i was afraid of the people i was afraid of the people i was trying to please the people and what does shmuel tell him take a look shmuel allev pereira passage zion samuel 1 chapter 15 verse 17 by yoimer small listen to these words you may seem so small in your own eyes but the truth is you are the head of the tribes of israel hashem anointed you la melech israel could have just told them hashem anointed you he gives them this introduction this deep psychological introduction i know what you think about yourself he doesn't just say hashem made you a king why are you scared he says let's work this through halloween in your eyes you're diminished and as we learn from the miragulum you start projecting that the haina you know it's not just i'm small melee everybody looks at me and sees this emotional small mediocre nobody and i'm confident in this and everything else is bubbamises it's nice bobomizes you feel bad for a broken some women feel bad for a broken vessel so they smile what do you do with that you say oh it's just in your mind sure you know when you don't understand this about people your response our responses are so off it's like it's just in your mind it's exactly what he had to hear it's like when sometimes i hear somebody tell somebody you shouldn't think like this really you think i wake up every morning trying to think that i'm the loser of the century you really think i wake up and i'm like maidani okay god help me realize that i'm the biggest loser who ever existed please help me thank you don't think like this i'm not trying to think like this i'm not trying to be anxious i'm not trying to be depressed i'm not trying to be stressed it's it's it's a reality that's sitting inside so these words have to be said from a place that goes much deeper than the trauma and that's why the relationship with hashem is so vital because hashem is that part of me the helicoma the divine pardon me precedes the abuse and no abuse can destroy it even if i have no access to it but that knowledge that awareness that it exists and there are methods especially today through which people can dig dig dig and go through the layers encourages a person because perspective is not enough a class doesn't do the trick i wish it did it traps classes don't do the trick but if they can create the awareness there is a reality there's a reality where you're a malek you're not a you're not a grass up now i have to be able to internalize i have to be able to work through things in my in my somatic self in in my brain in my psyche in my perception so hashem says take it you're going to have to one day put it at the door even if you see it even if it's part of you even if it's never going to be obliterated but ultimately i have to be able to walk around the world and say i'm not a grasshopper i'm a male and they don't look at me and see just a grasshopper they will look at me the way i will look at myself they will look at me for the truth that is really true about me and that truth i'm going to embody i'm going to i'm going to fulfill and this according to the madrid is what happened to that generation that generation of slaves that left egypt and i'm going to use contemporary language for it because it it's so it shows you how this is a blueprint literally for 2022 for so many the trauma of egyptian slavery was so profound that even watching the exodus of egypt and the splitting of the sea and the mana coming down from heaven amazing amazing spectacular events and it's not people say the miragum didn't believe that's a foolish interpreter of course they believed first of all you didn't have to believe you sought if you asked the spies what did you eat for breakfast omelette and cheese you went to hotel they ate the man where did the man come from you bought it in the stores in evergreen where was it rocklin culture oh it comes from heaven really and how do you get through the yarms of oh the water split and how did you get out of egypt oh there were ten plagues right they say one of the prime ministers of israel said to live in the middle to if you live in the middle east that you don't believe in miracles you're not a realist you're not a realist they didn't have to have belief they had to look what they ate for breakfast nothing was alpiteva the point is they had a muna but in a very deep visceral place in a visceral place there was a fear that was unresolved a very deep friend that came out in those last words vichain haynu bay nehem we know the real truth about ourselves and everybody knows it and therefore even though they received the toyota they defeated amalek but the path to liberation is a deep one it's a profound one it's an intricate one they have left egypt but egypt has not left them you got that yeah and the toyota tells this to us not to deprive us from energy on the contrary to make us aware of two things first of all how deep somebody can struggle and number two that despite the struggle that somebody has liberation is always your destination because it's at your core if you ask what is the truth how did the world look at them how did the people in kanaan look at them well we're privy to that because 40 years later yahushua sent two spies princess and calif and they came to eureka to jericho and they stayed by rakhov and rakov told them exactly how everybody looked at them that's the haftair of parshashlak it happens 40 years later it's the last source yeshua payriq based possible we have to wait till the book of yahushua chapter 2 and what does yeshua say told the men the spies were those are the words of rakhav to these two spies one of them who was one of the spies 40 years earlier khalif and she says we have heard everything that happened when you left egypt we have heard what you did and our hearts melted and nobody has ruach nobody has a umph spirit to stand up against you we have learned that your god is the true god not only in heaven but also an earth below rock of famous words al-kimba shamayim that was a true depiction of what they thought about these grasshoppers my whole life i'm walking around and in my own experience everybody just sees a grasshopper and hashem says just ask the question you think i made a mistake when i conceived you do you think i made a mistake when i created you never allow a perpetrator from within or from without to give the final verdict of who you are to give the final sagadin of your identity always remember the truth you're not a grasshopper you're an angel have a wonderful week this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at www.theyoshiva.net donate