Zemira Ozarowski - 5 Megillot Yom Iyun and Chana Deutch The realties of relationships

Okay, good morning everyone. I'm like so thrilled to see every single one of you that's here because really planning events has become almost impossible. Last Thursday we didn't know we almost canceled the roles because the vice president was here. This Thursday we have you know the protests and we just never know anymore what's going to be. You just can't know. And the fact that you guys are here um gives me like a tremendous because it was a debate. What should we do? Should we cancel? Should we not cancel? We shortened it in the end. If you see we're ending at 12:00, but um we weren't sure. And even, you know, until this morning, I was like, maybe this was the huge mistake, but seeing your faces here today gives me that positive reinforcement. So, thank you for coming. And thank you for all of us who are all of you who are watching us on video because you couldn't make it here. We're also happy to have you here as well. It's not on Zoom, but it's being recorded. Um so, you know, I was thinking about I want to give an introduction about the Kamishilo. I thought what is a migilla right? What what is this category? And you know I I looked a little bit around. And and the root of the word migila is right to to roll up right you know like gala right you roll up like even like um a gal of toilet paper right um who's thrown out right like you learn all these words right a gal of toilet paper is a roll um and so a migila is all the books that were kind of small that they put in a parchment scroll were called migillo and they're called that by hazal but eventually they weren't even their one category. They weren't put together placed together in the order of the books of Tana, but they were the small books. But over time, they were adopted as things that we read in on the holidays. Some of them for more obvious reasons, whether it's, you know, Esther, you know, for the other ones are a little bit, you know, we talk about it at every holiday. Why do we read, right? But they're all read in so they became kind of their own category, right? we have a category called these small books that are read in sh at you know during the holidays but I was thinking about it some more and I said you know what what is the common denominator between all of these works because if you think about it they're very different types of literature right like you have um on the one hand the stories like short stories of Esther and and root and you have poetry shiring you have a which is more like a kina like a a lamentation uh you know a eulogy and um and then we have what did I leave out we have coella which is more of a book of philosophy right so what is the common denominator between all of them they seem so different it's almost like you have an anthology of short you know of short literature and like all different types so but is there something that runs through all of them and I thought about it some more and I thought the root of the word migila we said is to roll but it actually also means to reveal right which comes from the same thing. Why is it called when you have something that's rolled up, you don't see the inside, you have to unroll it to reveal what's inside. Right? That's the beauty of Hebrew is that everything all connects in the end. And so the root of the word migila is really also to reveal. And when I thought through all the migil, I saw that every single one of them reveals something deeper beneath the surface. Ester is the perfect example. And that one we talk about all the time is. And there we see that you can look at at events that happen in history or even in our own personal lives and you can see yahashem if you look beneath the surface right that's the gilad there and that we talk about all the time but if you think about the other ones the same thing is true because if you look at let's say >> root well we do that one later let's do a first okay right we have the um events of the right we read about them in the we know the story a very sad story but it's a story with facts. But when we get to a we feel the emotions, what were people feeling at the time, right? There's the the surface level facts of what happened. And then aha is the inner the inner despair that was felt at the time, right? We also have the same thing with Shirim, right? If you look at people at right, what do we do? We do mitzvot, we learn Torah, we do things very much on the on the surface. You can see that we're a Torah observant community, right? We're doing things. But Shir reveals the inner relationship of with Hashem, right? That love, right? On the outside, you just see the actions. When you look deeper, you see this very very deep relationship. If you look at um Root, Root is really giving us the background of the dynasty of Wamelik, right? Okay. And we think about we think about this, you know, this great king and his dynasty that comes from him all which will please God all the way to Messiah, right? And we just, you know, we see this great dynasty, but what's the background? Where did he come from? What are the origins? It didn't come from nowhere. It was planted hundreds of years before with the of roots of Boas planting that DNA into and everything that follows until Msiah, right? It's there's something deeper, right? There's a there's a deeper um background that's going on there in the dynasty of Welsh. And finally, I don't know which one I left out. >> Cohellet, right? People live their day-to-day lives and the world goes its regular way. And a lot of times we don't stop to think about it and we just do by rope. But Cohellet is looking at the inner struggles and turmoils of man trying to understand his place in the world and what is the purpose of the world. Part of it is depressing, but if you learn it properly, eventually you get to the answer, right? And um and we and we understand that there is more going on to the world than just, you know, eat, sleep, do your job, dig money, right? And and and there there is a purpose. And so every single one of them really comes to reveal a hidden underneath dimension to us um that's not there on the surface. And I think that it's very appropo to talk about that today because um actually the last time they had a yun on the mikila I don't know if you guys remember this was I think a week maximum two weeks after October 7th. Um it was planned for then and obviously no one was going anywhere. We were all stuck in our houses and our shelters. Um but the thought was again it's impossible to plan anywhere these days right? Do we cancel? And the first thought was of course, but the second thought was no like we need to turn to Torah in our times of trouble and of course we need to you know have this yum obviously in a different format and we did it on Zoom and I had each speaker talk for 10 minutes about the migilla they were going to talk about was divided by um and connect it to what we were going through. But that is to say, basically we're bookending the war, right? At the beginning of the war, we had our and now we're having the second um you know, we finished another cycle. Well, we didn't cycle. We got to again um and we're doing it right after the war. And I think during these two years, we grew a lot as a nation. And we became a nation of migila, of legal to look a little bit more beneath the surface. And we revealed so many things over the past two years whether it's the I just heard Rab talking about how we all thought like you know today's generation like they're all about screens and Instagram and it's all surfaced and what do we see? We have a generation of lions right who are out there ready to fight and protect protect their lands and not because they have to but because they want to right and and when you look under the surface you don't you can't just see if they're looking at their phones or not. There's something going on there. us much deeper, right? And we we revealed so many other strengths the of Israel from across the world. how much bessid was poured out during those two years. just people just wanted to do whatever they could to help um and and and and the the the kabura that we revealed unfortunately and many of the families um of people who were killed during that time and people who went through tremendous difficulties you were survivors but the the tremendous gura and amuna that came out through there we revealed so much and I think we also uncovered the um yahashem right we really felt and hope we still feel righteous the that events happened were orchestrated over the past two years. We really see um Hashem's hand there beneath the scenes and and I think also we learned like I said from the beginning we learned that Hashem really controls the world and we don't and therefore when we plan events they might happen they might not happen. We don't know it's going to happen every single day but it's okay because there's a plan. It's just not our plan. Um, and I just wanted to say that this morning is um dedicated by Judy Criticus um in memory of of her beloved mother Esther Fa Hoen and in memory of her grandparents Bam and Catz and Rose and Harry Pen. And I never met your mother or your grandparents. You just told me a little bit about your mother and and and just the the beauty of the warmth that she gave over to you um in the holidays and and just um making that warm home and and the importance of family. But I think what I do know is I know Judy and I know Judy is one of the most dedicated Nakyomi learners that I know. This is your third cycle, right? She at the very beginning she's been learning Nakyomi. It's her third time now. And it's become such an important chart and she it's like every napyomi event I know she's going to be at because it's like a passion of hers. It's something that is so important to her and that doesn't come from nowhere. We talked about that a little bit like it doesn't come from nowhere. The same way I talked about deval that it was planted hundreds of years before in the DNA. It comes going back to your mother and your grandparents. There were there were seeds that were planted there. Even if you don't see them, but they were there because it all comes from somewhere because you're you you're not you're not in a vacuum, right? It's all coming back from generations before. So, um this day should be um a scoot for all of them, but not only this day, but all of your learning that you've been doing over the past five and a half years um should really be be a scoot for them. So, thank you very much. Um, okay. So, our first speaker is Are you here? You're here. Hello. Um, okay. I want to thank all of our speakers who all got a little nervous yesterday and said, "Well, is this going to happen? Should I be coming out? Am I risking getting stuck in sleeping in Hennessy?" Um, but they all came um um except for one group because that's crazy. But, um, Gana is a relationship expert and coach, and I'm not reading her bio, but she I'll tell you what. I'll tell you how I know Fana. Well, no, not how I know. I know Fana from many years before, but one time I don't know how many years ago, seven, eight years ago. Um, she came, she was invas. And it was so amazing how she was able to like encapsulate, I think it was yahu, and she just in one 45minute session just like taught us all of ya and just put it all together. And I said, "Wow, we need to come teach at the OU." We haven't had her as much as I'd like to, but hopefully we'll be able to get her back some more. Um, but I'm very happy that she agreed to come speak and she is going to talk about the re the realities of relationship through the cycle of the migilla. So, thank you. And she is a rel I didn't give her bio, but you can read it. She has a lot of backgrounds in relationship building. So, >> I think you're supposed to thank this on I guess if I'm doing this right. Okay. No. Okay. I hope that's okay. Um, so thank you, Zamira. Thank you, everyone. Um, I'm just going to take out my notes. So, I'm excited to talk to you about the realities of relationships. Um, I'll be speaking I'll do my best to relate this specifically to our relationship with Hashem. Um, and as we know in our relationship with Hashem is is paralleled or you could say all our relationships in our lives parallel our relationship with Hashem, right? It's to teach us about our relationship with Hashem. We have we know that Hashem is Ainu Malenu. He's like our father. We know that especially in Hosa, we know that Hashem is like our husband or we are the wife and Hashem is the husband. Um, and we know that all of our the relationships that we have also help us to understand our relationship with Hashem. So, I'm actually this this topic is something that I'm always very passionate about, but I specifically have been thinking about it a lot uh in the last two weeks. Is it only two weeks? It feels like forever uh since the hostages started to all came home, all of them that were alive and the beauty of watching them return and watching those videos. I think I was addicted to those videos for a while. I'm sure you all were. Um, and one of the things that is, you know, so powerful as you watch these videos is like you see how first of all these men come back and like there when everything is stripped away when like they had nothing and they went through so much for two years, how what's left is such a sweetness and such a desire to just be with their family and be with the people that they love. And I can't talk about it without crying, but just like those hugs, right? like the the emotion like this is all that matters, right? Is their family and their loved ones and their amuna, right? The unbelievable amuna that came out of two years of a living hell, I think we could say. And whenever we have those thoughts of like wow like we can learn so much from this like about what matters and what you know what life is really about that's when I get nervous because very often when we talk about these ideas what can happen is that we start to think that then when we feel challenges then when we do doubt our relationship with Hashem or we do get upset at the people that we love that we tell ourselves no I just have to be happy. No, I just have to love them. No, I just have to feel it. And we either start to feel shame over the fact that we feel upset, we start to pressure ourselves, we start to feel bad. And what I really believe is so important is to realize that it's actually because that's the basis of life. Because our relationships, our relationship with Hashem and our relationship with the people that we love is so important. That's why we need to deal with the challenges. It's why we need to deal with the issues that are coming up. It's not the reason to push them under the rug and say, "No, no, they don't matter. I just I'm just going to be a loving, you know, I'm just going to be be happy all the time." That just creates resentment. That just creates frustration. It creates pain. It creates shame. And instead, it's so important to understand the realities of relationship. It's so important to understand that life is not about a perfect like everything's always not just steady, but everything's always up here, right? like to understand the realities of relationships so that we can deal with our struggles and deal with the issues. Um because we know that that's what really matters. So we're going to talk about that through the migillas through the cycle of the migillas even throughout the year. Uh the way that we read the migillas is such a powerful it's also the way it's in Tanakh. It's such a it's actually kind of takes us through what can happen in a relationship and how we can sometimes feel with Hashem. And we see right away that, you know, this is the what the the Rambam is is trying to tell us. We know that um the Tanakh I actually had a very interesting conversation last night with my young son who knows Tanakh very well, thank God. Um because of he's in a school where he's like he's already learned all of Tanakh, thank God. And I he said, "What are you?" I said, "What are you?" He asked me what I'm doing tomorrow. I said, "I'm going to teach a year." He's like, "Oh, you're teaching a shear. What's it about?" I said, "I'm teaching a shear about how, you know, we have a relationship with Hashem through the migillas." And he said, "Oh, like Shir like Shir Shirim." And I was like, "Well, not just Shirm, all the migillas." He's like kind of gave me like a little look like, "How?" And I was like, "Yeah, every book in Tanakh is teaching us about a relationship with Hashem." And he like he kind of was thinking about it for a minute because like we can really get lost in recognizing that and understanding that every book every safer every we actually every puk every perk every safer is there to teach us not just history not just uh mit like just do this don't do this not just um you know speeches that were relevant at some point. No, they're actually all chosen and they're codifi codified and they're, you know, still a part of our life today because they teach us something that we every every Jew in every moment can learn something about their relationship with Hashem. Um, and so, you know, we can start right away with the Mishna Torah where the Rambam talks about how are we supposed to love Hashem and he says you should be lovesick for Hashem. What does that mean? you should think about Hashem all the time when you wake up, when you go to sleep, what you can't eat because you're just so in love with Hashem. It sounds really nice, right? And he says, "And how do we know this?" Because that's what Shirum is, right? So right away we Ram is telling us, you want to know how to have a relationship with Hashem, look in the mill, look in Shirim. That's teaching us about our relationship. So then we might think, okay, so my relationship with Hashem should always be lovesick. I should always just be like, "Oh, Hashem." And like, you know, always be in this constant state of like romantic bliss. Then we turn to Shir Sherim itself. And yes, Shir Sherim is a beautiful love song and it really is a beautiful depiction of the romanticism of relationships. But even Shir Sherim itself, it's very hard to actually see the do and the raya together. Like they're never together. Do you ever notice that they're never together? You've all learned this, right? They're constantly looking for each other, searching for each other. The climax, the beautiful climax of sheer where we can see how much they love each other is specifically about that, right? The woman says air, my I I'm I'm half asleep, right? I'm like in that stage where you're f falling asleep and all of a sudden my do who I've been looking for, right? I've been searching for him. I just want to spend time with him. I want to be with him. He knocks on the door and what do I think? Oh, I have to get dressed. Oh, but my f in that one second, right? Cuz you know, is that natural to sometimes be like, "Oh, now oh, now you want to spend time with me? Oh, now you want to go out? Oh, like now I need to dive in like really sometimes we have those thoughts and in that second what happens? He runs away and she has to go looking for him, right? And there's a constant like even at the end when they're finally to when you think like oh they finally found each other then like let's go over here let's go over there like they can't stay together even in that romantic period that very passionate time and such a passionate book they still cannot seem to find each other right and I think this is such an important piece that we need to remember in our relationships and I'll specifically talk about Hashem, but this is all our relationships that you we kind of have this idea that relationship is about arriving, right? Whether you could say it's because we all have this, you know, this inner turmoil, as Rob Salvichek says, this lonely man of faith, we feel we feel lost in the world, right? We feel alone because nobody can ever fully understand me. There's nothing there's no one in life who can fully understand you. Why? Because you are a unique individual. You have your own personality, upbringing, experience. Nobody could ever fully understand you. Whenever I talk about this, I talk about I have an basically identical twin sister. We look almost the same. My niece is in Israel now and all the time her friends are calling her like, I think I saw your mother. Is your mother here? I I must have sung your aunt because like she looks just like your We grew up together. We were in the womb together. We were in the room together. We had the same friends almost our entire life until I stayed in Israel and she went back, right? We've been together our like for the first 18 years of our life, we were almost inseparable. And yet, are we the same? >> No. Do we totally understand each other? No. But we have the same upbringing. But we're both women and we both, you know, were raised in the exact same society and home and friends and schools and still we're so different from each other, right? Even though our voices sound the same, what we say is going to be different, right? So that we have this innate loneliness about us and then we're constantly searching for a way to feel known and understood. And if we talk about marriage for a minute, society has given us this belief that like that's what marriage is. Suddenly you'll get married and someone will totally get you. Someone will totally understand you. You'll have a completeness. And then what happens? Women get married and they're like that I I still don't feel understood. I still don't feel that completeness. Why? Because that's not actually what marriage is about. And as a as a mashall for a relationship with Hashem, we may feel like in my relationship with Hashem, I should feel complete. I should always feel like I've arrived. And yet, what is Shir Shirim teaching us? Relationships, even loving, passionate relationships are not about arriving. They're about striving. They're about growing. They're about learning. They're about curiosity. Right? We want to feel totally known and we want to totally know the other person. And yet we know especially from our relationship with Hashem, you can never fully know God, right? And because you're at Salamelo, nobody could ever fully know you. And so the point of the relationship is not to be known. It's not to arrive. It's to learn. It's to grow. It's to know that relationships are about striving and growing and constantly staying in a state of curiosity and moving forward in the relationship rather than being in a state of feeling like something's wrong because I don't feel like I've arrived. So what we see in our relationship with Hashem is that a a a passionate strong relationship with Hashem is not necessarily is not I'm not going to say necessarily is not about always feeling an intense closeness every minute of the day. It doesn't mean that your relationship should always be should always feel just so meaning we want that and we we can strive for it, right? But to know that it's about moving forward in that relationship. It's about getting closer. It's about searching and looking for. And how do we do that? How do we search out? How do we get close to someone? How do we create a relationship with someone right capital O even who is elusive to us. So that takes us to safer roots. As what is roots? You've all learned root, right? root is a very like as opposed to all the other swarmmen in the Tanakh, it's so I'm going to use the word calm even though it's not calm, right? Like it's got some drama in it, but like it's very mundane, right? It's about people trying to have food. It's about a family and how they're dealing with things. It's conversations between a woman and her mother-in-law. It's very like even the the rabbis talk about right you see on your score sheet here like why do we have this safer we don't learn it's so interesting this is a whole separate talk but it says doesn't have all these laws meanwhile we learn a lot of and a lot of rules from root very interesting about this source and yet what's it coming to like why is it written meaning what is the role go full of roots and the answer that's given is to teach us the forum to teach us the power of meaning sometimes we assume that our relationship with Hashem is going to be based on the big things the stories of miracles the story of inspiration the events where we feel like something powerful and dramatic and what does root show us where how you really build a relationship through everyday interactions, through taking responsibility, right? And through the power of your small acts of kindness. And that's what root is about, right? Who's going to take care of who, right? Is Elie Melik going to take care of the people of Bleam? No. Who's going to take care of of Naomi when she goes back to her homelands? Right. that and Boa says to her, "I know that you chose to take care of your mother-in-law. That's a big deal, right?" And then Peric Besar was like, she's like, "I'm gonna go find food." Like such a mundane conversation and yet so powerful. I'm going to take responsibility. I'm not going to expect you to feed me. I'm going to take action to feed you. And then boas taking action, little action. One of my favorite sources here you see a midrash root rabba where it says that um if boas knew right it says in in uh in perk in puk yalid he says come I'll give you some I'll give you some food right and he gives her a little pizza with vinegar and he gives her parched grain like nothing right he gives her like very basic food and then we dressed as if he knew that the fact that he gave her parched grain was going to be written about in Tanakh for us to learn about for generations. He would have given her fame minion, right? What's the message of that midash? You don't realize the power of every single thing that you do. Every little act, every choice is significant. It has significance. Boaz didn't realize how significant his act was. We get to know that, you know, relationships are based not in necessarily just the big things that we do, but in the everyday choices that we make to be responsible, to choose to turn towards the relationship. I think one of the best examples that I connect to in this idea is is tila, right? Okay. Ideally, we want our to be totally full of kavana. And when we're dabbing, we really feel like we're talking to Hashem and we feel him hearing us and we and we feel inspired and uplifted and we want to dive in. What's the reality? It's not always like that. It's not always like that. It's not always You don't always want to dive in. You don't always have the headsp space to dive in, you know, properly or like to have the right kavana. You don't always have the right kavana. your mind goes off in other places. And it's funny how the halak actually represents like knows that and says at least have kavana for the first braha. But then if you don't have kavana for the first braha, don't go back because you probably won't have kavana again. And that's that's part of the reality of relationships. It's part of the reality of tila. And yet if every day you say I like to talk about the idea that technically technically as women a lot of time we're not actually obligated to dab in. Why? Because a woman is compared to somebody who just came back from sea, meaning you're exhausted. You're mentally, emotionally, physically tired. And even if you have time to dive in, if you need that time instead to rest, to relax, to talk to someone, to do something else for yourself, Hashem understands. But then if you never dive in, what happens? You can start to feel very disconnected, right? And when you choose to dive in, even when you don't feel like it, even when you don't understand the words that you're saying or you're not concentrating on the words that you're saying, day after day after day after day, what happens? You are choosing a relationship with Hashem. You have committed yourself to a relationship with Hashem. And that brings you closer to him. Even if you didn't have that inspirational experience all the time, right? Relationship is built through the the little acts that we do, the things that we do, the choices that we make on an everyday basis, right? The turning towards that we do, the choosing of the relationship regularly. And even with this as we turn we turn towards Hashem and we make choices there are still going to be times like in every relationship where there are moments of pain where things happen that we don't understand that are difficult for us where maybe we make a mistake and we mess up or the other person okay we can't say this about Hashem but sometimes in relationships the other person messes up or sometimes something happens and we just don't get it and we feel pain and we feel separation what then so again in the like ideal you know the way sometimes the world talks about things right now and I'm not just saying the outside world I will say you find this sometimes in Torah classes as well the idea is just be happy just have a just ignore it just move forward but we see from aa we see and when we read it on tishab that that's not always the right thing to do that you actually your ma is teaching us very powerfully how to connect to Hashem in the pain here's your mahu he's a n'vi he literally speak like God speaks to him and he speaks to God and yet what does he do what does he say in a he's he says where are you hashem he's in pain and he shares his pain he talks talks about his pain. He processes his pain. He shouts out his pain, right? And he doesn't ignore it. He doesn't just push it away. He doesn't say, "Well, I know God is in charge and everything is for the good." He knows that that's true. And yet, when he's in pain, what does he do? He shares it. He talks about it. He allows himself to feel it. Right? >> [clears throat] >> And this is a very important part of of the realities of the world and the realities of our relationship. Yahu confronts his pain. He feels it. He expresses it. He calls out to Hashem in it. He communicates to Hashem his pain in a very real way about what he's experienced. And he doesn't even just do it once. He does it five times in different ways. Sometimes he's talking in a very expressive way and it's very loud, right? You learned the different pim, right? It's very loud in all the noise of Jerusalem and during the destruction and sometimes it's very quiet. It's about more his feelings and about what's missing rather than what's happening. He talks about it globally. He talks about it from Jerusalem's perspective. And he also talks about very personally an right. And as he does this, as he confronts and deals with his pain, you see, he starts to process and understand what's going on. He starts to understand his own responsibility. He starts to understand what the peace the Jewish people have played in this. And he knew that logically already. He's been screaming for years that if you don't do chuva, this is all gonna happen. And yet when it happens, he allows himself to go into a place of why. Why is this happening? Because sometimes emotional our emotions don't line up with our logic. And that's okay. He has to feel his emotions and process them to be able to get back to that logic of this is Hashem has a reason for this and he can start to want to reconnect to Hashem, right? Where he starts to say hash where from the at the end he's hashu hashem bring us back. He wants to reconnect to Hashem. And this is very important because we can see, we know we struggle to feel pain, right? We know that that is like something that we struggle with today. Thank God we live in a more comfortable life. And so pain and uncomfortability is very difficult is very difficult. And so, you know, when we feel pain, there's a desire to like get out of the pain. Let me get out of it very quickly. Right? Right? I speak to a lot of women when they feel pain, they're like, "But I just push it away. I can't I can't feel it. I can't feel the pain." But we know that what happens when you don't process the pain, you don't allow yourself to feel it. When you push it away and you don't respect it, it doesn't go away. It just stays. So whether it actually can affect you physically, whether it starts to fester as resentments, whether it starts to affect you in ways that you don't even understand. Well, suddenly, you know, I'm not dealing with that issue, but suddenly like I just don't feel like dabbing. Suddenly, I just don't feel like take like making dinner. And you don't know why, right? But it's because something is going on that we're not processing. We don't like necessarily to feel pain. I noticed this on tishabub that you see a lot of things come out for tishabove and their focus is all on hope and moving forward and you're like that's not tishabove why are we talk this isn't what tishabove is about tishabove is a day of sitting in the pain why because when we sit in the pain and we allow ourselves to not get stuck in it but we allow ourselves to feel it that is what then allows us to move forward right the idea of Messiah is born on tishaba What does that mean? That redemption can come. We can move forward because we allow ourselves to actually realize what's missing. We allow ourselves to acknowledge. It's like when you can acknowledge like you're going to be more open to recognizing how amazing the miracles Hashem has done for us over the last two years. When you allow yourself to realize, wow, that was really scary. Wow, we really were in trouble. Wow. We're like so used to miracles, we don't even realize like how much destruction they thought was going to happen and could have happened. And we could even say should have happened if Hashem hadn't taken care of us. And then we can sing halal with much more kavana. Then we can be realize our relationship with Hashem because we allow ourselves to be like this is really scary, right? Like this is or this is really painful. It's going to allow us to move forward when we when we can acknowledge it and feel it. So only taking the time to grieve and actually experience and communicate the pain does repair start to happen. So then we get to cohellet, right? And cohellet kind of can, you know, as we're feeling that we're allowing ourselves to think about things, we can feel confused sometimes, right? Life is confusing and we like to think like we all have it together all the time and we all have it all figured out. Really? Who? [laughter] Who has it all figured out? Who has it all together? Life is so confusing, right? It's like even if you think like, "Okay, you've raised a teenager, you know what to do. What happens next? The next one isn't the same. Oh my gosh, I have to figure it out again, right? Not every child, not every situation that you get into is going to be the same. Even just because you're different, they're different, the situation is different. How can we ever know completely what we're supposed to do in life? What the right thing to do in life is? We can't. And if you just assume, oh, just rinse and repeat, you're also going to get in trouble because it's not the same situation. It's not the same issue. It's not the same answer. And we have a lot of questions. And you know, we want to connect with Hashem and we want to use our time the best we can, but how to do that is always going to be a challenge, right? What's the right thing to do? I love the story that Rabbi David Aaron tells about how when he was in learning and he wanted to go out and start teaching and he went to a big RV, I think it was Rav Kamki, I don't Kanei, I don't know. I don't remember. He went to a big rub and he said, "What should I do?" And the rub said, "You should stay in learning." And he must have made a face because the rv said, "What's wrong? What? What?" And he said, "I guess I really want to go out and teach." And the rv said, "Well, why didn't you tell me that? So, go teach." Right? If you come to me and ask a question that I'm going to answer the question generic like but if you don't if there's something else you want to do then the answer might be something different right we may be so sure the things that we need to do and yet you know all of a sudden like what's you need to do in this season and stage of your life is very different I remember years ago when I was raising little kids and trying to do kala classes teaching kalas and I remember at one point I I just I I was feeling very overwhelmed and I said to my Rebbitson I said I feel like I'm very struggling like teaching these kalas but I know how important it is to teach them and she said so stop teaching them right now is not your time to teach kalas and I was like are you sure I'll do it if you give if you tell she was like yes now is not the time to teach kalas now you need the time to and I was only teaching them at night because I had I guess I was home with babies in the And so I stopped teaching them for a while because that wasn't the stage or season of my life to be doing that important work. Now eventually I had the mornings to teach them. So then I started teaching them again. And then I realized I wanted to not just help women who were just getting married but help women at all stages of relationship. So then eventually it didn't make sense to teach college anymore. We have to acknowledge what is the right thing in this stage of my life. And that answer is going to change throughout your life, throughout the circumstances, throughout the issues that are coming up for you. And it's very important to know that, you know, when we have challenges and we we're confused that it doesn't mean that something's wrong, right? Cohellet very much teaches us that, you know, the the source that we have about like how you know, how is Cohellet part of Tanakh? Like it seems sometimes, right? And the answer that's given is well it starts with Torah and it ends with Torah. So yes, it's part of it's to basically it's Torah, right? If it starts with Torah and ends with Torah and it's included in Tanakh, what do we see? Having that deliberation and trying to figure things out is actually part of our relationship with Hashem to turn things over, right? It's okay to not be clear. It's okay to have to go through things, right? to to know that life is not always going to be clear. Life is not always going to be like smooth like yeah we just know what to do. No, that's part of our relationship with Hashem is to be constantly looking to see like what does Hashem want of me today? Something that my mother says is she like every morning you kind of have to wake up and say who am I today? Right? Some days your mother, some days your wife, some days your teacher, right? Some days you are whatever your profession is. Some days you are aunt, granddaughter, grandmother, whatever it is. You can't be everything at the same time, right? And you can't expect yourself to always know perfectly what to do. You're going to leave people upset. You're going to leave laundry undone if that day is not your housewife day, right? You're going to have different rules and different things you need to do and to constantly try to figure out that's part of our relationship with Hashem. We have a question. >> Yes. In it says that Jacob kisses. >> Yeah. >> He loves her and then he starts crying. So the question is why does he cry and the answer is Hashem comes to him says Hashem I've learned yeshiva a for years and all I did was connect to you and now I've got this relationship with a woman. I Understand? Hashem says, "No, now is the time for you to have a relationship with a woman and through that you will become even closer to." >> Yes. And that's such an important >> source for because you know especially somebody I can imagine like that should be taught in yeshiva right it should be taught in katan classes because yes a man or even a woman sits and learning sits in sits and you know is focused on just you know her relationship with hashem and then suddenly they get married and suddenly it's like oh wait now I actually have to leave the base I have to leave my life of like focusing ing on going to and doing and and focus on just my husband, my wife. Is that is that kosher? Is that a waste of time? And what is the mid is Hashem saying, "No, that now this is your role. This is your role. This is >> that it will become even closer to >> Exactly. That's part of your relationship with Hashem." And realizing that realizing that, you know, when we do the laundry, that's part of our relationship with Hashem. And when we go to a sheir, that's part of our relationship with Hashem. When we davin, it's part of our relationship with Hashem. And when we spend time with people in our family and nurture them and nurture our relationships, that's part of our relationship with Hashem. And when we do, it's it's all part of our relationship with Hashem, right? Not and in in the debate about what is right in this moment. And that uncertainty is not an indication that you're making the that you're just confused and you don't have it together, right? It's like this belief that we should always know exactly what to do. And no, the uncertainty is actually an indication that you have you have clarity over the fact that life is complicated and there's a lot of people that want you and a lot of roles that you fulfill and knowing that that's part of our relationship with Hashem. I think that a beautiful way to to understand this is a teaching that um I I love from uh Rabbi Katz in living inspired. He talks about how you know we have this in Birchi Gimmel after Hashem exiles Adam and Kava from Ganen. He there's still this that's in the garden, right? And the represents Torah, okay? And he puts in front of theim these kuim, right, which we usually understand as like cherabs, whatever they are. There are these kim and the kruim are holding revolving swords. And he says, what does that mean? It's so powerful. He says that our we have to understand what are they revolving? It means they're constantly changing. The path to your to your the path to your relationship with Hashem is constantly changing. Don't think that your relationship with Hashem is something that you figure out once and then that's it. It's like what we can say about right that's this week's para right okay so leave your father's house and the the commentators say what does it mean right what is all those it's like leaving the your upbringing leaving the way your the society you were educated in leaving what you know and you could think especially those of us who have made aliyah we could say okay I did that I did that Right. I did it. I chose a more committed relationship with Hashem. I live in in Israel. I'm more I'm more committed to I I made a choice. I made a very conscious choice to have a close relationship to Hashem. Done. No is a constant movements. Thank you. Constants. It's not just literally leave or make a choice once because every new situation that you get into, your brain is going to instinctively do whatever you saw growing up. It's going to do whatever you are naturally inclined to do. It's going to do whatever you think everyone else wants you to do. And every new situation, which can mean every day, we need to choose I'm going to do what I'm should do. I'm going to do what I am going to try to understand. What's my relationship with Hashem today? I have to leave my instincts. I have to leave just what I you know was instinctively because of what I saw as a child. That's our brain is just going to do that naturally. It's a constant process of it's not one time it's every day. Yeah. I wanted to comment when you talked about Yahu. >> Yeah. >> Who was a hostage. He was a he was thrown into the pit. They wanted to kill him into the darkness. >> So I thought one of the who returned, his name was Ori. >> He put on this this video of saying that he was not religious. He had no connection with Hashem. And as he was taken deeper and deeper into the darkness literally, >> yeah, >> he first he started talking to Hashem as a friend. He said, "Good morning, Hashem. How are you?" And when he got into the pit, he started asking Hashem, "Please just give me a little piece of bread." And the next moment, the beasts gave him, you know, like a little bite of pitha. And he was so great. He discovered Hashem. It reminded me when you're talking about your I had this image of Orvie or Levi. I mean, what a name. >> Wow. >> You know that that's how he discovered Hashem >> and Hashem allowed him to to discover him. >> I I was crying while he said, "Yeah." Yeah. That's unbelievable. >> Unbelievable. >> And the modesty in this is what went through. >> Yeah. Everybody was against him. He wanted to kill >> his own people. Yeah. >> Anyway, >> yes. Thank you. Thank you. It's so important like Yes. It's not that you know, please God, we shouldn't have to be in a pit, right, in a tunnel, God forbid to have to but in in our own lives, right? That sometimes we do we are in the darkness. We are in the depth of despair. And in that moment we might feel like [snorts] either I have to give up either it's not possible as they could have. Hashem has abandoned me. Here I am in Gaza in a tunnel. I guess there is no God. Right? And the opposite. >> It was the opposite. >> The opposite when they realized, okay, the only reason I'm here is because I'm Jewish. And and you know, the fact that I'm still alive and the fact that they didn't kill me and they are giving me food. Wow. And they allowed that to bring them closer to Hashem. when we're in whatever our own darkness is to when we just if we just say to ourselves, well, I'm not in a pit in Gaza, so I'm not allowed to be upset. >> And people feel that way. People do, right? You know, it's really hard for me that I um you know, it's so hard like getting the kids out of I'm so frustrated with my whatever it is. It's so hard to you know, like an extreme example, it's so hard making a wedding. I'm feeling so stressed, but I'm making a wedding. I have to be happy. Yes, it is a happy occasion. And does it bring stress? Yes. And if you don't allow yourself to deal with the stress, right? The stress itself could teach you something. Could help you find Hashem, could help you realize what you need to do differently to help like you can learn from that experience, right? And allows you to if you deal with the stress, then you can enjoy the simka. you [snorts] can enjoy when you allow yourself to feel the pain then you can deal with it so that you can get back closer to where you want to be. Yeah. Thank you. So um we also just see that you know first of all had these questions and we can all have these questions who built the base of Mikdash and was the smartest man who ever lived could deal with these grapple with these issues and it's okay for us. It's okay for us to grapple with these issues and know that it's about that's what life is about. And we also see it in the kuim later in the basa mikdash, right? That the kruim were sometimes together and they were sometimes apart because that's even our relationship with Hashem. sometimes and this fits so beautifully into what you said the fascinating thing the way we know this is because of where it's talking about the destruction when it's talking about Hashem destroying the beta mikdash it says that they were together what wouldn't you think that that's when they would be apart right like Hashem's angry at us he's just destroying the B why are they together so we have to try to understand well maybe because in that moment we cried out to Hashem Maybe because it's the fact that Hashem loves us that he destroyed a building instead of destroying us. Our relationship with Hashem is not gone because we're in destruction. Our relationship with Hashem is not static. It's dynamic. And that we can really see through these through the kuim which also protect right the the aon which theim and the aron are very connected. Uh and we can see that. So I think we're I I just want to finish up with going into Esther, right? Because very much today, we can have a cultural belief of an expectation of constant I'm going to use the word perfection, right? That life should a relationship should always be static. It should always be I always say like kiss, but really it's like this, right? We have this belief that it should always be like amazing and perfect. So then when we struggle, when there are issues, when we feel disconnected, when we're upset, when we don't have clarity, when we have challenges, when we feel not so close, we can feel doubt, we can feel fear, we can feel shame, we can feel blame, we can feel a lot of negative emotions. And this brings us to Esther because Esther helps us understand this is what we're it's actually what's next for us right in the cycle of the year. Now we're in like that please God winter right we're going to we have rain it's cold it's dark we don't you know sometimes our relationship with Hashem is not the way we want it to be. Esther is all about hester panim. Hashem is hidden meaning we feel like a wall between us and our relationship with Hashem. says, "I'm turning away. I'm there's, you know, the the window is down." So, I love the Shaibo song. It says, "Don't worry, I'm peeking through the cracks." Right? I think it's his most beautiful song and I've never heard him sing it live, but it's such a beautiful song. I highly recommend it. Uh, and it's, you know, don't worry, even in our so, but at the same time, we're feeling a separation. We're feeling disconnected. So, what do we do when we feel disconnection from Hashem? What do we do when it's not living up to the way we want it to be? So if we know that, you know, we we want to live in these realities, we can look at Esther. Esther's, like we said, Esther Panim, she's in the palace. She's disconnected from her people. She hears they're all going to be killed. And Morai says, "Okay, what are you going to do, Esther?" So here she's in this moment of Hester Punim. What is she going? How is she going to fix this? What can she do? So Esther very fascinating until this point in the migilla Esther is extremely passive. She is the passive person, right? We learned from her how like she was so passive that she was still considered married to Morai because she was like the earth. She was passive. She did whatever everyone else told her to do. She did what Morai told her to do. She did what the servants in the in the palace told her to do. She took to what they told her to do. She prepared herself however they told her to do. She did whatever Morai told her and the king and anyone else told her to do. She did it. And then Morai comes and says, "So what are you going to do? This is on you. This is your responsibility. You have an opportunity. Hashem could do it a different way, but you have an opportunity. Maybe this is why you're here." And in that moment, what does Esther do? >> Action. And now she says, "Okay, now you're all going to do what I tell you to do. And she gives them action steps and she takes all types of action. She takes she tells them they have to do chuva, right? They have to fast. They have to davin and they also have to do she's going to go and she creates this wonderful plan of how she's going to try to save her people by going to and risking her life. What we see is that she takes action. She doesn't just sit there and say, "Well, this is the situation. This is my relationship. This is Hashem's relationship with us right now. I guess we messed up." She says, "No, we're going to take action." And so, what we can really see from this is when we feel separate, when we feel disconnected, when we're confused, the answer that Esther teaches us is not just to wait it out, not just to blame. She could have blamed the people. She could have blamed Hammon. She could have got into victim, right? But she didn't just blame. And she didn't just beat herself up. She took whatever steps she needed to take to reconnect, to fix the situation, to bring Hashem back into their lives, and to feel to feel safe, to feel that he was with them. So whatever action we're going to take right and going back through the migillas whether we're going to arouse our excitement to connect and we're going to go back to looking to learn about the other we're going to look to connect to Hashem we're going to strive for a relationship whether we're going to take steps to choose the relationship to turn towards it to take responsibility for our relationship with Hashem through the small actions that we can do whether we're going to confront the pain and confront the challenges that we have and allow ourselves to feel it so we can learn from it. Right? Wait, I'm in pain. This is not the way I want it to be. What can I understand from that? Right? When we recognize our challenges, we can deal with them. We can fix them. We can we can communicate. We can deal. We can make changes. Whether it's reassessing our goals, reassessing our understanding of life as we saw from Cohellet or whether it's finding a plan of action whichever choose whichever right whichever choice we choose it's these choices rooted in the realities of our nature of our the nature of our relationship with Hashem rooted in the reality of our humanity that will actually allow us to build the connection that we desire. We can't just, right? If we live in ideals, we might say, well, it's not the way I want it to be. So, either, you know, something's wrong with me or it's not possible. But when we allow ourselves to realize this is this is how a relationship is, especially my relationship with Hashem. This is the reality of relationship, then we can choose a course of action to bring us back together. psychology. [applause] One of the first things they learned when he was getting his PhD was you have to live through the pain. You can't ignore it. So, it's been psychologically proven that that's what you have to do. >> I love ter