Adar: Increasing Joy - Finding Simcha In Pain

2:25 They put it together. My anniversary is on 127. So could you tie that in also? Bezos Hashem, you're gonna live to 127 years. As a very chassidah sherevah who once somebody said to him, "You should live on Mayav Esther." He goes, "Why only on Mayav Esther?" It's a funny thing. We never know. And I'll just keep coming back. And I'll keep coming back to hear you. We don't just have a coed audience. We have with us today—I wasn't going to say this to the end—but one of my oldest friends is in the room today, Dr. Jonathan Donath Who is the founder of Daily Giving? For those of you who have not heard of Daily Giving Dr. Donath, Dr. Donath, and I were roommates when we were 18, 19 years old. And I'll speak about this a little bit later. But in addition to being a very special person, he has a very special dream that I think ties into what we're going to speak about today.

3:24 And hopefully something that I think you all should participate in. From the claps, I assume many of you are already participating in, but you could always participate more. The Talmidim of Rav Kibbutz woke up from this connection. So the inner meaning of the connection between Sarimenu and Esther Amalca must have been very, very deep, and I want to try to explore with you today what that connection was. We're holding today by Rosh Chodesh Adar. I'm sure a ton of people have already spoken about Purim. But we're holding Rosh Chodesh Adar, so we have to speak about Mishaneknas Adar Marben Besimcha. And I have to share with you that for me, Mishaneknas Adar Marben Besimcha bothers me. It bothers me. In yeshiva right now, all the boys are running around Mishaneknas Adar Marben Besimcha. Going crazy. Is that what Chazal mean? Do they mean we should hype ourselves up? Should we just act like a bunch of moshuganas to get ourselves going? It's a great time in yeshiva, but is that what it means to us as adults?

4:20 That's basically all the questions I want to ask. And I had a whole thing in front of me, and I'm going to say none of it. I want to share with you something that's very near to me right now, and it's something that last night Dr. Donath and Mr. Wrestler and I went out to eat. And it's some word that they said, and that's really what I want to talk about. Dr. Donath and Mr. Wrestler spent Shabbos in the David Citadel with a group of people that are the families of hostages that are currently being held. I get that right? And they invited me to come for Shabbos. Unfortunately, I couldn't come. And they shared with me that it was the most incredible Shabbos. There was a word they said last night when we went out to eat. I'm going to share it with you in a moment.

5:08 There's something called the self. Something called the self. It's not an easy thing to know what the self is. The way I think of self is you can't separate self and soul. Those are the same thing. And the self has features. There are different features of the self. There's compassion. There's. A certain level of Call it tranquility, that the self has. But there's one feature of self that I want to talk to you about today, and that feature is called perspective. Perspective is the word that Dr. Donath said last night. Correct me if I'm wrong. Push back. But he said that over Shabbos there was not a feeling among these families that they had a sense of giving up. They had what you described last night as unbelievable perspective. What is perspective, and how do we harness that tool of self in our life? Because for most of us, we're very stuck in a particular age in our life.

6:18 And our perspective is shaped by that age. I'll give you an example of what I mean. In Alcoholics Anonymous, she tipped me off. If you figured it out. In Alcoholics Anonymous, there's something called your biological age, and they call it your sober age. Your sober age is the age that you started not being sober, and that doesn't mean when you took your first drink. Your sober age for many people could be like 11 years old. They may not have had their first drink till they were 15, but they're stuck as an 11-year-old. And they have, as a result of that, an eleven-year-old perspective. And everyone in this room, without exception, because we are all not in self. In fact, I would say the goal for every one of us is to try to shift to being in self, to live in harmony with our soul.

7:14 Every one of us has a perspective that's very narrow, and that can be broadened. And I'll give you an example of this. I have to change a couple of the details because it wouldn't be nice for this young man to tell his exact story. But this morning, I sat with a young man for about an hour and 15 minutes. A young man who's in a tremendous amount of pain. But unmentalized pain, unprocessed pain, pain that he doesn't know what to do with. This kid is a superstar. He's an absolute superstar. If you asked me to rank all the guys in yeshiva by sheer talent, what they're capable of doing on the inside, this kid is top ten for sure. I'm talking about a boy who's a bal midos, a bal chesed, levels of empathy for other people that I've rarely seen. I've been in mivaser for 16 years. I don't think I've seen levels of empathy like this kid has for another kid. If there's a kid in pain in yeshiva, he finds him and he's with him. He said to me today that he's so grateful for the pain that he's experienced in his life.

8:22 Because it gives him the ability to empathize with those people that have pain. Which is an incredible thing for an 18-year-old to say. It's absolutely incredible. And I'm blown away by him. The challenge is, and I can't give you any of the details because it wouldn't be appropriate, but he's gone through a serious amount of trauma in his life. And as a result, there's a story that he's telling himself. And the story that he's telling himself. Is a story. I can. I think I could say this. The story that he's telling himself is that he is unworthy of love and connection. And he finally acknowledged today that basically every conversation we've had so far this year is to try to push me away. That's like anything I say to him. He says, "No, Rabbi, you're wrong. You're wrong. You're wrong." And in fact, at some point this year, because he's really not showing up to very much in yeshiva.

9:25 When I say not showing up to very much, I don't mean like he's showing up seventy percent of the time. I'm saying he's showing up maybe seven percent of the time. He's really not functional. So at some point this year, he basically dared me. He said, "Throw me out of yeshiva. I don't deserve to be here." So I said, "I know what you're doing." I know what you're doing. You're trying to get me to prove to you that you're unworthy of love and connection because of your behavior. So I'm not going to throw you out of yeshiva. He goes, "Would you throw anybody else out of yeshiva who was having my levels of performance?" I said, "Maybe." He goes, "So why am I different?" I said, "Because you want me to. I don't want to play your game." Today, in this conversation, which was probably the best conversation we ever had He said to me that he recognizes that's true.

10:16 So I said to him, "What do you think you could do?" If you would broaden your story, he said, I can't. My story is this, and it can't be any more than that. This is my story. I'm not capable of being in a functional relationship. It would be cruel for me to get married. It would be cruel for me to have children. It would be wrong. I can't. I can't do that to another person because I know. I said, you're the most empathetic guy in yeshiva by far. He goes, yeah, but I. I just know. I know in my heart that I'm unworthy of love and connection. He's able to say these words. Do you realize how incredible that is? He's able to say, "I know that. I know that I'm an empathetic person, but I know that I'm going to hurt someone." Therefore I can't do it. I can't do it. So he's willing. I said, "What would success in life look like? What would you do?"

11:02 "He goes," I just want to make enough money to be comfortable." I said, "What are you going to do with that money? He said, "I don't know. I guess I'll help people." I said, "If I told you I needed a quarter of a million dollars." Because I want to build out. I live in a house. Baruch Hashem, I had my first grandson not that long ago, a month ago. Incredible! I'm a grandfather. It's the best club. For those of you that are grandparents, you know what I'm talking about. For those of you that are not grandparents, it's the best. Like all the taurus your kids give you, it's worth. I'm telling you, once they give you your grandchildren, it's like the best. Everyone told me when I became a grandfather, welcome to the club. I didn't realize, I thought welcome to the club meant like I'm going to start puttering around. And I'm actually okay with that. I would love to putter. I would love to be like an old man, just walking around, eating herring in the morning, 5:30 in the morning, drinking vodka. Those people last 127. That's how long they last.

11:57 Now I know what I gotta do. I'm talking about those. Isn't it the best part when they come over and they say? That's the best. My daughter right now is going through this, and I'm looking. I'm like, now you know what love means. You never knew. I'm actually very sad because they just moved out last night. I'm used to waking up every morning hearing them, and now they weren't there, so it's like a hole in my heart. But yeah, they live not that far from me. They'll be back. They got to eat dinner somehow. I asked this kid. I said, "My house is a little bit small. I need to expand the house." If I asked you for a quarter of a million dollars, I would give it to you and I wouldn't even ask why. Like a quarter of a million dollars, you'd give me? He's 100%. Not even a question. I'm not computing. You would give me a quarter of a million if you had. And by the way, this kid will. If you have a quarter of a million dollars, you're gonna give it to me. You're not even gonna think. But you think you can't be in a relationship. He goes, exactly.

12:53 Do you see what he's going through? He's stuck in a story. Now it makes sense. Every single one of us, and this is a gift. Every single one of us is understandable And anything that's understandable is forgivable. To us, we don't understand ourselves. Therefore, we think we're not forgivable. And because we're not forgivable, we're unworthy of love and connection. I'm going to say that again because I know Barry's going to ask me in a minute to say it again. I'm going to say it again. Every one of us in this room is understandable. If we knew our story, which we don't. None of us know our story. If we knew our story, we'd be understandable. And if we're understandable, then we're forgivable. If we're forgivable, then we're worthy of love and connection. I'll give an example of this. In my room, in my office, in Mevaseret, I have a picture of Rav Moshe Feinstein.

13:50 I'm sure you've seen this picture. It's the picture of Rav Moshe Feinstein outside in the country, learning by a table. I want to tell you why I have that picture. Because in that picture of Moshe Feinstein is wearing a striped shirt. It's a striped shirt, and they airbrushed it. They airbrushed that picture. In the new pictures, he's wearing a white shirt. Chas v'shalom, that Rav Moshe wore stripes. He did. By the way, Rav Moshe wore lots of funny clothing because he had a daughter-in-law who was very artsy, and she would buy his clothing. And there's pictures in one of the grandchildren's homes that I've been in, and Rav Moshe is wearing an orange robe. And I'm like, what in the world is Rav Moshe wearing? They're like, that daughter-in-law She was very artsy, so she bought him this stuff, and because he was a tzaddik, he wore whatever she wore. I have this picture because I think it's awesome. I like the unadulterated pictures of Rav Moshe Feinstein.

14:42 The kid in my office this morning is wild. He said, "Rabbi, can I tell you something? There's something I never told you. This there's something that bothers me about your office." I said, "What is it?" He said, "That picture of Moshe." Of all the things to bother you in my office? Said, "I had that picture in my house growing up." I had that picture in my room. And nothing good ever happened in that house. Every time I come into your office That picture raises my pain. And I'm sitting in the office with this kid for months. And I don't know the pain that he's going through. It's not on me because how in the world am I supposed to predict that? But it's on us to create an environment where we can elicit that information because this kid is understandable. Imagine he's walking into my office. I'm asking him, Can you be vulnerable? Can you unpack? Can you share with me your experience? And he's got this thing in the room that's blaring at him the entire time, going. Remember all that pain.

15:46 And from that pain he crafted a story. He doesn't know that he is forgivable, and I want to explain what that means. To be forgivable means that you are not defined by your pain. Not that you did anything wrong, that you need to for people think forgiveness means I need to forgive myself for the things that I did wrong. Forgiveness is a form of death. That's what forgiveness is. Forgiveness lets us kill something off so that we can begin a new story. You ever think of forgiveness that way? It's an unbelievable thing. You see this by the Chetah Egel That the pasuk says that after the Chetah Egel they were Misaval, they mourned. Why do they need to mourn after they committed the sin? Because mourning is a way of letting something go. It's a way of killing something off. It's a way of saying we can now start fresh. We can now start anew. Most of us, when it comes to our own averas, think we can never start anew. I just read this past week an unbelievable var from Rav Moshe Tarragan, who quoted in the name of his Rebbe, Rav Aaron Lichtenstein, Zeichasadik Lebracha, who was the Rosh Yeshiva of Gush Said the same idea that I saw from the Labavitcher Rebbe. It's an amazing idea.

16:54 He said, imagine you had a couple, they got engaged, and they're head over heels in love with each other. Do you remember? Kids these days don't do it. Do you remember registering? They don't. They register online. We had the geshmack of real registering. You go to the store and they give you the gun. I loved that gun. I'm walking around Bed Bath and Beyond like I'm 007. There's my poor wife. I as 21 year old doofus like walking around Bed Bath and Beyond. And you're like, we want this, we want that. It's like a very selfish time in your life, right? These kids, they click. It's not the same. You register. Registering is unbelievable. Imagine Ravon Lechtenstein says that you went to a furniture store and you're registering. We're gonna have this couch. You know what that couple is doing? They're picturing that couch in their first apartment.

17:48 Remember when we pictured our first apartments? Those tiny little things. I lived in a basement my first year of marriage because I said I was learning in Kyll and we didn't really have anyone supporting us. So we had to save as much money as possible. Every time we showered, the entire basement flooded. But there's something so beautiful about that, no? Like that first totally dysfunctional apartment. Now we have Baruch Hashem, beautiful homes. Back in the day, we mamish had nothing, and it was awesome. It was amazing. So they're shopping for that first couch, and they're like, you see them? They're picturing themselves on the couch, and they could see themselves talking late at night. You remember those times? Yeah. That's a lot of pain in the room right now. Don't worry, I hear you, I see you. I've been studying your half of the species for a very long time. And you picture your bedroom set and you picture the dining room table and all the guests that you're going to have around your dining room table and it's beautiful.

18:44 And a week before the wedding The kala cheats on the chasim And the wedding is off. And the inlaws are furious at each other. You have to pay for the wedding. There's so much unmentalized pain and so much that's unspoken between this couple. And finally, after everything, they get in a room together, talk it out, go to therapy and work through it. And they decide that they can make the relationship work. Now they have to register again, and they go back to that furniture store, but it's super uncomfortable because they're looking at that couch. And that couch had so much innocence That now it doesn't have. When they click the gun on that couch, it's like that was the couch we were supposed to be in before all this pain happened. That was the dining room table that were supposed to have before all of this pain. There's a big yisod by the cheita egel that were misavel. We mourned that relationship, and the whole parsha that we're in now, vayakal pekudeh, is that we can actually build a home with Hakadosh Baruch Hu after this pain.

19:57 And it'll be okay. And that it'll be a home that's beautiful. Forgiveness is a form of letting go of something. In a human relationship, it's very difficult to let go of our pain. We get stuck in our pain, and that creates a narrative. I'll give you an example of this. How many people here have had struggles with their children? I'll raise my hand on behalf of everyone here. Thank you very much for being part of the crowd. I'll raise my hand. I have an amazing daughter. Who is ridiculously talented? By far my most talented daughter. But it's like parenting myself. You ever have that experience? And she has a way of I don't know what it is. You know what I'm talking about? When they just do that thing, and it's like, why does that bother me so much? I know what it is because it's my own story about her that I'm really telling myself.

20:49 She's an amazing kid. But we lock our children into our stories. What if we didn't? What if we broadened our perspective? What if instead of looking at our kids' failures We shaped those failures within the larger contours of an entire story. I'll give you an example. This daughter that I have, she is not designed for school. You know what I'm talking about? School is a box, and the only box this kid is ever going to get into is after 127. She's not getting in any boxes anytime soon. She brought home her report card this year. And she got a failing grade in home ec. Now I said to her, "Sweetie, I love you." How in the world did you fail home ec when you tell me that you're in that room baking all the time? She goes, "Well, I'm there when I'm not supposed to be, but when I'm supposed to be, I refuse to go."

21:44 So I was like, 'Of course you do.' They have one of these sneeze police situations. My other daughters don't care. I have a lot to say about that, but not for now. She Dafka sees how much she could get away with. I was like, you don't have to do that. She goes, I do. I just want to see. And then she sits there at my Shabbos table, going, she's ridiculous. I don't understand what she's doing. I'm like, just don't do that. She goes, I have to. She's like compelled to see how much she could push the boundaries. I could define her that way. Or I could define her by the fact that she's an incredible dancer. In fact, she's so good at dancing that she's gotten hired by a woman in the neighborhood. Who dances professionally at bat mitzvahs and goes all over, and she's incredible. She's the life of the party wherever she goes. When she is in camps, she's incredible.

22:35 And she's incredible with kids. And she's so generous. She came home from one of her bat mitzvahs the other day. They did a bat mitzvah for all the girls down south that couldn't have a bat mitzvah. So they made here in Yerushalayim. They made a bat mitzvah for all these girls. You were there. It was incredible. She danced at that mitzvah, and they had cookies out with all the girls' names on them. Because they made special cookies. There were a ton left over. She said, "I brought home for snack." What story do we tell ourselves? Do we tell ourselves the story that we're stuck in this pain and I'm defined by it, or do we broaden the story? Where Rabbi Kalish is successful in Waterbury, everyone's like this big mystery. Why is Rabbi Kalish successful? It's not a mystery. It's actually a very simple equation.

23:21 The story that every single person is telling about these kids, he's telling them a completely different story, but not a lie. He's not getting up in front of them and going like, 'You're a tzaddik.' That's a very uncomfortable word for kids. When a rebbe walks by you in the hall and says, "Kamir tzaddik," it's uncomfortable. Kids, I'm not a tzaddik. Don't do that to me. It's an amazing. Don't call kids tzaddikim. Don't call kids tzaddikim. What type of bar is that set for a kid? He's genuinely looking at this kid and going, "I don't see you the way that you see yourself, or the way that other people have seen you." This is not rocket science. He's just telling a different story.

24:03 And it's a really hard thing to do, especially if that kid is doing everything you don't want him to do. I was listening to Rabbi Kalish here. This is probably a year ago, a year and a half ago. And he was telling the story that he takes the guys in Waterbury away to a camp, and apparently it's not obvious for them to rent out a camp because not every camp is willing to let Waterbury come. But there's one camp where they go, and the guy who owns the camp, or I think it's the guy who owns the camp, the guy who owns the camp, who runs the camp, when he wakes up Shabbos morning, he always makes the same joke. He goes, "The lake is still here." They didn't do anything to the lake. How do you like parenting a kid who you tell them they have to be home by this time, and they go, "Sure." They're triggering you. They're right there. They know how to do it. We have to stay in our story as parents. That's not the story these kids are being told, or the story that they're telling themselves. That's called perspective.

24:58 Perspective means where everyone else is zeroed in on this one thing. We don't have to be. What does that give us access to? It gives us access to joy. But I'm going with you. It also gives us access. To extreme sadness. Let's do the flip side first. Let's do sadness first. Show a hand. And this one, I want you to raise your hands for. How many people in an honest moment Would choose sadness? I would choose sadness. Would you choose? Would you choose sadness as an option in your life? I always get that reaction. It's exactly the reaction I was looking for. Two or three people always raise their hand. Sadness is a gorgeous, beautiful, incredible emotion. We should be blessed to feel sadness in our lives. Why? Was that because? Would you say? Because you change. That would be a great answer, but I wouldn't even go that far.

25:58 So most people do that. Most people say, if I don't know the darkness, then I won't know the light. I know that I'm connected to something. Grief. Grief is unexpressed love. I'm sorry. Grief, sadness It's unexpressed love. I'll give you an example of this. You had the horror. I'll spell it out. There's a difference between sadness and lack of hope. Exactly. You're talking about. Even within hopelessness, there's a kernel of hope because the only way you could feel hopeless is if you already have that hope that you lost. But even without going that far, I'll give you an example. This: I lost my grandmother to COVID. My grandmother was a second mother for me. There are some grandmothers that are like out to lunch, they'll call once a week and they'll call when you're not around. This grandmother, she was amazing. She would call every single night, and she had some sort of ESP that she would always call during dinner, and it would drive my father nuts. He's like, "How does your mother know exactly when to call?" You know, like that. You know what I'm saying? There's some people that get angry quietly, through gritted teeth. But I loved her.

27:16 And she never had a bad word for any of us, even when we were acting psychotic. The angriest she ever got was when she said, 'Boys, simmer down now.' That was the most she could say. The kindest woman, and she gave everything. Even when she had nothing, she gave everything. Towards the end of her life, when I was already living here and she was living in New Jersey, I would go to visit her. And I would come and I would always surprise her. Looking back on it, may not have been the best idea. But Baruch Hashem, it worked out. And she would always like if I came to the apartment. She'd say, "What can I give you?" I'd say, "You don't have anything. You live in an assisted living facility. All your stuff has already been given away." She'd say, "Have an apple." I'd say, "Do I look like I have an apple?" What are you trying to give? She'd say, "I have donuts." I'd say, "Why do you have donuts? You're not allowed to have donuts." She'd say, "Just in case I came, Entenmann's donuts in the freezer. Just in case I came." She's the most generous person in the world.

28:08 When she passed, it was obviously sudden. She was in an assisted living facility in New Jersey. Those things were death traps. She just walked by someone who had COVID. Three weeks later, she was gone. And you have to understand, nobody in my family is religious. I'm the child of Tzibalei Tshuva So in my mind, I'm the family rabbi. So I knew one day my grandmother will pass after 127 years. I'm gonna milk that joke for the entire time, Mr. Stoller. I'm gonna keep going for the rest of my life. I knew that one day she's going to pass. I knew I'm going to be called back. I'm going to go back in the end. I'm going to be able to say goodbye to her. It's going to be proper. I'm going to be able to give her kavod achron. I'm going to speak at the funeral, the whole nine yards. I knew it. It wasn't a question in my head. I didn't get to say goodbye. I said goodbye via Zoom. I couldn't be there with her at the end. I didn't get to be at the levaya. The levaya was on Zoom. I missed the entire thing.

29:01 There are times. I have a picture of myself with her. The last time I saw her. Baruch Hashem, these amazing talmidei drove me out to see her. It was the last time I saw her. It was in January that year. And I have this picture by my desk. And when I see my clients, that picture is right there. And in my heart, she speaks to me. If I'm talking to somebody and I know they need a kind word, I hear her voice saying, 'Say something nice to them.' Just like gently. She has a very kind voice. But sometimes I'll look at that picture, and I'm not crying, but inside I'm holding back the tears. Because there's so much love that I can't tell her anymore, and it's so exceptionally sad. And even now I'm feeling it. But if you asked me, would I want to get rid of that? Never.

29:46 I would never want to get rid of that sadness. Most people think sadness makes you appreciate the good times. Sadness is already beautiful. So misha nichnas Av mimatim besimcha. In times of great sadness, our perspective. Can broaden so that we can actually appreciate what we lost. We should be sitting here right now in this room and we should look just this way, which is an incredible thing because you can't give this year in the five towns. Just look this way. We should be extraordinarily sad. I was once on the roof of Yeshiva Hakotel with Moshe Weinberger Shalita, and I was just so excited to be there with Rebbe. And he's just sitting there and he's so sad. I'm like, what? Why is he so sad? Look what they did to our Beis Hamikdash. And he had a beautiful perspective. Perspective gives you incredible access to pain.

30:41 But perspective also gives you incredible access to joy. Because if you can have pain, you can have joy. If you pick up one end of the stick, you pick up the other. If you numb your pain, you numb your joy, which is why people in relationships are totally numb. Because I can't pick up my pain because it's too great for me to bear, I don't want to feel that sadness. But then you're also numbing out on the other end, and you don't have the perspective to feel that joy. And every one of us, at every possible moment, has the ability to experience incredible levels of joy, even when things are going so badly. If you think about If you think about Sara Imenu's life, good life or bad life? I would not say good life. I would not say good life. Abducted by two kings.

31:28 Her husband had Hagar as a wife. She watched as her husband had children with somebody else—a pain that we can't possibly imagine. It was a woman in my neighborhood who didn't have children for 20 years. It's a crazy story. Rechaim Kaniewski told the family to build a mikvah. They did, and nine months later they had their first child. It was on my block. Some of you may have heard that story. I know the story for real. On my block for 20 years. She's like a preschool teacher. Like she has a little thing in her basement. For 20 years, she didn't have children. Can we imagine the pain? We cannot. I hope we can't. We cannot imagine that level of pain. In my neighborhood, everyone just hangs out by the parks. Like all the women hang out by the parks. She never hung out by a park because when you hang out at a park with all your kids, the pain was too great to bear. When she came home with her child Hundreds of people were there. Music blasting, balloons. It was a simcha for the whole neighborhood. It was absolutely incredible.

32:24 The pain was extraordinary. Sorry, Imenu. All those years, knowing you're married to Avram Avinu, knowing this is going to be the father of the greatest nation in the history of the world, and watching him have Yisshma, could we possibly understand that? And then Hagar chaperoning her, Hagar going like I'm greater than you. " Like I can't, I can't even imagine the levels of pain. That was her. And then how she died. Because she thought that Avram Avinu killed Yitzchak. The levels of pain are extraordinary. What does Rashi say? 127 years. Why does it say chayishana? Why does it say that? Kulan shal matayva. How is that possible? How is it possible that amidst all that pain, she was able? Because we say this word gratitude. Gratitude is an English word that has no meaning. Hakaras hatov means that she was able to be makir. Makir means a deep sense of awareness.

33:19 All the tov that was. How do you look at pain and be able to extract all of the good without being fake about it, without being silver lining? Silver lining is just a way of us avoiding vulnerability. Hakarasatov is a deep sense of awareness that within all of this pain, there is good. Within all of that longing for my grandmother, there's love. It's hard to say what I'm about to say, and please don't think it's coming from a lack of sensitivity. This country is in so much pain And we are not broken—not even a little bit. This is a country of akarisatov. There's so much good here. And I hate to say it like this. Of course, it was a tragedy of epic proportions. If we could go back in time, we would. But we've changed so fundamentally over the last couple of months. They broke through our walls, and so did we. We have no more walls between each other anymore.

34:22 There's no more walls in this country. There's no chilonim. There's no datiim. There's no charedim. There's no chasidim. This country is stunning, gorgeous right now. We found the kernel of tov. We found that goodness that's inside of each and every one of us, and we've banded together like never before. There's a story that one of the rabbis in Mevaseret tells. I love this story. He was anyone here from the five towns? Aside from Mrs. Staller, there's a place in Long Beach that has an ice skating rink. I grew up on that ice skating rink. One of the boys was telling me that as a boy he went out with his brothers and his brothers were beating him up in the ice skating rink. And some mother came over and she starts yelling at his brothers, "You stop beating him up right now." And he, from the floor being beaten up on the ice, looks and says, "Don't tell my brothers what to do." That's what we are.

35:12 We will fight with each other like crazy until somebody else tries to fight with us. We are a nation of kulon shavon letoivu. We have a deep sense of awareness that within pain there's something gorgeous, something beautiful. Our kids today have no idea what this means, because they didn't grow up in the post-Holocaust generation, seeing people rebuild from the ashes. But this is the secret to our eternity. Every single time we get hit We know that within the pain, there's something absolutely amazing. And this is exactly what Rav Kiva was telling his talmidim. He's saying we're suffering terribly at the hands of Roman persecution, and they were getting sleepy. What does that mean? They were tired of the persecution. Everyone in this room is feeling this sense of chalizah. Are we not tired of it? Every one of us is sick of it. I'm sick of going on social media, on Instagram and Twitter and Snapchat and all the things, and seeing the disturbing, disgusting things that they say about our nation. I'm so tired.

36:18 But kul and shav and la'tayva, we know we are the nation that knows how to find godliness within all the pain. I have to read this to you. Sometimes you prepare for a she'ar. I prepared this whole she'ar. You asked me to prepare she'ar specifically on this. I already got this message last week. But my brother wrote this morning and he sent it to me. And Hashem does exactly the right thing at exactly the right time. I said I'm speaking to the Chizuk Mission now. I know what I got to say. This is my brother's post. It's entitled "Crying at the Waldorf." For years, my wife has dreamed of spending a Shabbat at the Jerusalem Waldorf Astoria. This weekend, after a great deal of saving and planning, we made that happen. The hotel is stunning. The food is next level, but I never expected to spend my Shabbat morning crying.

37:09 Friday night, we realized that we had a large contingency of colorful people staying at the hotel. They didn't seem like the normal clientele. I politely made conversation with a couple of them and learned that they were a large extended family. Their brother, son, father was killed four months ago in the line of duty in Gaza. Last weekend, our deceased hero's wife gave birth to a baby boy. Saturday morning would be the briss. A special saint of a man, Shai Grousher, booked the entire family into the Waldorf for the weekend. He arranged everything from rooms and meals to the entire briss. He even arranged for visitors and VIPs in Jerusalem to join the briss. I looked around Friday night, but didn't see Shai anywhere. There were special signs up all over the hotel celebrating the bris. There were candy bags given out to all the kids in the hotel Friday night, and everything was done beautifully with design and class as befitting the venue.

38:14 I ran into Shay early Saturday morning at prayers and realized he was wearing a hospital bracelet. I asked him if everything was okay. And he told me his wife just had a baby girl at 1:30 a.m. He got her settled and then walked from the hospital all the way to the hotel to make sure he could join the bris. And what a bris it was! Hundreds and hundreds of people came—family members, hotel guests, strangers who heard about it through word of mouth. Everyone was singing songs of faith. When the mother said the blessing over the bris instead of the father She struggled to get the words out through her tears. She ended up screaming the blessing. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. But a bris is supposed to be a happy time. So while we were crying Shai jumped on a chair and started singing traditional songs of joy. Everyone started dancing.

39:09 The small circle got larger and larger. Sorry, I can't see the words. As we grew to encircle the entire ballroom, Shai, still standing on a chair, changed the song to Hushias Amecha. The song is traditionally sung on Simchas Torah, which this year was shattered by violence on the morning of October seventh. Nobody wanted the dancing to end. Nobody left the circle to go to lunch or talk to friends. One hotel guest, a visitor from Toronto, turned to me and said, 'This is the most beautiful and meaningful bris I have ever seen.' None of us knew each other But just for a moment, we were so close. After Shabbat, while waiting for the valet to bring our car, we saw the mom. She was being helped by her own mother as she wheeled a stroller with her newborn out the door, with a jumble of little kids in tow.

39:58 To face the reality of life. As a newly single mother with little kids and a newborn Life isn't a fairy tale. But sometimes we see glimpses of how amazing the world can be. We are a nation of exceptional perspective. We could tell ourselves the story that on October seventh They killed us. They tortured us. They stole us. They brutally hurt our people. But we don't do that. We know that life isn't a fairy tale. But kul and shav in l'tayva There are people who see pain and know how to access the goodness. I didn't mean for Doctor Donath to be here, but I promised you I would get back to him. I know Doctor Donath for a very long time now. It's 26 years since we knew each other. I want to tell you Doctor Donath's story because I don't know how many of you actually know it.

41:03 Doctor Donath, by the way, you think like he started this organization. This is not an organization. It's just who he is. He's the kindest person I've ever met, and he's very generous. He gave a dollar to Tzaddik one day, and then he said, "My dollar" My dollar by itself is just a dollar, but Klal Yisrael's dollar Man, you imagine what it would be like if we gave. Twelve million dollars a day that stocker. Right now, because of Doctor Donah's dream, he knows that we don't live in a fairy tale. He knows that life is pain, and he knows that we can solve that pain by finding the opportunities to give to each other within that pain. And because of Doctor Donah's dream, one morning when he put a dollar in stocker. He said, 'What if we all did it together?' And now we—and I call myself 'we.' I'm part of it because I was—I think the second or third phone call that he made when he had this idea.

41:59 Now we have raised over eighteen thousand dollars a day, giving away millions and millions of dollars in stock a year—over six million dollars in stock. We are not a weak nation. We are so strong because Kulan Shalom L'Tayva. We know how to find exceptional levels of goodness and godliness, where other people only see pain. For those of you who have the opportunity to be a part of daily giving, you're blessed. For those of you who have not yet had the opportunity, a dollar a day. A dollar a day. You get an email every day that says, "Where there's pain, I bring light. Where there's darkness, I bring joy." Not because we're afraid of the pain. We have perspective. Pain is longing. Pain is beautiful. But because we know how to live a balanced life, the definition of emotional maturity is to be able to hold two complex and conflicting emotions at once.

42:52 We can be exceptionally sad. We can be exceptionally broken, and feel like it's beyond repair. But a Jew knows how to be joyous, and when the time comes, Mishenichnas Adar Marben Besimcha. Have an amazing rest of your trip. It's a privilege to be here. And Bez, Hashem, I look forward to seeing you on the next Chizuk trip that you come to.