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So we're up to Parshas Vayichii. Parshas Vayichii is very short. If we have time Parshas Vayira is a little bit longer, but it's also this week's parsha. So I feel like if we could try to do two, it's k'day just to at least this way we'll be a little bit with the parshas. Vayichii Yaakov Pirush Rashi, L'ma Parshas Ashtuma. We all know that this parsha is awesome. This parsha is closed. Rashi gives two pshatim. It reflects the fact that Yaakov Avinu was nifter in this week's parsha. The eyes and the hearts of Klal Yisrael were closed because of the pain of the shibud in Mitzrayim. The beracher. We all know the famous Pshat and Rashi. The Rashi that Yaakov Avinu wanted to reveal to Klal Yisrael about the end of days. The time, what would happen And he was not able to. It was Nesdamimenu. Ad Kan L'shana Kadosh.
Zarch loav na'im chasu shalom lonusma la bakoshes Yaakov avinu chasu shalom kibikesh v'nesdamimenu. So it's a very beautiful question. It's real chassidish question. He says, "How could it be chas v'shalom that the bakasha of Yaakov Avinu was not fulfilled" That Yaakov Avinu would request from Hakadosh Baruch Hu that he should be able to reveal the end of days to Klal Yisrael, and that his bakasha would be refused? Now I say it's a chassidish question because we see many times the requests of tzaddikim are refused. But you'll see that he gives a very beautiful answer. I would say it's a beautiful question, more than a rational question that we couldn't answer logically. But he's trying to bring out a point And especially in 1939, at the very end of 1939 With what they were going through at that time. We know that when Yaakov Avinu blessed the children, Frayim and Menashe Of Yosef HaTzaddik So it says Vayivarech es Yosef that he blessed Yosef, but obviously he didn't bless Yosef; he blessed the Frayim and Menashe.
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And the Zayar Kodesh says V'omer she bechasa the bano yehim bechasa the abba. Only parents can understand this. If I tried to give this over to guys in yeshiva, they would never understand what we're talking about. But when you bless the children, you're blessing the parents. Can't you separate them? Because shabirach has benay Yosef, berachas Yosef. That's what the Zohar Kodesh says. When he blessed the Frayman Menashe, that's a bracha for the father. This explains the Gemara. Shemar, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Yishtmah b'ni barcheni. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, Yishtmah, my son, bless me. The Amar. Some of you may know this from the well-known song. So yisshual blessed Hakadosh Baruch Hu So to speak, by saying you should have rachemim on your children And you should deal with your children in midas rachemim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Yisshual, you should bless me. Sheivarech also Yisbaruch ubirach es Yisrael. Sheivarech got Hakadosh Baruch Hu iman b'midas rachemim.
So ostensibly. Yisrael did not bless Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He blessed Hakadosh Baruch Hu's children. Hakadosh Baruch Hu should have rachamim on his children. Isn't that a bracha for Klal Yisrael? That's not a bracha for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. He says, "Have a canal, Berchus Habanim, and Berchus Haav." But based on what we said before from the Zayra Kadosh That when you bless the children, you're blessing the father. To be a parent means that you're with your child completely. When your child is in pain, you're in pain. That when things are going well for your child You are doing well. I don't mean in the codependent sense. I don't mean to say that your emotions are dependent on another. But we have an unusual amount of pride in our children. I'll share with you just now. Maybe I shouldn't have done this. But my daughter is getting married in a month.
Thank you. So I'm soaking in the last minutes You know what I'm talking about. I'm soaking in the last minutes, and when she was in seminary, she taught herself to play piano and plays pretty well. And so she was sitting in her old room. And she's sitting with the piano, and she's just playing. And I asked her, "Can I take a video of you?" And she said, "No" Because she wants to be free. But the way that she had the piano positioned, and the way where the notes were. I was standing by the door, and I saw that I wasn't going to be mafriah her, and I probably shouldn't have done it. I'm not saying I'm a good parent. I'm just telling you, we're speaking honestly. And I want it. I'll tell you why I want it because of Google Photos. I want, in ten years, that Google Photos will say, "Go back ten years ago. This is what happened on this day," and Bez Hashem, by then she'll have developed a beautiful life.
And I'll just sit there and have the nachas. Children don't understand nachas. Children run after very small things. Little kids running after Legos, and teenagers run after Whatever it is that'll make them feel enough for themselves. We all have the things that we chase after. As parents and as grandparents, we chase after the greatest pleasure of all, which is nachas. The bond between a parent and a child. It's a symbiotic relationship. And so if we see a mohr heaping praise on our daughters we feel something We feel like It's my kid. We all have the stories that we tell our children about how special each one of them is, especially when they're little. My fifth daughter was the first one born here in Eretz Yisrael. She was born on Shabbos. So I always tell her, you are the most Eretz Yisraelic of all the kids, and you're the most Shabbosic of all the kids. And she grows up with that. She's like, yes, I'm the most Eretz Yisraelic and I'm the most Shabbosic.
And my sixth is my first son. So he's like, "Abba, you were waiting for me," because I always tell him, "I was waiting for you." If you have five girls in a row, especially Svardim are coming over to me asking, "Are you okay?" And of course, you get machas from all of your children. But there's a strange relationship. We relate to them so deeply. And so that's what Yismael was doing. He was blessing Hakadosh Baruch Hu by blessing his children. Uberchus Yisrael, berchus Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But the opposite is also true. So now Yaakov Avinu dies, and Klal Yisrael finds itself in the Galus Mitzrayim. So when a Jew goes down into Galus, the Torah is impacted by the Galus that Klal Yisrael is in. He doesn't spell this out, but I think this is what he means. The Torah and Klal Yisrael are one.
And if Jews are in Galus, then the Torah is in Galus too. So this is so painful that a Jew in Galus is not able to learn Torah, and the Torah is being impacted down in Galus And of course this is a tremendous Tsar both for us and for Hakadosh Baruch Hu. But it also becomes our greatest hope Because as Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so to speak, feels the pain of his children And he sees that the Torah and Shamayim are also being impacted. So then, certainly Hakadosh Baruch Hu will be Moshiach. Certainly there'll be a salvation. It's like if your child is in pain, you're in pain. And if you can save If you can save your child, of course you will, because his pain is your pain, her pain is your pain. Sometimes you can't, but if the pain is so deep, you feel like you have to.
When the children are little, they cry when they get the shot. As parents, we have to hold them while they get that shot. I had a daughter who I don't want I don't want to share any bad news, but you should all be very careful. Had a daughter who had her thumb in one of the big Israeli doors, and my other daughter closed it, and a significant part of her thumb came off. The whole mizer. A kitzur. It grew back. It was like a crazy thing. She was a very little girl when it happened, and they were able to grow back. It's a whole nice dozen man. But if you ever come to my house, you'll see we have the big plastic guards that they haven't gone. I have one of them on my. Every time I hear a door slam in this country, I'm scarred. And when they were sewing back on the thumb, Eretz Yisrael is very technologically advanced. What they did is they had me sit on my two-year-old daughter while they sewed it back on. This was the great technological advancement that we had.
And she was very verbal and she was screaming and she was saying, "but get off of me! I want ima!" And it was about twenty minutes of horror. And she didn't speak to me for a year, for a full year. Every time I came into the room after that, she would be out of the room. She would run away, because in her mind, I did a terrible thing. I'm the person she's supposed to be with. We have a beautiful relationship, by the way. She's a teenager. Everything worked out in the end. But for a year, I would come home from yeshiva, and she would run. And it's a terrible feeling. And of course, I wanted so much to pull her out and go. You don't need a thumb, like it's not going to really impact shaduchim. People don't have thumbs, like it's not the right thing. If you have an opportunity to save the thumb, you have to do it. But the pain that she was feeling was the pain that I was feeling. It's the same pain. And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels the pain of a Jew because it's when we say that the Torah was nistama.
The pain of Hakadosh Baruch Hu that He felt for our pain in that place was so deep that Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so to speak, had no choice but to save us. B'kesh l'galas esakhes v'nestami menus. Now we can understand what it means that Yaakov Vino wanted to reveal the end of days. And that Hakadosh Baruch Hu closed His eyes and He wasn't able to reveal it to us. Avu b'zeb ba'atsmo hakets nirmas. But this, in and of itself Is a remez to the ultimate gula. In other words, on the one hand, you think it's Yaakov Vina was removed from the Gula. Yaakov Vina was closer. It's a siman of the Gula. Why? The whole parsha reflects the fact that Yaakov Vina was in a state of closed off. The fact that Yaakov Avinu was closed off. Hakadosh Baruch Hu was feeling the pain of Yaakov Avinu being closed off.
And Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, "I can't allow Yaakov Avinu to be in such pain." And listen to the words of the Eish Kodesh. He says, "Do you know how much it pains Hakadosh Baruch Hu that our batim midrashim are closed" That our yeshivas are closed, that we're sitting here in the ghetto and that we're not able to learn Torah. Do you know how much that pains Hakadosh Baruch Hu? The pain goes all the way straight to Hakadosh Baruch Hu's core. And of course there will be a salvation. And I think I think the Eish Kodesh was giving us something for Chinuch today also. Sometimes we think that things are getting so bad. And they are, right? And so you have the. The rabbanim who have their predilections of doom. Have you ever heard these doom and gloom rabbanim? They just tell you how everything is bad. They're not wrong. They're pointing to real things. They're saying, look what's happening in the world today.
Complete lack of boundaries. Everything that we understood to be true twenty years ago, that we understood to be absolutely true, is now coming under attack. The role of traditional values is completely out the window. And so, rightfully, Rabbanim are pointing to these things and going, "Look what's happening!" And now, the new thing with this Chat GPT—your husband's playing with this game yet? It's a tremendous thing. What is it? It's a tremendous thing. It's a piece of artificial intelligence. AI. That's what all the cool kids call it. My husband's company is telling them to send emails with it to me. Emails for Amber. Everybody's using this. My brother's company. You type something and then you say, "Say better," and then it writes a whole email. That is the most yeshivish thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Say better. That you could type into Chat GPT. New, say better.
That's a tremendous thing. I see the impact of the Klaal community here on you. B'chayim You're very beautiful. I'm gonna type into Chat GPT later and say, "Say better," and see what happens. I hope it responds with something really yeshivish, Oy bazo, like I hope it really starts speaking Yiddish back. Just now, even a silly thing, an Irish guy, the rishiva said to me, coming up we have to do bechinos for the boys So we have to send out acceptance letters, waitlist letters and rejection letters. The rishiva said, see what Jack Chibitay puts out. Because we asked another one of the yeshivas, but maybe we should have written a rejection letter before. It's not so simple. So we want to write something very nice. I typed into ChatGPT, "Write a nice rejection letter that the boy who gets rejected should feel like sweet" And wrote a very beautiful thing in a second.
It's an unbelievable thing. But now they're asking the question. Right now, this thing is not capable yet of analytical thinking. It's not yet capable of conceptual thinking. But it will be. It will be in a very short amount of time because the growth of technology is exponential. Which means that in a short couple of years, they're going to be asking the question, "What is a human being?" We're already asking very basic questions. That from when I was a kid, if you would have asked me those questions, 'What are you talking about?' But today in the world, we're asking basic. We're not even yet at the core. We're not even yet at the essence. So you have all the doom and gloom rabbanim coming and saying it's terrible, and what's happening is terrible, and we have to guard ourselves from these things. Of course, all of that is true. But it's also missing the point.
All of these things are headed in a particular direction towards Mashiach. That all of these things require a birur, they require a clarification in order to get Mashiach to come. So Yidishkeit has what to say about even the most essential ideas. Fifty years ago, we were hacking about communism and socialism and democracy, and before that, it was Bolshevism. You're talking about what type of philosophy and the Enlightenment could save the world, right? Now we're like We're breaking down all boundaries. We're getting mamish to the core. But also Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels the pain of what's happening, and so you have all these kids today that are not in yeshivas and they're not in beis yachlos and they're not in the batim medrash And so you think like you see these kids going off the derech and you think it's terrible. But remember that the Rebbeinu Shalom is in pain with these children, And that creates a hope also that as we're in pain Hakadosh Baruch Hu is in pain too.
And that brings Yeshua. So it's not chas v'shalom that a yid should lose hope And of course it goes without saying that for those Jews in Warsaw the Rebbe was continuing to give them hope. In ways that we cannot possibly understand, especially not even beginning to imagine what the next couple of years would bring. But there was always a posture of hope. But even today, the posture of hope that the Rebbe gave over, that as things are getting worse, they're getting better, and as things are getting worse, they're coming closer to the Yeshua. And so I think that's an important lesson for us. I think it makes sense to jump into Parashat Vayira because we're here anyway. It makes sense to bring out these ideas. I'm not going to go through all the pesukim here, but we know the pesukim. But these are the pesukim of that Moshe Rabbeinu went to Paro And he asked Paro to let us go.
And Klal Yisrael wouldn't listen to Moshe Rabbeinu from the shibud, from the kitzur ruach, they were short of breath. Mei avay de kasha because they were under such difficult conditions. And Moshe Abinu complains to Hakadosh Baruch Hu that they're not listening to me And then Hashem tells Moshe and Aaron So he tzavim mil bnei Yisrael, command Klal Yisrael and Paro to take Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim. Says a pirish Rashi. After he quotes all the pesukim, you see where he says a pirish Rashi. Says a pirish Rashi tzeva aleihem. Rashi says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu commanded Moshe Rabbeinu to lead Klal Yisrael benachas To lead Klal Yisrael pleasantly, to be civil to them Have patience. It's not easy. It's not easy. A chaver of mine who was a, he was a, how should we say this nicely? When he was a young man living in Brooklyn He was a troubled youth.
That's a nice way of saying it. He was a troubled youth. He was a hardcore kid. And he came to Eretz Yisrael and he went to a yeshiva called Nariakov. You've heard of this yeshiva near Jake back in the day. Baruch Hashem, he today is a very, very, very fine Ben Tayer living in the neighborhood. But he was a couple of years in that yeshiva and then he became a madrich in the yeshiva. And I guess at some point. He made a bad decision as a madrich. I don't know if the boys did something and he didn't stop them, or maybe even if he went along. I'm not exactly sure of the details of the story, and I'm not sure they're relevant. But I remember that he told me that the Rosh Yeshiva of Lif said to him You could take the boy out of Brooklyn "But you can't take Brooklyn out of the boy." It's like that type of kid. Even Baruch Hashem, he's from there, he's studying, he's learning all day, but LeMaisa, he's still a Brooklyn thug, like in his heart.
So this is what Moshe Abinu was dealing with. He was dealing with Jews that had been enslaved for hundreds of years. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling him, "Be patient, be civil. These people They're in a difficult place. " Itzarch lahavin Mashayches Eliza. What does one have to do with the other? He says, "Shem etnei Shavna Yisrael lo shama mitzaras paro" Lachein yanigul Moshe Avraham osam benachas. The Nei Yisrael are suffering because Paro is coming after them, and now they have to make their own bricks, and the work is impossibly hard. So lead them pleasantly, but what's the difference if Paro doesn't let them go? It's like being very nice to them when they're being tortured. What's the difference if you're nice to them? It's one thing if you're taking them out of Mitzrayim, but if Paro is not going to let them go, so what does it mean to be manig them benachas? To lead them in a gentle way.
He says, "Aval anu mespalim v'tetnehu lechein ulechesed ule'achemim." He says the order over here that we daven to give uschein, chesed, and rachemim is very specific. He says, "Metchilachein." In the very beginning, we daven forchein, v'acher kachhesed, v'acher kachrachem. What ischein? This is kchein hulemi she'roiy chas v'shalom shaloy lehi natsal. Chay Shakos v'hapasik v'nay matzachin. Shagam nayach lohoyak keday leinatzal elash matzachin. Chay means grace. Chay means there's nothing about you that's worthy. You're not worthy of salvation even a little bit. But by God's grace, you'll be saved. And the Rebbe says and this was nayach That nayach really was not deserving of being saved. But matzachin means that our Kadosh Baruch Hu looked at him in such a way. He was not being judged in any way. It's not about merits and demerits and what you did right and what you did wrong. There's a certain charm that a person has that when we love someone and they have chayin, so it's like we don't even look really at what they do or don't deserve. Like with our children sometimes. If you have as Hashem you'll have at least one kid like this. That kid has a particular chayin that they can get away with murder.
Everyone has one of those kids. I have one of those kids. I mean, I have I have six of those kids, but I have one of those kids, yeah. And she really gets away with murder. She momish deserves not to get away with murder, but she's such a zis guy. She's a shtickle nuts. She tells me she does these crazy things. She gets out of class in school. She's like, yeah, I missed two periods. I went to the principal. I told the principal I'm not going to class anymore. It was ridiculous. Principal's like, okay, take a couple periods off. I'm like, what? At least I'm living in Eretz Yisrael. I'm not paying for this education that she's not getting. But in America, I'd be furious. Whatever. But you can't help but smile. You can't help but like telling those stories afterwards. There's a certain chesed that a person has. The chesed, nayda shu kul chesed.
Gam lemisha enoroi. People misunderstand chesed all the time. Chesed is not. I do a chesed for those who are deserving. I'll be a bal chesed or a balas chesed because they deserve. If you're a bal chesed, it's got nothing to do with deserving. I did you a chesed; you didn't deserve for there to be a chesed. It's like a person called me up once and he said I'm really working on being a boundary person. And my neighbor just called me and told me that they gave away all of the food for Shabbos. Meaning. The wife said that she was making Shabbos for somebody. And the husband. I'm sorry, the husband said they were. I don't know exactly now. I'm thinking I don't know exactly the story. They said they were making Shabbos for somebody. The wife never got the message. The wife made Shabbos. The husband gave it away.
So she made Shabbos, and she opens up the refrigerator. It's an hour before Shabbos. There's nothing in the refrigerator. She says, "Where did all her food go?" He says, "What do you mean? I delivered it." So she's calling all the neighbors. Does anyone have a spare piece of chicken? If everyone gets together, we can put together a Shabbos in a minute in this community. In this building alone. If you didn't have Shabbos, even if you're a big family, you'd have Shabbos in a minute. So she's just calling all the neighbors, saying whatever you got it messed up, it didn't go. So this neighbor got called And this neighbor said it's true, I have an extra kugel But I don't really want to give it, and I'm trying to be a more boundary person. So I said to this person, I really hear you. I really hear where you're coming from, and I think it's wonderful that you're working on boundaries. But it's not the time to work on your boundaries when somebody else doesn't have food for Shabbos. To be a ba'chessad means that it's just like it's a hispash. This is like I have and you need, so I give.
It's not a you're deserving. It's like I don't really want to give to this person. They didn't really do for me. That's we're not holding by chesed if that's what we're talking about. It's not chesed. Chesed is you need and I have, so it comes. It's not about what you deserve or what you don't deserve. Or what you're in the mood for Yeah. He says, "Rak rachimim who kvar muuruf bedin." But that's not the same as mercy. There's chayin Chayin is totally nothing to do with din. There's chesed, chesed has totally nothing to do with the din. When we speak about having mercy on someone, that's already din, because if you think about it Really, what is mercy? It's really not good for you. Really, the din says it shouldn't be good for you. But we'll have mercy on you. So mercy means there is a din And the din is not going to go so well for you. But we find a place to be merciful.
Mercy doesn't mean you're not roy at all. But I'll have mercy on you. Mercy means rachamim means I'm going to find a way that on this I'll be merciful. I remember years ago. This was a terrible story. It was a person in the neighborhood. Back when I lived in New York Who he was rubber. He worked in a hospital and he was rubber stamping things and he wasn't paying attention And it turned out that there was a massive amount of fraud and his name was on everything And he was a doctor and he was a tremendous person. He was a tremendous balechsed and he was like a real deal guy and he wasn't like a person who was taking massive amounts of money. Everybody knew that. He was a good guy, so they got together in the neighborhood. Everyone who was his patient, or everyone who was his neighbor, or anyone who was anyone, should write letters to the judges. In the Jewish community, when you have one of these mailers go out, what does it take? We didn't have ChatGPT. We actually had to sit and write them back then. You would sit and you would write these letters.
And everyone sent them letters. I remember my father said to me, "You also write a letter." That it shouldn't just be that I'm writing a letter, but all the kids in our families are writing letters. And so they came to the judge. It was like that old movie? With the Christmas movie, I'm talking about where they came to the judge. These kids don't know these Christmas. They came, right? Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. And they came. Remember, they came to the judge with all the bags of envelopes. I remember these things from when I was a kid. I had a good education, and this is what my parents taught me. They came to the judges like that with all of these. What was that? I just know he wanted to commit suicide. That was a different thing. I don't remember that part of the movie.
I don't remember that part. I don't even know what they responded. So they came to the judge and they gave all the letters. So we thought that the judge would have Rachman because he would say, "Look, if thousands of people are coming out to say that really he's a good guy." It's okay. Suspend the sentence. Make it a lighter sentence. The judge was terrible. The judge said Fakher. He said you should not. I was gonna have Rachemim Because I was gonna say what will be with your family. But now that I see you come from a community where tens of thousands of people will write letters, so I see your family will be well taken care of. And it was a big deal with all the anti-Semitism. It was like a big deal back in the day. How could a person do that? It was literally just the opposite of what we were trying to do. Rachamim has to have something to be toifis on. He was saying, "I was going to be toifis the rachamim onto the fact that what was going to be with the mespacha." But now that I see that I don't have that, so I am going to give you the strictest sentence.
But rachamim is not racham; has nothing to do with. Really, you are not. You really should be punished. But I'll have rachamim on you. Really, you should be punished. But there is a tzad l'kula. There is something to be toifis rachamim onto. That's what rachamim is. Rachya roi katz berachem. You're roi a little bit. It's not that you're not roi at all. You're roi a little bit. I have a question. But then isn't chayin the same thing, just without something to be told? In other words, chayin is I'm not even looking at merit. The merits. Nothing to do with judgment. You're just good. I just want to be Moshi. I'm not. I don't care if you're deserving or undeserving. I'm not even paying attention. Deserving, undeserving. I'm gonna save you. Chesed is I'm giving to you. Rachamim would be really. You should be with everybody else, but you're a good guy. That's called Rachamim That's the difference. He says, so that's why we specifically daven in this order.
It's not possible that we're going to come. He's speaking. You have to remember where he's speaking. Now it's January 6, 1940. He's speaking to these Jews. Pashtus, they weren't doing so well, and they're Yiddish guy. I imagine that in 1940 it was hard for a Jew to open a seder. I imagine it was hard to open a black gemara. To go to shiurim when they were literally hearing all these horrible stories about what was happening to their brothers and sisters and cousins, and they didn't know what was coming from one day to the next. So he says, we can't come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and say that we're worthy of a good judgment. We can't even say that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is worthy of rachamim. We're not even holding there. So what do we do? First, we dive into Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Can we forget about din for a second? Can we stop talking about judgment for a second?
Can I just be your child? Can I find favor in your eyes? Can you just be about Chesed? That's what we're coming to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and saying. We're not asking for rachman. We're not coming to you and saying, Rebbeinu Shlom, we're worthy of being saved. We know that we're not where we're holding. And so we know that we need to be built up. It's like a good lesson for the chinuch of our children. That sometimes when we're talking to our children, not because they're bad kids Not because they're bad kids, they're not bad kids at all. But because they're going through stuff. You ever see these kids? They're going through stuff. It's like the Lubavitcher Rebbe says in last week's parsha that when did Moshe Rabbeinu become ready to be the leader of Klal Yisrael? The Medrash says that when the one sheep from his flock left And that sheep went to get a drink, and Moshe Rabbeinu chased after the sheep and left the whole flock behind.
When he saw the sheep and saw the sheep was drinking, he said, "Oh, you were thirsty." That's the point the Maggid says when Moshe Rabbeinu was right to become shepherd Because the sheep didn't leave for no reason. The sheep left because it was thirsty. And so Moshe Rabbeinu looked at the sheep and saw you were just thirsty. You didn't leave because you were a bad sheep. You were just thirsty. These kids are not leaving because they're bad kids. They're leaving because they're depressed and anxious. They're leaving a Yiddishkeit that's dry and empty, and they don't know how to relate to it. They're leaving Yiddishkeit because they're lonely. They feel judged. And they're not bad kids at all. Can I ask you something? Please. You think anybody leaves because they don't believe in God? I think that it's appropriate for everyone to have questions. I think it's beautiful when people do.
And I think sometimes my experience tells me that we give very good answers to these questions and they don't help. And the reason is because they deserve good answers, and we should answer the question. But there's always the overt and covert issue. The overt issue, as a kid says I don't believe in the Rebbeimishlo, but we are mameinim b'nei mameinim, and I believe that many of these children do believe. But the covert issue is what's going on underneath, and it's the responsibility of a rebbe to find out what's really going on underneath. That's why the end of the midrash is that Moshe Rabbeinu lifted up the sheep and cradled it in his arms and brought it back. Because yes, you have to give the thing, you have to quench the thirst, but then ultimately to return the child to the flock, you need to pick the kid up.
And rarely, if ever, in my chinuch career have I found the kid that wasn't hurting. There was one boy in fifteen years that convinced me Fifteen years in Eretz Yisrael, fifteen years in Eretz Yisrael. There was one boy he got me. I have to admit, he got me. I said to him he was going. We were going back and forth on all these philosophical issues, and he would ask questions, and I would give answers. I saw I wasn't going, and he was learning a tremendous amount, but he was heading straight off the derech. Unfortunately, the story doesn't have a good ending, and he ended up marrying a gentile girl. And I went back and forth, and at some point I said to him, I just there's got to be something underneath here. There's got to be some emotional issue that you're not telling me. He said, I'm telling you, I'm fine. I grew up in an amazing family. Everything in my life was good. I have nothing to complain about, and I fell for it.
I went back to his high school, and they asked me in February how he was doing. I said, look, I'm spending a tremendous amount of time with him. We're answering his questions. It's not going. But he's such a bright kid. I don't really understand it. He tells me he grew up in this wonderful family, and everything in his life has been great. The principal I was talking to couldn't spit out his drink. His mother had cancer for several years, and it was a terrible thing on the family. Baruch Hashem, she survived. But there was a tremendous amount of pain. So I was like, it made me feel better about myself. Okay. That's the issue. The story about Refreyfeld. That there was a boy in Chaim Berlin when he was the Rashmasift of Chaim Berlin before he started Shira Shav. There was a boy that wouldn't put on a yarmulke.
And Refreyfeld spoke to him about yarmulke, and he was giving him all the aschkafa of yarmulke, and years later that boy was going to Woodstock. He passed by Rofrifeld's bungalow colony and saw Rofrifeld. And he had very long hair, and he had become a hippie. And Rofrifeld realized it wasn't about the yarmulke; it was about the hair. And he was upset at himself, why was I giving him a shmuz about a yarmulke? The yarmulke wasn't the issue. There was something with his hair that he needed. So we always have to know. I think all these Eishat Torah discovery seminars at Zgivaldik are great, and we should give the boys these answers and the girls these answers. But it's not true to think that. That they're not going off because they're in pain. A person who grows up, we see it very often. A person who grows up in a healthy and loving home Who is given the space to be themselves And has parents who believe in them deeply, and grows up in a system where the rebayim love those children and respect them for who they are and don't try to put them into boxes.
We see that these kids turn out very well. And unfortunately, for many kids, there are challenges. There are academic challenges. There are tefillah challenges. And one of the boys said to me, "He said, I would love to be an Arab." I said, "Yeah, it's not like he goes. Yeah, I don't mind davening five times a day if davening would take five minutes." "I was like, 'Right, it's hard to sit for forty-five minutes in shachers. It's hard to stop in the middle of your day and go to minchah. It's hard to come home at night and run out to myr. It's not an easy thing. But I think he's saying something else also. I think he's saying, "I'm not good at davening. I'm not. I don't feel connected to davening." And that's okay. He's allowed not to feel connected to davening, right? Maybe if we give him the space not to feel connected to davening, he'll be connected to davening. But if you're told your whole life you have to daven and you're a shegats and you're a bum for not davening, and we put this tremendous pressure on these kids to do these amazing things, and Baruch Hashem, so many kids are.
But we have to give these kids chen and chesed to build them up. We have to tell them we're here for you and we're doing for you, and they have to feel that And they have to feel that sense of like I'm special. Which is hard to get in yeshivas and in seminaries, because you're in a classroom with twenty five, thirty other people, and you're in a yeshiva with ninety, a hundred other guys and ninety, a hundred other girls. The seminaries, Baruch Hashem, are bursting at the seams, and everybody's doing their best to give private attention, but it's not possible. Everybody's trying to get to everybody. But you know when you take that one kid under your wing and you say, I just want you to know, I got you. You'll see these kids, even you think they're big tough. How old are you? So you'll forgive me for saying this. the big, I'm saying that big tough eighteen year old, the eighteen year old girl that says I've got it all figured out But then she has a teacher, a mechanech or a re'ezet, somebody in her life Who tells her like I just want you know I'm here for you, and all of a sudden you see she sits up a little bit straighter, and there's a little bit of almost like a relief Like I belong somewhere.
So that's what we daven for. We daven for chen and chesed. We daven that there should be something beautiful in our lives, something that's like not looking us in a judgmental way, not trying to evaluate where we're holding, and just saying, 'I got you.' The special role that grandparents play Parents are always evaluating children. Grandparents are only evaluating parents. But the grandchildren, I'm sure you have a wonderful mother-in-law. There's only one couple in history that didn't fight with their in-laws: Adam and Eve. It was the only people in the history of the world who didn't fight with their in-laws. He's speaking to these Jews and he's saying, "Look, we know where we're holding, but we're dabbing for chen and chesed." That even though we know we're not roy Please, Rebbeinu Shlom, save us. And then, if you'll do that, we'll get to a place of rachamim. We'll get to a place where there'll be something to be typus rachamim onto.
We can get to a place where we will be a little bit roy, not all the way roy, but we can get to a place where we'll be a little bit roy. Let's be honest. It's not only the fact that we're not davening the way we should, that we're not learning Torah the way we should, but even the things that we are doing, we're not doing them from a place of simchah. We're not doing them from a place of joy. We're not doing it from a place of wholeness. We're doing it from a place of brokenness, and we're just going through the motions. We feel bad about it. What type of Jew wants to show up and turn the pages to the sinner? What type of Jew wants to show up and just daven up a black amar? Nobody wants to do this. Lachen kish amr Moshe Rabbeinu lama harayisa v'yeshivu Hashem v'yadaber loy kim ani Hashem.
She mizeyavo yavo lebachinas havae rachman ki ayde kishu yeshivu yakdimo lotzei skiadua loy shamu al Moshe miketzar ruach me'avay dekasha. So this the Eish Kodesh says is the deeper meaning of what was going on over here. The shibud was so hard that Hakadosh Baruch Hu had to pull us out early. And Moshe Rabbeinu comes and he says, "I'm going to take you out." And they're not capable of listening. They were short of breath They were exhausted, beaten, and broken. And it was to the degree that if Moshe Abena would say to them, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give you rachamim Because of the avaydakasha, because of the kaitzer ruach They weren't able to take that in. There was no ruach hayim. There was no simcha that came from that. It wasn't a place that restored vitality. When somebody comes to you and they tell you, I'm going to have mercy on you, it doesn't make you feel alive.
Because they were so, they were in such a place of destruction that to even come and say, "I am going to have rachamim on you," was not enough. If you look at the pasuk, look what he says beforehand. It said, 'V'yedaber lekim,' that's a lashon of din, and then afterwards it says, 'The lashon of avaya yud kevavke,' that's a lashon of rachamim. But here at the very end it says, 'V'yedaber al shem el moishet el aram v'yitzave mo'banei yisrael v'al parochim el ha'shaim lahitzi et banei yisrael in the eretz of shayim.' When Hakadosh Baruch Hu comes. He now doesn't come, as the Eish Kodesh is going to explain in a moment. He doesn't come b'tayras Elokim, and in that context of havaya of rachemim. Now it's vayedaber yud kevavke. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is coming as kuloh chesed, kuloh chayim. He says v'lechayim vayedaber havaya v'yitzavim ba'boneiso mitchilok se vayedaber lekim. In the beginning, it said vayedaber lekim, v'achar kachani havaya, and then afterwards it brought to me the zarahemim.
V'ati vayedaber havaya mitchila. From the very beginning, it says Ve'edaber Hashem Olmoi Shavel Aran. Now Hashem is saying something completely different. I see that you're so broken. I see that you can't hear me from a place of rachamim. So that's not what I'm talking to you as. Now I'm coming to you as pure chen, pure Chesed. No judgment. Now I'm just talking to you as a loving father. And this now explains what Rashi meant. Piyush Rashi tziva aleim lanig menachas. A Kol D'Shmarchu is telling Moshe Rabbeinu to treat these people very gently. Treat them with nach, treat them very softly. They're not in a place where you could say to them, "I found eppa something good about you." They're not in that place. You can't do that. They're not holding in a place. They're so broken. It's like sometimes you have to. The patient has to get better before you can have surgery.
The patient they say with Moshe If you tell a kid to do a cheshbon ha-nefesh at the end of a day, and the kid writes down all of his bad things, it could cripple them. Because they're not strong enough to say what's bad about them. Riff Huttner said that the reason why there were two schools of Musar was that there was Slabodka and the Vardak. Slabodka was Godless Adam, and the Vardak was Kindness Adam. Slabodka was to build you up, and the Vardak was to knock you down. So Rav Huttner said that in America, Slabodka Musar took off, and the Novardok Musar never really did. Why? He said you have to be a zich before you're a nisht. You have to be something before you could become a nothing. So in Europe They were something. They were built up people before the war. So if you told them you're a nothing, they said, I really have to work on myself. I'm really a nothing. And all these meisim in Novardok, what they would do, wild things to get them to be a nothing.
But in America, he said, these kids don't have a sense of self. They don't have self-esteem. So if you tell a nothing that they're a nothing, they're going to believe you. And that's a terrible thing for a person to hear. So if somebody feels like a nothing, you have to tell them that they're a something. That was labad kamoser. So this is what he's saying. He's saying these Jews are so broken. He said if you're going to come to them and say I'm judging you right now, and you should know the good news because I found Eppa, a little thing that I could say that you're worthy of mercy. I can't. I'm not the place to take that in. I'm falling apart over here. I can't be. That's why these kids. All these kids say it today: "Stop judging me." My father asked us. He said, 'When did that become a thing that kids said, "Stop judging me"?' First of all, you don't get to tell me how to behave towards you. It's like a very narcissistic thing that not only do I control the way I feel, I get to control the way you feel about me. But he said, 'But also, since when do kids care? All kids judge each other for all time, but it became like a thing: "Stop judging me."' I think this maybe is the answer to that question.
Because I can't handle you judging me. I'm already so broken that if you're judging me, I really am in trouble. I'm already judging myself so harshly that for somebody else to come and judge me harshly, there's no space for that. So Hashkadosh Baruch Hu is saying, don't do that thing. It has to be chen and chesed the entire way. That's how we build Jews up. That's how we take Jews out of galus. And I think that's what the Eish Kadosh was telling those Jews also. He's saying we're in a place right now where we can't turn to Hashem and say, "Please, Hashem, have mercy on us." We can just say, "Hashem, could you treat us nicely?" Could you treat us benachas? And again, all of these lessons are relevant today as well.
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