Aish Kodesh - 5 (Chayei Sarah)

2:30 Rashi is giving us a fundamental insight into the nature of beauty. Which is not a simple thing. Especially in today's world, where beauty has become so distorted It's so much better to say this in a group of people that are in relationships. Whenever I teach this Torah to the boys They have no idea what I'm talking about. Even to the girls, it's hard to understand. Being older and being in relationships, being married, we understand this. There are two aspects of relationships that block our capacity for true intimacy. And when we say intimacy here, we mean the real sort of intimacy, which is to say, complete oneness. And one of those parts is the idea of shame. That when a person is in a state of shame It's not possible for intimacy to occur. And one of the things that we need to do in order to achieve a state of intimacy is to restore our innocence.

3:35 The challenge of marriage is abandoning the parts of us that we're deeply ashamed of. Those are the parts that get in the way of intimacy occurring. But until we let those parts go, until we shed those parts, it's not really possible for intimacy to occur. And so the first thing that we find about the beauty of Sarimeno, and beauty obviously doesn't mean skin deep here The beauty of Sarimeno is that she was like a woman of twenty years old. We know that Chazal teach us that until the age of twenty years old, the person is not responsible for their sins. Which means that at the age of sixteen, we'll take a particularly challenging age of innocence. Let's say at the age of sixteen. So maybe we were doing things that didn't appear innocent. We're doing things a sixteen year old could do that are undignified, unbecoming. Perhaps some of us remember those times.

4:32 I'm getting older. I'm forty two years old now. It's hard to remember. It's getting harder, but I'm holding it. If you really look back on your teenage years, you'll remember that there's a certain innocence even in those undignified acts, because it's like you're not really you. Nobody here's old enough to have teenage daughters. I can't even have four teenage daughters. You should daven for me. It's gonna be good. I have two daughters in seminary, the same seminary, a year apart. As a parent, when you see a sixteen-year-old child, you know it's all bechinas struggling. Nobody's doing anything because they're bad. There's no kid that's doing anything because they're bad. It's a crazy time. I have a daughter right now who's in tenth grade. She's in that period. Maybe you remember this period. Boys are nasty to each other. Boys will beat each other up, but girls are mean.

5:26 Girls are. I've been learning this about your section of the species. Girls are very mean. And it turns out I didn't know this, but it turns out that what group you're a part of is everything. That says everything you need to know. These girls spend the hours talking about and deciding who they're going to sit with at recess. These are big, very big decisions. A girl who acts out at that age is acting out because she's bad. She's acting out because she's struggling tremendously. So even in that state, there's a level of innocence that's there, and as a result of that innocence, the capacity for intimacy is a clear pathway. Because there's nothing, there's no part that we're deeply ashamed of that we truly own. But when somebody's holding something in a relationship, that's That they themselves are not okay with It's a barrier to entry. Because I'm not going to let you know me, because there's this part of me that I'm deeply ashamed of, and we can't be loved until we're truly known.

6:29 And then there's the second part, which is also a tremendous bechina of beauty, and has nothing to do with skin, and has nothing to do with being on the cover of a magazine. And that's It's called its natural beauty. It's not. It's not contrived. I don't know how to say this nicely, so I could just say it straight. We could speak straight to each other. Is a well known kala teacher, and she gives girls that she speaks with a piece of advice when they're dating. I personally don't necessarily think this is a wonderful idea to begin with. But the notion of sending out a picture with a shidduch resume. There's a lot to unpack there by itself. Not a conversation for now. But she says if you're going to send out a picture. Don't send out a picture where you're so heavily made up. Don't do that. There's a certain beauty to natural beauty. It's the beauty. What Rashi describes here: a seven-year-old doesn't need makeup. It's funny when a seven-year-old puts on makeup. When they come downstairs and they steal your lipstick and it's all over their face and they put on blush and it doesn't look normal. And it's not supposed to look normal. A seven-year-old, the chayin is so natural and it's so beautiful and it's so present. It's there for everybody to see. That's the second dimension of beauty that Rashi here is referring to.

7:49 It's allowing our authentic selves to actually be present in our lives, and that's also not a simple thing at all. Because we live in a deep place of fear. To allow ourselves to be ourselves is not poshut. Tremendous communal expectations of people that we love, expectations of people that love us to be a certain person. And sometimes in the course of life, we We ought to abandon those parts that we're deeply ashamed of. But we also ought to hold on to those parts that make us who we are. And sometimes, as we get older, we're told that we need to let go of those parts, and that's the worst mistake in the world. You see, sometimes people learn, maybe the first thing is to be quiet. Over here, you see, I went through a stage like that in my life. Baruch Hashem, I got rid of it. I remember very well when I was younger. I was eighteen years old and I was in yeshiva. I was nineteen. I was shnaybet.

8:42 And there was a tzaddik of a guy who was learning in the beis medrash. He was older and had come back after YU and was learning in our beis medrash. He was one of these really gentle people, very soft spoken, very quiet. He always had his hands folded, and they were in bounces. He always had his neck down, looking downwards, and he was like this. Just a gentle person, and I knew that he was cool. I had heard stories that back in the day he was a Ramaz guy with really long, blonde hair, and then I saw this guy and was like, how did that guy become this guy? There was a mystique to him, and I really looked up to him. I'll be honest, I really looked up to him. The mashgiach of the yeshiva was sitting by the window. The window in the yeshiva looked down on the hill walking up to the yeshiva, and so I wanted to be like this guy. I started walking with my hands like this and started to pretend to be like an idle mazel, all of a sudden being very gentle with people.

9:35 And I'm walking up the hill, and all of a sudden out of the window I hear the mashgiach scream my name. He goes, Berg, get over here right now. So I started walking faster, but how do you walk faster if you're trying to be sneaky? If you're trying to be one of those people, I started pedaling. It wasn't going. And he's like, "Run!" So I was like, "Okay, I gotta run." Now I was stuck. I didn't know what the first thing to do was, so I started running. I finally got out there, and I remember he looked at me and he goes, "The guy's name was Vogel." He's like, 'You are not Vogel.' So I was like, 'I know, but I'm supposed to be, right?' I really thought that And he's like, "No, are you an idiot? Of course you are not Vogel. Don't try to be Vogel." It's like I know Rabbi, but I'm so loud, and maybe it's not the best thing for me. And he's like, "This is who you are. Stop trying to be something that you're not."

10:31 It's so deeply unattractive when we see that. When we see people that have lost their sense of self They have to become something they're not in order to fit into some box that somebody created for them. And nobody could. I shouldn't say nobody. We can't truly love such a person because we have no idea who they are. So they're behaving in a way that's come It's so distorted. Where are they? Where's the character that they're meant to play in this world? And the amazing thing is that when we actually allow ourselves to be that person, we become nuclear reactors of love and connectivity. You ever have those moments where you're just truly joyous and you're yourself and you're like totally, like you throw yourself to the wind and you're dancing and you're just happy and you're good. You ever notice the cosmic level of joy that comes to you in those places? It's an amazing thing. This was Sarimena.

11:24 This was Sarimena. Her entire life, she was totally herself with no pretenses about anything else. So she had both dimensions. She had shed any parts of her that weren't innocent. So she lived with a state of righteousness, which is very safe and very attractive. It's like okay, this is a place that I can be and I can see you. And then there's the other part of actually showing up and being yourself. Sara Meno had both of those things, which is an amazing thing. And then the pasuk continues and says even more than that. This we've already heard about tzaddikim before, that there were people that lived this way, that Avraham Avinu lived a totally natural life. Then the pasuk continues and it says, 'Shnei chayesara kul in shavon la'tayva.' This already is a little bit harder to understand. This we don't see by Avraham Avinu, as the piyusas and the Reb is going to point out in a moment That all of her life was equally good. A radical thing to say because it's not true.

12:17 Sariyameen's life was anything but good. If you looked at Sariyameen's life, if you wrote up that story, even in an art scroll book, it would be anything but good. There's no way they could. There's no way that even the greatest art scroll writer could have finagled that story to be good. It was horrific. It was horrific. The pain of not having children is not something for that many years. It's not something we could possibly understand. It's a well-known story. I don't mind saying it because it's a before Psalms story. This is a hundred percent true story. This is my neighbor that lives three houses down from me. You might have heard the story. It's a famous story. They got married, and they did not have children for over twenty years. Over twenty years, they were childless. In fact, in the way that the houses were built in my neighborhood in Aleph The houses were split into four.

13:05 So I have a quarter of a house. My neighbor has a quarter of a house downstairs. Everyone got a quarter of a house. One person wanted three quarters of one side. So the builder was hesitant to do it because you want to be able to sell. Who's gonna want to buy a quarter of a house? They bought a quarter of a house because they said, 'We're having children. What are we gonna do with a tremendous house with nobody to put it?' And the crazy thing is, she was ganana. She was ganana. I can't even imagine that every day for twenty plus years. That. All these wonderful little children are coming into her gun. These two-year-old little children are coming into her gun, knowing the pain that she can't have children of her own. My son and my daughter went to this gun. They went to Rav Chaim Kaniewski. This is on video. You don't have to trust me because this is before Sam's story. They went to Rav Chaim Kaniewski.

13:53 And they said we want to do something in the shuls that we should have children. The Rav Chaim said build a mikvah. They did. One year later, they had a child. When she came home from the hospital. Hundreds of people from the neighborhood. I live on two blocks. Everybody from these two blocks and everybody from the surrounding blocks. It was like a chnas sefer Torah. Everybody had their cameras out and taking pictures. It was the most beautiful thing in the world. Can't imagine that, Zara. Can't imagine the pain of Zara Yemenu. Her life was a disaster. Her life was a disaster. So what's Rashi coming to say over here? Kulan shav in latayva. We know, Mamarame Zalano. We have to see what's being hinted at in the Torah over here. With all of the great Zidkanios that are in the Torah, with all of the righteous women, with Esther Amalca, With Devorah, everybody that we see, we never see the Torah speak in such ways as it does by Saraimin, speaking about her righteousness, speaking about her greatness, unparalleled, unparalleled by far.

15:00 The truth of the matter is, even though the P. S. S. And Rebbe doesn't say this. There's a deep Torah about Sarah Imenu being the Tikkun of Chava. That Chava was exceptionally beautiful. They say that any beauty compared to Chava was like the beauty of a monkey compared to a human being. That Chava Imenu, who Chava, who was created from Hakadosh Baruch Hu himself Had exceptionally beautiful features, even on a physical level. They talk a lot about how Sarah was matakin that it has to do with. With Chav's hair, it has to do with Hafrosah's chal. It has to do with Shabbos neiros. It's not a tire for right now, but bichalal it happens to be that we do speak in a very glowing way about sorry imenu. V'oidze yoicer pella, and here he asks the kasha that we asked before. Even a greater wonder. Shagam ba'avram avinu shenirmer lakaman gamkein shana b'chol klal. V'Rashi pierces gamkein shenirmas shahaya b'loichet umikom makom loichazer apasuk pamez leimer. Shnei chay Abraham, kamay besara l'ramish kum l'shav in the Torah.

16:00 We see by Avram Avinu also, Hakadosh Baruch Hu testified that his years were amazing and that he retained his innocence and he retained his natural beauty. That's true, but we don't see by Avram Avinu that the Torah goes and repeats itself and says Shnei chay Abraham to tell us kum l'shav in the Torah that all of the years of sorry main of Avram Avinu's life was good. That's something that's exclusively held for sorry mainu, and the question is why. And even though this is a very short piece, it's actually a very famous piece from the Piaseczno. And bearing in mind that he said this in the Warsaw Ghetto and who he was speaking to, listen to the answer that the Piaseczno Rebbe gives. And I've come, I've been thinking about this a lot. Why all of these pieces? The Piaseczno Rebbe, we could make a mistake and think that the Piaseczno Rebbe was speaking to those Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto who were suffering tremendously, and we could make the mistake of thinking that that's why the Piaseczno Rebbe was always talking about suffering because they were suffering.

17:04 But I've been thinking about this a lot, and I think it's not true. I think the Piaseczny Rebbe was using this opportunity of those Jews in that matziv to speak about the natural condition of life. And maybe we're not Baruch Hashem in the Warsaw Ghetto, but fundamentally Our. Connection to the world of suffering is as great as they had it. It means they had it, lived it out. And Baruch Hashem, we're not suffering in the way that they're suffering. But suffering is always occurring. Pain is not only inevitable. Pain is occurring at every single moment. The only question is whether or not we're allowing ourselves to have the vulnerability to experience that pain. But all of life is pain. That's why Avraham Avinu discovered Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the Birah Adolekhes. We all know what Chazal say, but it's worth repeating. We know how Avram Avinu discovered Hashem. He was walking down the road. That's what the Medrash says. It doesn't mean literally; it means it seriously. He was walking down the road and he saw a bira dolekas. He saw a palace on fire, and he called out, "Who is the owner of this?"

18:07 And the king stuck his head out the window and said, 'I am the owner of this palace.' The simple explanation, which I think is the incorrect explanation, is that Avram Avinu was trying to understand. What is the nature of this world? Was there someone who started this fire? But I think that's the wrong explanation. The right explanation is that the bira is dolekas. The nature of the world is that we live in a state of chaos. We live in a state where the world is constantly being burned down. It's everywhere if you only have the courage to look. It's every story of any shalom bayis issues, of any tzar gido banim issues, of moving to eretz yisrael and all the challenges that come with living in eretz yisrael. It's like Chazal say. It's even if you put your hand in your pocket and you pull out the wrong change, the nature of the world is that it doesn't go according to the way that we want it to. There's a chaotic nature to the world.

18:59 And the godless of Avraham Avinu was the courage to look at the birahat olekas And not to be able to answer up. Which is also a tremendous amount of courage. There's a mistake in the world today. It's a dreadful mistake. It's a painful mistake. That you have to feel like you have to say I grew from that pain in order to justify the pain that you went through. It's like this tragic thing happened to me, but it made me stronger. Like you don't have to say that second part. You could just say the tragic thing happened And that's all. You don't have to justify your suffering by saying that I grew from it. Just being in it is human, and allowing yourself to experience it and doing nothing else—that's also equally human. And there's a tendency that we have. We think it comes from gamzulatovah. We think it's like we have to be able to say, "I can find the good in it because this happened." It's allowed to just be bad.

20:03 The fact that a kadosh baruch hu is kulo tayv doesn't mean that right now to us it's not bad. So it takes courage to be able to confront suffering and say that I actually am, because it's a tremendous act of fear to pretend that things are fine when they're not. And people say, no, but you have to be positive. That's not what the definition of positivity is. Positivity doesn't mean abdicating reality. Positivity means that I'm able to maintain my own dignity within the reality of suffering that I'm in. It's okay to say that you're in pain, and it's okay to say I'm just in pain and I don't have to be anywhere but in this pain. I think the Piaseczna said these tiras for all of us. I don't think the Piaseczna said these tiras for those Jews that were in a state of pain and suffering. He said them for us living in Eretz Yisrael And Baruch Hashem we don't nearly have the pain and suffering that they had in the exposed way that they had it. We have it in a very different way.

21:01 We have it in the In the failed expectations of what we thought life would be. Remember when you were younger and you looked at your parents' marriage and you said I'm going to do it better. Remember that? It's funny to look back on that, right? And it's not because you're not doing it better. It's because By definition, it's two people trying to get together, and it's the shalom bayis issues that naturally come from friction in life. It's I'm gonna have this great career and I'm gonna find so much meaning in it. But then finding out that you're within this system where you're not necessarily in control of your own destiny, and the reality is that you have greater needs, which means that you have to suffer through that boss or that client or whatever it is. It's doing all those things that we don't want to do in times when we don't feel that we have the capacity to do them, and feeling drained at the end of that process. That's also painful.

21:55 And it's okay to be able to put out there for yourself. Not that it even means having to give it over to somebody else, but just for yourself to be able to say, this is where I'm at in my life, and there's nothing wrong with saying that. And I didn't have to make myself a stronger person in order to justify it. I remember many years ago when I was first made aliyah. I didn't have a car. I was taking the bus a lot, and I just missed my bus. And I remarked to somebody It's chaval that now everybody on that bus needs to die so that this can be a story of ashgachah pratse. I told that joke to somebody. And they told me a crazy mindset. They told me, it's a terrible thing. Somebody in his community lost a father online on nine eleven. And there's all these stories of hashgacha pratse. He slept late. It was slichos, and he didn't get there, and that just saved him.

22:47 And this woman, it kills her every time anybody tells these stories. She's like, so my father who got up for Vassikin and said slichos early and made it to work on time. What he didn't have Ashkachah pratse that day. Not everybody needs to die in order for it to be Ashkachah pratse. You could just miss a bus, and that could be Ashkachah pratse, and it doesn't need to be anything else. It doesn't need to be that we figure out the outcome. So this particular Torah, this is just by way of introduction. This particular Torah is for all of us, and you'll notice that the Piasetzner Rebbe makes no attempt in this Torah to justify. Or to explain away the suffering that those Jews were going through, he just talks about it as a very human recognition Like we've said several times already, he was trying to give them language to be able to say, yes, this is what we're in And so to speak, to have almost tainus on Hakadosh Baruch Hu and to come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and say it's not okay what's happening to us And you'll see, there's very daring language in this where he even uses.

23:48 He uses the parsha here almost as a way of teaching Hakadosh Baruch Hu how to be in this world, which is a very daring thing to say. We'll see. Let's see it inside. He says, "am nam isa besfar ma Kadosh marvishemesh bereish parshas ve'era me'arava Kadosh isholikim merino Rav menachem mendel zechertzadik the Kadosh avrocham mirimunov." He brings from menachem mendel rimanov. Alagamara nemer bris melech ve'nemer bris biyassurin. Mamelech, mame takas abasser av yisurim mamarken. So he quotes the Gemara. First, Rav Mendel Rimanov quotes the Gemara. The Gemara says that the word bris, the word covenant Is used by the bris melech, the bris of salt. And it's also used when it comes to yisurim, when it comes to suffering, when it comes to pain. So what's the connection between these two things? The Gemara says very simply The Gemara says that meat requires. Requires salt in order to In order to sweeten it. But what this really means is in order to purge it, in order to remove all of The blood from the meat, in order to enhance the meat, we put salt on our meat.

25:02 Now we see these videos. I always see whenever you find any of these guyish videos teaching you how to cook meat. They put massive amounts of salt on their meat. You ever see that? It's because they don't have salted meat because they don't kasher their meat. In order for their meat to have flavor, they have to put on massive amounts of salt. If you did that with kosher meat, it would taste disgusting because we already salted our meat, and the salt that's even just there to remove the blood in the kashrus process sweetens our meat. It gives our meat taste. It gives our meat flavor. And the Gemara says after Yisurin, same thing when it comes to suffering. We know that suffering purifies a person. It changes a person. My closest friend in the entire world. He lost his leg to cancer when he was twelve years old. Maybe some of you have heard of him. He's famous.

25:48 He's a dancer. He dances for a living. He has a company called Schnitzel Guys. You ever hear of the Schnitzel Guys? One of my closest friends. They do like bar mitzvahs and they charge thousands of dollars. It's two guys. And they're in their forties now, and people pay them thousands of dollars to come dance. He lost his leg to cancer when he was twelve years old. Crazy Maisa. And he lost his mother to cancer. And lost his father to a form of Lou Gehrig's disease. Nobody has suffered more than him, and he's the he's the most joyous person in the world. But nobody has suffered more than him. He told me that within sixty seconds of meeting a person, he can tell if they've suffered in their life. He said, "If you've been through Gehennom, it changes you. It changes you." And he says, "You could." You could spot it a mile away. You see, there are people in life that they're fine, baruch Hashem, that's wonderful, that's awesome, but they're not in the same place.

26:48 I remember when I flew in for his father's shiva. His father passed away over Yom Tov, so the shiva was pushed off until after Yom Tov. I was able to fly in for the shiva. There was another person there, a very young person. Who had also lost both parents And they were joking around by the shiva. They were part of a very exclusive club. I kept telling you, you're not part of this club. I was like, 'What are you talking about? We're part of a very exclusive club. It's the two dead parents club.' I was like, 'You're really sick. You're sick people. Don't talk to me this way.' But there was camaraderie. There was something, a shared suffering. And I couldn't participate in it. And they were dealing with it in the way that they were dealing with it. But they were two fundamentally changed people, and that's what the Gemara says. The Gemara says that it uses the word bris when it comes to Melch and when it comes to Yisurin. Because it does, it changes you the same way that salt changes meat.

27:44 Mendel Rimanovir, he says he adds something on. The high, no, ma melech im Moisif Yosef Mekisheir, iefshel lekabel hanamei abasser rakdafke im nimlach kashir Kacha yisurin yom uzogin sheyucholus lekavim biuzogin birachim ad kalosh onakalosh. Without getting into how. It plays back into Parshas Vayera, over there in Parshas Vayera, it uses the word Elokim, and it also uses the word Havaya when it comes to the suffering of Klal Yisrael that Moshe Rabbeinu couldn't understand. And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu was saying, and Ni Hashem Daheinu I know how to salt my meat. If I salt the meat too much, I know that it's going to destroy the flavor of the meat. It's disgusting to eat if it's overly salted. And the same thing when it comes to suffering. If a person is suffering and their suffering exceeds the boundaries of what normal suffering can look like, it could destroy a person.

28:43 And so Hakadosh Baruch Hu is telling Moshe Rabbeinu, 'I know how to balance suffering. I know what's going on in Mitzrayim. I know you think that what's going on in Mitzrayim is more than they can handle.' Don't worry. I know exactly what I'm doing. The balance exists. Vehine Rashi, Pirish, and now using this Yisoid from Rivmendel Rimonov, the Piasetzin, that says as follows. The Lamanist mechamisa Sarah like this Yitzchak. Why is the death of Sarah right next to the Akedah of Yitzchak? Because we know that when Sarah Imenu heard that Yitzchak almost died So that's what killed her. Parcha neshmasa umiso. Her soul left her body and she died. Hainu, listen to this unbelievable interpretation of the piyutzetz. Shemaysh Rabbeinu Raya mehem. Shemaysh Rabbeinu was our faithful shepherd. And of course, he did this because the shechina was medaberes mitochgrano. The piyusetanah does not mean to say that Moshe Rabbeinu did this on his own. Of course, it was coming from Ankodosh Baruch Hu, but he says that Moshe Rabbeinu specifically sumach misasar l'akeid es yitzchok. Why did Moshe Rabbeinu put the death of Sarah right next to Akeid es yitzchok? Kedei lahamletz toiv baadeino.

29:59 He was doing a good thing for us. So he was doing a good thing for us. He was melech toif. He was doing a good thing for us. La haros shal yede yisurin chas v'shalom yisurim daiman nasa shaparchon eshmasa. You see, Moshe Rabbeinu is saying this is what Moshe, the lesson that Moshe Rabbeinu is teaching the world. Too much suffering and a person will die. And if this is true, maybe you'll say. If I suffer too much, then I'm not going to be okay. But if a tzaddikas like Sari Imenu would suffer, certainly she would have no problem with it. All of you can imagine Sari Imenu. She had everything fine, like that myth that the tzaddikim feel no pain. So I heard once, the Bavitcher Rebbe had no children. And there was a Bavitcher Chassid that also couldn't have children, but he wouldn't speak to the Rebbe about it.

31:01 So he said, "How can I speak to the Lubavitcher Rebbe about the pain of not having children? Surely the Rebbe is on such a great level that he doesn't experience any pain over not having children" Because he's on such a high level. He's so connected to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so everything in the world comes from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So he just accepts it with complete ahava. So he suffers no pain. So one of the Labavitcher Mashpiaim said back to this Chassid, 'You have it exactly wrong. Because the Rebbe is so close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, he experiences exceptional levels of pain.' The closer you get to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the more you can feel. That's what we think. You see a person suffering, and they're just like, 'No, I'm okay. It's fine.' Hakol mei, he's like every svari cab driver. Hakol mei Hashem, right? Everything. All of a sudden, we've become big balei amuna. If you're a big balei amuna, you'll be bawling. If you're a big balei amuna, you'll be feeling all of the feelings.

31:58 Especially the difficult feelings. This Sariyimeno. This Sariyimeno, the greatest tzaddikus, spoken about in ways that no one else is spoken about in all of Tanakh. Kulan shav in la'tayva. This is the way that Sariyimeno was spoken about. All of her life was innocent, and all of her life was natural, and all of the grace, everything was there. And for her, the pain was so great when she heard about the fact that her son was almost killed. That it was too much to bear She couldn't. She couldn't hold that pain, and she died. Moshe Rabbeinu was bringing this into reality by putting these parshios next to each other, saying, "If it's too much, you're going to lose yourself." " Even though we say this amazing thing about her, even though we say this amazing thing about her Even though we say this amazing thing about her.

32:54 Think about what it must have been like in the Warsaw Ghetto to hear those words—that Sarah Imenu couldn't handle the pain that you are handling right now in the Warsaw Ghetto. But not that—that's a bad thing. That's the natural way of the world, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu needs to understand this—that he's being melech toiv ba'adeino. That's what Moshe Rabbeinu was doing by putting these parshas together. He's saying to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, be careful with the pain that you give a person, because even the greatest tadekas in the world, whoever would be the greatest tadeka, nobody was better than her. But even for her, it was too much to bear. That's his first answer. Which I think Just by itself, it gives us permission to feel. And I think that's what the piyusatzner rebbe was saying over here. He's not trying at all to be mitaritz the pain.

33:43 He's not trying to say because pain purifies, it's a good thing. He's saying pain changes you, suffering changes you. That's a fact. But a person has to be aware that there are limits to how much we can take, and if you feel like you're at the limits of your pain, that's understandable. Because Sara Imenu was also at the limits of her pain, and even a great tzaddikas like her also felt that pain, and it was also too much for her to bear. There's a lot to unpack here, but could you imagine what it would look like if we, as a community, were able to discuss these things in a tzeis way? Imagine if there was somebody who was struggling with Rosh Hashanahs Who was struggling with raising children. I got an email. I wrote an article. A couple weeks ago. It was an article about a boy. It was a challenging boy, ADHD up the wazoo. He's the greatest kid in the world. He's mamish the greatest kid. If you ever want to get stuck somewhere, you want to get stuck with this kid. He's mamish.

34:43 I would have been friends with him. He's a crazy, lunatic kid. He's funny, witty, and a good-looking kid. He's got the full package. He drives his mother up the wall. And he drives every rebbe who's ever taught him up the wall. His mom's a crazy kid. The notion of sitting down in a chair for moments at a time is difficult for him. He's like bopping up every two seconds. I made a siyum on baba kama. Fifteen years old this summer. I went to the siyum. I made a siyum on Baba Kama. And not only did he make a siyum, he knew most of Baba Kama Balpe. Shachlavitario, he knew fifteen years old And he did at least four chazaras. He said at least four chazaras. A kid like that who can barely sit still, Baba Kama's a It's a thick one. It's one of those down there. It's a thick one. It's a big deal.

35:44 By the siyum. I told you he's a funny kid. When you see him, he says, "I want to thank my mother." Couldn't have done this without her. " He said, "You know, my mother. You would think she works in Kever Rachel. The amount of time she spends there davening for me. It was an unbelievable line. The place was roaring with laughter. And his mother is my. She. It's true. She's in Kever Rachel like all the time, and it's always for him. You have one. You have that one kid. We all have that one kid, right? He's that one kid, but times a thousand. His name is Yosef Chaim. Does anyone have a Yosef Chaim before I found anyone? Any of your children named Yosef Chaim? Don't name your children Yosef Chaim. If you name your child Chaim, he's already going to be nuts. Yosef Chaim. This kid is Yosef Chaim personified. So much life is coming out of him.

36:38 So I wrote an article about it. I spoke about how Even beneath that joke, there was a tremendous amount of pain. Of all of those rabbis that told him to sit still and to sit down, and all of those people that judged him. But he had a mother who believed in him so deeply, and he knew that every time she went to Kever Achil, he's like that. She cares about me, and she wants me to be in a certain type of way. And I got emails. I got emails. You write an article like that, and the article I write for a meaningful minute So if you write an article like that, you're gonna get emails and all these people writing and saying Thank you so much. I need it. I have a kid who's a Yosef Chaim, and everybody has a kid who's a Yosef Chaim, but nobody's allowing themselves to be able to say it's really hard to be a parent.

37:24 It's really hard to have a yosef chaim and it makes you want to cry and it makes you want to give up, and that's okay. It's okay to feel those things. This is what the piyutzetzner rebbe was telling those Jews and I think this is what the piyutzetzner rebbe is telling us. That if you feel like you're at the end, and you feel like you can't take it anymore, and you feel like oid maat, then that's going to be the end of your life. Welcome to being a human being. You don't have to pretend that everything is okay because it's not. You know, it's not okay, and it doesn't mean that you're not able to hold two things at once and to be able to say it's okay even though it's not okay. But it's also important to be able to say it's not okay, and I feel like I'm at the end. And I have nothing left, and I'm done. You ever say that? You ever say those words? I'm done. I just struck a chord. I can read those faces.

38:05 When you've been going overtime and your husband comes home and says the wrong thing, not because he's bad, but because he has no idea what happened all day. Husbands, by the way, have no idea. Just give them time. They have no idea what they just walked into. I want you to know it's a tremendous act of vulnerability to walk in that door. You have no idea what you're walking into. And rightfully so, because everyone was busy and everyone ended up in that place and they walk in and they go. Then I need to make myself. They don't even mean to say in a bad way. It's like, are you kidding me? It's like. Okay, let's see. I don't know. It's like slowly backing away, closing the door behind them. I'm just gonna go to New Delhi. It's a. It's okay to be able to say I'm done and I can't take it anymore. I need my space and I need a couple of hours to myself. I need to go and I can't be around any of you right now.

38:51 That's an thing. It's to feel like I'm at the end. This was sorry, sorry, I couldn't take it. There is a level of suffering that a person can't take. Then he gives another answer. This answer is. If the piousness and Rebbe wouldn't have said it, nobody could have said this answer. Because the Rebbe said it, we could say it. But to say that it's a daring passage doesn't do it justice. He gives another answer. He says an unbelievable thing. He says really. Sorry, I'menu, could have guarded herself. She could have. If she hadn't taken in the pain of the akeda so much, she wouldn't have died. But she took it all the way to her heart, knowing that in so doing she would die. And she ended her life early. And she did it for us. This is what the piyusetz and the rebbe says.

39:58 She could have lived. She had many, many years of life left. But in that moment, when the Satam was telling her over the Ma'aseh Akedas Yitzchak, she opened up her heart to such a degree to allow the pain to penetrate so deeply that her life had to end. That's how exquisite the pain was, and she didn't need to do it. She did it for us. Why? La Haroys La Hashem. She was teaching a lesson to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You hear the daring nature of this passage? Sounds like fear a little bit, almost. It's not. Because we know that the piyats and the rebbe, when he says 'la haris la Hashem,' he means for us La haris la Hashem Ech i efsher li yisrael ulisbol yisurim yosrimi dai. It's not possible for us to experience too much pain. Va'afilu misha bechem las Hashem nisharchai gam acher yisurav And even if Hakadosh Baruch Hu has kept a person alive after the terrible suffering After the Holocaust.

40:59 A part of us has been lost. There's a part of us that's irretrievably lost after suffering. You can never rewind back to that moment. A person loses a parent. The person who loses has lost a child. A person goes through Gehenna themselves. A certain type of sickness. You can never go back to the point before that suffering occurred. And there's a part of you that is irretrievably lost That you're never going to be able to see the world in the same way. You've been altered fundamentally. Is Mali cutle kulo Mali cutle palges? What's the difference if you kill all of me or you kill half of me? We're walking zombies at that point. This is what he was saying. He was speaking to them while they were still in the Warsaw ghetto, but we saw it come to fruition. There were Jews who survived the horrors of the Holocaust, and they were there in body, and they continued on with their life.

41:55 But they never really recovered. And look at the language that the Piastetno was giving them. At this point, you probably feel like, what's the difference if you kill me? If you don't kill me, what's? Imagine they heard about the horrors that were going on, that people were going to death camps and that people were being murdered in the streets. At that point, they knew that they were so altered that they said, what does it even matter? There's no point anymore. I'm already lost to the degree that my humanity is gone. They gave up. We saw this in the Holocaust. There were people that Pesha gave up on life because they said, 'What's the difference? Alive, dead. I've lost this part of myself that can't possibly come back.' I've lost the innocence. And this is what Sari Ymaina was teaching Hashem. Say, there's such a point where a person encounters, and this is the key line.

42:48 Nothing bad happened to Yitzchak. If you heard Chassid Shalom that your son almost got hit by a car What would you say, Baruch Hashem he didn't? But something changes in that moment. The moment that you hear that something terrible almost happened. And if you saw it? If you saw, let's say you saw Chassid Shalom walking into the street, you saw the car coming. You do that thing where you reach your arm, even though it's not based on power. You're never going to reach. You're never going to make it. And then you see that the car swerves at the last second, and your child's life is saved by a hair's breath. Shachianu v'kiyemanu v'yeginu lasmanazet. It's unbelievable. It's make a suddasodah. It's not. It's not true. Once you experience the fragility of life, you can never come back from that. You can never unsee those sights.

43:45 So even though it's true that nothing bad happened to Yitzchak What Sareimenu encountered at that moment was life always hanging by a thread. And that is absolutely true. You remember when Corona broke out? Remember that? It seems like a long time already. Remember Corona broke out? I said to my wife I miss the illusion of control. That was like my. I realized I never had control, but I enjoyed the comfort of lying to myself on a daily basis. We're never in control. We're not even in control a little bit. We hear these stories. That's why, and it's terrible. We all do. I do this. I'm not here to pass judgment on anybody. I also do this. When somebody dies, what's the first question we ask? How? Why? Why do we need to know that? Because we want to be like I don't. I can avoid it. I've got an answer.

44:41 They get hit by a car. I baruch Hashem drive very safely. They got sick. I'm not going to get sick. They had this. They had that. By the way, it's a cruel question. I also ask it. I now that I learned this, I try to stop myself. But now I exist in this tension of wanting deeply to ask But knowing that it's the wrong thing because I know it's just a form of control. But needing to know anyway, and so it's this inner tension. I don't want to say the words, but can you just tell me? They were old. I was okay, Russia. It went as it was supposed to go. The truth is that Baruch Hashem, Corona is over, so we've returned to the illusion. Everything is okay again. In fact, for some of us, it bothers us when we see people still wearing masks. What are you doing? We're back to the illusion now. You're offending me with your mask because I don't want to go back there. I know I can't go back.

45:46 It was even to the point of absurdity. It was an amazing psychological phenomenon. I travel a lot. I'm back and forth. Last year I was in America eight times. It's like once a month. I was on the plane, and my mask had fallen beneath my nose. This is after we were all immunized and everything, and got the vaccine. But they still had those FAA regulations that you had to mask up. My mask fell beneath my nose. So the L. L. Stewardess woke me up to put it back on. Which was five minutes before they served breakfast. Where everyone takes off their mask to eat. So I was like, 'Are you serious? You woke me up to tell me to put on the mask that we're all about today? It wasn't logical. We were all sitting in the same cabin, breathing the same air for that half an hour, but then afterwards It was. It was also the illusion of control within the control.

46:39 I was gonna say like If you have a family member who's still Getting to COVID stuff. Me too. I don't like You can't stop it. If you get it, and if you don't, you don't. I don't know how. I hear you're saying about not wanting masks, but also with it, I feel like. I'm not here to enter into that trap of Chassid Shalom saying the thing that somebody doesn't agree with. It's an amazing thing. I was talking to Rabbi Axelrod, who's the Rabbi of Young Israel Woodmere. Do you remember Rabbi Axelrod? He's like my tenth grade rabbi, so we're still close. He told me he made every single permutation of a minion that could possibly be in Young Israel Woodmere. They had outdoors unmasked fast. Outdoors unmasked slow, outdoors masked fast, outdoors masked slow, indoors masked fast, indoors masked slow, indoors unmasked fast, indoors unmasked slow.

47:41 And he thought this way everyone could choose the meaning that works for them. He said it was the worst thing. You're the rabbi of the shul. Those crazies are still wearing masks. You have to tell them to take it off. You're the rabbi of the shul. You have to make sure that everybody wears a mask. How could you have an indoor unmasked minion? He's like, rabbi, you're responsible for killing these people. He managed to make. I know when you have to be very careful when you speak in public that you might say the thing that's going to offend the person who's either deeply pro or deeply anti one side or the other. I'm not here. I hear where you're coming from. The way I saw it was like you're still trying to control the situation. That's right. We all are. It is impossible. It's an unbelievable thing, but we miss that illusion of control. The point is that once Sara Imenu confronting the fragility of life had the capacity to say it's okay. She said, "I'm not going to say that it's okay. I'm going to allow the fragility of my son's life to permeate my being to such an extent that I'll die from it." To teach Hakadosh Baruch Hu that even the greatest tzaddik, the person who's totally, absolutely righteous, when confronting the fragility of life Cannot stay alive. It's not possible. The anxiety that results is like you're done.

49:00 Malchutly, you're gonna kill me a little bit. You're gonna kill me all, but you're finished after that. There's no coming back from it. I don't know if anyone has a mother that you still need to call when you get home at night. You have that mother, even though you're married by yourself. You still have to call your mother. In America, my mother will message me. How was your flight? I know what she's doing. She wants to see if two checks go through. She wants to make sure. On the one hand, it's very beautiful. I have a mother who loves me. Baruch Hashem. Even like I don't take it for granted. I have a mother who's still checking up on me. I'm also like it's gonna be okay. I remember I got home from Israel after my years in Israel. My mother's like, tell me what time you're gonna be home. I'm like, you understand that for the last two years, nobody asked me that question. You didn't ask me that question. She's like, "Yeah, out of sight, out of mind." Now you're back. I have my anxiety again. The fragility of life can take over a person's way of being.

49:52 That's why we're afraid when we see our children Like skateboarding or biking. I take my children sometimes. They have a rollerblading park. But when your kids get older, it's an awesome thing for them to do. I can't watch. I know you're going to end up in the hospital. Just let me know when you do. I don't want someone to call me and have me come running, but I can't. I can't watch it happen. I sit there like this the entire time, please don't. And somehow they make it. Somehow they live. But children are always like, especially children. We're the same way. We're always a moment away from it. A person can't live like that. V'zechem atarit z'apasuk shnei chayisara, and this is what the pasuk concludes. Shalochare chato sarah. Didn't Sara Yemenu do a tremendous avera? She ended her life early. It was like a form of suicide. She could have lived fifty more years.

50:41 What in the world? Why did Sara Yemenu do this? Neged Charch Niseha. She married an avera. Imagine what Sara Yemenu could have accomplished over the next fifty years. Would have made an unbelievable thing. Shahayol lechayos ba'im loy laka kal kachaliba ma'isa akeda. What would have been if she didn't allow this ma'isa to penetrate her heart so deeply? Avol kiven shalatoyves Yisrael, I think it's a good idea. But since she did it for us to teach Hakadosh Baruch Hu a lesson that a person cannot live with the awareness of the fragility of life so close to their heart. Now he's answering. How was it? What do you mean? They were all good. What about those years that weren't? The years that she never had because she allowed this to penetrate her soul. It's saying no, no, no. All those years, even the unlived years, were all good.

51:35 That's that's the piyusatzner rebbe's teretz. Even on those years, she didn't sin. Listen, he's speaking to those Jews. He's speaking to us. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu have mercy on us. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu, in a revealed way, should do chesed with us. And he should save us in a fast way from all of the spiritual challenges and from all the physical challenges that we confront in our life.