Alei Shur - 2

2:58 Of course, we should be smart enough, of course we should be smart enough to listen to what our Rebbeim have to say, to listen to what our parents have to say, the people that love us, the people that care about us. Of course. But, at the end of the day, it's got to be you. Because you are the only one that could know yourself. I, as a Rebbe, do not know what's going on inside of your heart. It's not shaykh for me to know that. The point here is, you have to learn the suggah of yourself. Yeah? Let me see that Rebbe Hassan. It's true that there's value to a Rebbe who's a third party, objective party, who knows you, who could tell you, okay, I see this is an area you're struggling with. A Rebbe could challenge you. But at the end of the day, a Rebbe who says, and we have to be very careful when Rebbeim do this, it's very dangerous. A Rebbe who says, oh, you should do this because I did this,

3:59 that's terrible. Because the Rebbe is totally different. First of all, he's a different person. Second of all, those who set his circumstances are exactly alike. Third of all, we as Rebbeim do not know how when you move one piece of the puzzle, how other pieces get moved. Remember guys, a person is a system. Just like he's an entire world, we're going to learn that a person is a system. Whenever you make any moves within the system, things in the system start to shift. So, I know a Rosh Yeshiva once, this is a, I won't say his name, but this is a little bit of a wild story, that there was a heavyset guy in his Yeshiva, like a real heavyset guy in his Yeshiva, and the guy started losing weight, and the Rosh Yeshiva went over to him, and it's a very choshev of a Rosh Yeshiva, the Rosh Yeshiva went over to him, and he said to him, you should be careful not to lose too much weight. This is usually not the advice you would expect from a Rosh Yeshiva, a person should be healthy, that's dalacha. And the Rosh Yeshiva was joking around with him, again, they were very close, he said to him, you're a fat guy, don't not be a fat guy.

5:03 And people were like trying to figure out, like, this was not a Rosh Yeshiva who just stomped set things, this is a Rosh Yeshiva who's like a very choshev person. So they went over to this Rosh Yeshiva, I know the Rosh Yeshiva, they went over to him afterwards, and they asked him, like, Rebbe, what was that about? He's a guy, he's trying to get healthy, he's trying to do good things with his life, how could the Rosh Yeshiva tell him not to lose weight? He said, when you move one part of the system, other pieces start to move. All I was telling him was, you gotta be careful. A guy like that, he's a jolly guy. You start to lose weight, you don't know what the impact. on the other end of the system is going to be. And he's right. I'm not saying a person shouldn't lose weight. You know, especially today in yeshiva, the yeshivas sikhut revolve around, mostly Rabbi Safra, but also, you know, maybe if I start, you know, doing Himalayan salt also, you know, cutting my lines of Himalayan salt, maybe I'll get a shot at a sikhut. But my guys were all ready to go after the yeshiva. But okay, you know, but again, a person, of course, should lose weight. Of course, it's a healthy thing to do.

6:04 A person should exercise, a person should lose weight. But at the end of the day, you got to know yourself because we as Rebbeim, we cannot take achrayas. When one part of the system moves, what's going to be the fallout on the other end? In fact, I'll tell you a great maisa. A young man in yeshiva. was planning on going to a secular college that doesn't have a minion on even Yom Kippur. Okay? Talking about a serious, off-the-charts secular college. And this is not, you know, like, you know how they say, like, oh, there's a really good hill? There's not a really good hill. Okay? They don't even, I don't think they have a hill. So, the boy came to him about a Saturday, he starts really getting into learning. And he starts discussing with us, should I, shouldn't I, what should I do, right? While he was recruiting him, what should I do? I want to tell you an unbelievable thing. You know, the Reshiva drives Rav Asher every Sunday night. The Reshiva spoke to Rav Asher about it. This boy's family was like, he's going to this college.

7:07 His mother made a lot of sacrifices that he should be able to go to this college. So, you know what Rav Asher said? Rav Asher said, you can't tell him that he must leave that college because you can't take responsibility for the negative impact and the family fallout. Can you imagine such a thing? Usually you think you go to a gadol batara they say what do you mean you got to get him out of there you got to save his and by the way he does struggle there. He's hanging in but he's struggling. We as Rebbeim. do not know what's best for you. You have to own your choices. Every single person is an. and the only thing that you have in your life is how you see the world. That's the only thing you have. How you see the world. Because at the end of the day you have to be responsible for your decisions. So we have to learn ourselves to make sure that the way we see the world is accurate because, rationalization will kill you. Bias is natural to a person.

8:09 Every single person is biased including myself. Even right now in this year I'm biased. Every single person is biased. We see the world through the lens of our own bias every one of us. It takes time for us to be able to get to a stage where we can see ourselves to know I'm lying to myself. You know the famous line? Rationalize means rationalize. And by the way, all of our rationalizations make amazing sense. We work it out, mamish that it should be exactly the most logical thing. But at the end of the day, it's mamish, a lie. I'll give you an example. Eleven years ago, we made Aliyah. Crazy story, we ended up in an apartment that we weren't supposed to end up in. I guess we were supposed to end up in this apartment, but I didn't want to end up in this apartment. After a year, we were leaving this apartment. So the apartment, when we moved in there, was whitewashed. You know what whitewash is? Whitewash isn't even paint. It's just whitewash. So at the end of the year,

9:10 we have to repaint the apartment, right? So the guy says, Okay, so you're hired for repainting the apartment. You're chayiv whitewash, right? So I'm just going to give paint. I'm just going to give paint, and the painter you hire, instead of having to do whitewash, just have him do it with the paint. Now, all of a sudden, my biased mind goes into overdrive. I start making a cheshmeh. I'm only chayiv whitewash. If he wants paint, that's on top of the whitewash, because he wants the paint. So I'll pay for the cost of the whitewash, and let him pay for the actual painter. Because if it's whitewash, I could just do it myself. I could take a rolling pin and roll it around this apartment. But if it's paint, that's a little bit more of a precise job. Once he wants paint, I'm out of the whitewash business. Now all I have to pay him is the amount of the whitewash. Okay? Now, if you take even 10 seconds to think about what I just said, you will notice that.

10:13 that is the dumbest, most illogical argument of all time. It doesn't make any sense. And Mamesh became convinced of this argument. So I went to my Rav, and I said to the Rav, I said, what do you think? And he looked at me, he goes, wow, it is amazing how we can lie to ourselves. That was his response to me. Right then and there, I knew I wanted him to be my Rav in Eretz Yisrael. You know, Mamesh called me out on it. We can come up with the dumbest thing. So what do we need? Rectification of the way that we see the world. Because if you see the world in a broken way, what's going to happen? You're going to be convinced that you're seeing the truth. So keep in mind, boys, as we're getting ready to do our homework until next week, what are our biases? What are our lies that we're telling ourselves in our lives? We're all lying to ourselves on some level. This is the Avodah that's in front of us. How good is it, he says? We don't need to find from strange places this halacha, so to speak, that you have to.

11:18 know yourself. You see how Revolbi saw the world? We don't need to go find strange Makoros, it's like brought down in a Shibboleth Alechid who quotes the Yalkut Shimoni that was once quoted by the... No! It's a Betharish HaGomorrah with Rashi. And what is the work? A. Knowing yourself, rectifying yourself, until when? Until we get to a stage of inner peace, and to learn Torah from a place of joy. In this way you will become a Tamul Chacham that actually glows. Tamul Chacham means to illuminate. A living, safer Torah. That you should become one with the Torah. This is the reason we're doing this work. Rabbi, I want you to hear how Revolbi summed it up. It's so powerful. What's the goal? Know yourself, fix yourself, become serene, get that internal state of harmony. What will that result in? Learning Torah from a place of joy, which will make you into a true Tamul Chacham, which will make you into a lebedek, a safer Torah, until the degree that you become a Tamul Chacham. that you yourself, when people talk to you, you'll just be overflowing with Tariq. You'll become one with the Tariq. That's the purpose. People often say, you know, like, do I really need to learn? Yes. Yes. Yes, you really need to learn in your life. You need to become.

12:52 a Leviticus-safer Tariq. That's the goal. So Revolbi is setting up major ambitions for us to get to the stage where you in your life, where somebody asks you a question and you see the world through the lens of Tariq. Shlomo samidos. Yeah. I got down to Torah with, learning Torah with joy. What was the? Learning Torah with joy so that you can become a Tamukachum Muvach. Yeah, a real Tamukachum. A Leviticus-safer Tariq who has become one with the Tariq. Okay. You know, I want to tell you something. How many people here have ever been in SAR? So I went, I went to SAR. I went to SAR. I want to tell you regardless of whether you agree or disagree with some of the policies there, I want to tell you something. It's a very impressive building and I don't mean the physical plan. I don't mean the physical plan. Many yeshivas have very nice physical buildings.

13:57 The hashkafa of the building is fascinating. Have you guys ever heard the hashkafa of the building? It's wild. I went on a tour. I went on a tour of SAR with my good friend Rabbi Akiva Block who's the 12th grade rabbi in SAR and amongst the many things that they have there, they have the windows of the beis medrash overlook the city and they have psukim engraved into the glass. Why? So that when you look out into the outside world you should see the world through. the lens of time. It's an exceptional building. It's an exceptional building. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree with them, there's something exceptionally special about them. That, I believe, is what Revolbi is talking about. That we should have eyes, that we should become one with the Torah, that we should have eyes, we should see the world through that unbiased lens of Torah. By the way, you know, that's how Maishar Abeinu saw the world, because Maishar Abeinu was so close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, that he had aspaklar ya meiru, the Gemara says. He had total clarity when he saw the world. He didn't see the world the way we see the world, which is through the lens of our own bias.

15:02 Okay. Sh'leimos hamidus hekhrechu la'asagas toira ma'al hazeh. If a person wants to learn Torah, it must be that he's working on his midos. Why? Zuhi zehu me'am b'forsemis. This is famous. U'dib re'chazal baru milalu ki ha-toira nikneis be-mem chaz ma'al ha-shomidus toivis. We know, chazal speak about, that the Torah can be acquired in 48 ways. You guys know about this? The 48 ways that the Torah can be acquired? You should look it up. What was that? Yes, it's correct. It's in Perkaos. So he says, This is a good time, he says, to go through a very famous piece from Rav Chaim Vital. You guys know Rav Chaim Vitalis? Rav Chaim Vital was the Talmud of? The Arizal. Correct. So listen what, listen what he says. In this that we're about to learn, we're going to learn the foundation.

16:07 of working on yourself. Midos are the foundation, the seed of the Kodesh Baruch Hu, the root of everything. Because it goes together with the Nefesh HaSichlis. What does Nefesh HaSichlis mean? Irrational mind. Irrational mind, which is a necessary requirement for all Kiamat Torah and mitzvahs. Ka shlomo le dvara meylo yavohu kan divrei rabbeinu ha-gan revisrael salanter. v'michtav v'sefer ar yisrael. We're going to learn now how many people have heard of Revisrael Salanter as the founder of the Muslim movement. So we're going to learn a piece from Revisrael Salanter. You'll see. You'll see. He says you should go back to read in the Shar Kedusha and Shar Beis which is earlier in the Sefer and that we brought in that Tome of the Sharsheni the words of Rav Chaim Vital. But here we're going to read from Revisrael Salanter. Irrational or irrational?

17:09 Rational. Rational. Ki ha'agam sheh ha'toira m'sorel b'nei odom Even though toira was given to a person, Every single person learns it according to the level of their seichel. Wild words, strong words. I'm going to translate them for you. The Torah was not given to you to conquer, to do with it what you will, according to your desires. You know, a lot of people do that here, do that today. It's pigilhu, lo yiretza. Hakadosh Baruch Hu considers this a carbon pigil. You know what a carbon pigil is? We're going to see. It's a carbon, we'll see. It's a certain type of carbon that when you have machshav hazaros, it's no good. And you're going to answer questions according to what? Not according to the way that Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants you to answer them, but according to the way you use the Torah. So, today... If you go to five different shuls on Parshas Noah, you're going to hear five different drashos on Noah's Teva, yeah?

18:20 If you're in a Haredi place, they're going to tell you there's a flood outside. You go in a Teva, you lock the door. You go to a more modern place, they say, yeah, but there's a window in the Teva, because you've got to see into the outside world, and ultimately you have to leave the Teva. You go back to the Haredi place, and they're going to tell you, but look what happened when he left the Teva. Noah got drunk, and his sons were involved in terrible things. You go back into the modern place, they go, but that's what it means to bring a korban, and to say I'm going out into the world. And you could mamish dance between two shuls, hearing the same shuls on the Teva, and each one of them is going to sound totally different. There was a window. Was it really a window? Maybe it was a jewel because we wouldn't want to have any impact and you know and you know we wouldn't have one contact with the outside world. No, it was a window. Yeah, but there was the window that only allows you to see out. It doesn't shine. It doesn't allow anyone to see in. All these different draw shows and believe me I've been on both sides of the fence for a long time. So I've heard both draw shows. Watch the shot.

19:26 because it's not always coming and I'm not suggesting either one of these but it's not always coming from what is the Taira actually trying to communicate. A lot of times you'll see sometimes people are trying to cram their particular hashgafa into what the words of the Taira say. The Taira is very clear but we don't necessarily want to see it because we have our own desires. By the way, you'll see this a lot in your own learning in the morning. Let's say you come up against a Taissus. Makhlaik is Rashi Teissas. You have a kasha. If you're trying to cram Teissas' pshar. into what you want to say, but it doesn't work, it's not what Teissas says. It takes a degree, as we're going to see, of intellectual honesty to understand what Teissas says. So let's see how Revolbi explains this from Rav Yisrael Asalante. Lema, lo bashamayim hi. Torah is not in heaven. Ano chayavim lifsok halacha kavisukh leinu. And we are obligated to pasken halacha according to the way we understand it. Avala toira nimser arach laseikh la'ashov ebeli negiyas. But Torah was not given to a person.

20:32 who has bias. You know why we can't pasken halacha often? Because we have bias. So when somebody comes to Berg and they say, Rebbe, what should I do? You know what comes up for me? Well, what do I want this Talmud to do? And not necessarily, what does the halacha say? That's why I am not one of the Balei Messorah, because in order to be one of the Balei Messorah in Chai Israel, hear me clear, you have to be somebody who has no bias, you can't have interest. They say, by the way, this was the goblets of Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky. You've heard of Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky? I hope you've heard of Rav Yaakov Kamenetzky. He was the God of Adar in the last generation, Rashiva of Ter Vadas. They say that Rav Yaakov had no bias, that when people would come to speak to him, he could see clearly. And I'll tell you a mystery, it's a good mystery. How many people here have heard of Rav Braidowitz? You should all be ashamed. Rav Braidowitz is a tremendous tamachachim. He lives in Yerushalayim today, he's Rashiven Ar Sameach. But before Rav Braidowitz was Rashiven Ar Sameach,

21:34 he was, many many moons ago, considered the top Talmud in the Yeshiva called Ner Yisrael. And Rav Ruderman was the Rosh Yeshiva then, and it was well known that Rav Ruderman was grooming Rav Braidowitz to be the Rosh Yeshiva of Ne'er Yisrael. They had chavruso, and everybody expected Rav Braidowitz to be the next Rashiva. There was only one problem. Rav Braidowitz didn't want to be the Rosh Yeshiva. He wanted to be a professor of law. And he told Rav Ruderman, he said he finally got the courage up to tell Rav Ruderman, I don't want to be the Rosh Yeshiva. You can imagine this was very difficult for Rav Ruderman to hear. So Rav Ruderman said, I can't, I can't hear it. I can't, I can't hear it. I can't, I can't talk logically to you. I'm too invested. You must go to my cousin in New York, and you must go to Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky and ask him. So he traveled to New York, and he went to Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky. And the way he told me the story was Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky saw that he had already made up his mind. He wasn't really asking a question. So Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky told him, in everything you do, you should be mar be'koved shamayim.

22:41 And so he took his LSATs, he went to Harvard Law. Yeah, he's that type of personality. You could just take his LSATs and go to Harvard Law. He's pretty smart. And you know what he did? He became a professor of law in University of Maryland. And then, because he said, I also wanted to do something for Christ, so he became a Rav in Silver Spring. And he was like THE Rav in Silver Spring. You talk to anybody, they loved him. And then he made aliyah, and in the end he said, I ended up a Rashiva anyway. But you see the godless of Rav Ruderman. What was the godless of Rav Ruderman? He was too close to the situation, so he. couldn't tell Rav Braidowitz what to do. But Rav Braidowitz was an individual, right? Yes, he had a Ravi, but he also knew that he was an ilam am yuchad. And then he went to Rav Yaakov, and how did Rav Yaakov answer him? Rav Yaakov didn't give him a schmooze about being from. He saw him for who he was, and he said, if that's who you are, go for it. Just be marbek kveit shamayim in, everything you do, to increase the glory of God everywhere in the world. You understand? That's a real Rebbe, that's a real Talmud. I'm sure that Herb Breidwitz took it under consideration that Herb Ruderman.

23:48 wanted him to be the Reshiva, but he also knew himself. You know, Levar, you gotta know yourselves. So the Torah is not in Shamayim. We have to pass, we are not, we have to pass on the halacha according to our seikhah. However, only if we have no bias. אִיְנֵּנָה כְּבוּשָׁה אֶצְלֵּנוּ שָׁנּוּ חָלַסְבוּ כְּפִּי הַעוֹלָה אַלַה שֶׁכָּלָה מֶשְׁוּכָּם מִנְגִיִוֹסְ It wasn't given to us to do with it as we will because of our bias. You know what sheikhah means? Sheikhah means bribery. If a judge is bribed even a little bit, what's the halacha guys? Is to recuse himself from the case. Why? Because it's not possible to be unbiased. You have to know that. It's not possible to be unbiased. הַשָׁאֹלְמֵי אִתָנוּ דִּן תָּרֵה If somebody asks us, what's the din? וְשָׁיָׁמַךָ אַלֵּנו לְכַבֹל תְשוּבָל אֲמִתְה שָׁל תָּרֵה And they want to know, give me a true answer. What does the Torah actually say about this? No, you're going to come back from yeshiva, they're going to say to you, what did you learn this year in yeshiva? They're going to come to you, what's the halacha? You have to answer, not what you think the halacha is. You have to answer what the actual halacha is. According to the amitah of Torah, the truth of Torah.

24:51 וַאַנְוּ מִי שִׁיּבְלּנו מַעַשָׁאָלּו שְׁכְלֵּנו מִשוּחָת And we answer in this biased way. way according to what we feel the answer should be. We're not training ourselves to say I don't know. We have to train ourselves to say I don't know. Hare, listen carefully now. Unbelievable powerful words. Hare, kemoshet karban ha nishgat ha makhshavas pigal. Eino karban ha eilo le'ratzan ele'pigal. If a person shekhts a karban. And it's a karban with the wrong makhshava. It's called pigal. Kakh halacha she nishtar tokh negias eino tayra ele'pigal lo'yiratzan. If you pasken a halacha according not to what the Shulchan Aruch says, not to what the Rambam says, not what the Noah and Caleb say, but according to what you want the halacha to be, that's pigal lo'yiratzan. Very powerful words. A person could be learning tayra and you should know the tayra that you're learning, it's not wanted by Hakadosh Baruch Hu. You know why? Because it's not his tayra. It's your tayra. It has to be his Torah. It's the Rabbani Shalom's Torah.

25:54 Are you being honest with yourselves? How many times every single day am I talking to guys, no, I'm not down for this. Slow down. Slow down. You're biased. You're biased. Don't look at the world through that lens. That's pigil lo yirtzeh. M'vur b'zeh. So it becomes clear from this. The strong words, no? Pigil lo yirtzeh. M'vur b'zeh. Ki avaydeh kevirim uteles al misheh, Yeray tzaliska yisotar yasemetz. It comes out that this is a grand avaydo. It's a huge work. On somebody who wants to have Torah and truth. And you see guys in the beis medrash, Baruch Hashem, till 11, 11.30, even 12 o'clock at night. I left beis medrash last night at midnight. Rosh Tanah Shear was still going, yet a couple of guys sprinkled around the beis medrash. Unbelievable, right? But it could very well be that a guy who's sitting in beis medrash till 12, 12.30, 1 o'clock in the morning, it could very well be that his Torah is piggal lo yirtzeh. You know why? Because he's not learning amitah shal Torah. He's just seeing it through the lens of his own bias, because he's not learning Moser. That's why it's so important that everybody should have at least, at least,

26:59 a couple of minutes of Moser in every single day. Because otherwise, if you're not checking yourself constantly, your bias takes over. Melvada yegiyah ha-neirah lo haytzid v'alacha ha-burya mishasu payskin. Aside from the fact that a person should be able to payskin the halacha the way the halacha actually is. Aside from that. Allahumma la mulataara as-sakhlaina. We have to work. On our seikhah, we have to work on our intelligence. What does it mean? To try to increase your IQ? No, we're not interested in increasing your IQ. What are we interested in? Having seikhah al-yashr, having a straight mind. Shab'eis asko b'tarah, so that at the time that you're learning Torah, la'i tikandei shum negiyu b'anel u'takhvula. Don't allow any bias to come into your mind. See it straight, see it for what it is. We're all living in an Eid al-Adhaim, see it straight. How many people here have ever had the following? Don't raise your hand, the answer I hope is everybody. You said a pshat, and then your chavrusa said a pshat. I want to be right so badly, but I know in my heart.

28:02 my chavrusa's pshat makes more sense than mine. So you start to go, but what about this? But what about that? Yeah, but L'maisi, you're wrong. L'maisi, you're wrong. You know that. I remember a chavrusa, he was much sharper than me. His name was Usher Korbal. He was my chavrusa for many years. He was much sharper than me. I would say a pshat, I'm not a stupid guy. I would say a pshat, then he would say a pshat. Sometimes my pshat was right, sometimes his pshat was right. But I knew if he said something and I was like attached to mine, we got into a fight, and then he asked a kasher that like undermined my whole thing, I was like, oh man, I know I just lost. It would take me at least another 10 minutes until I got there. Another 10 minutes of hammering away at his, at his tarrots. Why? Because I didn't want mine to be wrong. Do you realize how gaivadic that is? Do you realize how biased that is? If we were really searching for Torah Hashem Emes, as soon as you hear the right pshat, what do you do? I'm out. I'm out. I got tagged out. I lost that battle. But good, we won because we arrived at a correct conclusion. No, it was about my Gaiva. I want to win. I want to win.

29:04 You can have another guy. He says, I want to be the last guy in the beis medrash. I'm going to be the guy that's in the beis medrash until 1 o'clock in the morning. Go to sleep. You're a lunatic. You need to go to sleep so you can wake up at 9 for Shabbos. No, I'm going to be the last guy. Or another guy. You can have a bias the other way. I don't want to be the first guy to say, OK, I'm in and I'm doing extra Chazar. Because I don't want to have to deal with the way that people look at me now. Rabbi said, this is all bias. You're not learning Hashem's Torah. You're learning your Torah. And while I admire your Torah, that is not the goal. That's not the ultimate truth. How awesome is the obligation to purify your Midos. In order that you could arrive to truly understand Torah. Rabbi said we have five minutes. Should we go a little bit more? Five more minutes. Should we go a little bit more? Yeah? We'll go a little more, okay. So far, just to take away in terms of the homework, just take away in terms of the homework. Number one. Yeah, so far. Number one, what are our biases?

30:10 Understand the things that touch you in a way that you like, find yourself going up against them and saying, no, I'm not down for that, yeah? Make a list of them. I don't like to be wrong. Makes me feel like I'm inferior, right? Whatever that list is. Yeah, the things that make me stay away. For example, like, I don't know if you've ever had this, Gilad, because you're like an in-shape type of guy, yeah, but, like, I justify, like, all right, let's say I sit down to eat a slice of pizza. I say, okay, two slices, that's, I'm going for two, right? But there's only one slice left and why should I put it in the freezer and like, it's not gonna be as good. So I just eat it as if I'm a human garbage. You understand? That's a bias. It's obviously distorted, right? I know people that have done that with entire pies. That's like, yeah, at some point in our life. Listen, I want to tell you something. I shouldn't tell you this, especially because it's.

31:12 recorded and being posted. But it's OK. You don't have to pause it. If I'm going to say it in front of you guys, I'll say it in front of the whole world. There used to be KFC in the mall over here. It was big. And the Yeshiva guys, we didn't have a burger's bar across the street. So go to the mall for KFC. In fact, email came out right around the time that I was in Yeshiva. I know that sounds strange to you. So we had to make email addresses. So my email address when I left Medaseret was kfczinger, which was the chicken sandwich that they had there, at hotmail.com. Can we send an email? No. That email address is long since defunct. KFC Zinger, that was a great chicken sandwich. You know what we would do? Because we were super stark. We would stay in base management until 11.30 at night. And then at 11.30 at night, we had a thing. This was my Shana Olive. We had a thing. It's like 11.30, you know? That's the go to sleep at 11.30. But at 11.30, that was like we stayed post-night at 11.30.

32:15 We were doing great. So we would walk to the mall at 11.30 at night. And we would get there at exactly 11.40. And at 11.45, KFC closed. What were they going to do with all the leftover KFC that had been sitting in the warmers? The answer is, they gave them to the poor people that would line up outside the mall to get the leftovers from that night. Who would join those poor people? OK. We young, hungry men of Mevasseria. Would sit there with impoverished people, going like, hey man, like, you got any extra wings? It's really so sick that is. So somebody said something to us, like you're literally taking poor, you're taking food out of like poor people's mouths. Can you imagine? Starving little immigrants. So one of the guys said, it's plenty of food. And I remember thinking, oh, this is really wrong. If we were justifying.

33:23 to ourselves taking food from poor people's mouths, that's bias, you understand? That's when we stopped. Okay, that's when I stopped. I went a couple times after that, but that's when I was in the mode of stopping. So number one, what are your biases? Number two, am I actually interested in learning what Hashem has to say? Or am I coming into this year saying... All right, I have this thing that I'm not going to let myself go past. You know, Rav Naik Weinberg, the founding reshiva of Eish Atorah, he had a great line. He said, if you're a democrat or a republican looking for truth, you're not looking for truth, because you've already decided you're a democrat or a republican. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu told Avraham Avinu, Lech Lecha, he didn't tell him what the destination was, because, and here's the line, a journey for truth can have no destination. What are the things holding us back? I'm here in yeshiva,

34:27 but never will I ever cross this line. Never will I ever cross this line. How many guys have come to yeshiva and told me, I'm coming to yeshiva, but no matter what, I'm not filling the blank. A journey for truth has no destination. So what are the things when you come to yeshiva you say never will I ever. How many guys have come to me and said okay I told my parents no matter what don't let me and then fill in the blank. Don't let me switch to this couch. Don't let me come shun the bed. Whatever it is everyone. has our things right. You should know those are the things holding you back. Last question. I'll finish with this. I want you to track yourselves over the course of the next couple of days and I want you to become curious observers of self in the following dimension. When you're hearing a shir or when you're learning the chavrusa ask yourself, what are the things that are stopping me from actually.

35:34 Hearing the sheer what I mean to say is let's say the Rebbe said something and it bristled it's like whoa, Let's say I don't know. I'll pick any random Rebbe out of that. Let's say you're a zooker. Yeah, any random Rebbe. Yeah, Says something and makes you go, No It's a lottery. Yeah, Any random Rebbe, Says something and all of a sudden you find yourselves doing what you find yourself going no I don't like that. I can't think I gotta get a switch out of this year. Whoa, slow down. What just happened? Your Chavruset said something, What was the mida that it came up against? What was the thing that when you heard that you said? Yeah, that's, That's my bias. So the three things number one. What do you think your biases are number two? What are the things you say never will I ever and number three as you track yourself in a sheer what's stopping you? Is it, I get bored during shiur, my phone, the thing that Rebbi said, what's stopping you from being totally engaged? Even, am I tired? Right? Because if I'm tired,

36:37 that's also a shtickl bias. Because if you're tired, why aren't you going to sleep at night? By the way, I'm a big admirer of the fighters. I'm a big admirer of the fighters. The guy who does this, this is a fighter. This is a fighter. You ready for this? The guy who does this, this is a fighter. Yeah, you see, I'm a big admirer of the fighters. But you got to go to sleep. One time in shuur on Friday night, usually I'm up, I'm up, I'm stocked, I'm paying attention. to the Rebbi's dressing. One time, my mamish didn't go to sleep, come out all Thursday night, I worked like a dog all Friday. Friday night, I was in full fighting mode. You know, the head bob, the head bob is dangerous. You can mamish break your neck that way. You've seen people, it's terrible. Yeah. Anyway, we don't have to get into it now. It's a well-known story already. So, the kid's there. I went over to the rug afterwards and I apologized. I got to apologize. This person was speaking to me and I fell asleep while he was talking to me.

37:40 So he said, Mordechai, I admired the fight. He said, I was giving the drasha and I was watching you fight. He's like, I have to admit, half my mind was giving the drasha and half my mind was watching the fight. I admire the fighters, but you got to get some sleep. That's also bias. All right. Have a wonderful job.