Alei Shur - 4

2:18 Maral, Kol SheYir Hascheto Kodemes L'Chachmaso, Chachmaso Mishayemes. Anybody who his Yir Haschet, his Yir Haschet, comes before his Chachma, then his Chachma will be kind. So the Maral asks the following question, V'havalei Loimar, it should have said, Kol SheYir Osoy Min HaChet, Kodemes L'Chachmaso. Why does it say, Kol SheYir Hascheto? It should say, anyone who's yira, anyone who's fear of cheit, comes before his Chachmah. Why does it say, yiras chetot, yeah? Ve'ein zeh kasher, he says, it's not a difficult thing, ki kol odam muchan lacheit, every one of us is calibrated towards cheit, which I'm going to explain in a moment, ve'amar kol yiras chetot, shehu muchan lo, ha'yire min hacheit, shehu muchan elav, kodem es lechachmah. Anyone who's afraid, not of cheit in general, who's afraid of his cheit, he knows his cheit, that person, that person is capable of holding on to his Chachmah. Kol omar, what does this mean? Kol odam muchan mitzad tivo lechataim miyuchadim, every one of us is naturally designed for certain avayus. Before we explain this, I just want to go back one step. There's a Yisra'il in Mosul. Yisra'il is as follows.

3:53 By definition, the human... We'll speak specifically about a Jew for a second. We are a complex being. On the one hand, we have a Nefesh HaBahamas. On the other hand, we have a Nefesh Lokesh. The desire of the Nefesh HaBahamas is narcissistic. Period. Why? Because the Nefesh HaBahamas, by definition, is afraid of death. Because the Nefesh HaBahamas can die. Let's take a step back. Can life die? No. What would you say? No. Life can't die. Good. And that's why Shmuel is saying, based on his definition, life cannot die. It doesn't even make any sense. If life could die, what would you know about it? Step back. It's not life. It's like saying salt can go bad. The primary property of life is what? It's life. By definition then it can't what? There's a difference between life and alive. The body borrows life. So that's the condition called alive. Alive, because it's only a condition, what can happen to it? It can die. Anything that knows that it is temporary is going to be fighting for its existence. Like a fire, as the oxygen begins to diminish, what do you see? It starts to flicker. Anytime you have something that's nervous about its condition, so to speak,

5:28 what's going to be its natural tendency? Its natural tendency is going to be to fight. What does that look like? That in the body, the primary nido, is going to be arrogance, narcissism. Why? Because if you have an impoverished mentality, what's going to be your focus? I need as much as possible. This is why, so often, you see people that they're in a mode of collecting stuff. I don't know if you've seen this in your life, I'm sure you have. There are people that they're just collecting stuff. What does it mean to collect stuff? If I don't have a lot, if I don't have a ton, I'm left with the feeling of I almost don't have anything. So it's a fascinating thing. There are people that are happier and have less. And there are people that are happier and have more. But there are people that if they don't have more, they're mamish miserable. I'll tell you a marshal I heard once from Rabbi Tversky.

6:32 A man comes to a psychologist. You guys know who Rabbi Tversky is? Rabbi Abraham J. Tversky? A couple of the Mevs guys met him last year. He lives in Arizona. A man came to a psychologist and sits down in the therapist's office, and the psychologist says, how can I help you? He said, well, honestly, I don't think you really can help me because I don't really think I have a problem. Now what happens, pause, what happens in the psychologist's mind in that moment? Okay. Nobody who walks into my office has a problem, right? So fine. He says, so what brings you here today? Oh, my friends and family wanted me to come. What's the psychologist thinking? This guy's got a huge problem. The only one that doesn't know he has a problem is him. So he says, and why do your friends and family want you to come to me? Because I like pancakes. So the psychologist looks at him and says, I don't see why liking pancakes should be a problem.

7:33 I also like pancakes. The guy's eyes go wide, and he goes, you like pancakes? You should come to my house. And it's suitcases and suitcases and suitcases full of pancakes. Why is that? My mom wasn't speaking about you. I happen to know you have suitcases of pancakes. I'm not speaking about you. Hosham Pancake Day is one of my favorite things in the world. What's the problem with having suitcases full of pancakes? Because, and this is the general thought, how do you know when you have enough of something? When you have enough for now and the foreseeable future. That's when you know you have enough. That's what enough means. Enough means that I have enough for now and the foreseeable future. If you're still collecting stuff, whatever that stuff is, right? If you're collecting pancakes for three weeks from now, there's something off about that. Why? Because I have enough pancakes for today. Maybe I even made my pancakes for the week. But if your freezer has no room because it's full of pancakes,

8:39 something is probably going on, right? The same thing when it comes to money. Hosh, it's for you to work out privately. I mamish love you, but let's not bring it here. Why is it different when it comes to money? Nobody likes to think of it that way, but why is it different when it comes to money? Why is it different? Because it's not as easy to come by. Okay, good. So I'm with you. It's not as easy to come by, so a person has an impoverished feeling that I won't have enough. So they sometimes, not always, will choose to do things that impact a larger segment of their life because they're living from that place of fear. Why are we working? We're working to give our kids what we want to give them, right? But at some point you could work so much that you lose the whole system to begin with.

9:47 The guy who doesn't know how to turn off his phone at night and therefore he doesn't spend time with his wife and children because he's working to provide for them. And when his kids call him out on it and then his wife calls him out on it, what does he say? I'm on the phone to provide for you. What's the kid's response? I'm here. What me? I'm not here. This has nothing to do with me, and honestly, I would choose to have less and have you in my life, right? Again, they won't have the sophistication to say this, but I would choose to have less and have you in my life than have more and not have a father. Greatest gift my father gave me. I know it seems like a small thing. Greatest gift my father gave me? He was my Little League coach. It seems like a silly thing. My father gave me, in my life, he's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education. My Little League coach. You know what the pshat is? My father worked like a dog. Sunday afternoon, I promise you the last place in the world that my father wanted to be was coaching Little League. Where did he want to be? He wanted to be watching the Jets game. I know my dad. My father knows football. It's annoying to watch football with my father. Why?

10:55 He knows so much about the game that he says the thing before the announcer says it. So growing up, as a kid, my father and I would watch football together, and he'd be like, they're in a nickel package, I'm sure they're going to run it up the middle. And then two seconds later, they're in a nickel package, watch for the run, right? And I'm like, this is like annoying. My father was actually offered a job by the New York Islanders to be an announcer. He turned it down because you can't do it on Shabbos. It's a true story. Do you remember Schaefer's Beer? Schaefer's Beer was an old beer. You remember Schaefer's Beer? Schaefer's Beer had a jingle. Schaefer's Beer was the one beer to have. They were the official sponsor of the New York Islanders. My father's first client was Schaefer's Beer. The Schaefer's box was right under the New York Islanders' announcers. My father would go to every game, and he would sit there saying all the things. They overheard him. They were announcing the game based on what my father was saying to his friend Hyman. So they called him up, and they said, would you like to come work for us? He said, can I do it without doing it on a Friday night? They said, no. That was it. It was in New Bolshoeva, by the way, when he turned it down. It was a tremendous guru on his part.

11:58 But if you give the gift of time. I knew I was the most important thing to my father because I knew, yeah, maybe during the week I didn't see him so much. But when he had time, he spent it with me. You understand? But if you have an impoverished mentality, then what's your... Of course I have to work on Sundays. Of course. Because if I could do that much more... My father flew like crazy. Flew all around the country for his job. He came back every night. He was mocked to come back every night. Sometimes I didn't even see him. So, like, why is he coming back? He would come back after I would already be, like, just on my way to sleep. I would, like, be able to say goodnight to him. It was important to him that we knew that he was there every night. So you feel like you're the priority. When a person has an impoverished mentality, they often lose the forest for the trees. They lose sight of the goal. Because they have that natural, I'm gonna die, so I need... By the way, I'm using money, but it's with anything. People who are thrill seekers. Why are they thrill seekers? How do they do that? I'm not saying that a person can't have an experience that's thrilling, or even want to have that. A person jumps out of an airplane, let's say.

13:01 I'm not saying anywhere in particular, I'm just saying, if a person... Not to anybody in specific. If a person jumps out of an airplane, let's say. I can understand it, I hear it, I can understand it. But if a person has that need all the time, where's that coming from? Without that need. Without that, yeah? There's no sense of being alive so you can get close to it yet. That's correct. And that, in a certain way, enlivens the body. Why does the soul not have an impoverished mentality? It's always connected. Because it's infinite. People who live from a place of soul, they live with so much. I'll tell you a maissa, this is a true maissa. This maissa is 20 years old. 20 years old, this maissa. I wish on an elephant with a sari. And I was going to a chavar of mine who was learning in the mirror for Shabbos. Today he's a pretty choshever of in Yerushalayim. Back then he was a young man learning in the mirror. So I told Rezuker, I'm going to Yerushalayim for Shabbos, I'm going to be in the mirror. And he said to me, as only Rezuker can,

14:05 he said to me, you should daven by Colin Stollen on Friday night. Daven by Colin Stollen on Friday night. Have you guys ever been to Colin Stollen on Friday night? You know what they do? They scream every word of davening as loud as you possibly can. It's an experience, it's not my way, it wasn't my Rebbe's way for sure, but it's something to see. So it's the craziest thing. Every word of davening is screamed at the top of their lungs. And then like, after Kiryash Melech, when they say Baruch Shem Fil Mochuz, it's like... like ten seconds of like silence and it's like. the after it's like the craziest in the craziest the craziest football game you've ever been to doesn't like to hold a candle to their dog then he told me a piece of advice he said there's going to be a ton of people that come to you and invite you out for a meal don't say yes to them wait for the gabbai ask them if they're the gabbai when the gabbai comes so then speak to the gabbai and tell them you want to go to a family that speaks english go to them for friday night so i called my friend i told him i want to do this.

15:07 chavaya i want to go to uh... he probably and i said it like that chavaya so i said to him i want to do this thing he said fine i'm in we went to karl and stalin i've never heard a davening like that in my life the whole davening guys are coming over to us do you have a place to eat do you have a place to eat are you the gabbai are you the gabbai finally a guy comes over i'm the gabbai what type of family are you looking for i said english speaking family no problem he sets me up with this person, I didn't know Me'asharim that well then. I don't know Me'asharim that well now. But we go through the winding streets of Me'asharim. We end up in this guy's house. The tiniest apartment could not have been bigger than this room. We get to the table, and there's like a ton of kids and there's a knock on the door. He gets up, answers the door, opens it up. There's a guest there. He invites the guest to come sit down. Fine. We start our meal. They bring out the soup. I have never had such rancid, disgusting soup in my entire life.

16:15 I could barely eat. I forced it down my throat because like you have to, right? To say that this tasted edible, it was clear to me that the chicken that they put into the soup, I don't know. It must have been the cheapest chicken. It must have been the scrawniest chicken ever. It tasted rancid. They brought out the main meal. This is singing into Vitoria. They brought out the main meal. It was mamish bones. It was hard to eat because you couldn't separate what was chicken and what was bone. I might have eaten as much bone as I did chicken. and the pieces were tiny. Tiny. Fine. The end of the meal. Thank you so much. I had newfound respect for people that lived in poverty and that still had guests over. We go out of the house and we're there with this guy and I said to him, how do you know these people? This is the guy that knocked on the door. He said, I didn't. I knocked on the wrong door. I said, what do you mean? You just showed up at this door? He goes, yeah, I got lost. I knocked on the door.

17:17 I asked them where this place was. They didn't know. And before I knew what was happening, he dragged me in and sat me down. I couldn't understand that. I grew up in the 510s. Yeah. At Baruch Hashem, a beautiful house. I was blessed. We had cars. We had a basketball court in my driveway. We had a big backyard. We had trees with hammocks. The whole nine yards. Beautiful swing set. I went to great schools. These people probably didn't make in a year what my father made in a month. Probably. And I'm... No, not probably. For sure. For sure. But there, HaChamas Azarachim, they felt like, hey, we have plenty. So we'll cut the chicken a little bit smaller. It couldn't be massive. Where are they coming from? Okay, fine. Now that we've established this principle that everybody has that, every one of us is going to have an impoverished mentality in a different area. And that's really the Avodah. You have to know what's my thing that I think to myself.

18:18 I'm not enough or I don't have enough. Fill in the blank. In this area. That's the Avodah. You understand? Yeah, that's the first thing of the homework. The first thing of the homework is where is my I'm not enough, where's my Hei? Because that's what Hei is. Hei is not, I happen to have this Avera. That's not what it is. It's not, It happens to be that because of the generation that I live in, So, Paivos Nasha. That's not true. It's too simplistic. Is it true that there's an element of, our surroundings impact us? Of course. The Rav Menachos Be'ez says in Befeirish that a person has a tremendous impact from his surroundings. Of course. But if you're only going to look at it on a very surface level you're going to lose something. You're going to lose it. You have to know yourself. This is, remember, this is Das Hatzmei. You have to know yourself. Where's my Hei? That's what the Maharal is talking about. Where is Malki? Every one of us has a certain impoverished mentality.

19:19 But the Mishnah doesn't say, שִׁיִרָאָסֹי מִנַחִיִת, it says יִרָאָסְכֶתָה, where is your thing that's bringing you to this place? Yeah, Shlomo. The truth is there's no such thing as not having enough. There's no such thing. We think we don't have enough. We have a tremendous amount. Everybody in this yeshiva knows, at least my attitude, but the attitude of the yeshiva, I personally believe that, for every single bachar in this yeshiva, you're obligated to provide a parnasah for your family. It's an open gemara. And my Rebbe Shlito, he taught me, he had a Kabbalah from Revurimim, who had a Kabbalah from the Altar of Slavodka, that a Rebbe is responsible to the total Talmud, and a Rebbe has a responsibility to make sure that his Talmud has the capacity to provide a Parnassah, which is why my Rebbe was pro-college, and he was pro-college at a young age. And as he said, I cannot take responsibility for the guy that learns in Keulel until he's 28, and then at 28 has the problem. That was not my Rebbe's Ashkafah. My Rebbe's Ashkafah was that he felt it was appropriate. Again, if somebody wanted to do that, it was a different story, but my Rebbe felt it was appropriate for a person to get a college education. I'll be Tevin for today's generation. I'm not getting into that Ashkafah conversation right now. It's not Nogaiya. Having said that, I have tremendous respect for my brother-in-law,

20:54 who's been sitting and learning in Keulel for 16 years. And my brother-in-law made a decision that he's willing to live with almost nothing. Because he just wants to sit and learn. So he lives in a two-and-a-half bedroom apartment on the fourth floor, fifth floor, depending on how you count it, with no elevator, an apartment building in Yerushalayim, and he has eight children, Kenai and Ahara, and he's sitting and learning. How does he do it? His wife is the head mechanechet in the seminary. She's making some money. His kaiul pays some money, but his rent is $800 a month. In Israel, there's no tuition for schools. He can cover his rent. He can cover his shopping. He can cover clothing for his kids. He does not live off tzedakah, and he doesn't take, you know, help. We don't have in-laws in my family. He doesn't take help from his in-laws. He doesn't take help from his parents, and he's sitting and learning. Now, he might be a genius, because he said to me, he goes,

21:55 think about how many decisions you've made in your life because you have a mortgage. I said, okay, but I'll be able to, like, have a mortgage that I'm finished paying off, at some point my house will be worth something that I could... That's okay, fine. So you're preparing yourself for the 20 years after. Meanwhile, for 20 years, I'm on a different path. I could not live the way he's living, and to be honest with you, I couldn't be Madrich a young man to live the way he's living. But he might be a genius. He's willing to live at a level that I wouldn't be willing to live at, that I couldn't take. to my tamidim is the right way to live, but he's willing to say, I'm willing to live with much less. I don't need new clothing. I don't need fancy. You have so much in your life. The problem is that we're not calibrated. We're not attuned to it. I had a girl at my house for Shabbos last week, a girl in the neighborhood, one of my daughter's friends, and this concept came up. I said to her, Adina, if you were blind... And I said to you, I'm going to give you two things, you could stick them in ready-made.

23:00 sockets in your head, and you could be able to experience the most vibrant colors to interact with the world in that way. What would you say? She's a teenager, so she's like, that would be amazing. So I said, if you were deaf, right, we went on YouTube, and we looked at those videos of people that are hearing for the first time after they get their cochlear implants, right, you ever see those videos? Right. And all of a sudden, you can experience the profundity of auditory experience, right? Wouldn't that be incredible? Yeah, that'd be incredible. You have those things right now. You understand? But it's because we don't have gratitude and cognition of. those things that we live with the like, but it's so much. It's so much. And, but I don't have this. Okay, but think about all the things you do have. You'll see, you have a ton. You usually rob, you usually call. It's real. It's real. Nothing. Just to clarify, what exactly is the question at the moment? The question is as follows. I know that there are aspects in my life that I have this impoverished feeling. What are the averas that are coming from that impoverished feeling? Person doesn't fall into, and again I'm just giving one example, it's an example,

24:05 we have to talk about it because it's real for today's talk. Person doesn't have a challenge with pornography because he grew up with magazines and billboards and television and movies, that's not where it comes from. It happens to be that that's true, but there are people that do have it, there are people that don't have it. Could be the rove does have it, but lemaisa, we have those things because there's a certain internal experience that gears you towards that thing. Just like there's another person who, you know yourself, when you look around at your friends, you go, at least I did this when I was a kid, but I think people still do it. We know that guy was going to be a millionaire.

24:37 You knew because he was always ambitious. But where did that ambition come from? Was that ambition coming from a healthy place, or was it coming from an unhealthy place? I grew up with a guy, this guy was a hustler, I don't mean in a negative way, he hustled. From the time he was a little boy he was a hustler, you know those types of guys? He was a waiter, like when he was 13 years old he was already a waiter on Shabbos working for catering companies to get those extra couple of bucks in his pocket. I knew growing up when people would ask me I would say, I'm not going to say his name on the tape, Coloni is going to be rich. I knew it, I knew it. We both grew up poor, we both grew up poor. My father at some point made it, his father didn't. It wasn't a Shiloh. You saw it from the time he was a kid. When everybody else was like hanging out on Shabbos, he couldn't be there because he was waiting tables. So is it shocking to me that when he was married, he also learned Enkidu in the beginning of his marriage, but he learned Enkidu very different than the way I learned Enkidu. He learned Enkidu. We both didn't get any support. I learned Enkidu and I tutored at nights. He learned Enkidu and he bought a house.

25:39 He put together enough money to buy a house, so that he could rent out the other three sections of the house so that while he was learning Enkidu, the apartments would be paying the mortgage. Then when he left Enkidu, again, he grew up just like us. He went up to the regular modern orthodox schools that all of us grew up with, but he wanted to be a serious Bentayga. His father-in-law had a business. His brother-in-law realized there was room for expansion. He mentioned it to his brother-in-law and said, we should really expand the business and take this business national. So when he was ready to leave Cuddle, he learned in Cuddle for like two, three years. So he went into that business. Of course he blew it up. Now he bought a house in Lawrence, and he has this other house that's making money. And supposedly, again, I can't verify this, but somebody just told me he actually has two more houses that he's bought since then. Is this shocking? It's not shocking. It's not shocking. Why? He grew up with an impoverished mentality of, I'm not going to have enough money. By the way, I don't even know if he knows this about himself. I know about him because we were best friends growing up. Sometimes you don't know that about yourself. You need somebody else to tell you.

26:42 I don't know if he knew. My father used to say to me, he's going to be rich. It could be, by the way, that the reason I don't have this is because at some point my father made it. If my father would never have made it, maybe I wouldn't be teaching you. If we wouldn't have moved to Lawrence, it could be that I never would have seen those things. And I'll tell you something I learned when I was 16 years old. Again, I don't like to speak about communities, and I'm not saying it about everybody, but I'm telling you there's a notion that you guys may not know about. It's called housepour. You know what housepour means? Housepour, I never knew this Lushon either. Have you ever heard of this Lushon?

27:15 Housepour is an amazing Lushon. Have you ever heard of this Lushon before? Housepour. It's a great one. I was 16 years old when we had moved to Lawrence, but my parents were very machbid that I should make my own money. When I came to Israel, I didn't come with Mommy and Daddy's credit card. Whatever money I had made in the summers, that's what I was spending, which is probably why I was more thrifty in my year in Israel, because it was my money. Okay. So I babysat. I babysat. I was a 16-year-old kid. I didn't make money. I babysat. People on my block were going away. I babysat. You have to understand, people on my block had gorgeous homes. Gorgeous, stunning, beautiful homes. So the first time I ever went to babysit. I walk into the home. Beautiful home. Sub-zero fridge. You know those like, fridges that are gleaming like silver. Are they silver or are they metal? Like, it's mummish. Like, uh, I don't know if the, what, I don't know what you're paying for. It's like, almost like a house decoration. I have a regular white fridge. Two of like, the stunning fridges. Why, when did freezers go on the bottom? When I was growing up, freezers were on the top.

28:20 Today, freezers are on the top. I guess it does make sense, but like. 20 different types of crushed ice could come out of this thing, the most gorgeous fridges. And the mothers would say to me, take anything you want. You know those parents like when you come in and you're like sitting there like, okay, you're going to pay me my 10 bucks an hour but like I'm eating you out of the house and home. You know like, you're going to need to go shopping by the end of this thing, right? So, when you're 16 years old, so what do you do? You want to know two things. You want to know, A, is there going to be good food? And number two, do they have a giant TV with a huge couch because I am not watching these kids, right? My only avoider is that they get to sleep healthy, right, without any visible damage, right? Psychological damage we all understand. Without any visible damage. I wouldn't say physical. Physical damage they could have but visible was the key, right? Before the parents come home. That's all they want to know. And then you want the kids to say to the parents, Yeah, we love him. Just so he can come back again. So, if the parents say he needs to be asleep at 9, and the parents aren't coming home till 11, what's the baby's, what's the kid's bedtime? 10.30. Yeah.

29:22 It's 10.30, right? They have to be clearly asleep before then. So I would walk into the house, I'd tell the kids, I don't care what you do, but don't kill each other and don't bother me. Right? This was my Iwoda. This is the way I babysat. I walked into this house. It was the first time I walked into this house. Gorgeous house. Pool in the backyard. They had a river flowing through their front yard with a bridge over the river. And the bridge, this is a true story. Mother, you can have anything you want. The kids are all, like, hyper, fine. I'm like, okay, this is great. Sick house. It's gonna be awesome, right? The parents leave. The kids go downstairs. I go get my tub of ice cream. Even then, you know, I go get my tub of ice cream. I walked in to the living room. And there's no furniture. There's nothing there. I'm like, what's going on over here? So I kiss the kids and I'm like, where do you watch television? Sixteen year old kid, what am I doing? I don't watch television. Where do you watch television? Kids are like, awkward. They're like, there's like a television in our parents' room. I'm like, I'm not doing that.

30:26 Everyone has their limits. That was my limit. So I'm like, this is the worst thing in the world, right? I start walking around the house. You know what I noticed? Beautiful, gorgeous house. No furniture. No furniture in the whole house. They had folding chairs. They didn't have a couch. So I called up my dad. We lived like a block away. I was like, I can't leave the house. Could you send over one of my brothers with a book or something? We didn't have laptops back then. There was still dial-up internet back then, you understand? It was like cavemen dial-up internet, right? We hunted for our food and we would... That thing, that's where I lived, okay? So... I don't know why I say these things. Anyway, the, um... I mean, I probably do, but it doesn't matter. The, uh... So my father came, and he walked into the house, and he goes, "'House poor.'" I said, what does that mean? It was the first time I ever heard it. He said, "'It's when people spend so much money on the house, "'and the outside of the house, "'they can't afford to furnish the house.'" You understand? My parents never would have done that.

31:30 To my parents... I'll tell you again, true story. You gotta own your couches. It's like a funny thing to say. What do you mean? Are you supposed to lease your couches? It's not Brooklyn, right? We don't lease our couches. We own your couches. So the grandson of the Chafetz Chaim, Phil Zacks, he said, "'You gotta own your couches' means "'when your kids are climbing all over the place, "'and they're ruining your couch.'" Of course, you want to teach your kids to behave appropriately, right? But if you don't own your couches, then your couches are going to be in pristine condition. Your kids won't be able to enjoy the thing. Own your couches. I don't know if you guys have ever seen this. Have you ever been in like real European homes? Not European, like in Europe, but like in America? The plastic covers them. Is that your home? Not my home. But you've been in that house? My grandmother's house. Yeah, yeah. And did they have a room? Yeah. The first time I ever went into one of those homes? You ever seen that? I have. You ever seen this thing? I have. In your house?

32:31 No, no. I never understood that in my life. What is it? It was a room for shower. You don't sit in that room. We have one that's removable. When they come over, we put them away. Okay, good. So we'll stay there. But there's a room. It's okay. I'm not out of here yet. It's fine. I'm just saying. What? My grandmother had plastic. Do you understand what it means to sit on a plastic couch on a hot day? Not that the couch is plastic, but that you've bought a plastic covering. It's like, I'm going to take something comfortable, and I'm going to make it really uncomfortable. The sound that you make when you get up from a plastic couch is like you're peeling yourself, like a fruit roller. That sound should never be heard after you get up from a couch. It's crazy. Again, I don't know if you have this. The reason why we have it is because the couch costs $400, and we can't replace the couch. Okay, but say that you have the impoverished mentality of, I don't want to have to buy a new couch.

33:35 I'm going to give you tzedakah money at the end. We're going to buy you a new couch. It's going to be fine. You ever see this? You ever see the bowl of fruit in that room? It's not real fruit, right? It's plastic fruit. And who thought, why was it a cool thing in the 70s that fruit should be made of beads? You ever see that beaded fruit that they have in like a bowl in those rooms? And they have like a chandelier. It's very Hungarian. They have like a chandelier. I never understood that in my life. There was a friend that I had, I'm not going to say his name.

34:06 because the truth of the matter is that some of you are going to realize who it is. A friend that I had, when I went to his house for the first time, he was like, we don't go into that room. Do you understand what it means to come from Farakkaway, like in this tiny house, and you go to your friend's house, and he's like, we don't go into that room? Maybe I was 12 years old the first time I heard that. I was like, what does that mean, you don't go into that room? Do you know how funny it sounds when a 12-year-old looks at you and says, that room is for show? You think he's playing a prank on you. You're like, what do you mean the room is for show? It's such a thing. Baruch Hashem, I grew up in a home where we owned our couches, you understand? The couches were filthy, and nasty and comfortable and like there was more drool that had seeped into those couches, over the years of just people passing out on those couches. You owned your couches. They had the imprint of family life on them. Better to have that than to have the... Yes, when the grandchildren come over, everyone should enjoy it. Okay, so that's first thing. What's your impoverished mentality that's leading to your hate?

35:13 Shabbat Shalom. It's not enough to be afraid of hate, the Maharal says. To be afraid of hate. By the way, when I say afraid, I don't mean the impoverished afraid. I mean the real afraid. Like, this is an area of concern, right? This is like, this is the danger to my business. This is the competition, right? I'm trying to lead a life of getting close to Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so this is the thing that's going to interrupt that. Yes, in a general sense, everybody knows Avera. But what about you, knowing yourself? L'kashiyir ha'skhet toh kodom l'chachmah soh. When you know yourself before you know Chachmah. Az chachmah soh mizkayam. Then you're going to have true wisdom. Let's stop here. Let's stop here for today. Yeah, one question. I still don't understand the question. The question is, what is my area where I'm impoverished? What's the one area where I feel like I don't have enough? And what's the Avera that's coming from that?

36:19 Sometimes you can play it backwards. Sometimes you can look at the Avera and go, oh, I learned from that. I see. Again, it's a silly example. That was the question on my screen, though. The question on my screen was, what are my Averas and where do they come from? Yeah, but it's a little bit more than that. So let's say they come from narcissism. Then how does narcissism relate back to impoverished mentality? So the question is, where is that coming from? In other words, let's say I was narcissism is very broad. It's a very broad category. What is my particular narcissism? Let's say my particular narcissism is, I need people to see me in a certain way. So what am I doing? As a result of the fact that I need to see, people to see me in a certain way, it's, it's deeper, you understand? It's that, I don't have enough made, again, I'm not asking you to do the psychohistory on this. I'm not asking you to go back and say, you know, because I was bullied as a kid. Just to get an understanding of, I have an arrogance issue.

37:23 I don't feel enough for myself. Because of that, here are the things that are coming, right? For example, let's say it comes to Sheikh Lazar Al-Battala. Again, I'm saying it because the Maissa people today have this challenge. Some people don't know how to regulate their emotions. Because they can't feel something because they're afraid of feeling something. So they just need to discharge emotion. That's a way of dealing with it, potentially. Because a person who has an abundance mentality is able to feel. Because he's not afraid of the feelings crippling him. You know the difference? Thank you for pushing me. Yeah, is that clear? A little bit. A little bit clear. Okay, so we'll stop here for today.