Aseres Yemei Teshuva / Yom Kippur - The Symmetry of Teshuva

2:24 Tamim tiam Hashem alokecha. We'll describe each one of these things to be tamim To be a good person, to have Hashem in front of our eyes always. The vav of tshuva is vahafdal reyach hakamocha. The base is bechol dereyecha daehu. In all of our ways, we should know Hashem. And finally, hatsnei alechasim alokecha, Hashem alokecha. You should be modest. So these are the five attributes of tshuva. Reb Zusha says. So I'll be honest. Growing up, I thought it was a very cute var. It was a nice thing to say. I never really chopped the depth of it. And then I saw a shetikal taira from the Rebbe Roshab Who explains what each one of these things mean. I'll be honest, even after that, I didn't take it super seriously until I had this one idea, and then I realized this is a very deep taira. So I want to just go through each one of these things with you and show you the depth of this Torah.

3:22 Let's assume for a second that the Rebbe Reb Zusha was saying a deep thing and not just a simple thing that we've heard before. The first step in living an aligned life is to be tamim. What does tamim mean? The word we're going to use is wholehearted. Wholehearted means to show up with your full self to whatever it is that you're doing. And that's not an easy thing at all. Because there's unbelievable vulnerability in being wholehearted. There are people who wear their heart on their sleeves. They're very, very special people. I'm not talking about people that are sloppy with their vulnerability. I'm not talking about people that you could just see right through them because they just show everyone everything. I'm talking about people that know how to show up to life, and they're actually fully present with their full self. When you meet people like this, you know right away they're the most exceptional people. There's something exceptionally special about them.

4:19 What's so special about these people? They're not afraid of the rejection that comes with being wholehearted. Can I give you an example of this? It's a very silly example. When I was a kid growing up, I was a camp guy. There's some guys are yeshiva guys and some guys are camp guys. I'm a camp guy. I know I work in yeshiva for a living, but fundamentally, I still see myself as walkie-talkie, polo shirt. I'm a camp guy. That's who I am. There are two types of guys when it comes to color war. There's color war generals, and the people that are in the thick of it with the color war generals. Then there's the counselors on the side rolling their eyes at the color war generals. There's the guy who shows up to color war. Let's say he's on the blue team, and he's painted head to toe in blue. Everything he's wearing is blue. Even though it's not going to come out for a week, he cut his hair. He has a mohawk. He's got blue in the mohawk. You know that guy?

5:15 He's awesome to date. When you meet that guy, he's a great date. The guys that are with him in the trenches that are coming up. When I was a kid growing up, I had these amazing Color War generals, and they. It was funny because they really, looking back on it, were probably you know abusive to children, but they made up these ridiculous cheers. That we thought were hysterical. I was like in fifth, sixth grade. I remember the cheer until today. The cheer was they had hundreds of kids doing this in the dining room. Ario, sunga, ario, sunga, auben, aubu, sunga. We love doorknobs. Hundreds of children singing. We love doorknobs. And these unbelievable color war generals, decked head to toe in blue, going. We love doorknobs. I love those guys. You know what I'm talking about? You know those guys? Those guys are awesome. And then there's the five guys that are too cool for school Sitting on the side saying, 'Such losers. What do they care about color war? You're gonna get paid the same amount either way.'

6:11 It's hard to be the color war general when you have the guys on the side rolling their eyes. It's hard to show up. I'll bring it over now. I could now that we have the introduction, I can bring it over to something real. It's hard to show up to Sem and really be into it and really say I want to dedicate myself. And really say, I want to take in what's being said. If there's a couple of girls sitting on the side rolling their eyes Because you don't want to be the girl that goes back to the dorm and says "That was really inspirational. I really heard something different, and it really shifted the way I thought." If there's going to be some girl going, "Oh, look who drank the Kool-Aid now" To be tumim, to be wholehearted, to be fully present Is to be alive.

7:00 And it's vulnerable to be alive because if you're alive, that comes with death. That comes with being knocked down. How many girls won't show up to a date because they've been rejected before? I can't start again. I can't put on my makeup and show up and put a smile on my face and really put myself out there because I don't think it's going to go anywhere because so many times before it hasn't gone anywhere. How many children won't have a hard conversation with their parents? How many friends won't have a hard conversation with their friends? So we're living in fear, and we're not living a tammim life. And if we can't do that, we're not showing up to the world, which is a crazy thing. There's a depth to what Rav Zusha is saying. If tshuva is not just repentance for your sins, but if tshuva is a real realignment with who you truly are, the beginning of every realignment is: Am I actually alive? Am I actually present?

7:59 We have here this wonderful phone box, and it's a very beautiful thing. Everybody comes, and you're only marked here if you get the phone right put into the box. You have to make sure that your phone's not on while you do it. Why? Why is this phone box here? I'll tell you why. There's a yeshiva in America right now. I won't say the name of the yeshiva. There's a yeshiva in America right now that they made a rule. The rule is, you can have your phone on the bus going to school. But if you walk in the door, you put your phone in the box. And if we catch you with your phone in school, we're taking it away for two weeks. They made a huge thing. I was just on the phone earlier this week with a kid from that high school. And he said, 'This has been the best year of high school so far because there are no phones.' The school is alive. The school is vibrant. People are talking. People are jumping around. People are joking. People are yelling. He said it's awesome. People are actually present. The challenge of the phones is not how much time you spend on them. The challenge of the phones is not what you're looking at. The challenge of the phones is it takes you away from being alive. Do you girls know what an NPC is?

9:10 That's a terrible, terrible, terrible term. I remember I went to a certain school. I was doing interviews in the school. After COVID, after everyone had been back in school already, I asked this kid, "How do you like your school?" So he goes, "I hate it." I said, 'Why do you hate it?' He goes, 'It's all NPCs.' So I'm not like a very relevant Rebbe anymore. I'm an old man now. So I was like, I didn't know what this, like I'm learning words. I'm saying like I learn new words every, like I just learned what glazing means. Talking about like I understand that's like If the guy's in Shira go. Rebbe, you're low key relevant, but you're D1 not relevant at all. I'm learning all the words. So I didn't know what NPC was. What's an NPC? The kid, a good kid. He didn't mean to say a bad thing. A good kid. He just goes, it's a non-playable character.

10:04 I'm like, what in the world does that mean? He said in the video games, you have all these characters on the side that don't do anything. They're just there. They're just taking up space. You can't play with them. You can't do anything. He said all these kids after COVID. They come back. He's like, they're not alive. They just sit in between classes. You can walk through the halls of the school, and there's just rows of children sitting on the floor against the lockers, just on their phones. He goes, nobody's home. Nobody talks to each other. Nobody has any connection. He's like, it's just a bunch of NPCs. I hate it. When I was a kid growing up, I went. I grew up in a place called the Five Towns. So we used to have. Don't. We're not. We don't have to be proud of it. We're from there, you know what I'm saying? Where are you from? Bayswater is not the Five Towns. You're like a satellite of the Five Towns. Where are you from?

10:54 Bayswater. Hashem yirachim. I'm from Lawrence. I know I'm better than everybody in this room. See, this is my tshuva. It's not. We don't need to do this now. There was a kid who came to visit me at Sarah today. He told me he was from Cedars. I was like, I'm not wasting my time on you. A nice kid though, really nice kid. The best part about going to a Mets game growing up wasn't the Mets game. Especially if you're like in Simcha Day Camp and they put you in like the bleacher seats, like 5,000 feet up, and the players look like Lego pieces. The best game, the best part of the game is not the players. It's the bus ride. But today, every guy gets on a bus, and the first thing he does is he plugs in with his Princess Leia giant headphones. There's nobody talking on the bus. Nobody's having a great time on the bus. It's the worst thing in the world.

11:49 You can't be tummim. You can't show up alive to life if you're zoned out. It's the craziest thing in the world. The first step to realignment, the first step towards being a godly person, is being lebedik. I know it sounds like a funny thing, being a Lebedek. There's a guy whose name is Mr. Richie Altibe. He's the principal of Halp today. Richie Altibe and I were, and we still are very close. Back in the day, we were very, very close. And I asked Richie, who was very involved in the time in the 90s and getting all these kids at risk programs started. And I asked Richie, "What's the common denominator? What How do you know if a kid's going to make it or a kid's not going to make it? He had a very simple equation. I don't know if it's true today, but he said this back then. He said, "I'm never worried about guys that are ball players."

12:36 So I'm never worried about if a guy is a ball player. I'm not worried about those guys because they're alive. They go to practice. They show up. They work hard. Even if they're sleeping all day in school, they have something lebedik about them. You take that person and just put him in the right direction. You never know what he could become. But he's alive. Take these NPCs again. It's a terrible word. People that are plugged out of life. They can't be tumim. They can't show up. It's too much vulnerability. They fall apart. That's the first one. Second one Shivisi Hashem lenegdi tamed. Shivisi Hashem lenegdi tamed. The Rebbe Rashab explains this as follows: Every single moment of creation Hashem creates creation every moment. There is no such thing as a previous moment and a future moment. Every single moment, the Malshento says, Hakadosh Baruch Hu recreates the world anew.

13:26 Can you handle something a little bit deep for a second? I'll explain to you why this makes sense. You're not going to understand it when I say it at first. I don't blame you. It's barely understandable. You'll get it the second or third time around. You ready for it? There's nothing about nothingness that implies somethingness. See? One more time. Exactly. There's nothing about nothingness that implies somethingness. Something can become something else. A piece of wood can become a stander. All you're doing is reshaping it. But nothing cannot become something. I don't know who's talking, but everyone's shushing. It's okay. I'm glad you think someone's talking. Unless you're shushing me. Nothing cannot become something. When we say Hashem created the world, Yesh Meayin, something from nothing. That doesn't make any sense. Nothing can't become something. Does that make sense? The only way that nothing could become something is if a force was applied to it.

14:30 Can I borrow your pencil for a second? This pencil cannot fly. It can't fly. There's nothing about this pencil that's flyable. Pencil is not a word for the record. There's nothing about this pencil that's flyable. But if I do this, good catch. If I do that, why does it fly? Because I exerted a force upon it, and as long as that force is acting on that pencil, it's in flight. And as soon as the force is done, it lands. Nothing cannot become something, but Hashem exerts a force upon the nothingness every single moment that it should appear to be the something that we live in. But if Hashem, for one moment, would take away that force, what would the world revert to? Nothing, because nothing cannot become something. It's like the pencil when it's landing; the force is done. Now that's a great theological idea. The idea that the world is really just the appearance of a world, but in truth, it's Hashem manifesting Himself every moment into existence. A very nice theological idea. Wrong.

15:38 It's not a theological idea. It's a worldview. It's a practice, and the practice is as follows: live every single moment of your life as if it's on purpose. And that is also not an easy thing to do Girls. Imagine you woke up. Imagine you woke up and somebody told you Chas v'Shalom. Somebody told you have three months left to live. How would you live if you had three months left to live? You would live on purpose. Last year Simchas Torah. Was in yeshiva with my family. A lot of the rabbis come to mivaser for yontif. The boys were there. Eight o'clock in the morning, sirens go off. At first, I thought, "stop, siren attack." I didn't know what it was going to become. Over the course of the next couple of hours, it became very clear that Israel was under attack in a way that had never been in the history of my life.

16:39 And the worst day in Israeli history. On our campus, there's a Meritz Kolah. The Meritz kolah are young men who are married with children, young, who have finished their time in the army. And now they're learning in Kol Ol to go out and become mechanchim. Obviously, the halacha states that in such a situation, it's appropriate to turn on your phone because if you need to go defend the country, if you need to go defend Kol Ol Yisrael, that's the right thing to do. So slowly but surely, these merits Kol Ol guys turned on their phones and you saw them running back to their apartments. They're all running back. You saw they came out of their apartments. They're dressed in their madim and fatigues. It was one where we were dancing right by a couple of the Meretz apartments. One Meretz guy comes out. He comes out in his fatigues. He's got this massive knapsack on, and the reason he has a massive knapsack on is because he has no idea when he's coming back. In fact, we didn't see him for about six or seven weeks till he got back.

17:37 And he's standing on the outside of his apartment, right on the steps. With his little kids, his three little kids And he bends down and gives each one of them a bracha and a kiss. And he says goodbye to his wife. And he gets in his car, which was parked right outside of where we were dancing, and he drives off. There's a guy in yeshiva. Turns to me Big bentayra, today's learning in there, Yisrael. This guy turns to me and he goes, Rebbe I just saw a guy get into his car after giving his kids a bracha and saying goodbye to his wife. With a look on his face, and the look was I don't know if I'm ever going to see my wife and kids again. And I said to them exactly. That's what you saw. That's what you saw. You saw a man go off, and he might have just had his final moments.

18:33 That's a crazy thing to see. Baruch Hashem, he came home safely, and he did unbelievable work for Klal Yisrael. But imagine living your life that way. If every single moment this world is being recreated, that means every single moment is on purpose. That means every single moment you were recreated to do something meaningful. Step one is tamim, be alive, be wholehearted. Step two is be alive in this moment. What are you doing this moment, girls? Did you remember when you got off the plane? How fast did you get to this moment? You blinked, and it's Yom Kippur. I'm going to tell you a secret. You're going to blink again, and it's going to be the end of the year. And if you're careful You can live your life. But if you blink and don't pay attention, you'll be sitting here like I am. And it's been 27 years since my shnaylef, and I'm married, and I'm a grandfather, and my second daughter is engaged now, and my other daughter's expecting. Thank you, I'm a tremendous bracha in my life. But I'm telling you, in my head, I keep going back to my 18-year-old self. Because I was a bachur in mivaseret not that long ago, I keep going back to my 18-year-old self.

19:44 You blinked. You want to hear crazy? Last year Shavuos, I stayed in the apartment with my family that I was a bachur in. I went back to yeshiva and I'm like, 'This was my room. This is where I did all those stupid things. This is my room.' And I'm like, 'It's in there.' And my grandson is there. I'm like, 'Oh, this crazy.' You know what I'm saying? Like, like somewhere back in time, myself experienced like some deja vu moment of like coming with these children. Life happens quickly. The days are long. The years are short. You'll blink. You're in your 30s. You'll blink. You're in your 40s. You blink. You're in your 50s. It's not a small thing to be present in every single moment. Shivisi Hashem lenegi tamed. That's step two. Step three. If step one is being wholehearted, and step two is living life on purpose every single moment, step three is what do you do with that life? And the answer is love.

20:44 Love is what you do with that life. That's it's like the craziest thing because again, I thought it was a simple part from Rabsusha. I didn't realize the depth of it. If you have a life And that life is on purpose every single minute, the question is what will you do with that life? And the answer is love. That's an unbelievable answer to that question. Love yourself. Connect deeply to that essential point within yourself which is godly, and love yourself unconditionally. Don't define yourself by your lowest moments. If you're in touch with your true self Then you can love yourself and everybody. It's an amazing thing. I probably shouldn't say what I'm about to say, which means I'm about to say it. But I want to tell you something. It's an amazing thing. It's Yeshiva today in America, and this Yeshiva. Everybody's talking about this Yeshiva, and everybody's talking about the Menahel of this Yeshiva because he's a very special person. And I'm going to say his name. I don't think it's together Losh and Har, even though you have to be very careful with these things. The Menahel's name is Rabbi Daniel Kalish.

21:49 And everyone's talking about Rabbi Kalish, and it's only love and the way he loves every boy. It's clear, it's obvious. If you listen to any of Rabbi Kalish's shir, the way he speaks to every guy, he's not just saying a shir. He's connecting deeply to every guy who's in front of him. He goes to speak somewhere. The guys come with him. He's really all about the guys. There's tremendous ahava there. I want to tell you something. I saw Rabbi Kalish growing up. He lived on. I lived on his block. His father was the rav of my shulna growing up in America. I was young. I'm about five years younger than him. And I was in eighth grade in Darchei. And we had to learn in Yeshivah Rakhwe. This is before Darkei had a beis medrash at night, twice a week. If you were in the upper level shiurim, you had to learn in Yeshivah Rakhwe twice a week at night. And it was a very cool thing. All these little eighth grade kids walking into Yeshivah Rakhwe, and there's like a draft. All these older Yeshivah Rakhwe guys. It was ten dollars an hour. Think about how long it goes. $10 an hour, so the kids got these, Bacharum got paid and beis medrash guys got paid $20 a week to learn for two hours with these little darche eighth grade kids. And the idea was to acclimate us to the beis medrash.

22:57 And there was a draft, you would walk in and there'd be all these beis medrash guys, you look like somebody, and you get pulled over and be like, here, you come learn with me. I got pulled over by this guy. His name was Avi Rosner. Back then he was just Avi. Rabbi Avi Rosner today is a Rebbe in TC. I got drafted by Avi Rosner. His best friend was this guy whose name was Moshe Don Kestenbaum, who wrote a sefer called Olam Amidos. For those of you who know Olam Amidos, one of my other friends got drafted to learn with Moshe Don Kestenbaum. There was another guy in the corner. His name was Rabbi Dovi Kilsen. He's today the mashgiach of Darchei. There was another guy whose name was Avi Bressler. Today he's one of the biggest talmidei chacham in Lakewood. All these guys were just bachurim back then. There was one guy, Oyel Al Gabea, the coolest guy. Everybody wanted to be like him. Danny K. Everybody goes to Danny K. This guy was an amazing ball player, the friendliest guy, the nicest guy, and everybody looked up to him. This guy, he just sat and learned, and he sat and learned, and he sat and learned. If you would have asked me back in eighth grade, do you think this guy is going to become this revolutionary in the world of chinuch who's just loving all of these talmidim?

24:01 I wouldn't have said yes. I just saw him sit and learn. I didn't see him do anything else. I knew he was a great ball player. I knew he was very athletic. His father was a great athlete. But I realize now why I was wrong. His connection to Torah was his connection to every other Jew. Those weren't two separate things. When you're connected deeply to your essential self, when you're connected deeply to your soul, you're connected deeply to Hashem's Torah, and memela you're connected to every single Jew. At the core, at the essence of what we do is that connection to every single Jew. That's the vav of the haftelreiach hakamocha. You have a life. First of all, be alive, be lebedik. Don't be an NPC. Second of all, live every moment as if it's on purpose. Third of all, what are you going to do with that life? Connect to yourself. Connect to everybody.

24:55 Roshlo Mafreyfeld was the founding rashi of Shiyarshav as a chetzadek v'kadosh v'racha. Have you girls read the book Roshlo Mafreyfeld? Chiyuvi, obligatory. This year you must read it. It's a purple book. It's it's an English book. I don't know if it's Feldheimer, Artscroll, one of those things. It was written by Rabbi Sroli Besser. It's an unbelievable book. It's a biography of his life, but it's not. It's a Shulchan Aruch in Chinuch. It's a Shulchan Aruch and how to love another Jew. R. Freifeld said that he wrote in his diary after he met the Chazon Ish for the first time, a gadol is a circle. The bigger the gadol, the bigger the circle. And what he explained was when you're a gadol and you're a circle, you could encompass so many people. You know how many people came to the Chazon Ish from all walks of life.

25:41 You know how many people came to Rav Chaim Kaniewski Zeiches Adik Levracha And he had a way of relating to all of them. We brought a couple years ago. We brought the Mavaserik guys to Rav Chaim And there was a boy again. Today is a very fine Ben Taira. Back then he had very long hair. And they brought him to Rav Chaim, and Rav Chaim was very funny. People think Rav Chaim was sitting and learning all day. You think those people don't have a sense of humor. Rav Chaim had a wonderful sense of humor. So we brought this boy in front of Rav Chaim, and Rav Chaim looks up at his gavay with a big smile on his face, and he goes, "Ze ish o isha." And the boy laughed. Obviously, it wasn't meant, and he didn't take it in any nasty way. The real gadolim they knew how to relate to every single Jew, and the bigger the gadol, the more they could relate to even the smallest Jew. There's a story with a Russian Marusha.

26:28 His name was Lazer Kaganovich, a Russian Marusha. He was Stalin's right hand man. He was Stalin's right-hand man. He was responsible for the death of millions of people, including his own people in Russia, in Stalinist Russia. And a Jew came from Russia to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. And he mentioned to the Rebbe that he saw Lazer Kaganovich. And what was the Rebbe's response? What did he say? He said, "Tell me, has he done tshuva yet?" That was his first response. Lazer Kaganovich was a Russian Marusha responsible for the death of millions of people. The Rebbe's first response: 'Tell me, has he done tshuva yet?' So the man responded. He said, 'From what I saw, it doesn't appear that he's done tshuva yet.' So the Rebbe said, "If you see him again, tell him it's not too late." That's an unbelievable thing to see—a person, a Jew, who's so far removed from godliness, who's so far removed even from basic goodness. But what's your initial response? We should reach that Jew. We should go all the way out. That's step three. Step four. We're almost there at the end. But then I'll tell you again why I think this whole thing is true and not just them. Step four. I don't have to make another bracha because this water spilled.

27:43 I'm just reminding myself in front of you so you don't think bad things about me. Step four is, it's one thing to live your life on purpose every single moment, but there's something also that gets lost along the way. Where am I going? What is the destination? This is a big problem. Because there are people that they're willing to be alive every single moment and they can live their life on purpose every single moment, but ask them thirty years later, what were you building? And I go, I have no idea. I have no idea where any of this is going. I don't have a mission. I don't have a destination. Every company has a mission statement. Every company has a direction. If you get in the car and you drive, and somebody says, 'Where are you going?' you go, 'I don't know.' That's crazy. If you're taking a drive because you need to release some anxiety, that's one thing. But if you're going somewhere and someone says, 'Where are you going?' you go, 'I don't know.' What destination did you put in? I didn't put in a destination. How are you going to get there if you don't know where you're going?

28:46 The purpose of being in this world is to build for Hashem a dira b'tachtonim. We're here to make this world into a godly place. It's not just random things that you do every single moment. I'll bring it down to earth for a second. It's very easy to come to seminary and miss the point of all of seminary. It's exceptionally easy. I'll show you what it looks like. You could be a checklist Jew. If you're a checklist Jew, you can go through this entire year and be a good girl. A good girl means that you woke up in the morning and you davened. They still have Nachiomi in the morning here. Wow. Some things never change. You go to Nachiomi and you're actually dressed in the morning to go to Nachiomi, which my wife tells me is a chiddush. She said back in the day there was like the chetzi pajamas, chetzi dressed Nachiomi matzvah.

29:38 And then you go to all of your classes. And you're a good chesed girl, right? And you've gone to your teacher's houses for Shabbos. You've done all the right things. And at the end of the year, if somebody asks you, what did you accomplish? You go, I don't really know. I don't really know. I don't know what I did. But you showed up to everything, which is amazing. It's not easy to show up to everything. But at the end of the year, where did you go? What was your goal? What was your ambition? What did you want to look like at the end? Did you have a vision for yourself? Did you say this is where I'm headed? Are you living a bechol type of life, or is it just piecemeal? I do good things every single day, which is awesome. I'm not diminishing that, but you're filling out a checklist. You have no idea where you're headed. It's amazing to see. I see it in yeshiva every day. It's amazing to see the guys in yeshiva who come in with a destination, and the guys who come in yeshiva and go, "I don't know. I'll see."

30:30 " You know the I want to guys. You know what that means? I want to. There's two types of I want to. There's the I want to guy who's legit, and he's like, right now I don't want to, but I want to. So I'm gonna work every single day because I want to be the guy who really wants this. You should know those guys are unbelievable. And then there's this guy. I don't know if I want to, but I want to. I don't know if I want to, but I want to. I'm not sure if I want to, but I want to. You know what I'm saying? You're not gonna get better at davening sitting in your bed. Nobody's ever been inspired to daven by waking up in the morning. If you want to become a davener, I want to be a davener. So go daven, go learn how to daven, go read svar, go be ambitious about davening. A guy comes and he says, 'I want to have a beautiful Shabbos table when I grow up.' Awesome, that's a great goal. That's a great ambition. What does Shabbos table look like? I want to have Devar Torah at my Shabbos table. Awesome. So are you preparing Devar Torah now?

31:32 Where are you headed this year? What does it look like? You girls are going to turn around, and I'm telling you, don't blink. You're going to turn around. You're going to go, what did I do with my life? Not just that I show up every minute. People show up all the time to life, but they have no vision, they have no mission, they have no ambition, they don't know where they're going. That's step four. And step five is as follows. And this is the most difficult one to talk about because it's the most triggering word. So just remember, if the trigger goes off and the bomb explodes, that's happening inside of you. That's where the ammunition is. I'm just saying a word. The word is hatsnei. Did we get through it? Is everyone okay? Hatsnei doesn't mean buttons. Hatsnei is not about sneeze police. Hatsnei means were you authentic?

32:23 Did you live with dignity? Did you live with honor? Are you a mechubad person? And that's not an easy thing either. Because the truth of the matter is that you could do all four things: you could be alive You could live on purpose, you could love You could have an ambition. But none of those things matter unless the entire thing culminates in dignity. I'll explain what I mean. I was talking to a, I was talking to someone this week And they were telling me about the way that they were raised. And they were saying, "Did the air conditioning go off?" The last time I spoke in Darchebina, the air conditioning went off as well. I'm going to have PTSD from this place. I'm an air conditioning person. And we're heading to Kever Rachel soon. Right after this, we're heading to Kever Rachel. I'm not going with you, but you're heading to Kever Rachel. You can take my names. He's dying for him.

33:30 Now we have to move it along because it's going to get hot in here. I was talking to this person about the way they were raised. It's nice. Be our friend. The water is mine. The now How come you don't shush for that? You shush for every girl that says anything. Tinfoil is the loudest thing in the world. Maybe we could wait 10 minutes on the tinfoil. My auntie's got this one. We'll end early. There's no air conditioning. That was your Hebrew? Who spoke just now? Very good. Where are you from? Ramat Echamash. You look like you could. You sound like you're from Ramat Echamash. Where in Ramat Echamash? Gomani. Where in Aleph? Zavitan. Come on, neighbors. We both know we're from the five towns. The Ramat Echamash is right next to the five towns. It's the sixth town. Closer than Bayeswater. This person was telling me about the way they grew up and the relationship they had with their parents.

34:56 And it's a very painful thing. This guy said to me "Said my father is not a man of dignity." He started telling me the not nice ways that his father behaved. I know his dad. His dad's a good guy. He is. He's a good guy in his soul. He's a good guy in his heart. He was telling me about the home. He was telling me what it felt like in his home and how he grew up. And he was telling me how his father spoke at the Shabbos table. He was telling me how his father interacted with the children. And maybe like a little crude jokes and not so nice. And he didn't feel like he grew up in a mechubar home. And I know his dad. His dad's a good guy. But at the end There has to be something called gravitas. There's a weight to life. There's a dignity you're supposed to have in life. There's something honorable about life.

35:54 It's honorable when you're living a godly life. The hardest thing in the world is to talk to a kid whose father went to jail. That's the hardest thing of all the things I'm telling you. I've seen a lot. For me, the hardest thing is talking to a guy who says, 'Yeah, my dad had to go to jail.' And what's the pain point there? The pain point is not that my dad went to jail, so he was away for six months. The pain point is not that we were the talk in the community. Everyone was saying lashon hara. We were the object of people's lashon hara at the Shabbos table. That's not the pain. That's what you would expect. The pain is that I have nobody to look up to. That's the pain. My parents weren't necessarily dignified people. The goal at the end of tshuva, when you live an aligned life with Hashem, is you're an honorable person, and that's why you're modest. You're modest because you're a person of dignity.

36:48 It's a game changer. Which means if you follow the five steps of Rav Zusha, according to the understanding of the Rebbe Rashi Everyone's upset at you because you just made the shir go longer because the air conditioning's on again. It's the fridge. Even better. Calm down. It's going to be okay. Five steps. Number one, be alive. Number two, live every moment as if it's on purpose. Number three, what do you do with that life? Love others, connect deeply to God, deeply to yourself, and deeply to everybody else. Have a goal. Go somewhere in your life. Have a destination. And ultimately arrive at a destination where you're a mechubad person. That is an amazing concept. And I still didn't believe in it until a couple of days ago. I want to tell you the chat I had a couple of days ago because I think this is a game changer.

37:35 If you look at the five things of Rav Zusha, I never saw this before. I've heard this part my whole life. There's a symmetry to them. It starts off. With be alive, tamim Be wholehearted, be out there. What does it end with? What's the fifth one? But be modest. You see how there's a yin yang there. The second one, live every moment as if it's on purpose. What's the fourth one? But have a long term goal. You see the yin yang, you see the symmetry. What's the essence? What's the vav? What's the one that connects them all together? That's ve'ahavta. That's connect deeply to the essence, deeply to yourself, deeply to others. Now I want to show you why this is such a beautiful var. Five steps, Reburg, amazing. Five steps towards realigning yourself. But here's the unbelievable part: tshuva, as we said in the very beginning, it's not repentance. It's not even just return. It's realignment. You want to know what realignment looks like? Balance.

38:39 Balance. Realignment is about living a balanced life. In the world of the Lithuanian yeshiva world, everything is about living in the dialectical tension. You have this side and you have this side. In the Chassidish world, it's the exact opposite. You have this side and you have this side. Let's see how we can put them back together. It's a famous line. They say Briskers take things apart to see how they work. Chassidim put it back together so that they can see the oneness of it. And both are true. Listen to this idea, girls. Be wholehearted. Be exceptionally dignified. Live every moment, but Ezeuchah Amaros Hanolad. Where am I going in this life? How do I balance this? If I'm a mother and I'm trying to live this moment with this child, but at the same time I've got to think long term. What's best for this kid? I'm trying to be wholehearted. I want to put myself out there for the world to see because I have greatness inside of me. Not in Chassidishal Magayva Dickaway, but the Rebbeinu Sholom gave me a neshama. I want to live with that neshama.

39:37 Wholehearted, amazing. But where's your Hatnei? Where's your dignity? Where's your modesty? I'm not interested in being the object of everyone's attention. I want to be me, but also in a quiet way. Some people are very extroverted, and introverted people don't understand extroverted people because introverted people draw their power from the inside. And when an introverted person sees an extroverted person trying to grab attention, they're like, why are you grabbing attention? Why do you want anyone to look at you? The truth is, they're both true. There's something amazing about being a modest person and having your own truth in your own room where nobody else knows about it. A guy in yeshiva told me yesterday that he has a friend who did an amazing thing, but he has no idea what it is. He said the friend came back and he said, "I did something I'm so proud of." He said, "I want you to know that I did something I'm so proud of, but I'm never going to tell a soul what it is." He told these four guys,

40:28 I did something amazing, but I'm not telling you what is. So now they roast him. They're like, 'You did an amazing thing. Nobody knows what is, but you did an amazing thing.' But the truth is, he doesn't want to say because he wants it to be in that private space of his own life. That's an amazing thing. How do you live with that dialectical tension? The goal of tshuva is if you align yourself with the essence, if you're aligned with Hashem. If you're aligned with yourself. And by the way, the litmus test of that is if you're aligned with every other Jew. Then mamela you can live with the tension of opposites. Our goal for this year As we wind down this year, it is officially hot in here. It happens. It's okay.

41:13 The goal for this year is not just to live those five stases. It's not just to be alive and live every moment as if it's on purpose and love everyone and have goals. And be modest and be dignified. That's not just what we're trying to do. It's we're trying to live all of those dimensions at once, and that's the hardest thing in the world to do—to live with all of these different facets, but be that one person. That's the hardest thing in the world to do. My bracha for all of us this year: we should be zeicher not just to a gemarcha sima toiv and a good kevash yar But to be written in Sifrei Chaim, to be connected to the source of life.