Behar - Restored to Factory Settings

1:55 You have Shabbos. What do we call Shabbos for the land? That's what we call Shmita. So it sounds like year one, you come to the land. What's the first thing that you do? You have Shmita. Then the Pesukim continue. So for six years you sow your fields, for six years you prune your vineyard, and on the seventh year there shall be a rest for Hashem and no sowing and no pruning. So it sounds like what we said initially wasn't true. The very first pasuk makes it seem that as soon as you come to Eretz Yisrael, what do you have? The first year should be a year of shmita. The next pasuk after that says no, it's six years and then you have a shnach shmita. So why does the Torah write it in such a way?

2:52 That the first year, it sounds like there's a shemitah, but not really. You hear the question? As the first year, it says there should be a shemitah. The next pasuk says, no. What that means to say is, the first six years you'll have working the land like regular, and the seventh year will be a shemitah year. What's going on over here? That's our second question. So our first question was, Ma inyan shemitah esal arsinei? Why is it important to know that the mitzvah of shemitah was given over by arsinei? The second question is why does the Torah write this in such a way that we would have thought that the first year is a shemitah year, and then afterwards we find out that it's not really a shemitah year. Final question for tonight: It's a very well-known question. We know that the Torah very often, ninety-nine point nine percent of the time.

3:49 Answers questions that we never asked. The Torah will very often give us an additional letter, an additional word, a specific phraseology to answer a question. But the Torah generally doesn't express the question. Usually, when you're learning Chazal, what does it say? Because there's an extra letter, we learn from here the answer to this question, which the Torah never asked. But there's an implied question. Usually we don't have the overt question; we have the covert question, which the Torah answers without us even knowing that there was a question. I think the only time in the Torah that you see the exception to this rule is when it comes to shemitah. Here, the Torah says, "And what will you say when Klal Yisrael asks if we have shemitah in the seventh year? What will we eat?" And the Torah answers, "Don't worry; you'll have enough for three years."

4:46 But here we see a very strange deviation. Why didn't the Torah just tell us that in the sixth year you'll have enough for the next three years? Why does the Torah have to tell us that when it will be that people will ask the question, 'What will we eat in the seventh year?' or 'What will we eat in the eighth year?' because we didn't plant the year before? So you'll tell them, 'Don't worry, you'll have enough for the next three years.' The Torah should have done it like it did it every time before. It should have just had it as an implied question and given us the answer, and we would have known that what was the question? What will we possibly eat? So we see a very strange deviation from the normal path. So just to sum up our three questions to make sure we're all on the same page, and then we'll start to develop an answer. The first question is Ma'in Yishtmita Eitz La'Yisnei? The second question is Why is there some sort of indication there's a shmita when we first come to the land? If there's no shmita when we first come to the land?

5:43 And the final question is, why does the Torah deviate from the normal pattern here and express that there's a question that people will be concerned, what will they eat? And then you'll answer them. Don't worry, you'll have enough to eat for the next three years. So we'll begin tonight's she'er by citing a Megila Amukos. Now you can learn his tirah. You saw him when he was dead. Now you'll hear him when he's alive. Megale Amukos says as follows: There is a connection between Har Sinai and the Shemitah years. The connection is the number forty-nine, because we know that in order to get to Matan Torah at Har Sinai, there were forty-nine days, and in order to get to Yovel, there are forty-nine years, seven Shemitah cycles. So there's a tzara shava, there's a commonality between har Sinai and shmita. They both have the number forty nine. So ma enin shmita etzal har Sinai? What's the connection between shmita and har Sinai? They both have the number forty nine. Good answer. It's a sweet answer. There's a connection, but it needs to be more unpacked before we can understand it.

7:17 So there's an idea as follows. In Mitzrayim, we descended into the 49th level of tuma. The 49th level of tuma is the lowest level of tuma that a person could be on before they're in a state where they cannot be redeemed. In fact, the word satan. What does the word satan stand for? Sharei Tuma Nun. The job of the satan is to bring you down into the fiftieth level of tuma to the point where you're absolutely destroyed. This was the state of Klal Yisrael in Mitzrayim, where we were in Mitzrayim under the dominion of Paro, who was the Nachash Kadosh. Paro was the primordial serpent from the Gan Eden, from the story of the Eitz Hadas.

8:14 So in Mitzrayim we had fallen into the forty-ninth level of tuma. Why do we count forty-nine days? What's this whole thing that we're going through now, Sfira Saomer? Sfira Saomer is not just counting. It's not just one, two, three, four, five. Sfira Saomer is a growth project that takes a person from the forty-ninth level of tuma to be on the highest level of kedusha possible, ultimately to get to the forty-ninth level of kedusha, so that Hakadosh Baruch Hu could come down from the fiftieth level and give us the Torah. It's not just stam. I know you all know this. I know this is very simple. It's not just stam that when we're counting in these days, we're counting the days. Rather, a person is meant to be using these days.

9:10 To extract themselves from the lowest level of kedusha possible, from the lowest level of tumah possible, to the highest level of kedusha. I'm also very hot, so don't worry. I'm also want to do it in front of everybody, but I just don't. I have to pretend that it's fine, but it's also very hot. Is it broken? Seven twenty-two. It's not broken. It's just not yet working. It's a deep cut. Turn it to the lowest possible level. You want me to put lower? Even lower, the lowest you can go, like the satan, to the fiftieth level. I don't have that one anymore. Only the satan can bring someone to such a low level of coldness. The problem is the Torah we're learning here is so warm that in combination with these are like terrible rabbi jokes. Every one of you hates me a little bit more, and you more than most. But it's not enough.

10:10 It sounds like it just turned off. What does this have to do with shemitah? There's an idea. I wonder how they explained this idea before modern technology. But there's an idea called "restore to factory settings." You ever see that on your phone? On your computers? There's like a thing where you wipe it clean. You can press a button, restore to factory settings. There's a snap back. Everything goes back to the way it was. When we speak about growth, we very often make a mistake. We think growth means becoming something more than we are, and that's not a good way of thinking about it because.

11:08 If the idea of growth is to become something more than I am, what's the question that we're naturally going to have? How can I become something more than I am? Let's think about this for a second. I can become the best version of myself, the highest version of myself, but I can never be more than I already am. When we speak about growth in the world outside of Torah, growth is to become something other than yourself, and that is a very dangerous prospect. When we teach someone, for example, in the world of Kieruv, I was just on the NCSY staff training Shabbaton. There's a question that's asked: Is Kieruv manipulative?

11:53 Is Kiruv manipulative? We're going to bring these public school TJJ kids to Israel for the summer, six thousand miles away from their parents. We're going to put in front of them charismatic madrichim and madrichot. We're going to make for them awesome shiurim. They're going to be on the bus with us the entire time. We're going to build deep relationships. Are we just manipulating them? Are we manipulating them to become something that their parents don't really want them to become? So the answer to that question is growth. In Yiddishkeit it's not to become something that you're not; it's to become something that you are. And this is a very important understanding, because if we come to somebody and we say, 'Hey, you should really learn Torah,' we're not selling them a product. What are we telling them? This you. This what it means to be you. Let's take this into the world of mental health. Take this into the world of mental health. Next week I'm supposed to speak to you about technology.

12:51 But this week, I'll just mention it briefly. They just released this huge thing in America. It went crazy. They announced that there's a new crisis in America. This is serious business. A new crisis. Everyone has to know this. 61% of Americans are now clinically lonely. They're lonely. They're terribly, terribly lonely. And they're going to spend billions of dollars researching this loneliness, because it's a mental health crisis. They've announced it's a mental health crisis in America because people are so lonely. It's crazy. People are massively lonely. I mentioned this to my wife, and her immediate response was, and there's a lot of truth to what she said. Her immediate response was, of course. What do you think is going to happen when people spend all day long?

13:49 Pretending to have connections that they don't really have, it's easy to fake yourself out. It's easy to live with almost like the drug of connection without having actual connection. The drug of connection can make you feel really connected if you have a certain amount of followers on Instagram or Twitter or Snapchat or TikTok or Inst—I said Instagram or yeah, whatever it is. If people are constantly sliding into your DMs, you like that, very relevant. If people are swiping left and swiping right on you, it's easy to feel you get that dopamine hit every time. It's like, ooh, I'm really connected. Except, you're not. So it's the fake connection that exists that makes you feel like you're connected, which is why it's so even now while I'm speaking, people are on their phones. The level of the addiction is so intense. I'm just doing it to get people's attention. Those people that are on their phones, that they should know that I know that they know that I know.

14:44 You don't understand, Rabbi. I'm taking notes. You come to me later and tell me that you're taking notes. I know that you're taking notes. I'm not talking to you. I'm talking to the one that's not taking notes, because I see who's it is and who isn't. That's not the point. The point is, people are confused. I don't understand why I'm so lonely. If you constantly take the drug that tells you you're connected without actually being connected, you're not. It's not going to work. Of course, it's not going to work. Why would you think that it would work? Does that make sense? In other words, if you do what you're organically supposed to do, life will actually work. So this is a crazy concept. Imagine sitting in a room, and it's not Shabbos, and you consciously choose to put away your phones, and you choose—to sit and be authentic with the people in front of you, to say what's really true for you, assuming that it's a safe space that deserves your vulnerability.

15:43 Imagine sitting in a room where you get to go. This is something I'm really struggling with. It's really been hard for me. The people there aren't judging, and the people there aren't trying to solve your problems because they're women and not men. So they don't think that men think. You said something. I need to solve your problem. A woman understands. You just need the validation. I didn't know that by the way until I got married. And then my wife's like, "You don't need to fix this." I was like, "Oh, I don't. What am I supposed to do?" She's like, "You're supposed to say that you understand." I'm like, "Oh, I don't get it." She's like, just say you understand. I'm like, I do understand. She's like, perfect. That's it. I'm like, that's it. That's it. It made marriage a lot easier. Up until then, I was really trying to solve these problems I couldn't solve. You're sitting with a group of women. It's a safe space. It's a vulnerable place. It's people who really appreciate your authenticity. You sit and you're really authentic, and they do an awesome job of holding space for your vulnerability. What's the feeling you walk out with afterwards? A deep sense of belonging. This is not rocket science.

16:37 If you take the drug and look for the fake connection, what will you end up with? A deep feeling of loneliness. If you don't take the drug and you actually belong somewhere, what will you end up with? A deep feeling of belonging. This is you could they could save billions of dollars. They could give it to me. I have five more children to marry off. I don't even need a billion. I'll just take a couple million. I'm very cheap.

17:07 I'm trying to speak these things into reality. I'm trying to make these things happen. We could do it with anything under the sun. Of course, these things are more complicated. We could do it with exercise. We could do it with eating. We could do it with drugs and drinking and all the things that are happening today. If you walk these paths, they will take you to the destination that they tell you they will take you to. As a person who says rather than feeling my feelings, I'm going to smoke them away. The path that you go on is then you don't feel your feelings. You've numbed your feelings. When you get to the destination, if you spent a lot of time numbing your feelings, don't be surprised when you've numbed your feelings, because if you walked that path, that's where you end up. If you want to be a person who actually feels their feelings, don't take that drug. Sit in that uncomfortable feeling. Let it hit you like a truck.

18:02 Know that you're enough to hold the feeling, to allow it to move through you, to communicate its messages, and then to move on. Then you get, instead of numbing your feelings, you get to have joy, which is an amazing feeling to have. In other words, there's an organic life that we're supposed to have and that we've moved away from. Organically, I know this is going to sound funny, we're supposed to live on the land. Who lives on the land today? Do you know that people lived on land?

18:32 I know you're from the Five Towns. This is hard to understand. Today we live in houses that are on the land. We used to live on the land. We used to work the land. A person went out into the forest to get to where they needed to go. They walked. Their feet were not so. You understand what I'm saying? You still don't get it? Before there were cars, there were horses. Do you know that it's healthy to go on a horse? We know that because there's horse therapy. Do you know what they call this horse? You guys know that there's horse therapy. But it used to. You should know it used to be that when you rode a horse and you tamed an animal and you could feel its heartbeat on your heartbeat, there was a connection. There's something very organic and very healthy about that. I'm not suggesting, by the way, that I would like to go on a horse. I just got done being in America and I drove a Tesla.

19:33 Because kochi va otzem yadi hurts. Gold gives me a Tesla. I didn't do anything to achieve this, but I'm not going to lie to you. That thing is awesome to drive. And given the opportunity for a man of my girth to go on a horse or a Tesla, I'm choosing a Tesla every time. And yet, what happens when we keep moving away from natural, organic lifestyle? Do girls know that it's healthy to get sunlight? Vitamin. So not just because of vitamin D, though. It's true that you need vitamin D, but you know what else is true? There's something very good about letting the sun just hit your face. There's something very calming about that. Light therapy. You are a genius.

20:21 What college are you going to? From LA. Excelsior. You're going to. I know why you're going to Excelsior. It's because you do not need a college education. You're a trailblazer. You're gonna be. I can see it now. She's gonna be walking in the streets with a rope, and she's gonna have people holding on to the rope, like in kindergarten. And she's gonna say, "Okay, everybody, hold on to the rope," and they're gonna walk in sunlight, and she's gonna charge a fortune. Celebrities from Los Angeles. Justin Bieber is going to be on your tour. He's going to go on Jimmy Kimmel, and he's going to be like, "Yeah, I just did this crazy light therapy. It's really opened me up to so many new vistas." Of course, it sounds. He's going to write a song about it. It's going to be. He's collaborating with Eminem. It's going to be a whole throwback type of thing. Of course it exists because people are so brain damaged today.

21:16 That they didn't realize that you could go for a walk. And where they live, it's very not sunny. It's not sunny for sure. That's the problem. For all the years, people were living in places with. Again, I'm not diminishing it. I happen to hate the winter. I hate when it gets dark outside. I'm the biggest anti daylight savings person in the world. I love the light and I hate the darkness. We could take a walk. We could just go outside. I'm not chassidim diminishing it. I just want to point out. We know how to live organically. We know how to eat the right foods. We know how to exercise. We know how to go outside. We know how to take a walk. We know how to swim. We know what the right thing to do is. There's a factory settings reset. What it means to go down to the 49th level of tuma. We always imagine it. It's like. They must have been doing the worst averes. But not really. That's not really the point. Going down to the forty-ninth level of toma is really just a fancy way of saying a complete abandonment of the natural, organic self that you are. You ever not eat well for a week? You can deny it, but you all have. And then you eat well for a week. How do you feel at the end of eating poorly versus eating well?

22:41 You've never eaten well for a week. Welcome to my world. I just got back from this NCSY Shabbaton. Wow, the food was incredible. I had so much. I happen to have a geshmack for pretzel schnitzel, and it was delicious. And they had it. It was amazing. But you don't. Of course, with mustard. It's if you eat it without mustard, you're a kaifer baker. So I have strong feelings about pretzel schnitzel and mustard. If you can't tell, it was a trigger for me. It doesn't matter what pretzel schnitzel is. What was that? Don't worry about it. We learned it at Harvard. Ask Rabbi Rosenstein what it is. Let him explain the intricacies of why pretzel schnitzel, without mustard, is an abomination and goes against the core values of everything Jewish. Ask Rabbi Rosenstein in my name. Then when he goes back and listens to the recording, he'll say, "I'm paying Berg to teach what?" Anyway.

23:39 The ADHD is strong today, so the idea is this is real for me. The idea is, being on the forty-ninth level of tuma just means that you've lost yourself to the extreme. I just haven't felt good in a very long time because I'm not doing what's organically me. I've been sat in a room with a group of people, just authentically being myself and sharing my journey. I've been hiding behind my phone. I'm hiding behind this drug, this drink, this inappropriate relationship, or this relationship which appears to be appropriate, which is not at all appropriate. Everyone has their drug of choice that they take when they're in a state of being inorganic. To go to the forty-ninth level to receive the tuma just means, in a simple way, it's resetting the factory settings and it's going back to being a person who behaves in a way of kedusha. So memela their roid to receive a Torah of kedusha. Let's think about what shmita and yovel are for a second. What happens in yovel?

24:38 Slaves go free. All property is restored to its original ownership. What does that sound like? It sounds like that reset button. You were a slave. Reset. You're back to your original state. All people are born free. You bought this piece of property. It temporarily belongs to you. Reset button. You're back to your original factory setting. That's what this is all about. The number forty-nine. The connection between Shmita and Har Sinai is a restoration of the soul to its original factory settings. Children, little babies, are not messed up. There's never been a two-year-old who has seasonal affect disorder. You know why a two-year-old doesn't have that? Because they're just authentically them. Ask a two-year-old what are you feeling. You know what they'll do? They'll tell you. To the degree that they have language, they'll tell you, because they're unabashed about their feelings. They just are as they are. They're the factory settings.

25:37 It's a beautiful thing to see. Adults need to learn from children what it means to feel our feelings again, because we became so guarded against those feelings. But there's a question: if the whole point is just to restore the factory settings, then why do we need to go down to the forty ninth level of tumah to do that? Or to put it differently, if the soul is so pure up in Shamayim, why does it need to come down into this world just to be restored to its factory settings? If the soul in Shamayim was good, let's say the soul in Shamayim was in a good place. If the soul in Shamayim is in a good place, why do we send it down here? If you send it back here, then what's going to happen? You're going to be able to go back up. I was good when I was up. Why should I come back down just to go up? It must be that there's something down here.

26:34 That's something that the infinite perfect soul can gain from and grow from, and I know that sounds strange because how can something infinite and perfect gain and grow? But I'll explain in a moment. The Gematria forty-nine, and this is very relevant to the coming Yentev of Shavuos. The Gematria forty-nine is Moav, who was a Ruth was a Moavi, and who was born of Ruth, eventually as David HaMelech, and eventually comes Melech HaMashiach. In other words, the secret of going down to the 49th level of tuma is as follows: When we talk about restoring the factory settings, it's not just going back to the level that you were. It's when you return to that original level, you've done something. You've gone down, and whatever it is you found down there, you brought it back. So I'll explain it like this. This is a very deep idea, so I need you to lock in. When does the infinite get to express its infinitude? When does the perfect get to express its perfection? When it discovers the perfection of imperfection? When it discovers the infinite within the finite? When a Jew goes down to the forty-ninth level of tumah, and we lose ourselves, and we're doing things that we're deeply not proud of, and we're not behaving in a dignified way, we're not in focus on dignity.

28:05 And then in that space we discover our dignity. In that space of feeling gross, we say, "I don't want to feel gross anymore. This is not a way to live." And we begin to go back to the way that we were. The soul has grown. If the soul never goes down, if the soul never fails, so to speak, then the soul never discovers its inner purity that cannot be tainted. The soul must learn about itself that the most godly place to be is the least godly place to be. And so, very often in life, when we fall, we're sitting there, and what do we say when we're falling? I'm such a terrible place. You're supposed to live six years. You're supposed to work six years. You're supposed to work.

28:52 You're supposed to be in the world. You're supposed to be struggling with the tension of being a physical person and an infinite soul at the same time. That's what you're meant to do. That's what you're designed to do. That's the way life is supposed to be. And if you're struggling in that place, that's good because you're learning about the nature of your own infinity. You're learning about the nature of your own perfection. If you've learned that, then you go and you get to hit that button. You restore to factory settings. After 50 years, there's a Yovel. You're back. All slaves go free. Everyone's restored. At the end of 49 days of Sefirah Omer, what are we doing, girls? We're being Mekabel the Torah. How did we get to be Mekabel the Torah? Because not just we restored ourselves to factory settings, but we got to a level that we never would have gotten to before. So we're restoring ourselves to factory settings, but the computer is better than it ever was.

29:43 It's a more enhanced computer. It's learned something about itself that it otherwise never would have learned. Which is why whose yard side is on Shavuos? David Hamelch's yard side is on Shavuos. Why does David Hamelch die on Shavuos? Why is his yard side on Shavuos? Because David Hamelch is born, so to speak, from what? From the descent into the forty ninth level of Tuma, and the ascent from the forty ninth level of Tuma is where we meet David Hamelch. A person can only be makabel the Torah. We always say you climb the forty-nine levels, then you're makabel the Torah. That's not true. When you get the Torah, not when you just climb forty-nine levels. When you were forty-nine levels down, forty-nine levels up from forty-nine levels down is what? Zero. It's not forty-nine levels to something that you're not. It's forty-nine levels to the thing that you are, and the thing that you are is discovered where? Within the Moab.

30:40 Within the lowest point of the forty-ninth level of tuma is the discovery of who we truly are. That's no small thing to know. So listen to the words of the Noam Eli Melech, the Hiliger VeLiMelech Melagensk. He explains this in the name of his brother, and this is super relevant to 2023. Naturally, if we were aligned, says the Noam Elimelech, the way that we're supposed to be in this world, naturally, you would never need anything because everything would come to you naturally. The pipes, so to speak, are empty and the bracha can flow through them. Why don't we get what we need sometimes in this world? Not because Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want to give. In fact, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is ready to give, but because we stuffed up the pipes. It's like your body wants to naturally have blood flowing to the heart, but if you've eaten a tremendous amount of inappropriate food and you have a blockage by the artery. So it's not that the blood doesn't want to go; it wants to go, but there's a blockage. What's that blockage?

32:05 Says the Rebbe of Zushimay Napoli, the brother of Aveli Melech Milagensk, the Noam Eli Melech is quoting. If a person will ask, where are we going to get our food from? Al Kadosh Baruch Hu says, now I need to open up new channels in order to get you your food, because you asked the question. Now we need to figure out a new answer. In other words, if a person would be on a level of Emuna and Bitachum. If they would live with the factory settings that Hakadosh Baruch Hu will give us every single thing that we need, then we would get every single thing that we need. But we don't live that way. Can I speak plainly? I think so. Right. I think so. Yeah, it's not a problem. So, like, you know, for example, if I say something, like, yeah, but I think so. Okay, right. I'm going to speak plainly, whether you say yes or not. So let's just speak plainly. There is a major challenge. I'll call it a crisis, even though I don't like using that word. There is a major crisis today in the Jewish community.

33:01 It's the crisis of not just abundant wealth, but beyond abundant wealth. It's a crisis of how can we possibly fill ourselves up with more. It's happening in America. It's happening in the UK. It's happening in Europe. It's even happening here in Eretz Yisrael. There is a crisis of epic proportions. When I was growing up, walking down Central Avenue. You did not have fancy stores. You just didn't. The fanciest store that we had on Central Avenue back in the day was King David, which I assure you was not a fancy store. We had Burger Nach, we had Sabra's Pizza. Today, a person walks down in New Jersey, in New York, in Los Angeles. The restaurants are of the highest quality and caliber that you could have. Even fast food in our community costs a fortune today.

33:56 The vacations, the standards that we're setting for our camps, for our yeshivas, for our seminaries, for our communities, the homes that we have, the cars that we drive—we've lost our minds. We've created a scenario where if you make three hundred fifty thousand dollars before taxes, you're just making it in our community. You're barely making it in some communities, and so the expectation becomes this very inorganic lifestyle, where parents aren't able to be home for their children, where children are growing up being raised by other people, where schools need to be going until six o'clock at night because that's when the parents are first getting home, and otherwise who will take care of the kids? There's a camp.

34:44 That I was just talking to, and he said, 'You know why my camp is so successful? Because I run a huge after camp program, and parents need to keep their kids in camp because if your kid gets on a bus at 3:30, and by the way, this is the way it works in camps. If the camp gets out at four, that means your kid is already boarding the bus at 3:30 because it takes half an hour to board a thousand kids onto a bus. I know because I ran a camp of a thousand kids for years.' It's a whole system. You have to line the kids up. You have to get them to go to their buses because you don't want buses moving and Chasam Sholom running over kids. And then only when the bus counselor says all the kids are on the bus, then the guy in the middle says, 'Okay, now we're going to leave.' It takes half an hour. They leave at four. You know they could be home by four thirty. What mother is home by four thirty? What do you mean I can't be home at four thirty?

35:30 I only get home at five thirty, and then I first have to make dinner and do laundry and do all the things. At some point, I hope to have enough space for myself to be a normal human being. Why? Because we raised the expectations to proportions that make no sense. It shouldn't cost this much money to make Pesach. It just shouldn't. It shouldn't be weddings the standards that we have. It shouldn't be. There are weddings today that the shmorgal alone costs more than bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs. It's insane. The amount of the orchestras. An orchestra. Those words should never come out of my mouth. An orchestra. It should be an orchestra at a wedding. An orchestra. What does it even mean? You had in Europe. You had a klezmer band. There was a bunch of people that couldn't play, and whatever they played poorly. At the shtetl wedding, an orchestra. Who ever heard of such a thing? I was at a chasna that they had a twenty five piece orchestra.

36:25 And they split up the orchestra because the shmorg was all over the place. So they had different pieces of the orchestra playing in each section. So that wherever you go, you should have this unbelievable. We've lost our minds. A chaver of mine told me he went to a chas. They wanted to have a mechitzah, and they wanted the mechitzah to be a frum mechitzah. There's a hotel in Canada called the Ice Hotel. The walls are made of ice. You know this place? It's a famous place. They made the mechitzah out of ice. They had the people who made the ice hotel in Canada come to the chasna and they paid a fortune of money to make down the middle of the dance floor the ice mechitzah so that nobody should see through. Not ice, is it see through? It's thick ice. Girls, this is not like just. This meshugna. Why does it need to be ice? Girls. We could do this. I'm not here to rip on the Jewish community. Adraba.

37:18 I'm being serious. Baruch Hashem, we have money and we're a tremendous nation of chesed. But we have to ask ourselves: Is this an organic lifestyle? Are we living in a way that we believe I'm leaving the channels open, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu will fill up those channels, or are we running like crazy in our lives to see who could keep up with the Schwartzes more? It's a crazy thing. Where'd you go on vacation? I was talking to Chavra mine just in America right now. I said, what'd you do over Pesach? So one of the days of Pesach he worked, one of the days of Chol Hamoed he worked. The other day, and whatever job he's in, he's access to things, so his kids were able to come along with him. They had a very geshmack day. The other day, I said, what'd you do? He said, we drove to the Brooklyn Bridge and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge. And I looked at him, I was like, and your kids went for it? Because yeah, we had a great time, and I was so happy.

38:15 What an unbelievable thing! He didn't have to take them to the craziest amusement park. He didn't have to spend going to Great Adventure for a family can cost a thousand dollars. It's not a crazy thing. If you're bringing seven children, if you're bringing two adults, that could cost a thousand dollars. That's Mashuga. He's walked over the Brooklyn Bridge and he also had a good time with his kids. We have to bring the whole family, and Baruch Hashem, we have enough money to do it. We have to go to that Pesach program that has, and I'm not just doing this because I haven't been invited on a Pesach program. I've been invited on Pesach programs. The rabbi that's like really wants to be on a Pesach program, but he's not getting invited, so he rips on Pesach programs. I've been invited on Pesach programs, and I'm going to tell you the truth. I want to go on the Pesach programs, 24/7 T room. You're speaking my language, even if it's Pesach, but I have a from wife.

39:03 And let alone the kashrus of these places. She doesn't want our kids being exposed to it, and she's right. So we haven't done it yet. This is what we need to do: to drop 50 people, 60 people going to a Pesach program at a time, because the grandmother has enough money, Baruch Hashem, to bring her whole family. We have to ask ourselves: really, what happened to our sneis? What happened to our standards? The factory settings say the Naamali Melech in the name of his brother Avzusha Menanapoli. The factory settings are: you get what you need. But when we walk around with a scarcity mentality, saying, "But how do you know for sure that I'm going to get what I need? How do you know for sure?" So then you know what happens. You have to open up new channels. We're supposed to, on some level, and the answer always is. Any time I give this year, the answer is, "But hestadlus." For a second, don't think about hestadlus. I'm not saying hestadlus isn't important, but hestadlus is in response to the amuna and bitachon that we have. We're supposed to have amuna and bitachon. We work in order to hide the nes. That's why we work.

40:01 Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving us everything that we need. We work in order to hide the nays. The question is, do we really have an abundance mentality where we walk into our jobs and we say, 'I'm going to get what I need. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give me what I need.' Of course, I'm going to work, but Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give me what I need. Or do we come with a scarcity mentality of, 'No, but what's going to be? What's going to be? What's going to be?' Because to me, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly and I have my ears to the ground, I'm telling you that more and more, all I hear is people saying, 'But how do I know that I'm going to get what I need?' And don't you know about yeshiva tuitions? I do, and I promise you this: nobody's walking away rich. There's no rabbi that I know that's walking away rich from working in yeshiva. I know what yeshivas pay. There's no rabbi walking away rich from working in yeshiva, and I'm not saying that it's not important, and we should talk about it, and hopefully we should come up with good solutions.

40:51 And I have a vested interest in coming up with good solutions to this problem. But if we're going to have the conversation about yeshiva tuitions, then let's also have the conversation about the spending in the Jewish community. Let's have both conversations, because it seems to me that every time we talk about the crisis of yeshiva tuitions, what we're really talking about is a scarcity mentality that I'm afraid that I'm not going to have enough, and God forbid that I shouldn't have enough. And we've lost our connection to the natural emuna and bitachon that a Jew is supposed to have. So I'll finish with this. This is the deepest idea. We show up to Eretz Yisrael, and the Torah tells us there should be a shmita. The next thing we know, six years, and then there's a shmita. What happened to that initial shmita? So the Zayin Hakadosh says as follows: The Zayin Hakadosh says that Shabbos is the blessing that the entire week comes from, and it's also the culmination of the week. In other words, every single Shabbos plays two roles.

41:48 Number one, it blesses the coming week, and it culminates the previous week. The Zohar Hakadosh asks as follows: The first day of creation was a Sunday. Where did that first Yom Rishon get its power from? The Zohar Hakadosh says: There is something called a primordial Shabbos, a Shabbos that exists before creation. A Shabbos exists before creation, before even the beginning of time. There is a sense of time called Shabbos, and that first Yom Rishon, that very first Sunday of creation, draws all of its kiyach from that Shabbos. And then there's the first quote-unquote Shabbos within creation, that is the culmination and the achievement of the week. It's the same thing when it comes to Shemitah.

42:36 When you come to Eretz Yisrael, what's the first thing you have to know? The first thing you know when you come to Eretz Yisrael is there was already a shmita. Did you observe that shmita? It's a pre-creation shmita. It's like the pre-creation Shabbos. It's there, but it's not there. You know what I mean? It's there, but it's not there. You know what I mean? It's there, but it's not there. You don't observe it, but it's there. What's it doing there? It's telling a Jew when you come to this land, you have everything you need. Now go work for six years. If you go to work and you don't already believe that you're going to have everything that you need, then your work is going to destroy you, and we see it happening in the world today. People are being destroyed by their work because they're living with the anxiety of I'll never have enough. It's a craziness. There was a shmita before you even started, and then at the end there's a shmita. There's a shmita that says, look at the culmination of everything you've done, but you have to start off with the Shabbos. You have to start off with the shmita. You have to know that it's already all in your hand.

43:35 Girls, I want to make this very practical for you. Imagine you have a husband who's fallen into the trap of not enough, a scarcity mentality, and he's not spending time with you, and he's not spending time with the kids. And you come to him and you say, 'Tati, we want our family to spend more time with you.' And your husband says back to you, 'Do you like food?' You know why I'm not home? I'm home. I'm not home because I'm working. I'm working for you. I want you to have food. I want you to have shelter. I want you to have vacation. I want the kids to have education. The reason I'm not home is because I'm working for you. Is your husband wrong? Of course not. Of course that's his intention. Of course that's his motivation. But as a wife, you might want to say back to him, 'Thank you so much for all the hard work that you do. We really appreciate it.'

44:27 But let's have a conversation about what the values of our family are. What happens to a family that doesn't have a father? So they can take the fancier vacation. Maybe we'll be okay crossing the Brooklyn Bridge. Maybe that's also a vacation. Maybe we don't have to go on the Pesach program. Maybe we can make Pesach at home. We don't have to get. There's no mitzvah. I know everyone has a mitzvah Yitzias Mitzrayim. So Jews have to flee wherever they are for Pesach to go somewhere else, and it has to be bechipazon. It has that we don't have. We didn't even have time to clean the house. We just left. Maybe we could have a conversation about where we spend our money and how hard you need to work in order to make what number. This Pesach, I was so blessed. I have a minig in my family with my brother-in-law.

45:19 That on the Friday of Chol Hamoed every single year, Friday nobody takes a trip on a Friday. Friday is barely Chol Hamoed. Friday is getting ready for Shabbos. There's a place outside of Beit Ar called Speedy Kef. That's because your cousins like me are poor. So what do they do? Speedy Kef is a you can't even call it an amusement park. It has nothing to do with an amusement park. This thing was probably built in 1943 before the creation of the state. It is pre-Bengurean, pre-Goldemeyer, and they've not updated any rides since then. It is the single most ghetto. I'm not even call it an amusement park. It's not an amusement park. It's just a place where there are some things that people call rides. They're barely called rides, and we've been going there for years. And we go with my brother-in-law's kids. Girls, I have a 19-year-old daughter.

46:11 I have a 19-year-old daughter. She's in seminary, just like you. And I have a 16-year-old daughter and a 15-year-old daughter. And you know what they wanted to do on Friday of Cholamoid? Could we go to Speedy Care with our cousins? And my wife is looking at them like they're out of this planet. Like we were planning on going to David's farm with the little ones so they could pet rabbits. You serious? You still want to go to Speedy Kef? You're 19 years old. You're 16 years old. Five year olds, six year olds go to this place. He said, No, this is what we want to do. And our cousins are so excited to go. I was like, Okay, we'll go to Speedy Kef. My married daughter was upset because my parents took her and her new chassan to lunch that day, and like we really wanted to go to Speedy Kef with them.

46:55 And we sat in Speedy Caf. Me and my brother-in-law. We sat by the picnic tables. And the kids are running around like moshuganas. And they went on the. They have like I can't even call it a train. It's not a train. It's a thing that you know, you know, it's like a ride. It's like a thing that goes downhill. It's like an alpine. Alpine is making it fancy already. It's a thing that goes down and like a rope pulls you up a little bit. It's the. I'm telling you, this is the. You got to see this place. This place needs to be like in a museum. It needs to be studied. People and sociologists need to study how this place still exists. And the kids had the most amazing time. Ask my kids at the end of Yontif, what was the highlight of your Yontif? Speedy Kef. It was such a good time with our cousins. And I'm so was that with maybe of course it's your cousin. It's so exciting. There's nothing there. If you take an American girl there, she'd be like, I don't understand what you're talking about. Like teenagers enjoy this? It's not true. Teenagers do not enjoy this. Girls who grew up like this enjoy this.

47:53 And I'm so grateful to Hashem. I'm being honest with you. I would not have made the decision to come to Eretz Yisrael. My wife jokes around, but not joking. If you know what I mean. My wife jokes around that some of the boys were at my Shabbos table and they asked. They said, 'Rabbi, when did you know that you wanted to make aliyah?' And my wife looked at me. She goes, 'Yeah, when did you want to know?' Because I still have. In my head, I'm still living in the Five Towns. I'm just here for now. Like that's the way it is in my head. I'm so grateful to my wife. Because she said, no, we're going to Israel because I want to have Israeli values. And I wish I could tell you that I was here because of the kedusha of Eretz. I'm not that frum. I wish I could tell you I'm here. I'm partially here for this because tuition is 70 shekel a month. Are you serious? I'm serious. The solution to the tuition crisis is right in front of everybody's eyes. My kids go to public school Beis Yakov. It's the best thing in the world, and they get a phenomenal Jewish education.

48:51 I'm Amishmina. 70 shekels a month. It's incredible. But it's not why we're here. We're here because kids here. It's like we traveled back in time. Kids play out in the streets, and there's a sense we can get what we need, and there's a sense, a certain sense of a little bit more relaxed, a little bit less anxious. It's a little bit less lonely because everybody's together. If we were in My block right now, Ramat Pe'cham. We were there about 45 minutes ago. Now everyone's starting to get into bedtime mode. At 6:45, if you stand outside my window, you will see the women on the block hanging out on the corner. It's the Rosenblums, the Riches, the Bergs, the Levens, the Diamonds, the whole chaver kedusha over there hanging out on the block. And the kids are on their bimbas and they're playing soccer and they're playing basketball and they're playing tag.

49:43 And maybe they got a remote control car. That's fancy. I bought my son a $15 remote control car. He's the coolest kid on the block because he has a $15 remote control car. I bought him an And One basketball when I came back from America. Right now, you should see. He's walking around like he's six. He's walking around. The basketball is bigger than him. He's like, "Abba got me a basketball." Like it's the greatest thing in the world. We traveled back in time to a simpler time, and we as a community need to make a chesed v'nefesh. When did we lose our minds? When did we make this community so ridiculously expensive to live in that people just pashat can't do it anymore? People aren't going out of town because they want to; they're going out of town because they have to. People are running to Florida because they want to. People are running to Florida because there's an $8,000 a kid voucher system now, and I'm being crushed under the burden of this life. I was in Columbus, Ohio. A guy lives in a beautiful three-story house in Columbus, Ohio. I stayed in his house a number of years ago.

50:38 I said, "Are you living anywhere here from Columbus, Ohio? You're from Columbus, was it? You're very excited because I said Columbus, because nobody ever gives Columbus a shout out. I want you to know I had an amazing Shabbos in the assistant Rosh Kodesh's house in Columbus, Ohio. I don't remember his name. Don't ask me his name, but he lived in a three-story house, and he was talking to me. And I said, 'How do you make it out here, Columbus?' He's like, 'You're kidding me. My house was $100,000.' I was like, '$100,000? Could pay for that in cash. $100,000.' I realized he might be a genius." I mean, he lives in Columbus, so it's hard to know, but maybe you're on to something. Maybe you're on to something because it's a little bit simpler out in Columbus, no? And you come to Yesholayim Yerakodesh for the year, and you probably met a lot of girls that you never met before, right? And maybe, just maybe, I'm guessing, and I'm sure you were non-judgmental because you're from out of town, but maybe, just maybe, you were looking around in the beginning of the year and going.

51:29 What in the world is going on with these girls? Maybe you didn't say aloud except to the one other girl who was also from out of town who they roomed you with because you were the two people that didn't know people going in. I know this. I know this school. And the two of you together were like commiserating. That is not our room. Was that? No. There's nobody else from that. Except for one other. It's our room. It's fine. Honestly, about why I think. I know the room exists. Clearly, the point of this story was to decide if this room does or does not exist in Torah Tzav. I don't mean to call you out, but I'm guessing that you looked around and said, "I'm so thankful that I grew up in a community where we didn't know about these things; they weren't on our radar." And if you don't feel that way, I just want you to know, tonight by Modim, you should daven Meirv tonight, and you should say Modim.

52:21 And you should spend 20 minutes in modim. It should be a modim like it's ni'ela of Yom Kippur. In this 20-minute modim, I just want you to say over and over again, 'Thank you, Hashem, for bringing me up in a community that's restored to factory settings before the world lost its mind.' I can't solve the world's problems, and I have no intention of even trying. But I'm wondering, what will happen if the girls in this room date a guy, and instead of saying, 'Okay, how are we going to make it?' ask the question, 'What will our life look like together? What are the values that we hold above money? And then, what's the money that we're going to make in service of those values, instead of the opposite?' I think if we do that, we can make a pretty big dent. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.