Bereishis - Begin Again

2:29 She's not. She's marching to the beat of her own drum. She's doing her own thing. And she really could care less what anybody thinks about her. She has been that way her entire life from the moment she was born. Sometimes, as a parent We see a little baby. A little child, a toddler, and they have a particular type of personality, and then at some point they lose that personality. And there's a certain tragedy there, because you want to be able to see what you saw in that kid. You want it to be able to see it flower, to see it flourish. I have one daughter. Who when she was—I have five daughters and one son. He's the youngest. He's a five and a half year old, so I have six daughters. Just one of them is male. And we're hopeful that cheder will toughen him up.

3:18 Like little Israeli kids pummeling him to death might actually toughen him up. But in the meantime, he's a little girl. One daughter. She was nuts as a kid. And she was so precocious. She always said whatever was on her mind. She had this amazing imagination, and it was really beautiful to see. One time, my wife was shopping in Gourmet Glat And they had the Gourmet Glat in the Five Towns, and they have the little seats where the little toddlers can sit while you're shopping. And so this little two-year-old, two and a half-year-old kid was She was getting agitated. Something was bothering her, and my wife couldn't figure out what it was. She sees her; she's really getting upset. And then finally, she looked up at the ceiling in gourmet glot. After it said clean up on aisle three, she said, stop talking to me. She was just this very precocious little kid. She didn't know that the ceiling wasn't talking to her; it was talking to somebody else. And she had this amazing personality.

4:22 And then we made Aliyah, and she lost it. I'm being serious. It was a devastating thing to watch. She came when she was four years old. And at four years old You're adjusting. You don't know the language. You don't have friends. And all of a sudden, this exceptionally confident little kid Who had this amazing imagination, all of a sudden became very boxy and very like, "I need to figure things out." And there was anxiety, and you think you can't see anxiety in a four-year-old. You can. And it's been a very interesting journey to see how she develops. But ideally, what you want is to be able to see something in the beginning. And then to see how it flourishes and how it becomes the thing that you, as a parent, know you have inside of you. Baracious. Even the word "baracious," not the stories of baracious, just the word "baracious." If you think about that word as a child It contains all of the entirety of Torah.

5:22 All of the entirety of Torah can be found in the word Baruch. It's the fetus. It's the fetus in its mother's stomach with all of the DNA and all of the potential. And every other word that comes in the Torah comes from the word Baruch. You'll find in Chazal that there are amazing amounts of commentaries. Tens of thousands of commentaries, just on the word Baruch. What does the word Baruch mean? Tonight I'd like to examine just one of them, but I think it's an important one. And I hope that you'll come with me on this journey. It is strange to me that I haven't been here yet. It's like we're in October. It's the middle of October, and this is the second time that I'm seeing you girls. Hopefully, we'll have a little bit more consistency now. The word barachus, Rashi already points out, can be understood as bais rachus.

6:18 And so, Rashi says, 'Beis Raisius.' He quotes the Medrash, which means 'Bishvil Klal Yisrael Shenikra Raisius Bishvil Torah Shenikra Raisius.' The 'Beis' here means 'Bishvil.' Hashem created the world for the Torah, and Hashem created the world for the Jews. There's another explanation of the word "Beis Raisius." What does "Beis" mean? "Beis" means two. So "Raisius" could mean, could be read as, two beginnings. And that's a very strange thing if you start to think about it, because what does the word Bara'chus actually mean? It doesn't mean two beginnings. What does it mean? In the beginning. How many beginnings were there? There was only one beginning. I am sure that somebody here is thinking about the Meimar Chazal that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created many worlds and destroyed many worlds. But on a very simple level, the word Bara'chus means in the beginning. So it's a very strange thing that in the very beginning of the Torah, which is only talking about one beginning of the world.

7:16 The Torah leaves room to interpret it as two beginnings. So our first question for the night is What's the significance of Bayis Rishis of having two beginnings? There's another two that I'd like to draw your attention to. There's a halacha, there's Gemara and Sanhedrin. I'm sure you girls know this. Maybe there's room to come in. I think there's room to come in. I think there's room over here. If you don't mind, come in. There's a halacha that a king is supposed to write two Sifrei Torah. And we know that Klal Yisrael are called Mameleches Kovanim, the Goy Kadosh. We are a nation of kings and priests. So this halacha that's relevant to the king is relevant to all of us. The halacha is that a king is supposed to have not one but two Sifrei Torah. And why does he have two Sifrei Torah? What's unique about one of the Sifrei Torah? We know.

8:13 He keeps it on him at all times, and it's a very small Sefer Torah. That wherever the king goes, he carries this Sefer Torah on his arm. He keeps the Sefer Torah with him. That's a strange one. What would you have thought? What should the halacha have been? If we have a Sefer Torah that's a small Sefer Torah that the king takes with him wherever we go, then what would you have thought? What's the halacha? That should be enough, because if you have a Sefer Torah that goes with you wherever you go, that means that you have the Sefer Torah even in your own home, even in the palace. So why does the king need a second safer Torah? So we have so far two questions, all about two. Number one, why does the Torah say "beis rachis"? There are two beginnings. Number two, why does the king have to say that there are two sifrei Torah? Why does the king have to write two sifrei Torah?

9:04 Okay. I want to share with you something that I think is very profound. And it's only occurred to me in the last couple of years of my life. Every single story that you read Every single piece of life that you narrate to yourself could be narrated in two ways. And the way that you narrate the story tells you everything you need to know about yourself. Because the narration says more about you than it does about another person. I'll give you an example. A young man calls me up. This conversation I had. What's today? Six forty-five. I had this conversation two hours ago. Young man calls me up and he says to me, Rebbe I feel uncomfortable in a certain way in my parents' home. Baruch Hashem, this is a boy who's become a very fine ben Torah. He's sitting and learning. He's a really great guy. He's a balmidos.

10:02 His parents are wonderful people. But they didn't grow up with the same education that he grew up with. And so now he's encountering certain halachic challenges. For example In his house, his parents never learned about checking for bugs. Never learned about checking for bugs. So in his house, probably in some of the homes that you grew up in, probably in most of the homes that you grew up in, when your mother pulls out lettuce, she probably soaks the lettuce. She probably washes each piece afterwards. If you're from America and you're having strawberries, and let's say you're not having Bodek strawberries, maybe your mother cuts the strawberries in half, puts them in warm water. Maybe she doesn't put them in warm water. Maybe she puts soap in. Maybe she doesn't put soap in. If you're a person who didn't grow up like that, don't worry. I also didn't grow up like that. So if you're one of the many people in this room that just looked at me with those eyes, I just want you to know I'm with you on this journey.

10:50 And he calls me up and he says it's uncomfortable for me. There are certain things I don't want to say anything to my mother. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be that flipped out guy that comes back from Israel and says, 'Mom, your home isn't kosher.' But he's uncomfortable. And he's telling me about his dad, and there are certain things that his dad does and certain things in the home that are going on, and they're just making him feel uncomfortable. And I said to him, "It's interesting that you're narrating the story that way." So he said, "What do you mean? I'm not narrating the story. These are facts." I said, well, let's think. Let's think about another way that we could present the same facts. Here's another way of presenting the same facts. Let's say I told you that there were people that were going to give you life itself. That's a gift worth more than anything in the world. These people are going to bring you into the world. They're going to give you life. Not only are these people going to give you life

11:40 They're going to clothe you, they're going to house you. They're going to educate you. They're going to feed you. They're going to show you all the emotional love that you need in your life, and they're going to be supportive of you on your journey, even when it takes you somewhere different. The amount of money that they spend on you for the first 20 years of your life is roughly half a million dollars. Half a million dollars is not a small gift. Have you considered the fact that your parents have probably spent half a million dollars between school, clothing, food, education, camps, and vacations? Your parents have probably spent. You are. If you think about it, you walk around, you go. I'm worth half a million dollars. Somebody literally spent half a million dollars on you. And even if you say, "Rabbi Berg," you're way overestimating. I'm yeshivish. I went to yeshivish camp. You could tell when they brought out the chicken on Friday night. The hair was still unplucked on the chicken. That chicken was walking around.

12:36 It was a yeshivish chicken. I just got to mitzvah before Shabbos. He said, "I didn't. My parents didn't spend half a million dollars. Were they spent a quarter of a million dollars on you?" A quarter. And by the way, there are some people in this room whose parents spent much more than half a million dollars. Anyone here from L.A.? No I didn't mean it like that. I just meant because it's very expensive to live in Los Angeles. That was not a comment on an entire. I get in trouble no matter what I say. L. A. is very expensive to live in. If you're from Ohio, I understand. Maybe your parents spent. Anyone here from Ohio? Who did I just offend? There's somebody in the cemetery. Baruch Hashem. I went to Ohio. I went to Columbus, Ohio. I stayed in. Your brother's from Columbus, Ohio. I don't know if I stayed in your brother's house, but there's like 15 Jews in the whole place, so it's possible.

13:28 Is he in the kotel in Ohio, in Columbus? So I stayed in the assistant rosh kotel's house. He lived in a beautiful house and on a big piece of property. I was like, wow, I didn't know on a rosh kaiel salary you could afford to live in a place like this. He said it's Columbus. It cost me like a hundred thousand dollars. I paid for it in cash. I was like, that's incredible. That's like a garage in the Five Towns. Like you can. There are some people in this room whose parents spent north of half a million dollars, to say nothing of the emotional support, to say nothing of the life that you live. So yeah, I understand you're bothered because your parents don't hold the standard of kashrus that you want. But if you would narrate this story with radical amounts of gratitude How do you think the story would change? It would probably sound something like this: My parents are awesome.

14:19 My parents have given me everything that I could have asked for. I literally have moved away from their community, and all they do is love me. There are some challenges when it comes to kashrut, so I have to figure out how to navigate those challenges. Do you hear the difference? It's exactly the same facts. But how you narrate the story is very different, and how we narrate the story tells us a lot about ourselves. So I'm going to tell you two stories. Same facts But two totally separate narrations. We'll only go through Berechias and Noah. We won't go through the entirety. I'll leave it to your imagination to go through all of Sefer Berechias, and if you'd like to go through all of the entire Torah, you could do that as well. Let's go through Berechias and Noah in a heartbeat. God creates the world. What's the first thing that Adam does? He messes up.

15:06 What's the first thing that Chava does? She messes up. Chava is tricked by the snake. She convinces Adam. Adam eats from the tree. They're thrown out of Gan Eden. Women now experience childbirth. Men will die. Man has to work the earth in order to provide sustenance for himself. It's a pretty bad story. Does it get better? No. They have kids. Cain brings a carbunc. Hashem doesn't accept the carbunc. Cain does what any brother does. He naturally kills his brother. It's sibling rivalry. We've seen this before. We move on to Noah. We could have gotten into Lamech, but we didn't have to get into Lamech. We get into Noah. Hashem regrets creating the world. Hashem destroys the world. Noah is the one tzaddik who manages to be saved. And as soon as he leaves the teva, he gets drunk. And when he gets drunk, his son Ham abuses him. And what exactly he did, we'll leave it to the Gemara to discuss. Certainly not a nice thing that Ham did. Whatever he did, it certainly wasn't a nice thing. But Ham abuses his father.

16:10 So far, good story. Not a good story. But don't worry, it gets better. Mikdal Bavel. After Hakadosh Baruch Hu has destroyed the world, still the entire world is rebellious, and they say whatever this means. It's a deep idea that they're going to build a tower in order to rebel against God. And so, what does God do? We know that He disperses them. He takes away their language. They spread out through the entirety of the world, and that's the end of Parshas Noah. The end of Parshas Noah begins with Avram was born to Terach, who was one of the worst idolaters in the world. We could go on reading all of Sefer Bereishis this way. Avram had a kid. That kid was Yisrael.

16:45 Yisrael was an idolater. Yisrael was a murderer. He couldn't have kids for many years. He finally does have a kid. That kid tries to kill Yitzchak. So he has to throw his own son out of his house, where his son almost dies if not saved by a miracle. Yitzchak has two kids. One of them is an idolater. One of them is a murderer. He tries to kill his brother. His brother has to run away. He runs away to a shiaster, somebody who tries to uproot his entire family. That's love, and we could go through the entire story this way. Yaakov has twelve children. They try to kill one of them. Instead, Yaakov loses nevuah for twenty two years while his son is in Mitzrayim. And his son is thrown into a jail, and his son is attacked by Aishas Potifar. And his son ultimately raises up to be the viceroy of Mizraim, and so you think it's getting better, but that's just the beginning of all of Klal Yisrael being enslaved. Who wants to be a Jew?

17:35 That is one way of narrating Sefer Berechias. I'll give you another way of narrating Sefer Berechias. And I think this is a truer narration. Adam doesn't have ira; it's true. The Chasidim tell us that Adam did tshuva. Chava did bring the chait to Adam Arishon But before the chait of Adam Arishon, Chava was not known as Chava. What was Chava's name? Isha. And after the sin Now all of a sudden she's not only called Chava; she's Ain Kholchai. She's the mother of all life. But who names her? Adam Arishon names her. Which is fascinating, because a moment ago there was a rift in their relationship, and Adam had blamed Chava for the destruction of Gan Eden. And now just a couple of sukkim later, you see this unbelievable warmth that exists between them. And he names her. "You're gonna. All of life is gonna come from you." And it's true that Adam and Chava was thrown out of Gan Eden, but what's the opportunity that Adam and Chava has now been given? He's now been given the opportunity to bring godliness to the entire world.

18:51 And then we go to Cain, and it's true that Cain did a terrible avera And it's true that Cain killed his brother. But we know that what the Chasam Sohe says, Cain did tshuva, and who protected Cain for all of those years? Hashem Himself protected Cain and made a special mark that Cain should be protected, that nobody should come after Cain. And not only that, it's true that the entire world was destroyed by a flood. That's true. But after Hashem destroyed the world by a flood, what did Hashem also say? He said, "I make a promise that I'm never going to do that again." And it's true that Noach was abused by one of his sons, but he was also shown grace by his other children who took care of him. And it's true that Migdal Bavel, the Dar Haflaga, they tried to rebel against Hashem. But it's also true that Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, 'Now I'm going to disperse you throughout the entire world, so that I can teach the world the lesson that there's great value in being an individual and being unique. There's dignity in difference.' And so we could narrate the story one of two ways. We could say that all of Sefer Bereshis is a failure, or we could say that all of Sefer Bereshis is about. And here's where I think this really important lesson for everybody here.

20:00 It's about the redemption of failures. That's what Sefer Bereshis is really about. It's true that Hakadosh Baruch Hu ultimately gave Avram Avinu a child called Yitzchak, and that child was attacked by Yishmael. But it's also true that Yishmael ultimately does tshuva. It's also true that Avram Avinu stays with Yishmael even all those years after he threw him out of the house, and it's true that Yitzchak had Esav. But Esav had tremendous opportunities to rectify the physical world, and Yaakov Avinu took over those opportunities, and that's why Yaakov Avinu had to go to the house of Lavan. And in the house of Lavan, there's no doubt that he was persecuted. But he also met Rachel and Leah, and the Shvatim were born from them. And it's true that the Shvatim had a fight. But it's also true that Yosef HaTzaddik went down to Mitzrayim to pave the way for Klal Yisrael, and it's true that was the beginning of Galus.

20:49 But it was also the beginning of Geula. And so every single story in our life has two beginnings: the first The first try And then there's the thing you do after you fail. I want to ask you a question: You've been in seminary for a month. Something like that. How many of you have already failed at something that you've tried this year? How many of you came, the honest ones? I appreciate you, girls. We have a couple of honest smatterings over here. How many of you came with hopes and dreams and aspirations and said, 'This is going to be the year,' and once I come to seminary, I'm never going to do this again. You ever had that? You had the thing like, by the time I leave seminary, I'm gonna be perfect. I'm never gonna do another avera again. It's gonna happen the moment I land, as I touch down in Ben Gurion Airport, and I set foot, and I go through customs. A magical wave of kedusha will wash over me. Something about the Israeli customs agent, that as he hands me that ticket, and I go through that turnstile to get my bag, all of a sudden, kedusha.

22:01 And then The first Thursday night happened. I'm saying people. People like you. Where are you from? That's what I'm talking about. So it was Saturday night or Thursday night. I wouldn't call it Matze Shabbos. It's yeah. You and me, we have an understanding here. Valley or the city? You from the valley or the city? It was Monday Shabbos. Thursday night is for Valley people. Saturday night is for city people. How do I know? If I didn't grow up in New York, I would have grown up in Los Angeles. My taivas are found in Los Angeles. The problem with us is that we don't have two beginnings. The problem is that we only have one beginning. The problem is that as soon as we fail at something, we're like, 'It's over.' Like I was meant to be perfect, but now that I'm not perfect, it's over. You ever have that in your life where you set the bar so high for yourself, and you're like, 'Well, this is the person I'm supposed to be.'

23:14 All of Berachus is Beis Raches. The entire Torah, every single story in the Torah could be narrated in one of two ways. It could be narrated, 'This is the beginning,' or it could be narrated, 'There were two beginnings.' Go through every single one of them. Every single story in the Torah, on some level, has some measure of failure, and then what happens after it? There's a heroic. That's what it's supposed to be. As Gemara in Gittin, perhaps the most powerful Torah in all of Chazal. Listen to these words, engrave them on your heart. If you're writing, definitely write these words down. If you're listening, engrave them on your heart. A person cannot stand, cannot understand, a place of Torah, unless he's messed up in that area. In other words, how do we learn? We learn by trial and error. And until you fail, you don't really understand. That's the greatest gift that Judaism gives us. It teaches us that failure is an important part of the process, and we can't be afraid to fail.

24:42 And the people that fail are the people that ultimately know the most. I was nespal because I learned this from a guy. I learned this from a guy, a famous guy. A basketball player. His name is Kobe Bryant. He passed away. Kobe Bryant, when he was a rookie He was in the playoffs, and it was a very tight game. At the very end of the game, he airballed four shots in a row and he cost his team the game. And afterwards, everybody was coming over to him, and they told him, "Don't worry, it's okay." They kept comforting him. Kobe Bryant said, "I don't know why they're comforting me." I'm fine, and when I heard this, I was like, "Classic guyva, classic Kobe guyva." The guy just missed four shots in the playoffs on national television. And he's fine. Like, you how arrogant do you have to be fine?

25:41 When you play basketball and you're not very good, like when you miss a couple of shots, you think everybody's paying attention to you. Have you ever had that experience where you perform publicly and mess up, and you think everyone on the side is taking your stats? What was that? I scored for the other team. You scored for the other team. What school did you play for? My school Hebrew Academy. Hebrew Academy of what? Montreal. Nobody knows which side is the right side anyway in Montreal. What sport were you playing? Basketball. That's why. If you were playing hockey, you would have been in the right school. You play basketball. And I'm betting that you think people, in their lives, are constantly reflecting back on that story. Do you remember when she scored for the wrong team? I'm betting that you think it's a topic of constant conversation. That when you walk through the streets of Yerushalayim, and nobody hears from Montreal, you're the only one in this country.

26:31 I'm betting that you think that girls in Midmo and Sharfman's and Shalvin for Women and M Y see you and go That's the girl that scored for the other team. Not actually, but kind of. The truth of the matter is, the only way we can learn is from learning. And so Kobe Bryant said that every failure that he had was just another opportunity to learn. So he learned as a rookie that if he's going to play a very long season, if he's going to play eighty two games and then play in the playoffs, his legs have to become much stronger. And the reason he airballed those shots isn't because they weren't aimed correctly; it's because they didn't have the strength from his legs. And the reason why Kobe Bryant became probably one of the top five players of all time is because when he failed, he learned from it. And then he began again.

27:17 But we don't do that. We fail, and we're like, that's it. But if you think about what you've learned in your life, if you think about the things you learn something, you go, I'm never doing that again, because it was so bad. Until you do it again, because you haven't actually learned your lesson yet. You know that point in your life where you actually stop because you realize this is no longer working for you. I'll tell you a quick story. This is an important story. There's a psychologist. His name is Rabbi Doctor Levitz. Have any of you heard of Rabbi Doctor Levitz? He's a very famous psychologist in the Jewish world. And he told the following story Very relevant to us. He said, 'A woman came into his office, and she said, "Doctor Levitz, you must treat my son." He said, 'Why? What's going on with your son?' She said, 'He's twenty-five years old, and all he does all day is collect purses. He collects pocketbooks. That's all he does.'

28:13 And Dr. Levitz collects pocketbooks. So you want me to see your son? She says, please. I need you to see my son. He doesn't want to get married. All he wants to do is play with his pocketbooks. So a guy comes into his office. He sits down, and Dr. Levitz wants to join with him. He wants to create a rapport in the room. He wants the guy to feel comfortable. So he says Your mother tells me you like purses. The guy's eyes go wide. He says, I love purses. Doctor Levitt says, "Tell me, what do you do with your purses?" He goes, "I like to put things in. I like to take them out. I like to rub them against my face. I like to feel them. I like to go, collect the entire set—the snakeskin purses, the velvet purses, the different companies. I like, I, I just, I love them." And Doctor Levitt says, "Your mother tells me you don't want to get married."

29:02 He says, "Why should I get married?" Person gets married for companionship. I have all the companionship that I need from my purses. So Dr. Levitt at this point stops and he looks at the audience and I'm a rebbe in the audience and he says, "So who had the problem, the mother or the son?" And so everyone in the audience rightfully said, "The son Because he's obsessed with purses. And Dr. Levitt said, "The mother" Because the guy was fine with the choices he was making And you can't work with someone on a problem that they don't acknowledge they have. His life was working for him. And so he said, "So what brings you to therapy?" He said, "My mother is driving me crazy." So in therapy, what were they working on? Not on his purses, on his relationship with his mother. At what point could Dr. Levits begin to work with this guy on his relationship with his purses?

29:58 Only when it stops working for him. Does that make sense? Meaning, this guy, at some point in his life, right now he's getting all the satisfaction he needs from his purses. But when he's forty. And he's sitting there, and he has the world's greatest collection of purses, but he has no children. He has nobody to tell him that he's loved or that he belongs. He has nobody to come home to at night. He comes home to an empty house full of purses. It's possible at that point that it won't work for him anymore. And what will he have learned? At that point, he'll have learned that the only way to really create connection is through vulnerability, and he'll probably know that lesson better than anybody in this room. Because the nature of learning is that a person has to fail. You have to go through it in order to gain from it.

30:45 And I'd like to suggest that this is why we'll finish up with this. I'd like to suggest that this is why a king carries around two Torahs, and why every one of us is obligated to carry around two Torahs in our life. There has to be a Torah that we keep at home, and that's called the Torah of the ideal. This is the person that we want to be. That's the girl who came off the plane. The girl who came off the plane said, "These are my hopes, dreams, and aspirations." That's one Torah. That Torah stays at home. There's another Torah that comes with you. It's a Torah that you walk with in the streets. Shivisi Hashem lenegi tamed. This is the Torah that when you mess up, you hold on to that Torah because you say, "I'm in process. I'm beginning again." There's a Torah for me who's out of the hems. There's a Torah for me who's imperfect. That's the Torah that we have to keep with us at all times.

31:36 There's a story. With the Lubavitcher Rebbe and Eli Wiesel, do the girls know who Eli Wiesel is? Eli Wiesel was a famous Holocaust survivor. He was a Nobel Prize winner. He was a very inspirational person, and he wrote a book. And in the book He tells the following story. He says he went to 770 Eastern Parkway. He went to the Lubavitcher Rebbe's court. And he introduced himself to the Lubavitcher Rebbe. When he introduced himself to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, he said. I'm a Vizhnitzer, not a Lubavitcher. I come from a Vizhnitzer family. And the Lubavitcher Rebbe said to him, "It matters that you're a Chassid. It doesn't matter what type of Chassid that you are." And Elie Wiesel used to come and visit the Rebbe from time to time, but his minig was to come to the Rebbe on Simchas Torah. And he shows up and comes to the Rebbe.

32:27 And the Rebbe says to him New Wiesel How do they celebrate Simchas Torah in Vizhnitz? So Eliwizel said back to him, "We're not in Vizhnitz; we're in Lubavitch." So what do you do in Lubavitch? So the Rebbe said, 'In Lubavitch, we make a lachaim.' So Eliwizel said, "In Vizhnitz too." The Rebbe poured a lachaim for both of them, and they made a lachaim and drank. And then the Rebbe said to Eliwizel, 'He said, 'Tell me' In Vizhnitz they drink but one lachaim,' and Eliwizel said,'In Vizhnitz one is but a drop in the ocean.' And so, the Rebbe poured them a second lechem, and the Rebbe was in a good mood. It was Simchas Torah; they had drunk a little bit. And the Rebbe said to Eliwizel Tell me what bracha you would like. Now, when someone as great as the Lubavitcher Rebbe Yitzchak, whose brachos had such unbelievable kiyum in the world, says to you, 'Tell me what bracha you'd like,' that's an unbelievable opportunity. The skies are open.

33:33 Ask. But Wiesel couldn't think of anything to ask, and the Rebbe suggested to Elie Wiesel. He said How about I give you a bracha that you should be able to begin again? After Wiesel had lost everything in the Holocaust His entire life, his entire family, and now he was coming to America and he was trying to rebuild his life. The Rebbe suggested, 'Let me give you a bracha that you should begin again.' And Wiesel said, 'Yes, Rebbe, I'd like that bracha very much.' And that was the bracha that Elie Wiesel received from the Lubavitcher Rebbe. A bracha to begin again. I'm not the Labavitcher Rebbe, and Baruch Hashem, you girls are not Elihu Zel. But Chazal do say, 'Altei Kalab Einach Berchaz Hedy.' Don't take lightly the bracha of a simple person. So I'd like to bless all of us as we begin again after Succos.

34:20 That we have the kaiach to let go of whatever mistakes we made this Elul Of whatever mistakes we made over Succos, of whatever mistakes we've made in our lives To be able to carry the Torah. Of Daven Malchus and Mashiach, the Torah that we take with us, the Torah that says you're imperfect but you're still connected. Hashem is with you wherever you go, and Bezrat Hashem will have the kayach, the fortitude, the persistence to begin again.