Bereishis - Making Light Out of the Darkness

2:18 Most people just motor through these psukim. I think the first pasuk in the Torah gets a lot of attention because it's that first Rashi, and everybody has to give a speech on that first Rashi. But I imagine that some people, at least, don't pay attention to the psukim that come after that. I'd like to try to explain these psukim to the best of my ability in a limited way But to try to see them deeper. If we look at it, it says, "in the beginning, our Kadosh Baruch Hu created Shamayim va'Aretz" And then our Kadosh Baruch Hu tells us the condition of the land. What's the condition of the land? The condition of the land is tov v'avoh. The choshech al pnetah home, it's abundantly chaotic. And it's dark. That's the state of the land. The question is, what does that mean? What do those words mean? Tov avo the choshech al pnetah home. When you're a kid reading them, what do you think?

3:14 You think I don't know maybe some primordial mass, darkness, swirling chaos. The world hasn't yet been formed. But what do these things deeply mean? What do they mean to us on a level of something that we can make into a reality? What does that mean? And furthermore, what's this ruach halokim? We always read that, right? Ruach halokim merachefes alpanay amayim. There was this godly spirit hovering over the water. Anyone know what ruach halokim means? Most of us don't know what ruach halokim means, so we just keep going. There was ruach halokim merachefes al panay amayim. Even that word merachefes is a very strange word. It was hovering. What does it mean? Hovering is a funny lashon to use. So what does hovering mean? And then Somehow, God says, "Let there be light," and there's light. And God looks at the light, and the light is good. And He separates between the light and the darkness. What's the inner essence of this story? I want to share it with you.

4:12 I apologize again for looking at my phone. I didn't have time to print out whatever notes I took. You shouldn't think it's because I'm looking at anything else. There is a Zohar Kadosh and a Medrash. To explain what the words ruach elokim mean And both the Zohar Kadosh and the Medrash say that ruach elokim is referring to Mashiach. In fact, Chazal bring that the gematria of veruach elokim merachefes is the same gematria as zehayarucho shamelach Mashiach. So this idea of ruach elokim is Mashiach. It's a very interesting thing that ruach elokim is Mashiach. So it seems then. In a very strange way, something unexpected, that Mashiach is already present in the second pasuk of the Torah. In other words, if you look at the Torah, what is it? Bereshis Baralokim as Hashemayim v'zard. God creates the heaven and the earth. What do we already find in the second pasuk of the Torah? V'ruach Elokim merachefes al panei ha'mayim means Mashiach is hovering above the water. What is that imagery? We still have to understand.

5:18 But there's something very powerful, very profound, very deep that needs to be unpacked and understood. That Mashiach is already present in the very beginning of creation. Not only that, but we also find that the four exiles, the four Goliaths, and that Klal Yisrael will experience, are already in this psukim when it says 'Vahares ha'isa.' With me, toh, vavu, vechoshech al pnetahom. So Chazal say that refers right to Bavel, Madai, Yavan, and Gullus Adom. Those four things. The Arutz HaYisrael The Choshech, Apnei Tehom. Those four things refer to the four exiles. And the last one, which is the exile of Adom that we're in right now, is called Tehom because it's the deepest one. It's the one that feels never ending. In fact, I think many of us can relate to that. That this Gullus feels never ending. So we already have in the very beginning of the Torah, in the second pasuk of the Torah, Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates the world. And if you're learning the Torah in a deep way, what does the Torah teach us? Number one There will be four exiles. Number two, there will be something called Melech Hamashiach.

6:33 Why is that significant? What's the impact of understanding that the four exiles that Klal Yisrael will experience and Melech Hamashiach are already present in the very beginning of creation? I want to share with you something I think is quite deep, quite meaningful. We ask the question "When is Mashiach coming? How many people here have asked that question? When is Mashiach coming? It's the wrong question. If you understand what we just learned, then you understand that the question is the wrong question. Mashiach has been coming since the moment the world was created. What is Ruchelokim? Ba Mashiach. That's Mashiach, which means that the moment the world was created, Mashiach began to come. Mashiach already began the moment the world was created. The question is not when will Mashiach come. Mashiach has been coming since the moment that the world was created. What's the appropriate question? When will the process of Mashiach?

7:40 Culminate. When will the process of Mashiach finally end? I want to share with you why this is so important. Two reasons. Number one, you have a lot of people that go, "Oh, that's Mashiach," right? Something good happens, they go, "Oh, that's Mashiach." Or if Chassidus something bad happens, they go, "Oh, that's Mashiach." For six thousand years, a Jew has been saying about everything that happened, 'That's Mashiach.' Because Mashiach is a process that's part and parcel of every single moment of creation, from the moment that the world was created, V'rechel u'Kimerachefas u'Pnei Amayim, Mashiach has been coming. That's critical to understand. Stop asking the question, 'When will Mashiach come?' He's been coming. The question is, 'When will the process of Mashiach culminate? When will we finally get to see this whole story finish? That's number one. Number two, and this is also of critical importance. Messiah's coming has never been in doubt.

8:39 It's like imagine you went to a Disney movie. What's the one thing you know is going to happen by the end of the movie? There's going to be a good ending. They wouldn't make it a movie if it was a bad ending. Could you imagine what it would be like? I just thought about this. Could you imagine what it would be like if people were in the theater? And it's like a terrible movie, and then it just ends? You see all the little kids in the audience going, 'What?' That's it. Like, no story ends as a bad story. When the Torah begins by telling us there's going to be four exiles and there's going to be Mashiach, Mashiach's coming from the moment that the world was created. What does that mean? It means we already know the end of the story. The question is not if Mashiach's going to come.

9:27 The only question will be what your role will be in bringing Mashiach. That's a huge difference. That means that we already know. We already know how the story ends. The only thing that's in doubt is what role we will play in bringing Mashiach. So far, so good. Everybody understands these concepts. Unpacking this a little bit more. If you know that Mashiach is coming, and you know that the end is assured, the only question is when Mashiach will come? We have to ask ourselves what it means to bring Mashiach. What do those words mean? So let's return to the question that we asked a couple of moments ago. V'ruach Elokim merachefes al penei amayim. The spirit of Hashem, the spirit of Mashiach, is hovering above the water. What is water, and what does it mean to hover above water? Water is formless. That's what water is. Water is a formless entity. The only reason that this cup or these cups are holding this water in this way is not because of the water.

10:35 It's because of the cup. Water, by its definition, is a nothing. Does that make sense? If you put it somewhere, it just goes wherever it goes. It doesn't have a shape to it. In contrast to everything else in this world that has a shape, water has no particular shape. So the spirit of Mashiach, this Ruach Elokim, is hovering above the water. When we think about the image of hovering, what does that mean to us? I don't know what it means to you, but what it means to me is there's no place to land. You ever see a bird hovering over a flower, sucking at its nectar like a hummingbird? You ever see that? Why does the bird need to do that? Why does it need to flap its wings so hard to hover above the flower like that? It's because it can't land and get to the flower.

11:22 So it seems the imagery that the pasuk paints for us is that Mashiach is here. But he has no place to land. It's like Mashiach is in creation, but the goal is to bring Mashiach down into this formless, shapeless thing, and to give it a space where it can land. That's what it means to bring Mashiach. Now that sounds like a very abstract thing. It sounds like a strange thing, but I want to share with you why it's not. The physical world is not an evil place. The physical world. Just needs to become a godly place, but it's not an evil place. We need to make this world a place where Mashiach can land, because as it is, this physical world It doesn't seem to project godliness. You could look at this table, and you might not see God. What a Jew has to do is make the table. This is going to sound like a funny thing. Into a Mashiach table The way that we make the table into a Mashiach table is by using the table in a godly way.

12:28 I want to share with you why I'm late. Not late. I came on time. I want to share with you why I'm not as well prepared as I wanted to be. I go to Mivasaret. I hear Rabbi Leo D's speech. He speaks beautifully. It's an amazing speech. I go upstairs to my office. I'm about to close the door. And sit at the computer and write up my notes. There's a knock on the door. Rosh Yeshiva says we need to talk. He steps in. He says we have a meeting right now. Listen to this meeting. There is a Tzanchanim battalion. What are Tzanchanim? Paratroopers. There is a Tzanchanim battalion. It's really comprised of four small battalions. It's one large battalion. Each battalion has a hundred and twenty people in it. This battalion has four hundred and eighty soldiers total. They don't have what they need. They don't have what they need. When we call these people up This is a wild thing. The Israeli army relies on its citizens to provide for its soldiers in times of war.

13:46 The way that one of the rabbis in the yeshiva said it, there's a rebbe in Mevaser. I don't know if you've heard of him. You've heard of Reb Ben Some of you have heard of Reb Ben. He's an amazing rebbe. By the way, for those that nodded, you gave yourselves away. For those that played it cool, you're very good. Excellent. He said very beautifully. He said, "This is not a country. This is a sh. This is a shtetl. It's a neighborhood." It's like how do the soldiers get things like washed and cleaned? Who gives them socks? We just give everybody what we have. It's an amazing thing. This is four hundred and eighty soldiers, and they don't have what they need—basic, basic, basic things. Why don't they have what they need? Because they got called up. They got called up. And when they got called up, what did they have time to pack? They didn't think about what they were doing. They just shoved stuff in a knapsack and they went.

14:33 I happened to be in yeshiva for sumchas torah. I was in mevaser for sumchas torah. And whatever happened. The people who live in Mevaseret started getting phone calls on Shabbos from some Chastora, and they picked up their phone. And they put on their uniforms, packed their bags, and went in a car. And they drove to wherever they were supposed to go. Two of the rebayim in Mevaseret got the call. One soldier came down to Mevaseret looking for the Av Beit of Mevaseret. He said, "Where's Avi Chai?" I said, "Avi Chai is at home." He said, "Please go tell Avi Chai that he has to turn on his phone." So I went to Avi Chai's apartment. I said, Avi Chai, you have to turn on your phone. A couple minutes later, Avi Chai came to yeshiva. He's dressed in his combat fatigues, and then he drove off.

15:20 You think these guys had time to pack? You think they had time to sit there and think about what they were going to need? They didn't have time. They didn't have time. It was Pesach. It was Pesach. It was less than Pesach. At least with Pesach we had all the makos leading up. This was out of the blue. It was totally unpredictable. So these guys put whatever they put in a bag and they went. Now they don't necessarily have what they need. So we get a phone call. Can we raise money to buy these soldiers what they need? And not only to buy these soldiers what they need, but they're going to bring two mevaseret. They're going to bring all the stuff that we bought. Somebody's going to go to the store, buy all the stuff. We're going to have to pack it for them, load it onto a truck, and it's going to be sent to this Sanhajim battalion. In other words, they asked us, "Can you adopt this battalion as your own?"

16:11 No problem No problem. One of the rebayim who's running this, he says to me, Mordechai, he gives me a number. The number is an astronomically large number. We're not talking about ten thousand dollars or twenty thousand dollars or thirty thousand dollars or forty thousand dollars. An astronomically large number. That's what it's going to take to outfit this battalion. He says, Mordechai, I'm ready to put it on my credit card if you tell me that we're for sure going to hit this number. I said, Rebbe, I don't want to get fired. He said, Will you hit it? I said, We'll hit it. He said, Are you sure? I said, Rebbe, we're going to hit the number. We're going to double and triple the number. He said, on your say-so, I'm putting it on my credit card. And they went and they started buying things. They started buying things. So the whole break, we're working like crazy.

17:00 One of the rabbis in the office sets up the website for the donations, and we called in a team of the talmidim, the fourteen talmidim in my tiny little office. Each talmid is going to take a group of guys, and they're going to be in charge of those guys. We're going to get on the phone and make phone calls. We raised fifty thousand dollars in under twenty minutes. As of me walking into this room, some of you saw that I was on my phone. As of walking into this room, we started the campaign today at around three forty-five. Walking into this room right now, we had over one hundred seventy thousand dollars. You're up to No How much are you up to? One hundred eighty-six thousand. I'm telling you, by the end of the night, we're going to be over two hundred thousand dollars for sure. Maybe we'll be over two hundred fifty.

17:56 It's an unbelievable thing. These guys, we told the guys, we're like, the guys are like, can we get call lists? Said no, no, ain't no call lists. There's no call. This is not a campaign that we're running for the yeshiva. I just want you to get on your phone. Call people, send this link. Just go, do it. I told every guy in the yeshiva I don't want to see one guy right now with the safer open. There's a time for daber el bnei Yisroel vayisod. There's a time for davening. There's a time for learning. There's a time for action. This is the time for action. These sanhanim they need us right now to get them the basic necessities that they don't have. I said I don't want to see. There's one guy in yeshiva that got rid of his phone completely. So he was learning in the beis medrash.

18:48 So I said to him, I want you to know it's okay for you to learn. If you have a phone, I want you on the phone. So one of the guys said to me, Rabbi, I feel like it's a little bit late. The war has already been going for three days. I already feel like so many people are hit up. I said, Ain kaseh davar. I'm telling you, you're gonna call. Everyone's gonna give. And that guy raised a lot of money. What's the pshat? I'll tell you the pshat. The pshat is. Ask a Jew to stick his hand in his pocket and give to his brother, and you're going to see. It's a yoga move. It's a yoga move. You're going to see. Klal Yisrael is just doing it over and over again. This campaign, that campaign. Rabbi, I got like twenty campaigns already. People are going to write eighteen dollar checks over and over again. Know what the average donation was this afternoon? I looked. It was a hundred and eighty eight dollars this afternoon. A hundred and eighty-eight dollars. Not everybody was giving that, but it factored out to a hundred and eighty-eight dollars. You know what that means?

19:46 That means that today In yeshiva Today in yeshiva, we made this world a little less shapeless than it was. We gave the world a tzura. We gave the world a structure, and the spirit of Mashiach can land in that structure. Mashiach wants to come. He has no place to land. He's like a bird hovering over the water. He says, "I can't land here. It's not a place for me." Today, a dollar bill is not a dollar bill. It used to be. I think it still is. In the dollar bills, it says, "In God we trust," right? It doesn't mean anything. It's just words on a piece of paper. "In God we trust" means nothing until you take that money and you use it for a godly thing. Every single guy that pulled out his phone today and made those phone calls and put it on his WhatsApp status and sent it out to all his friends and his WhatsApp groups, every single one of those people, they made those dollars have an actual tsura. They gave them a form. They did something. It's a place where the ruach Elokim can come now. That's why the pasuk after it says, "Vruach Elokim erachefes l'peneh l'peneh amayim." And then what does it say next? And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. Vayar esalim esar kitov. And he saw that the light was good. And then God said, "I can separate."

20:59 Once there's Mashiach in the world, there's light in the world. Now I can separate between light and darkness. I want to share with you something that's happening in the world right now. I'm maimish all over the place. There's a tremendous amount of chaos in the world. We stand up here, we rabbis, we stand up here and we talk. We talk about these very abstract things, like Sukkot is about vulnerability. Who here felt vulnerable on the first day of Sukkot? Nobody feels vulnerable. What do we feel? It's a little hot in the sukkah. I don't know. I didn't have a place to go. It was weird. I had to go with my friend, her aunt that I didn't really know. It was uncomfortable. What was the vulnerability of Sukkot? It was an idea. It was abstract. Until it wasn't. When everything went wrong, the irony is that we were unprepared. Why were we unprepared for the vulnerability of Simchah Torah? Because we didn't pay attention to the vulnerability of Sukkot.

22:04 If we had really been paying attention to the vulnerability of Sukkot, then we would be prepared for the vulnerability of Simchah Torah. These are not abstract lessons; they're real things. When we speak about the idea of chaos. When we speak about the idea that this world is chaos, that's what tohu vaavohu means. It means chaos. When we speak about this world as darkness, that's not an abstract concept. And if you're not listening right now, I mean that in two ways: either because you're paying attention to something else, or because you're on your phone doing whatever, and you think I can't see. Or alternatively, because you're listening in the abstract, then you're missing the point of every single shear that you're getting in seminary. Every single shear. These are not concepts. These are not ideas. They're not just these random things. If you know them, they'll change you. They require focus and dedication.

23:05 And when we come, when the Torah comes and it says, 'This world is a place of chaos.' You girls right now have learned something unbelievable. The Torah wasn't lying. From the very moment the world was created, Bereshis Baralokim Es Hashemayim V'Etz Arz. God creates the heavens and the earth. What's the next thing that we learn about the earth? The earth is chaos. The earth is darkness. That's the nature of this world. You look at this world. There's tragedy on every single level. There's tragedy on every single level. And along with the tragedy, along with the chaos of this world, there's something called Ruach Elokim And the light is made of the darkness. I'm going to say it again because I want you to get this idea. Light is not made of light. Light is made of darkness. Darkness is not a thing that just by itself is darkness. Darkness is light.

24:01 You have to make the darkness into the light. The light is made up of darkness. So when you look at what's happening in the world today, when you look at what Kallah Yisrael is doing today, when you see that we can raise fifty thousand dollars in twenty minutes Fifty thousand dollars in twenty minutes. You know how much light that is. You know what a change in the world was created today, and it's not just Mivaseret. I'm only saying Mivaseret because I was there and I saw with my own eyes. We hit a hundred thousand dollars. You could see the videos. A hundred thousand dollars. The guys went crazy. They were moshing outside. It was wild. A hundred thousand dollars. It was crazy. We did a hundred thousand dollars in under forty five minutes. A hundred thousand dollars under forty five minutes. It was crazy. What's the pshat? Because a Jew knows, the world is chaos, but there's Ruach Elokim. God looks at the world and He says,"Let there be light," and there was light. And then God says,"Because now there's light in the world, because there's Mashiach in the world, I can separate between the light and the darkness." Because when we separate from a light, the light from the darkness, the Jew knows how to go to the darkness and to find the light.

25:12 I want to share with you something that happened today. It was very hard for me. You know We hear We hear these numbers: three hundred thousand reserves. Three hundred thousand miluim, three hundred thousand reserve soldiers went to the front. Three hundred thousand is an abstract. Three hundred thousand is a number. Until you know somebody Until you know somebody, girls. You have to stop thinking about numbers. You have to start thinking about names of people that are doing. I know Josh. I know Josh since he was a very little boy. But Josh was a counselor working for me in camp from the time I was I think maybe twenty years old, twenty-one years old, something like that. Josh was a great counselor. I'll be honest. In the camp that I worked in, there were like a thousand kids, so there was a first grade division. Who do you give the first grade boys? You give them like the nice, soft counselors. I'm talking about like the boys come on the first day and they cry for their mommy. You don't want the macho, tough guy athlete with the first graders. You want that like soft, edel mädel type of guy who's going to be like, it's okay, come, I'm going to hold your hand and give you a juice cup. Like that. You know that type of guy.

26:38 He's like a nice guy. I say, when you date him, you go, you were probably the first grade counselor, you know that guy. Then you have second grade counselors. Second grade counselors don't have to be as sophisticated as the first grade counselors because by second grade they're already used to it. There's only the two kids that are still having a hard time. So second grade counselors are still very nice guys. Third grade already, you can have regular guys, but the hardest kids in camp are the fourth grade counselors, the fifth grade counselors, the sixth grade counselors, and especially the seventh grade counselors. Because by the time they're in eighth grade, they're CITS. Seventh graders think they run the camp. I remember how you thought at eighth grade you ran the school. Do you realize now that you didn't? Do you realize now that it was pathetic to even think that? Seventh graders think they run the school. They think they run the camp. So I was in charge of the fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade divisions. That was my division. I was the division head for those four grades. First grade had its own division. Second grade had its own division. Third grade had its own division. Fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh grade had theirs. That was mine.

27:40 Josh was a great counselor. First grade, he was with these kids. He loved these kids. I guarantee you, he gave every kid a juice skip. I'm sure he got tipped through the roof. The parents loved him. He loved his kids so much that when they moved from first grade to second grade, he went with them. Aw, y'all want to marry Josh? He's married. Stop it. Was that? It's a good question. They don't do that in Mivansar. They don't go sisters. It has a totally different connotation. But I appreciate that you say brothers. The so it's great. It's great. It's great. Second grade, he loved his kids so much he moved with them to third grade. Now he had a question. He loved his kids so much, but do I move to fourth grade? Because the fourth grade counselors are already playing ball with the kids, and especially in certain camps where they don't do training well.

28:47 You girls know the game Machanayim. So boys don't play that. We play dodgeball. The goal of dodgeball is to knock people's heads off. If you're not a great counselor and you have a big rubber ball and a tiny fourth grade kid running. That's target practice sometimes. It's like boom. He has to go to the infirmary. Forever. Like the. So Josh has a big decision. Here he is. He's the sweetest, nicest guy in the world. Do I go to fourth grade? And he told me after the summer. He goes, I'll be honest, I didn't really want to do it. Because I didn't want to be in the under you, I didn't want to be with all the more macho guys. Not my style. Like I didn't really feel like I would fit, but I loved the kids. Made the decision to come to fourth grade as a division head. What do you want? Reliable counselors. I don't need a guy who's going to knock the kids' heads off. I want a guy who's going to just be there every day, take care of business. It was a pleasure to work with Josh. I know Josh since he's born. I know him since he's a little boy. Our parents are very, very, very close friends.

29:51 He was a great counselor. He worked under me for a number of years until his guys finally got up to sixth, seventh grade, and then I couldn't keep him going anymore because by that point you needed real manly counselors to put these kids in place. So Josh had them for a long time, and he worked under our division for a very long time. Josh came to Eretz Yisrael. His parents have made aliyah. My parents have made aliyah. Our parents live in the same neighborhood. They're still very close friends. Josh went and served in the Israeli army. He was Golba. My wife went to Yesh today. Because I don't know if they're doing it or not doing it. She was trying to organize for the Shana Bet that there'll be a chalavay. Is it happening? At least it's happening. At least it's not for nothing. So we went to Yesh because we had to buy supplies.

30:40 Flour and other things that go in chala. I think I saw sugar. I just need it. I don't know how you make it. My mother sends me a message. It's a WhatsApp from Josh's mother. He called her. He got trapped. Trapped. You know you don't pick out you don't pull out your phone when When things are going well, you only pull out your phone if you're calling to say goodbye. His mother sent an urgent message: Please say till him for my son. Josh, I know Josh. Josh is not a number. He's not one. He's not ten. He's not twenty. He's not fifty. He's Josh. He's a great counselor. He was their first grade counselor. Sweetest, nicest guy in the world. I just broke down. My wife came out of Yesh with all the stuff. I was parked on the side. Sitting there crying in the middle of the street. I don't know.

31:39 Ten minutes later, WhatsApp. He made it out. It was the craziest thing. He made it out. It's not abstract. It's not abstract. In a miraculous way, whatever the story is, I don't even know the full story yet. In a miraculous way, he made it out. Crazy. The world is a chaotic place. It's not a crazy thing. That's normal. The world is normally a chaotic place. People get sick. All sorts of things happen. The question is What happens when chaos occurs? You know what his mother did? She reached out on the WhatsApp group, and everybody sent it to everybody and said, "Open your talims right now." And we did. The ruach Elokim erechefes al penei ar al mayim the eir, and the or was good. These are not abstract concepts. These are Mashiach concepts. My brother My brother, the guy that I know and the guy that I don't know The guy that I know and the guy that I don't know, Josh, but also these four hundred eighty paratroopers that I don't know any one of them. You want to hear crazy?

33:04 Four hundred eighty paratroopers. We put out which battalion it is. One of the rebayim put on his status. He's a rebbe who used to work in a different yeshiva. He put on his status. We're raising money for this battalion. And guess what? One of the members of that battalion is his talmid. It's his talmid. It happens to be of all the battalions in the Israeli army that Mevaseret could have adopted, we adopted the one that had his talmid in the battalion. He's sitting there raising money. He thinks he's raising money for a guy that he doesn't know. He's raising money for his talmid. These are people's brothers. They're their children. This is real, and you girls are getting to see it firsthand. That's a gift. That's a tremendous gift. This is not an abstract. You're here right now, and is it chaotic? We're okay. We're okay. As you see, the beginning was very scary. The dorms were an incubator of anxiety, and now you see already. It's okay. But you know what you're getting to see? You're getting to see what others have done before you.

34:09 This year you're never gonna forget. You might have come to seminary this year and been like, I don't know, is it my year? Is it not my year? How was it? You're never gonna forget this year. You're never gonna forget it because you're looking at a people right now in this land and all over the world that there's chaos. What are Jews doing? They're emptying out amazing savings. They're putting it on planes. They're getting it here. My brother-in-law is in intelligence in the army. My daughters made him cakes. They make cakes for the soldiers. They made it very cute. My daughter made brownies and she put a mug and David and chocolate on the top of the brownies and she wrote Am Yisrael Chai on top of it and it was very beautiful. They sent the cakes to my brother-in-law and he was very happy. He put them out at his base and he said people really liked it.

35:01 Yesterday morning my sister called me and she said Mordechai. Benji asked if you guys could make more cakes. Because there's not really so much available kosher food on this particular base, especially now. So the people who keep kosher like eating fruits and nuts, and it's really helpful to have these cakes that they know came from religious homes that they could eat. So I said, Becca, no problem. I called Racheli. Racheli Berg is a powerhouse of energy. She is amazingly talented at doing. Sitting still, not so much. But Baruch Hashem, in terms of doing, she's got it. She's got it like in spades. I called her up. I said, Racheli, Becca said that Benji wants more cakes. I want whatever you need to spend, spend. I want the kitchen going all day, but not just that. Get on the phone to all your friends. Get your sisters on the phone with all their friends.

35:55 By the time I came home last night at eight o'clock, I could show you the video. I'll show you after the show. I'll show you the video. We had hundreds. Hunt of cakes and cookies and snacks. It was wild. We packed my entire car. My entire car was full to the top. It took us ten trips to get all the stuff from the car down to my parents' house. My father was sitting in his house. My sister was sitting in the house, and they were crying. They were crying, "Mi kamchay Yisrael." When our brothers and sisters needed, we gave. We made so much food that they sent it to four different places. We could have had more, but we weren't taking perishable items. There were people calling up. Can we send chicken sandwiches? My mother doesn't have enough space in her fridge to put hundreds of chicken sandwiches for the soldiers.

36:42 It's unbelievable what we do. The land is crazy, but we're making it into a land that's Mashiach. That's not an abstract thing. That's a reality. It's a lesson. God says I can split the light from the darkness because I know that the Jews will know how to make the light from the darkness. That's our responsibility. You girls are privileged to be here. You're witnesses. This is not something you see on social media. It's not something you see on somebody's WhatsApp status. You're the WhatsApp status. It's a privilege to be here right now. You're learning tremendously. If we would teach you the entire year, it would be abstract. You're seeing it with your own eyes. You can get involved. I'm not saying you have to donate to the Mevaser fundraiser. I'm saying if you did, we'd probably hit two hundred thousand faster. Do something. Get involved.

37:34 It's not. You can think of creative ways. Rabbi Leo D was in yeshiva today. He said, "Become a spokesperson for Klal Yisrael." You all have WhatsApp statuses. Y'all. I assume most of you have WhatsApp status. Some of you don't, but most of you do. Y'all have some way to communicate. Go do something. Post something. Show them. Show them what it's like over here in Eretz Yisrael. Show them that we know how to be okay even when things aren't okay. Show them that no matter how much our enemies engage evil and do horrific things, you can't stop Klal Yisrael from giving out candy and cakes and cookies. They give out candy and cakes and cookies for committing atrocities and war crimes. We give out cakes and cookies for defending our right to this land. This is the land of our forefathers. That's not an abstract. When Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Avram Vineulechlocha me'artzcha milatcha be'savicha el ha'aretz asher eko, girls, up until now you thought Israel was a tourist destination. It was an abstract reality. You come to the kotel for your bat mitzvah. It's like coming to Cinderella's castle in Disney. You go to Kever Rachel. It's like going to the teacups. You go to Chevron. It's a small world after all.

38:40 You think you're coming on a tourist destination. What'd you do? We took a tour. We went jeeping in the Golan. You go jeeping in the Golan. You're walking in the same path that Avram Yitzchak and Yaakov walked. That's not abstract. That's a reality. It's a reality, but you know what? Most of us would have gone through this year, and the Shana Bet girls will tell you, it was very nice. It was abstract. Would you want to live in Israel? I don't know. Maybe. It was simpler. I liked parts of Sanhedria Mochevet. Maybe I'll come for a Shvat year for the first two years of my marriage and live in Haran, have my thousand dollar strollers. And come home after a couple of years. I miss my Mishpacha magazines back in America. No. No This is your land. You're not Americans. You're not Canadians. You're not British. You're not Russian. You're not Ukrainian. You're Jews. Those are citizenships. It doesn't matter what passport you hold.

39:40 You're a Jew. This is your land. It's real. It's not abstract. It's not. These are not abstract concepts. The Torah is meant to change us as people. It's meant to change the world to make the world a more godly place. Barishis bar lo kimas Hashemayim v'esarit. The first thing the Torah teaches: God created the world. The world is chaos. Go make it a place of light. That's our responsibility right now. There's a tremendous amount of darkness. That means there's a tremendous amount of raw material to make light. Mashiach is coming. The only question is: Will you be a participant in making this world a place where Mashiach will feel comfortable? Did you finish? See the video.