Beshalach - Healthy Attachment to Hashem

2:17 Because the prince was in my home, the king wrote me letters. And he took a real interest in what was happening in my home. But now that the prince is leaving, the king isn't going to write me letters anymore. So I'm very sad that the king is no longer interested in me, and that's why I cry out. And this is what Paro is expressing. As long as Klali Yisrael was in Mitzrayim, Hakadosh Baruch Hu was sending Paro messages. Please send my children home, and Paro ignored those messages. And now that Klal Yisrael is leaving Mitzrayim, what Paro has said about Hashem is not going to pay attention to me anymore. Now there is a great giant meatball of a problem with this medrash Which all of you are thinking about. The problem with this medrash is What were the messages that Hakadosh Baruch Hu was sending to Paro to say, 'Please send my children home'? The Makos. It's one thing to ignore a letter.

3:22 I ignore WhatsApps all the time. I ignore emails all the time. You can ignore a letter. To ignore the makos, if somebody comes over to you, imagine the following scenario. Here in Talmud Torah, I'm sure it would never happen. You're walking in the hall, and a girl comes over. She whacks you in the face. What'd you do that for? She whacks you again. She whacks you ten times. Boom! You slap you ten times in the face, and then at the end you cry and you go, "Why?" "She doesn't care about me anymore." She doesn't care. She didn't care about you in the first place. You're clearly not important. She smacked you in the face. So ena kanami. Now there's no more patches because you gave up what the king needed. But the Rebbeinu Sholm never really cared about you to begin with, so I understand you're upset that the makos stopped. You should be thanking Hakadosh Baruch Hu that the makos stopped. If I was Paro Hashem, I think I'm not, but I'm saying if I was Paro, I imagine that I'd be sitting there going, 'Get out!'

4:31 I don't need this anymore. In business, there's a phrase: 'You don't want to invest good money after bad.' It means if you keep putting money into a project and the money keeps getting lost because the project just isn't working, at some point it's not worth it to fund the project anymore. It was a good idea. Let's make all of Israel slaves in Mitzrayim. Let's throw immeasurable amounts of human suffering at a problem, and let's see a society that we could build. That's the way the world works. We took the Chinese people, we brought them to America, we put them in deplorable conditions, and we said, 'Build a railroad across America.' These people were dying left and right as they were dynamiting the mountains. But you can do unbelievable things with slavery, except for the fact that it's absolutely evil to do. You can do unbelievable things with human suffering. But obviously it didn't work. God came and He said, 'No, you're not going to do that to my children anymore.' Beseder, I'm going to stop.

5:22 It took me a minute to get the message. Sometimes that happens. We're slow learners. But at the end, Beseder, they're leaving. No more patches. Paro is crying. Paro should be jumping for joy. And yet the Medrash tells us he's crying. What's the pshat? So I want to share with you. We're going to hit pause on this for a second. I want to share with you something that's fundamental. What does it mean to exist? What does it mean to be? What is this concept of I exist? There are two types of existence. There is There is what we'll call measurable existence. And then there's relationship existence. There is a major difference between measurable existence and relationship existence. If you exist in the world of measurable, that means that what you are is an object. If you just exist because you exist, somebody could measure you. You are an object. So if you are sitting here in Talmud Torah and a girl pulls out one of those giant measuring sticks And she comes over to you and she goes Five foot six.

6:42 That's very weird. Why is she doing that? And why don't we do that? Because we do measure things all the time. Maybe you're moving into a room. You measure the bed. I measure the door frame. I want to see if this bed will fit. Will this desk fit? We measure things all the time. How come we don't measure people? Doctors measure people. You know why doctors measure people? Because they treat you like an object. I don't mean to suggest that doctors are bad people, Chassidishon. But in that office, you know what you are? You're an object to be cured. That's what you are. You have this symptom. We're going to give you this medicine. That's the nature of medicine today. You're an object. I'm going to measure you. Are you growing fast enough? Are you tall enough in the Jewish world to be considered tall? Five foot six. And if you're taller than that, you have shadchan problems because now you have to marry a giant who's five foot nine.

7:34 A chaver of mine in yeshiva was like six foot six, and he only got set up with enormously tall girls because all the shadchanim were like, "We've got to find somebody for these girls." And I remember he came to yeshiva one day. He was so frustrated because he was getting set up with girls that were completely not shyek for him, and he's like, "I'm not trying to breed giants. I just want to meet a nice girl." I hear you, man. That is a tough draw. That's a tough draw. A rock exists because it exists. That's the only reason a rock exists. A human being exists in two ways. Number one You're an object. Number two, you're a subject. You are. There are times when you are an object. There are times when we could just measure the amount of existence you take up. How many spaces do we have for girls in Talmud Torah? How many beds do we need?

8:31 But you are being. Is not measurable. In relationships, you don't exist as an object; you exist as a someone. And if you exist as an object in a relationship, it's deeply uncomfortable. One of my favorite stories is a story with the Klozenberger Rebbe. I think it was the Klozenberger Rebbe when the Klozenberger Rebbe was sick. So he was in the hospital, and somebody called the Klozenberger Rebbe, a known gadol. To say, can I come visit? And the Kloisenberger Rebbe said, please don't come visit. I don't have enough kolach right now to have visitors. But this big person, he wanted to come visit because he said, on biyotze the mitzvah bikercholim, and really maybe the Kloisenberger Rebbe is just being humble and really he wants me to come visit. So he went to the hospital and he comes to visit. And when he got there, the gabayim said the Kloisenberger Rebbe said, please don't come in.

9:28 I really need my time to recuperate. I can't be having visitors right now. But this person pushed his way through, and now he's going to be yotze the mitzvah of bikkur cholim. This joke makes more sense for boys who understand certain terminologies in yeshiva. There's a concept called cheftzagavra. Cheftzah means an object, gavra means a person. It's a famous lamedishah terminology. It's a terminology that sometimes boys will use when they're learning gemara. A cheftzagavra, object and person. So this person walks into the room. He's a big, Litvish person, and he sees the Kleisenberger Rebbe, and the Kleisenberger Rebbe is there, and he had asked them not to come, and the Gabbaim asked them not to come in, and he's there, and he's going to be yotzei the mitzvah of bikur cholim. The Kleisenberger Rebbe turned him and he said, "I know that in yeshivas they use the term cheftza gavra."

10:14 Please don't turn this gavra into your cheftza shal mitzvah. Please don't make me a person become an object. There are times in life, even when we're l'shem shamayim. We say, no, I want to. I want to do a mitzvah. There's a person there. A person. Don't treat people like objects. What does it mean to be in a relationship? What does it mean to exist in a relationship? It means my existence is meaningful. My existence is recognizable. Those are the two things that we give somebody when they're in a relationship. We say you are meaningful to me. And I see you. You're recognizable. I see you. You make you important to me. You count. You're of value. That's the gift that we give people. Now the thing is If you're just a measurable existence, there's nothing fragile about that. That's kind of easy. This eraser exists. There's nothing vulnerable about existing.

11:19 But if you are in a relationship, now we have to talk about vulnerability. Because if my existence is dependent on relationships, what's the vulnerability? You might not hold me And it might be really important to be held. There's nothing wrong with that. That's actually deeply healthy. It's called attachment. When we're parents, what do we want to give to our children? We take them to the doctor so they can get weighed and measured. But at home we don't weigh and measure our children. What do we do? We tell our children, "You matter. You count. I see you. You're important to me." What's the single worst message we can give to our children? The thing that, above all, will crush our children? I'm too busy for you. I can't see your pain. You don't really count. I get frustrated when you don't perform. I need to let you know that your value to me is as a performer. You're hurting my legacy by being the way that you are. What's the message that the child takes in from that? The message the child takes in is, I'm not really loved.

12:30 Many, many years ago, there was a very important article that came out in Mishpacha magazine. I'm from Eretz Israel. We call it Mishpacha magazine. You are from Muncie. We call it Mishpacha magazine. There was an article that came out in Mishpacha magazine. If you have a child that's going off the derech And that child is having a negative influence on other kids in the home. Should you throw that kid out of the house? There was an article that was written that said yes. And Rabbi Bender from Darche wrote a scathing article in response, which is why you're all saying no because you're born on top of the mountain because Rabbi Bender already clarified our Ashkafas for us. And he said, 'Absolutely not. We don't throw our children out of the home.' You're going to say, 'But maybe this kid is going to have a negative impact on the other kids.' Listen, what Rabbi Benzer said: the single greatest message that you could send to your other children is, 'No matter what you do' You will always have a place in this home.

13:36 And sending the message to your children that if you are not behaving in the way I want you to behave, you don't have a place in this home is a way of saying. My love for you is conditional. The greatest threat to your children is not the brother or sister who's going off the derech. It's the parents who communicate to their children. You're not really counting here. You're not really meaningful here. You're only as meaningful as your production. That's a horrific message to send to a child because a human being is not an object. A human being is a person, and a person needs to be loved into being. And every single one of you, whether you realize this or not, every single one of you was loved into being. In fact, if I asked you right now to take a moment and just think, if you had to make a list, without again without thinking too deeply, who are the people that come into your head when you say, 'Who loved me into being? Whose voice do I carry within me?' Because every one of us— I don't know if you realize this or not—every one of us carries a voice inside of us.

14:33 When you do vulnerable things, you're not drawing from your own power, girls. You're drawing from the power of those people that loved you into being. When you say, "I can do this," whose voice is that? Whose voice was it before you adopted it and made it your own? Was it a grandparent, a parent A teacher, a principal, a counselor, a head counselor, a division head? Everybody in this world was loved into being. That's why we remember, especially when we're younger. We remember the people that gave us that unconditional positive regard. I'll share with you. I should express my akhar satov to them more often. I had a tough go of it in elementary school. I was expelled from school in fifth grade. In sixth grade, I came home from Yeshiva Darche Torah. I had a wonderful, wonderful rebbe. I came home for the first time in my life at the end of the year with straight olives on my report card.

15:30 In my life, I had never gotten that. I was shocked. You straight olives? I knew that I had done better. Straight olives? I was like, that's crazy. I'm not a straight olive student. So proud! I came home. I told my parents, because I'm the type of kid that has to explain their report card. You know that move? Like when you walk in the door and you go, okay, before you see this Let me give you some context. I'm a guy who needs context. I came home. I took my report card out of my pocket. I gave it to my mom. Mom, check it out. I got straight A's. My mother's like, you got straight A's, and she was shocked. I thought there's no way I actually. And I'm telling you, I was a different human being after that. Because I had a rebbe who gave me straight olives. Many years later, I saw him at a chasna, and I went over to this rebbe and said, "I just want you to know" When you gave me straight olives at the end of sixth grade You really changed the trajectory of my life.

16:29 And he said to me "I gave everyone straight olives, and I went completely off the derech." I was like, it's wild. It was such a good move on his part. It was such a good move. Again, I don't know if it's true or not. Because not everybody said I got straight olives, but I felt like a million bucks. And he did, I guess to some degree, he said you should end off the year feeling good about yourself. He gave me straight olives. It wasn't true. I didn't deserve straight olives. I was shocked by it. I came home. I showed my mother. My mother was proud of me. I still remember the good feeling that I have until today. My grandmother, Ela Shalom, was definitely a person who loved me into being. My grandmother was the sweetest, kindest, nicest person I've ever met in my entire life. She didn't have a negative word for anybody. If my brothers and I were tearing through her apartment, knocking stuff off the walls, absolutely not listening to her after ten times The nastiest thing my grandmother could say to us was Now, boys, simmer down Simmer down. That's the angriest I ever heard her.

17:36 And I promise you, we were kids who absolutely should have gotten a lot more than simmer down. But because she never spoke to me with anything other than love I still feel it today. You go out on a first date. What gives you the ability to walk into that first date, sit down, and say, 'He named me. This is me.' That didn't. That voice didn't come from you. You were loved into being. That's called healthy attachment. Your avoda is to call up that voice, to really recognize it, and to realize. Whoa! It was the attachment that gave me life. That's where your entire life comes from. We think attachment is like a need, like food. No. Attachment's not a need like food. Attachment is the womb where you were born. Just because you exist in this world doesn't mean you will have a sense of self. You were born, you existed, and from the moment you existed, your mother held you.

18:31 By the way, we know that today to be true. What's the first thing we do when a child is born? We give it to the mother to hold her and have that contact, because that skin-to-skin connection that a mother has with the child literally gives that child a feeling of safety in the most traumatic moment of birth. I do something, someone responds, therefore I exist. That's how we human beings live. Which means a very powerful thing. If attachment is the womb where myself is born, then sometimes even negative attention is meaningful. And we are willing, often in life, if we feel a lack of attention We're willing because we need attachment so badly. We don't even care to get in trouble. At least you're paying attention to me. Sometimes when a kid is misbehaving. We punish them for misbehaving. But maybe they're misbehaving so that we can punish them.

19:35 So it's an amazing thing. There's a kid who's acting out. Do you realize we use the term acting out? What does acting out mean? When you ever play charades. You do the thing. What are you doing? You're acting out. Why are you acting out? Because in charades, you don't have language to be able to express. I want to communicate to you without words. You know when a child acts out. You know what they're doing? They're saying I don't know how to tell you this but I can act it out. And who do I choose to act it out to? To you. You know what that really means? You're important to me. So when a child is acting out towards a parent, and a parent's response is to punish the child, that's the parent not hearing the message. The child is communicating because so often you know what the child is saying. I don't feel deeply attached to you.

20:25 And it's better for me to get in trouble from you than for you to do nothing to me. That's the story of the Nachash Khamoni. The Nachash Khamoni was like Hashem Baruch Hu say, you have food everywhere. You will live off the dirt. You know what that means? Don't come crying to me for food. You have all the food you need. You know what the pain of the Nachashes? I don't matter to you anymore. Because if I don't need you for anything, then we don't really have a relationship. Needing someone is very deep. It doesn't mean you're a needy person because you need someone. Imagine a child who goes like this: "I don't need any friends." That's not healthy. Healthy people say, 'I deeply need you,' not because I'm pathetic without you, but because that's what it means to live. The reason we date. The reason we get married. I want to be in relationships. I want to exist. Not just as an object. I want to exist as a someone. And when couples fight with each other? Often they're saying without having the words to express it.

21:19 At least if we're fighting, we still matter to each other. Because in the absence of the words that we really want to say, which is the deepest thing in the world, which is you're the most important person in the world. But because life got busy and we got caught up in an unhealthy cycle and it was toxic, and so instead the words we say are 'I hate you.' Instead, the words are: "You're never enough." But what we mean underneath that charade, when we're acting out, is that you're the most important person in my life. And in the absence of that attachment, even negative attention is meaningful. Maybe Paro wasn't evil. He did evil things, no doubt about it. But maybe Paro, in his core Maybe he wasn't evil. Maybe he was resisting Hashem because that was the only way he knew how to get attention. Because sometimes you can build your identity in "I don't believe in God." As long as you keep saying I don't believe in God, what keeps happening?

22:13 I'll keep getting that poch as long as I keep getting that poch. Then maybe I actually feel like a somebody. I matter enough that a Kadosh Baruch Hu fights with me. I imagine that's why Paro didn't give in right away. Paro comes along and he gets that first poch. Dom, boom, smacks him across the face, and Paro goes, oh. He turns to all the mitzvahs and he goes, do you see this? It's me versus Hashem. That's awesome. That means who am I? My identity is I'm the one who stands opposed to Hashem. I matter to God enough to fight with Him. You should know if a guy says to me, "I hate Hashem," it doesn't bother me at all. Say there, hate is just the flip side of love. Hate means you really love. When a guy says, "I nothing Hashem," I feel nothing. That's when you nothing.

23:00 Paro didn't nothing Hashem. Paro was at war with God. These are God's people. I'm going to enslave God's people. And for 210 years, he walked around in Eretz Yisrael doing. He said, "God's people" My people. I don't even know this Hashem that they dive into. I'm the man. Now God comes on the scene, and Paro goes, "Okay, at least now it's a fight." His identity is still intact. His attachment to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is negative attention. So every time Paro got a makor, he didn't change. Paro got a makah because he said it didn't. It didn't affect him. You know why it didn't affect him? Because he said, "At least I'm worthy enough to fight with." That's Paro's narcissism. Paro's not interested in Klal Yisrael. Doesn't care about Klal Yisrael. Paro's not interested in relationships. Paro's not interested in relationships. You know what Paro is deeply interested in?

23:51 Pay attention to me. Pay attention to me. That's the single most dangerous part about Paro. Pairo doesn't care. Listen to the words of the madras. What do the words of the madras say? Does the wealthy man care about the prince? No. The wealthy man cares that the king sends him letters. There are people that exist in relationships. But they're not really in relationships. They're just in relationships for the way that you make me feel. And by the way, people say this out loud and don't even realize that that's what they're saying. They don't even realize that what they're saying and they're saying it out loud. When I'm with her, I just feel like a million dollars. I'm glad she exists so you can feel good about yourself. Your kids are not nachas machines. Your husband is not there to make you feel good about yourself.

24:41 Paro's not interested in a relationship with Klal Yisrael. He enslaves Klal Yisrael because that's his yachas to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And now that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is taking out Klal Yisrael, what's the feeling? Now that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is taking out Klal Yisrael, what's the feeling that Paro has? The feeling that Paro has is now I'm in nothing. Now I have no identity whatsoever. When does Paro do tshuva? Anybody know? Perkei Rabbi Elazar. Perkei Rabbi Elazar says he's standing at the Yam Sup. Everybody's dying. Perkei Rabbi Elazar says Hakadosh Baruch Hu pulled Paro out from among the dead. He pulled him out from among the dead. And then you know who Parol became, the Melach of Nineveh. And many years later, what happened? Yonah Hanavi refuses. He's running away from Hakadosh Baruch Hu because he says, if I go to Nineveh and tell them to do tshuva, of course they're going to do tshuva. Why? You know who the Melach of Nineveh was? It was Parol. And you know what Parol is going to come do? He's going to tell everybody in Nineveh, you better do tshuva. I've been down this road before. If your only attachment to Hakadosh Baruch Hu is negative, I promise you, it's not worth it.

25:52 How did Paro become the Paro that becomes the Paro of Tshuva? How did Paro become the Paro that becomes the Paro of Tshuva? Because Hakadosh Baruch Hu pulled him out from among all the dead. When everybody else was dying, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Paro You matter. You're important. You have a service that you can provide in this world. You are a Melech. Just don't be a Melech to me to Mitzrayim. Be a Melech to Nivei. Turn people around. Tell them what healthy attachment looks like. The shift comes when everybody else is dying, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'You're important.' And then he's not Paro anymore. He's the Melech of Nivei who convinces everybody else to do tshuva. If we really want to make a deep impact in this world This is the work that the entire world needs to be doing right now. And that's why, Baruch Hashem, we have so much to talk about. Klal Yisrael is. We've known these concepts well before the psychological world came up with the word attachment. We knew these concepts, and there are wonderful books being written today about attachment. My good friend Rivka of Danishevsky wrote a book. I imagine some of you have read it called "Attached," a very meaningful book about how to build a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, seeing this, seeing our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu through the lens of attachment psychology.

27:14 If we really want to make a deep impact on the world. We have to start living this way. Hakadosh Baruch Hu chooses me to be a person in this world. I matter, I count. And then we have to give that gift to others. You matter, you count, you're valuable, and you'll see it will spread so fast. You matter, you're meaningful. Watch how people transform their lives from being the Melech of the Tzitzitreiim to the Melech of the Niveiim. Girls have a beautiful Shabbos.