Beshalach - Remembering Amalek

2:03 Vayomru lehem Moshe, matiriv oni madi, matanasunos Hashem. So Moshe Abinu said Moshe Abinu, what are you talking to me about this? This is not my Asekh. I don't magically make water appear. This is clearly a test that's coming from Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Vayitzma sham ha'am la'mayim, vayol na'am el Moshe, vayomer lama zeh li'sanu mi'Mitzrayim? Lahames is big, lahames osi, v'ez banai, v'ez mikne b'tzama. The people there were so thirsty for water, and they complained to Moshe Abinah, and they said, "You brought us out of Egypt, why? So that my children and my livestock will ultimately die of thirst?" It's a very strange thing. Already, just listening to the story, it's a very strange thing. Here, Klal Yisrael has seen Eser Makus. Kalah Yisrael has seen the splitting of the sea. And they were slaves, tortured in Egypt for two hundred and ten years, and they're saying to Moshe Rabbeinu a very big thing.

3:04 You brought us here to die. It's a very big thing that they're saying. The Torah doesn't talk about things that aren't intelligent. There's something going on over here. Normally, if a. If a dog barks, you don't bark back, right? Same if your five-year-old is crying to you and saying, 'I want to go home.' Parents might talk to the child in that moment, but it's certainly not a conversation that you're going to recall fifteen or twenty years later when you're talking to your child. Every word of the Torah is exceptionally precious. If the Torah is telling us this conversation, it means there's a depth to this conversation that needs to be understood. This seems like a very strange thing that Chava Yisrael is saying. You brought us to the midbar for us. For our children, for our livestock to die of thirst. It's important for us to know.

3:58 What's Moshe Rabbeinu's response? What do I do with this people? You should. I'm on the verge of death. They're going to rebel against me. They're going to kill me. Meaning this taina that they have on Moshe Rabbeinu. It's not stam. A taina that they have—it's to the degree that they're about to kill Moshe Rabbeinu. If Moshe Rabbeinu said it, he's not exaggerating. This is not poetic license. A leader in that position is in a very dangerous position. The entire nation—if they really feel like they're about to die of thirst—what could a person do under those conditions? It's like Lamashel. Anyone here a lifeguard? Wow. I know I understood Los Angeles has no water. But I didn't realize nobody knew how to swim. When you're a lifeguard, they teach you a phrase called "reach and throw, but don't go." If somebody's drowning, you can reach out to them. If you're standing on the side and you have something to hold on to, you could throw them some sort of flotation device to help them. But don't go. You only go to rescue them if you absolutely have to. Why? It's dangerous. A drowning man is a dangerous thing. Because if he feels like he can't get any air and you're near him, what's he going to do? He's going to push you down so that he can get that breath of air.

5:18 Klal Yisrael is not joking when they say we're on the verge of dying of thirst. They could kill a Meishavenu, and this is what Meishavenu says to Hashem. He says, 'I don't know what to do. These people are about to kill me.' So Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells meishavenu. To go with the Ziknei Yisrael, take the staff that you struck the Nile River with. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu said there's going to be a rock, and hit the rock, and water is going to come out of the rock, and the people are going to drink, and that's exactly what Meisher Abenu did. This is not to be confused with the story later on where Meisher Abenu hit the rock. That time it was inappropriate. This time it was appropriate. Why? It's a She'er for a different time. So now, Klal Yisrael has what to drink. Listen, what Moshe Rabbeinu does? Vayikra she'ma makom. Moshe Rabbeinu is about to name the place. This is like a thing that happens on Cholimish. They name places. I don't think we name places anymore.

6:22 We don't really name places anymore. Maybe we do. Now there's like a site of the Nova Festival. That's the name of a place. We don't do it often. From the valley, from Farakwe, from Lawrence. Places have names. VeYikrashem Amakom Masa Umeriva Auliv Bnei Yisrael V'Anasosam As Hashem Lemer Hayish Hashem BeKerbenu Emayim. Moshe Abinu names the place Masa and Meriva, testing and quarrelling. Why? Because Klal Yisrael quarrelled and tested Hashem in this place. And what did they say? This is a wild thing. They wanted to know, "Hayesh Hashem bekerbenu imayim," is Hashem with us or not? In other words The danger was so extreme. Klau Yisro was in such a serious state of an impoverished mentality that the question wasn't only against Meisher Abenu, 'I have to kill Meisher Abenu.' The question was, 'Is there a God?' We asked the question before: How could Klal Yisrael have gotten to such a state? Where was their emuna? They saw Kriyas Yam Suf. They saw the man. They saw the Eser Makos. They're literally questioning Hashem Himself: Is Hashem with us or not? That's a wild thing for a person to say. It sometimes happens.

7:54 It sometimes happens that children get upset at parents. I want to share with you, if you're not yet a parent, but as Hashem, you will be b'karov. It's very frustrating as a parent when you do everything for your children. Everything. A parent does everything for their child. And then what does a kid do? Not because they're bad, but because they're 16. It's a very specific age. Because they're 16, they go like, 'What do you even do for me?' Do you know what that's like? You know what that's like for a parent. Do you know the level of frustration that a parent has? What do I do for you? Like a daughter who says to her father, 'You're never home. Where do you think I am?' When you insert that little plastic card into that machine, when you tap it, do you think it's magic? It's not magic. I'm slaving all day so that when you tap that machine to get that dress that you don't need, and you're turning around and go Abba, you're not there for me enough.

8:54 How could it be that Klal Yisrael saw? And that the Torah takes it seriously to relate to us that Klal Yisrael, who saw the Eser Makos, who saw Kriyas Yam Suf, could possibly say that Hashem abandoned us. You mean that Hashem abandoned you? What happened to all the love? What happened to all the Ahava that you saw? Because in a moment of weakness Where you were thirsty, which Ein Channami is a serious thing, but it leads us to a place that we have to ask ourselves if Hashem is still in our midst. It's a very wild thing. You see now why I wanted to go through the Pesukim. The story, the details of the story, are very important, and then the story culminates. Va'yavo Amalek. This is the part that people know. Now Amalek comes. Va'ilachem Yisrael berefidem. Now we understand that Amalek came in this moment.

9:40 So we have to ask ourselves What happened? What happened here? Klal Yisrael got to a stage. It was dangerous. We can probably close the door. The thank you. Oh wow, ma'am, outside. The Klal Yisrael got to a stage where they were so disconnected, they were living in so much fear that they attacked Moshe Rabenu. Questioned Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not an accident that at the end of this story we see a Malach, but that jump needs to be unpacked. And what does it mean for us that a person gets to a stage? Where there's an impoverished mentality, there's something that I'm lacking. I lash out. I lash out at people, at places, at things. And something happens. We manifest realities, right? It's not an accident that certain realities come our way when we're in a certain place. It's not an accident at all. We see this very often when it comes to dating. There's a fear that exists in dating, the fear that I'm never going to get married.

10:56 And dating from that place of fear is not a place that manifests a relationship. It's not a place. There's no that's not an attractive. I don't mean attractive in the physical sense. I mean that's not an attractive like life has like a magnetic pull, right? There are people that they cut they show up to life with the expectation that positive good things will happen, and then positive good things happen. Doesn't mean that bad things don't happen to them, but even the way they narrate those things, right? There's a certain positivity. They're able to see the godliness in really difficult times. So they attract certain things. If Klali Yisrael attracts a Malach That's a very serious thing. That might be the most serious thing. If you've done something that attracts a Malach into your life, we need to know exactly what it is that Klal Yisrael did, because in our own lives we're attracting certain things, and we're attracting perhaps even Amalekite things into our lives. So that's our first question.

11:55 Aside from the fact that it seems absurd that Klal Yisrael could even reach this level, what exactly happened that they attracted Amalek into their life? I want to jump ahead. I want to jump ahead many parshiyos all the way to Devarim. And I want to just talk about before we get to the depth of the question. I want to talk about the antidote to Amalek Because we have to do two parts in this year. First, we have to understand what it is that brings Amalek into our lives. And we have to understand how that Amalekite manifests itself. But then also we have to look at what the cure is. When we do attract Chas v'Shalom Amalek into our life, how do we respond to it? So Moshe Rabbeinu in Devarim says, we all know these pesukim. Zachar es Asher Asol Lcha Amalek B'Derech B'Tzeischem E'Mitzrayim. Remember what Amalek did to you on the way when you were leaving Mitzrayim.

12:47 Asher Karcha B'Derech, how he jumped on you when you were on the way. I'm getting old. It's a new thing I have to do. You reach a certain stage. I saw my parents do it. And I remember thinking it's a very old thing to do. Now I'm a grandfather twice. Baruch Hashem, and I've reached a stage where I have to see the words with my glasses off. There's a vulnerability here. I hope that you're coming along with this. It's group therapy. You're you're with me on this now, I'm gonna regret saying that. There's a level of elderly that I'm not even close to. This should be a long time from now. The yizaniv b'cha kol hanecha shalom acharecha. And he cut off all the stragglers at the rear. That's going to be important. That's why Malik attacks. Malik attacks the people that are at the back.

13:42 The ata ayefi agaya v'lo yarelokim. When you were faint and weary, when you were tired, and you were not fearing God. It's interesting how Meishavenu describes it. Meishavenu describes that time back in Rafidim when Malik attacked you. You were in a very tired state. It's interesting. He doesn't say you were in a very thirsty state. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, when you're finally going to have a respite from all of your enemies And you're going to be in Eretz Yisrael, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu is going to give you Eretz Yisrael as an inheritance; it's your land. Don't forget. You have a mitzvah to obliterate a malek from mitakas hashemayim, from the entire world. They're gone. You have to obliterate a malek. Don't forget, lo tishkach. Don't forget, you have a mitzvah of remembering to destroy a malek. So we have to understand exactly what the nature of a malek is, how we attract a malek into our lives, and what is this notion of remembering a malek and obliterating a malek. One last thing that I want to share with you that I know everybody here knows. This is not a chiddush at all.

15:03 This is all just setting us up for the work. Everyone knows the medrash. You probably knew this medrash from the time you were a fetus. Today it's like you probably think it's psukim and chumash. It's hard to know when your teachers are saying something. You learned it when you were young. You, I think it's a medrash. That's a pasuk. When you look at you, you're like, isn't that a pasuk? That's a medrash. Right. You have to know the difference between a medrash and a pasuk. So we all know. Chazal tell us what is Amalek compared to? Amalek is compared to a boiling bathtub, and they jump in. And even though they hurt themselves by jumping into the boiling bathtub, they also cool off the bathtub. So too, when Klal Yisrael came out of Mitzrayim, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu had Kriyas Yam Suf and drowned all of the Egyptians, and the entire world was terrified of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, terrified of Klal Yisrael, in the sense that it was obvious that Hashem was with us. So Amalek came and challenged them, and even though he was punished for that, even though Amalek is going to receive sort of the jumping into the bathtub and cooling off the water

16:01 Which is going to hurt Amalek, but in a certain sense, the awe of the nations of the world lessened. It's like let's say there, Klal Yisrael is not invincible. You could attack them. It brought our stature down a notch. We grew up with this, but we have to understand what's the inner meaning of this medrash. It can't just be the same. It can't be the same medrash that we learned. There's a depth to this medrash that needs to be unpacked. Now we can start. Now that we have all the questions, we can start to get a little bit into the work. So the work is as follows. We know that the Baal HaGolah says that in every single generation, a person has to see himself as if he's coming out of Mitzrayim. That's what we do on the night of the Seder. It's machlokus between the Rambam and others. The Rambam says that we have to act as if we're coming out of Mitzrayim, but the Rishonim outside of the Rambam say no. It's not just lahharos, but it's liros. Not just to act as if you're coming out of Mitzrayim, but seriously to see yourself as coming out of Mitzrayim.

17:03 The Balechasidus explain, and I think it could be true even according to the Rambam. That a person is constantly coming. In life, to a state where they're leaving Mitzrayim That there's a perennial movement in this world That a person is always and forever in a state of leaving Mitzrayim. It's not an obvious thing to be able to leave Mitzrayim. When the Rambam says that on the night of the Seder we have a chiyuv to demonstrate as if we're leaving Mitzrayim, even the Rambam one could argue that a person is demonstrating that in order to cultivate the feelings. It's that phrase, act as if. So you're cultivating that environment inside of yourself where you're bringing out this idea that I'm leaving. I'm leaving my mitzrayim. Shaili is what does it mean to leave mitzrayim? So this is a very big thing. It's not a small thing at all. But in order to get to Amalek, we need to understand this.

18:06 Paro is the same letters as Oref. Which means the nape of the neck. That's the back of your neck. It's a mitzrayim. It's a very narrow area. The back of your neck is a very narrow area. That narrowness of that area of the back of your neck That constricted area, in Hasidic terminology and psychological terms, what it means to say is that we are not always in a state where our intellect rules over our emotions. I just want to be clear what I mean by that. That a person should be intellectual about their emotions. Emotions are emotions. Intellect is intellect. But the emotions need to be guided by the intellect. Today, there's a distorted notion that exists in the world that every emotion you have is beautiful. Every emotion you have is an emotion. But just because you have an emotion doesn't mean I know this might upset certain people. Let me get the sentence out before you get upset at me for saying it. I know the audience that I'm speaking to. I'm sure you're not like this, but your species is like this. Every emotion, my species is different, but every emotion on some level is meant to be ruled by the intellect in the sense that it's an emotion.

19:30 It's real. It's real as an emotion is, but it's not more real than that. Just because I feel a certain way about something does not mean that it's true. It's the truth of that emotion. Which gives us insight into the truth of the way we are feeling at this moment, which is valid. So consider yourself validated. If you're looking for someone in your life to say, "I see that you're going through this and it's valid" The reason why men are afraid of validating is because they think that validation means that I'm telling you that the thing that you're experiencing is true. I know you're looking at me going, but it is. There are different levels of truth. The emotion you're feeling is the emotional reality you're having in this moment. That reality is true. The reality that's larger than your experience in this moment is not necessarily true.

20:27 That's why that hair's breadth of a difference. When we have an emotion, of course that emotion is true, but it's true in the personal sense that I'm feeling something right now. It's not true in the capital T true sense of the word. A person, the martial, and this is where it goes from appropriate to inappropriate. A person is allowed to be angry at their spouse. There's nothing wrong with being angry. Angry is a beautiful emotion. Angry means that there's something in this relationship that's blocking me from being close to you, and what I desire is to be close to you. So there's not anger is a beautiful emotion. I'm not talking about rage. Anger is a beautiful emotion And yet that doesn't give you license to pour out your anger on your husband. What's the difference? The difference is that on a micro level, that emotion is true.

21:23 On a macro level, that emotion is not true. It doesn't align itself with the capital T truth. Every story is more complex than the story you're telling yourself in this moment, which is engendering that feeling. And the raya is that your husband has a completely different story about the same exact set of facts, which is driving him crazy about you. That's the challenge of marriage: two people with two completely different stories about the same set of facts. A person has an emotion and says, 'What do you mean? My emotion is valid. Am I not allowed to pour it out on you?' The answer is no. You're not allowed to. You're not allowed to. Why? Because there's a larger truth here that needs to be understood. So two things can be true at once. I can have an emotional reality that's mine, that belongs to me. It's beautiful. It needs to be tended to. It's valid.

22:15 But there's a higher emotional reality where my emotion is guided by the intellect. Where I know that this emotion in this moment is just one dimension of a much larger truth, and the larger truth has to guide my emotion. Does that make sense? Let's take it on a very practical level. But for children, it'll make it easier for us because we feel like we won't be talking about ourselves. So we'll talk about a six-year-old. It makes it much easier because then it's not uncomfortable to know that we do the same exact thing. When a six-year-old is having an emotion, she took my toy. Is that true? It's true that a six-year-old is upset in that moment. But it's a truth that we would want to teach our children that sharing is part of being a good friend, or that being upset when your friend takes a toy is an important part of being a friend. Or learning how to say no, this is my toy right now, and creating healthy boundaries. There's a truth that a child simply can't have

23:19 And that's why we basically tell children we'll negotiate it for you. When you walk in and your five year old is hitting another child with a toy over the head, you're gonna have the toy from now until now, and then she's gonna have the toy afterwards because the kid doesn't know how to negotiate that. But if a 16-year-old does that, if you walk into your basement where your 16-year-old daughter is hanging out with her friend and she's beating her friend over the head with a toy, then you need a team of therapists to understand what went wrong somewhere along the way. There's a larger truth that we expect the mature person to be able to live with. Mitzrayim means my intellect. Does not rule over my emotion. Why? Because my ego, my self-interest Rationalizes so deeply that I'm no longer able to perceive the truth.

24:17 I'll say it again. I want to make sure everybody gets this. Is the critical part. Truth will always win. The truth will always win. Once a person comes to a state of awareness of the truth, what happens naturally? If a person knows something to be true, if they're able to incorporate a larger truth, it naturally calms the emotions. It naturally brings the emotions under their guidance. Mitzrayim means that the strait is so narrow. That part of your neck, that paro part of your neck, that my intellect can't rule over my emotions because the intellect itself has been corrupted by my own ego, my own self-interest, my own desire. To the degree where I'm not able to perceive the truth And this is what makes life so complicated. I know what's true. I know it. There's a part of me that always knows it. And yet somehow I end up doing this thing that I know is not the right thing to do. I end up feeling this thing that takes me in a particular direction, and even though I know it's wrong, I have all these rationalizations. In the extreme form, let's take the drug addict, just as an extreme form of this. If you ask a drug addict in a sober moment, it's quick, right? If you ask a real drug addict in one sober moment What are you doing?

25:46 In one sober moment, he goes, "I know this is killing me." The next words out of his mouth are, 'But you have to understand.' And then everything after that one sober moment of truth is an absolute sheker v'chazaf. There's no truth to it whatsoever. It distorts the thinking so greatly that a person doesn't know how to bring it back to square one. That's what addiction means. Addiction means that the mind has become lost. The intellect, which knows what is deeply true, does not have the ability to communicate to a person the truth of their experience. They end up acting in a way they're completely not proud of. The emesis we're talking about addiction, but really we're talking about every one of us. Every one of us has something in our lives. Where there's a gap between what we know to be true, we'll call that the ideal, and then our behavior, we'll call that the real. There's always a gap between the real and the ideal. In the ideal, I know this always. This word comes up. I know who I should be.

26:48 That should imply some sort of rule that we have. This is the best version of myself. That's who I'm meant to be. That's the ideal version of myself. So why am I not that? Lamashal, a person commits themselves to waking up in the morning at a certain time, davening before they go to work, and a meaningful davening. A person commits themselves to a chavruta, to learning a sefer, to really being machbit on shmiras haloshon. Whatever a person is working on. There's always that thing like I committed myself to do it. How long does it last? So it's like you go on a bit of a streak. It's a nice thing, and then it falls away. And then when somebody asks you about it, what does it always sound like? I got to get in on that again. The nodding heads, by the way, are helpful.

27:34 It just means for those of you who can't see each other, every one of you just went like this. Every one of us is in the same boat, including myself. To leave Mitzrayim means that the truth has become so obvious now that I can't narrow it anymore. I don't. It's not possible for me to live with. With the rationalizations, I'm done with them. They're finished. There's no space for me to rationalize anymore. The truth is so obvious. It's like Le Marshall My wife. She was very machbid, and I personally would never have been as good at this as she was. She was very machbid not to push to toilet train at all. It's a very big thing. Because naturally your instinct is to push to toilet train, because nobody wants to have to deal with the dirty diapers. Men don't want to have to pay for diapers. Diapers are expensive. I can toilet train that kid. I could save thousands of dollars.

28:40 The challenge of toilet training is if you do it too soon, you enter into a power struggle with your children. The child who's not ready to be toilet trained rebels against the toilet training, and then the process becomes much longer. The patience to wait. Until the child is toilet trained, it's a gift because then when the child is ready, you begin to introduce it. It's a very soft introduction, and the child, like you see how the children like naturally go, okay, starting to get into this idea. Good parents introduce it slowly. They do certain things, a potty, a reward system, whatever it is, but it's not pushing. It's a process of allowing it to unfold. With some children, it takes longer than others. With my son, it was like when COVID hit. I was like, "Okay" It's toilet training season. It doesn't matter. None of us can leave the house anyway. So he's becoming. It doesn't matter where it's the house. Nope, we're not leaving the house anyway. We can sponge it afterwards.

29:40 There's an art to toilet training because at some point the kid is making a mess of themselves. The truth is, I'm a big boy or a big girl, and a big boy and a big girl no longer behave in this way. And from that moment on, it's an amazing thing. The exact opposite becomes true. Now it would be hard for a person to not be toilet trained. The body becomes so accustomed to behaving according to the truth that this is no longer an appropriate behavior for who I am. Is a rebbe in yeshiva who had a very good line when he's talking to the boys about substance abuse. I'll tell you the truth. I never smoked in my life. I never smoked weed not once in my entire life. I don't know how I made it through high school unscathed. It certainly wasn't the environment that we have today. I never smoked in my entire life. This rebbe happens to be he was a guy who smoked in high school.

30:42 Under certain circumstances, I'll talk to the boys about it. He has a very good line when the boys ask him, "Why did I stop?" Like Rebbe, "Why'd you stop?" His line is, "Because I wasn't a child anymore." Meaning, it's something. It's not a logical argument that he's engaging in, because otherwise, you get into the back and forth with a Rebbe. 'You don't understand. You just grew up in the 80s. It was a say no to drugs, Nancy Reagan type of culture. It's not the same today.' Weed is no different than beer. He's not getting involved in any of those conversations. It's a very simple thing. I'm not a child. This is the way a child behaves. I know a rebbe in a certain yeshiva that the boys in that yeshiva vape. It's like a thing. I don't think we have to get into the idea of vaping not being a good thing right now. This rebbe, sometimes boys will talk to him, in the middle of talking to him, they'll be taking a hit of Nick. So he tells the boys in a very sweet way. He happens to be a very, very sweet rabbi. He says, "I would love to talk to you, but it's hard for me to talk to you when there's a pacifier in your mouth."

31:43 A certain rabbi told me that in a certain yeshiva, the boys are so addicted to vaping that even the shliach tzibur Who's davening for the amud will be taking a hit in the middle of chazaras hashatz. Rofainu Hashem nerafei. It's a wild thing that a person still has to hold on to that pacifier when they're older. Why is this Rebbe saying, 'I'm not talking to you with a pacifier in your mouth'? He's saying a very simple thing. He's saying, 'You're not a child. That is the behavior of a child. You grow out of those things. Once the truth hits you that you're an adult and you realize that behavior is incongruous, you've left Mitzrayim.' And it's hard to go back. It's hard to go back because the truth is so obvious. Take a second and think to yourself. Every one of us has had a Yitzchias Mitzrayim moment like this. Take a second where you think about something that you just haven't done in years. It wouldn't occur to you to do it anymore. You're just not in that place.

32:39 You see that thing? Maybe you relapsed once or twice, but then you hit a stage where you're like, No, I'm done with this. It's finished. It's not part of your life anymore. It's because the truth is so obvious that you're no longer capable of going back to that place. That's called the Yitzias Mitzrayim. At that point, your rationalizations are out the window. There's no longer the self-interest or the desire adraba the desire that you have. You might come to completely transform that desire because the way that you see that desire is very different now. That was the desire of a child. To avoid that anxiety, to avoid that emotion, I'm capable of feeling my hard feelings. I no longer need that substance. I no longer need that hit to avoid feeling those feelings. Does that make sense? That's called yitzias mitzrayim. Person thinks that I saw yitzias mitzrayim and I'm done.

33:33 That's what most of us think. There's a very big frustration that we have. That we thought we left Mitzrayim, why in the world am I still here? You ever have that where you're like, I don't understand how come I can't leave? I've left so many times before. How do I keep ending up getting stuck? I'm not going back to Mitzrayim, but I'm also not moving forward either. There's a space where I am. There seems to be a cap on me. I can't break through that cap. It's like I left Mitzrayim, but not really. Do you know what I'm talking about? I'm not saying it 100% clearly, but if you have any idea what I'm talking about, then you know what I'm talking about. You've grown a tremendous amount. You're a person where truth reigns in their lives. You're a growth-oriented person. You live with an expansive consciousness. But there seems to be a cap, a place where you can't go. I can leave Mitzrayim, but I don't know how to get to Matan Torah. Something is holding me back.

34:28 That's what. That's the real avoda. To leave Mitzrayim is huge. It's only step one. Just because you've left Mitzrayim does not automatically mean that you're at Kabbalah Satora. There's a stage that every person has to break through first. That's the stage we're talking about tonight. Not just Yitzias Mitzrayim, but after Kriyas Yam Suf, after I saw Ten Makos, after I saw the Mun, why am I still so stuck? The truth is so obvious. I don't understand why I'm so stuck. Not because I'm returning to my childish behavior, but because I somehow can't take the next step. That's a big avoda. How do I take the next step? To put it in context, I'm sure you remember that when you were in Shana Aleph, you felt like you made great strides. Do you remember that? Do you remember that Shana Aleph feeling of every week being the discovery of a brand new world? It's like your eyes are constantly being opened. It's a very youthful type of energy. It's wonderful. I'm not making fun of it. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful time in a person's life. That's like when the plane is taking off and it's climbing to thirty thousand feet. It's a very exciting time. Of course, it's not where necessarily the most growth happens.

35:36 Because it's more upwards than forwards. But we plateau at a certain point, and that plateau hits a bump, and is a big frustration that we have. It's no longer that shem alif life, and I come back to Los Angeles and I feel like I'm just riding that wave. I come back to Eretz Yisrael to visit, and I feel perhaps a sense of connection to that time in my life, but of course when I'm out of that back again. So now I'm back in that plateaued state because it's great to touch back to that point in our lives. But just because you touched back to it doesn't mean it's going to change. That's the myth of rejuvenation, right? It's like if I come back to Eretz Yisrael for winter break and I spend two weeks and I reconnect with my teachers and my rebbeim and I hear the shirum and I'm walking the streets of Yerushalayim, then when I come back to Los Angeles, a little too close to home, when I come back to Los Angeles, I'm not saying I'm just saying if you know what I'm saying The it's a little wangling for you, When I come back to Los Angeles and I'm walking down Pico, somehow it's not Yerushalayim. We start to identify my growth as with Yerushalayim. My growth is there. That's the only real type of growth. This is not. It's not true.

36:50 That's a very young, beautiful time in your life. Real growth occurs in a very slow, methodical fashion over the course of fifty, sixty, seventy years. The fact that you were able to do these Yitzias Mitzrayim type of moments in your life, that's beautiful. It's for a very particular stage. Long-term growth happens slowly, carefully, and in ways that you won't even see happening. Life will transform you. So now that we're back in the real world, we can talk. I don't mean to say that seminary is not the real world. It's a very real time in your life. It's a beautiful bubble to have that experience in. But we all have to move beyond the Yitzias Mitzrayim. We have to hit that second stage. This is the stage of Amalek. The stage of Amalek is a much more difficult stage, maybe almost chumad impossible. It's a very difficult stage to overcome. This is the stage where you go as follows.

37:48 Step one is this: what's true. This is what's ideal. This is where I really am. I need to introduce truth into my life. That's step one. Step two is a much more difficult stage, and it goes like this: Who cares? Who cares? Is an unbelievable tactic on the part of the Yitzhakara, because what do you say to who cares? What could you possibly say to that? If the whole time, what was I trying to do? I was trying to introduce truth into the part of me that did not know the truth. So once that part of me knows the truth, and a big boy doesn't wear a diaper, a big boy uses the toilet. So now I've moved into that step, I've moved into that stage, and that's the truth. But what if that child simply said, "I'm using again the muscle of a child, because it'd be much more uncomfortable if I said what we all go through." What if the child just said, "I don't care" I don't care. I don't care if I'm ten years old. I don't care if every kid makes fun of me. This is what's comfortable for me.

39:00 What do you say to such a child? You can't reason with that child. You should care. I don't. This is the frustration that all rabbis have. A rebbe comes to a guy, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one years old, whatever it is, high school too, and says "You're not coming to davening." What does the boy say back? I know. I don't care. So what could the Rebbe say at that point? The Rebbe is going to open up a sefer and explain the beauty of davening. It's not the question that he's asking. You open up the sefer and you say, 'Let's learn Rovpincas on Tefillah together.' And the Rebbe thinks, 'Ooh, this is going to be amazing. Every day we're going to learn the amkus of Tefillah. It's going to change his life.' The Rebbe opens up the sefer. He's so passionate. They have a chavruta. The boy is falling asleep.

39:49 Why? Because the Rebbe is trying to reach him intellectually, and his problem is not intellectual. Intellectually, he could wrap his head around the Havaney. You gave him a sefer. You explained to him that tefillah is a type of meditation. Tefillah is a type of consciousness. It's a type of intention that a person brings into their life. If you weren't born in the orthobach system, you would see that this is a beautiful thing. If you introduced the notion of tefillah three times a day to somebody who wasn't raised in our system, they would say, 'Wow, that's an incredible thing.' How you take stock. Each moment, each phase of your life, to ensure that your life is naturally channeled towards bringing godliness down into the world. And every Rebbe is like super excited about this idea. And the kid is going like this. I just don't care.

40:36 What do you do if you're working, if you're an NCSY advisor, and the girl looks at you and she goes, I just don't care. So what do you do at that point? You try to make a problem. You say to a guy, "Tell me, would you marry a girl who doesn't care if you go to davening?" So if the boy goes, "No, I would never want to marry a girl who doesn't care," so then you say to the boy, "Good." So then you have to care, because otherwise you're going to end up with that girl. What does the boy go? "I'll care when I get there." I'm not going to listen right now. Or what if the boy says, even better answer, "I'm okay with marrying a girl who doesn't care if I daven or not." At some point you run up against the wall. How can I get somebody to care about something that they don't care about? I want it to be very clear. Not caring is a crazy move.

41:24 Not caring is an atom bomb of a move. When you don't care You're destroying a part of yourself. To not care is a very big deal. To not care about the truth is a wildly dangerous move. It'll work. But when you amputate, you don't amputate like over here. You amputate. That's an above the elbow, above the knee amputation. Why? Because people do care. To care deeply about something. It's a part of our humanity. That's why when you meet people that care, they're contagious. You ever meet people like that? They're just really passionate. It's amazing to be in their presence. It is a poisonous environment to walk into a room where people are just sitting there going, "I don't know, I don't care." Not caring is cutting off a part of your humanity. Everyone is naturally designed to care. We care about others, we care about ourselves, we care about ideals, right? Just because you can make that move, it comes with a big price. Let's go back to that mashal of Amalek. The bathtub is scalding hot.

42:47 Amalek, which is this part of you that doesn't care, says, 'I don't care about the truth.' Amalek saw all of the nisim and Amalek says, 'What? I just don't care about the truth.' I'm jumping into the bathtub. So what's the net? The net is it works. The bathtub cools down once you don't care anymore. So the whole passion is gone. It's true, it works. But you get scolded in the process of that. Once you pick up one end of that don't care stick, there's a lot of that don't care stick that's going to come with you. You see people that become apathetic to life. It's very hard to not care about true things and not see how it spreads in your life. It's like. Like you know, like a child Child when they really care, what do they do? I don't care. Always comes right. Always comes with that shoulder. Boys have that shoulder, but girls really have that shoulder. I've raised five girls.

43:46 As a father, I've had times in my life where I deeply just want to take that shoulder and push it. I just want to gently shove it back, gently just back to equilibrium, so the kid is like this again. It is the most obnoxious thing. But when you shrug, I don't care. That's a big. I don't care if she's my friend or not. That means you deeply care. But if you actually stop caring about friends in an effort to protect yourself from getting hurt, do you realize how far that goes? Because it won't just be that you stop caring about friends. You stop caring about your passions. You start caring about your hobbies. You stop caring about your family. You stop caring about yourself. It's called letting yourself go. You ever see people that do this You can't selectively numb. When you pick up the stick of "I don't care," that is a dangerous stick to pick up. Chazal's imagery here is a fascinating imagery. The Amalekite is getting hurt also in the process. That "I don't care" thing is in terrible, terrible pain.

44:50 It works. You'll solve your problem once you don't care. I don't have to worry about that growth. I just don't care. But a tremendous amount of pain comes with that. It's not an obvious thing at all. This is the Amalek move. The Amalek move is I don't care. When do we get there? When do we get? How do we get to Amalek? How do we get to that stage where a person says I don't care? It's a very simple thing. Klal Yisrael is going crazy. We're thirsty. We're thirsty. How does Moshe Rabbeinu narrate the problem? Let's go back to what Moshe Rabbeinu said. It's a wild thing. The Pesukim say it. Sometimes all it takes is reading Pesukim. By the way, it's not a fancy tire; you just have to read the Pesukim. What does Meishabenu say? Asher karcha baderach. When did he get you?

45:39 On the way, you were baderach. You don't have to be Rav Judah Meshal. It was baderach before. Asher karcha baderach. Who does he get? Vayizane bichal kol nachshalamacharecha. The stragglers, the ones who are falling behind. Why are they falling behind? Why are they on the outskirts of the camp? You can see the imagery. Imagine that kid. The whole group is there. Everyone's there in the group, and where's that kid? Just a little bit outside the group, watching from the outside. V'ata ayeif v'yagaya And you were tired and you were weary. V'lo yarielokim, and you did not fear God. Why not? Because you had an intellectual problem. If you had an intellectual problem, you could get a class in Eish Torah and it would be solved. If you had an intellectual, I'm not a Yerel Elikim. You're not a Yerel Elikim. Let's prove to you God. You're going to go to a class. They're going to bring you seven different proofs of God. Rabbi Lawrence Kellman is going to get up there. He's going to do his whole thing. If you ever want to know Rabbi Lawrence Kellman's share, go to a website. It's very easy to remember. It's called SimpleToRemember.com. On simpletoremember.com, Rabbi Kellerman will prove to you. If you don't want to listen to the audio shir, permission to believe, permission to receive, a beautiful thing. You could listen to all the shir. Now I know God exists.

46:53 That's not the reason you didn't have your. That's not the reason you were not fearing God. The reason you didn't fear God is because you were exhausted. The reason why you were a straggler is because you were exhausted. The reason Amalek attacked you with 'I don't care' is because you were tired. I'm just. I can't do this anymore. I'm just tired. Every one of us reaches a stage in our lives. After you leave Mitzrayim, I know the truth. I'm just tired. How long am I going to stay in this? I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted. What are we exhausted from? A million different things. We're exhausted from a million different things in our lives. I'm gonna take dating as a muscle only because that's where we're holding. But I don't want to. I don't want to use. It's not about dating. It could be anything in our lives. It could be a challenging relationship with a friend, a challenging relationship with a spouse. How many times have I heard from young men and young women, especially after a breakup, I just can't do this anymore.

47:53 I just can't do it. I cannot see myself going out on another first date. I cannot introduce myself again. I cannot go through that disappointment. I can't come home early to put on my makeup. It's not fair. The boys don't have to put on any makeup. It takes about seven seconds for a boy to get ready for a date, maybe five minutes, like if he's really cares enough to shower. Halabai, you should marry somebody who does. But the whole thing, on the day of the chasna, I see my daughter just got married. There's a process, and it starts like eight o'clock in the morning. It's the hair, it's the makeup, it's the eyelashes, it's the nails, it's a tahalich. It's thousands and thousands of shekel until we have to go to the photographer and there's the pictures of getting out of the car and the place. Do you know how long it takes for a boy to get ready for his wedding?

48:45 The same five minutes that it takes him to get ready for a date. He got a haircut, that's like five minutes. Yeshivish kid for sure. He may not have even gone to a barber. His brother did it for him. It's just a buzz cut. What's the difference? He may not have gotten a new hat. I just got a new hat. I don't need a new hat. He got a suit. Maybe he didn't get a new suit. He has a suit that he just got. The whole thing is—it's a couple of minutes. The pictures are not nearly as long for the boy. It doesn't matter. How many pictures can you take of the girl? You have to take every single picture with the veil has to be flowing in the wind. What's the boy going to do? His hat's flowing in the wind. Like, there's nothing to do. How many times can you take this picture? There's nothing to do. The boy is like an afterthought until the Chassid. The boy is like a Pesach afterthought. I have no idea how I got here. That was a total ADHD rant. I wish I remembered the transition.

49:41 I don't expect any of you to either. What was that? Getting ready for a date. I was just getting there. Thank you. I'm gonna sit there. I'm gonna get made up. I'm so tired of this. So what do we do in that moment? You come to a person like that in that moment, and you say, "Don't you want to get married?" What's that person going to say to you? I'm going to punch you in the face. Of course I want to get married. It's not about the truth. It's I'm exhausted. The truth does not help us when we're exhausted. So what are we supposed to do? It's a big moment that we reach in our lives. When I'm sitting there, Yeshalei Merkodesh, the inspiration is constantly flowing. I'm in that space per se. There, the truth flows. I'm plugged in. The electricity is flowing. That's not the avoda. The avoda is what happens when I'm just tired.

50:39 I can't take my boss anymore. I can't take my spouse anymore. I can't take my kids anymore. There's a thing that women are only allowed to say quietly to each other, but not out loud. Which is sometimes. My kids are driving me crazy, and I wish I wasn't a mother. Is the truth that she wishes she wasn't a mother? Of course not. It's the biggest bracha in her entire life. What does she mean? I'm exhausted. I got up at three o'clock in the morning. I have to be up at seven o'clock in the morning. How in the world can't I get back to sleep? I'm walking around like I'm a zombie. You ever see those newly married mothers who Baruch Hashem have already a couple of kids in a very short amount of time? They're like zombies. They're zombies. It's not fair that you come to this. How could you complain about being a mother? My wife tells the story of a woman who had trouble having children.

51:32 She said one of the most challenging things is that she was never able to complain about her kids. Everyone was davening for you. How could you possibly complain about your kids? I'm exhausted, and I'm also allowed to be exhausted just because it was difficult for me to get to this moment. What does it mean? A girl has trouble in shidduchim. Now she finally gets married. She has to have perfect shalom bayis for the rest of her life because she married a chassan when she was 26 and already an old maid. You're allowed to be tired. But the question is, how do we respond to that moment? You gonna tell somebody the truth? The truth is not relevant. I'm already in that state of amalek. I don't care. Truth does not respond to I don't care. So what do we do with that kid? What do we do with that kid that says I don't want to dive in because I don't care? What do we do with ourselves when we're in that space of I don't care? So the answer is zocher.

52:22 Zocher is beyond rational. You ever get the sense sometimes that you remember something from a place that's beyond rational thought? Remembering almost comes from a higher part of your mind. Like you don't remember. It's almost like you don't remember intentionally. It's like you try to think of it and it just pops in your brain. That's what the story was. You know what I'm talking about? It just jumps in your brain. To remember something means to call it from a higher place. To call something up from your being. The memory exists inside of you, but I'm calling it into being from a higher place than my rational thought. This is called emuna. Emuna is not rational. It's supra-rational. It doesn't mean that emuna is illogical. That's why when people say we just want me to have simple faith Believe me, simple faith is far from simple. If you get to a level of simple faith, you're on an exceptionally high level. Simple faith means that in a very simple way, a truth that's deeper than rational is real to you.

53:30 Anything that you could explain with words, that's one level of truth. Things that are true to you that you can't explain with words—that's already bigger emuna. It's not that it's not true. It's before truth. It's beyond truth. I'll give you an example of this. It's true that there are things you will love about your husband. I love my husband because he's a good provider. I love my husband because he's a stable force in my life. I love my husband because I can count on him. I love my husband because he's a good father. Those are all things that we're capable of articulating. But the love that we have for our spouse has nothing to do with any of those things. The love that we have for our spouse cannot be articulated. It's almost like when you meet somebody, you have the sense of remembering them, even though you've never met them before. That's why people, when they meet their spouse, go, 'I feel like I've known him my entire life.'

54:28 Of course, you do. What do you mean? I just met him. But you're remembering the relationship that your neshama had with his neshama well before you came down into this world. That's why there's a natural chemistry that exists between people. That's why even when people go, 'Can you marry anyone?' the answer is, 'Sure, but not really.' Because all souls are connected, but some souls are more deeply connected to each other. We have the sense of remembering somebody that we just met. Can you explain why? Can you use words? There's no words for that because it's not true. It's emuna. It's before truth. It's much higher than truth. It's pre-truth. It's not rational. It's super-rational. It's not illogical. It's illogical. It's before logic. Does this make sense? If you say yes, I'll just keep moving. The m'siras nefesh eines Juden. I feel badly. I don't know what time it is.

55:26 We'll finish up. The Messirest Nefesh of a Jew is something that's beyond rational. That's why Jews who didn't live for Hashem were willing to die for Hashem. It's not logical. Logically, if you weren't keeping Shabbos, why were we willing to die Al Kiddush Hashem? What's the answer? Because I'm a Jew. I've told the story before. Maybe some of you have heard it. When I was a kid, these Russian kids would come to shul only on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. So I asked them innocently as a kid. I asked these like we were eight. They looked like they were thirteen. Like these were Russian thug children.

55:59 So I remember I asked them, just like, simple as you live right across the shul. Why don't you come to shul the rest of the year? This kid took me. He threw me up against the wall. He goes, 'You think you're more Jewish than I am?' I'm like, 'What are you talking about?' He already had a mustache. He was eight years old. I was like, 'I just asked where you were the rest of the year.' Ask a Jew, tells you in some way that they're less Jewish than you. What do they do? The Jewish soul comes up. It's not logical. It's something before logic. It's like they're remembering who they are, and they throw you up against the wall. Who do you? Who are you to tell me that I'm not as Jewish as you are? Our response to Amalek When we leave Mitzrayim after the state, I know what's true. I don't care. Then you have to start operating at a level that's before logic. You can't respond to "I don't care" with logic. You can only respond to "I don't care" with "Yes, you do."

56:49 Yes, you do. I don't. You do. You do care, because the part of you that is godly, the chelak elokami mal mamish Always has that geder evamuna. It always has that gather of caring. It can't be destroyed. The pinteleid cannot be destroyed. It's not just a song from Gaye Beilman. The pinteleid cannot be destroyed. It's an unbelievable thing that when someone says I don't care, the only way to respond to that is tapping into the dimension of yourself that does care, and it will forever care. I don't care about davening anymore. You do. You're right, I do. It's an amazing thing that happens. We have to speak to our children in a way that teaches them about emuna. Emuna is not something that you attain from the outside. Emuna is something that you cultivate from the inside. When we speak to our children and we speak to the part of them that deeply cares, we're teaching them how to cultivate that emuna in their own lives.

57:48 And in our own personal growth, it's the same thing. When we hit that plateau and we're walking in the streets of the valley, and we're like, "I don't feel like the way that I felt. It's gonna be okay. I don't feel like the way it was. It was anxiety even for me. I don't feel like the way I feel when I'm walking through the cobblestone streets of the old city of Yerushalayim Eretz Yisrael. I don't feel that way." So I feel that state of disconnected. I feel myself going into that chalishos of I don't care. What do we have to say in that moment? I do. And the not caring becomes a vehicle for the caring. That's the secret. Defeating Amalek when we're in that state of I'm so tired and I just don't care, you discover new dimensions of caring. That's what gets you to Har Sinai. You can't get to Har Sinai without going through Amalek. It's not possible. You could leave Mitzrayim without tapping into that dimension of Zacher, but until you have a Zacher, you can't have a Har Sinai. Until you're able to defeat that Amalekite part of you that says I don't care, you can't enter into a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu until you say Yes, I do.

58:52 A girl who goes through a stage where she says I don't care about dating anymore, and then she realizes yes, I do. Now she's ready to meet her husband. Because when she meets him, she says, 'I've been waiting to care about you.' There's a process that we go through, where at first we don't care, and then we discover our inner caring. So the story of Yishtiyas Mitzrayim that every one of us is constantly going through is a process. It's first training ourselves to break that amkashay oref, to break the narrow straits of our neck, to be able to introduce truth in our lives, so that we can start living in a more ideal fashion. But just because you got there doesn't mean you're done. Now the hard work begins. It should be obvious to me. I know it's true. I took the Eish Torah class. You did. That has nothing to do with caring. I could say I don't care because I'm tired. I can't respond to that with logic, but I could respond to that by reaching into the innermost recesses of my soul, tapping into the part of me that forever cares, the innermost essential point of godliness, and from that place, I could be zeicher to Kabbalah Safar.