Beshalach - The Sea Splits For Those Who Expect The Miraculous

2:12 Shav Kadosh Baruch Hu oysel lem nisim. They were headed out of Mitzrayim, and they said, "No doubt Hashem is going to perform unbelievable miracles." V'hotsiyu tupim mi Mitzrayim. They said, "We know unbelievable miracles are going to happen" So we're taking our tambourines with us. So that when they do, we'll be ready to play. That's what Rashi says. It's an unbelievable Rashi. But there's a question on this Rashi. How fast did Klal Yisrael need to leave Mitzrayim? Really fast. As fast as possible. Do you know the difference between how men pack and how women pack? Yes. Do you want to hear the difference? What was that? Men pack clothing. Women pack possibilities. I travel a lot all over the world. I can travel for two weeks in a carry-on. I'm not saying the clothing won't have to be incinerated by the end of the trip, but it's possible.

3:18 When I pack, I have a list. T-shirts, socks, shirts, pants, finished. I see. I have five daughters. One of them is expecting any day now. I'm here, but bishah tova, thank you. Mazel tov soon. We're hoping for a healthy baby boy. I have five daughters. I see the way my daughters pack. If we go away for two days, my daughters come with suitcases. You ever see like? I know you've seen this. You know how you like to lay out your clothing on the bed, and it's like who's gonna make the cut and who's not gonna make the cut. So you're sitting there, you're going like But what if we What if we go out somewhere nice? I need to be prepared. If you have more shoes than days that you're traveling, something is wrong. You understand? This is the difference between the way that men and women pack.

4:11 My mother, I was very embarrassed of my mother growing up. I know they've come back in style, but when they weren't in style, I wore like a big fanny pack. You know what I'm talking about? And it was like Batman's utility belt. Like every single thing was in there. Hey mom, you have the cure for malaria? She's like, no problem. Here's the pill. You know. It's always like my mother had it in her bag because women pack just in case. Men pack the bare essentials. If you're leaving Mitzrayim in a hurry Do you take a tambourine with you? No. You don't take a tambourine with you. If you're leaving Mitzrayim, if you're on the 49th level of tuma And one more minute and you're toast. You're done. You're going to be in the 50th level of tuma. You will not be able to leave Mitzrayim.

4:58 You could imagine the husbands. You could see the picture, right? The husband's like, "Come on, Chatsai Salailu, we gotta go. It's almost midnight." They're going, "Just, I don't know how to fit the tambourine in. Like you're standing on top of the luggage. What do you need a tambourine for? You just in case. I know we're gonna need a tambourine. The husbands must have been killing themselves in that moment. Why do they do it? It doesn't sound normal. It doesn't sound rational. What is Rashi saying? They were so sure they were gonna need it that they brought. Imagine if you were leaving Auschwitz. It's not a joke. Imagine if you were leaving Auschwitz. Do you like to sit there and go But I had some scraps I got to take with me. If you have the opportunity to leave Auschwitz, you run. Auschwitz was nothing compared to Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael was 210 years of brutal slavery.

5:48 Seven years of the Holocaust is a day in Eretz Yisrael. We have no idea. If you read the Medrash Echazal, if you read what the rabbis said about the whole thing, the crazy things. October seventh doesn't register on the Richter scale of what Mitzrayim was like. Now they have the opportunity to leave, and they're figuring out what to take. It sounds very strange. That's number one. I want to tell you an unbelievable medrash. This is a change your life medrash. Did you know that when Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the sea? He had a conversation with the sea before he created it. Have you ever heard this medrash? It's an unbelievable medrash. Hashem said, "I'll create you on condition that you split when Klal Yisrael comes." The medrash says, "Let me see these souls. I'm not splitting until you tell me which souls they are." Hashem sews the souls of Klal Yisrael, the neshamas of Klal Yisrael. The sea says, "Woe! Those are incredible neshamas. I'll split for them."

6:51 Now fast forward, and we're at the banks of the river, and the sea refuses to split. And the sea says, 'These are not the same neshamas that you showed me. These neshamas are gross. These neshamas are the neshamas of idolaters. Because Klal Yisrael spent 210 years in Mitzrayim, what were they doing? Halalo of the Avodah Zarah, a halalo of the Avodah Zarah. The Malachim said, 'You, how can you save the Egyptians? They're both idolaters. Neither one of them is better than the other.' So, Klal Yisrael, after 210 years in Mitzrayim, the sea could not recognize the soul of these Jews. So the sea said, 'I refuse to split.' And then Moshe Rabbeinu brought the bones of Yosef, and the sea split. Question is, what was in those bones of Yosef? I want to share with you something that, to me, is like. Everything that we're trying to do here this year in Eretz Yisrael, everything that we're trying to grow—you are not your lowest moments.

7:56 I know that sounds like an easy thing to say, and I'm sure that right now, even as you heard it, a lot of girls said, 'Yeah, we're not our lowest moments.' I want you to take a moment to think about that deeply. How often When you think about your life Do you identify your life by your lowest possible moments? How often do you sit here and go, but you don't know who I really am. I'm really that girl that did fill in the blank. And Rabbi, you're coming and you're giving a big pump up shmuaz and you're saying that we're beautiful, wonderful, precious neshamas of Hakadosh Baruch Hu, but you don't know who I really am. That's called shame. There's a difference between shame and guilt. Guilt is a very healthy emotion. Guilt means, ugh. That behavior is not me. Guilt is I'm so much bigger than that.

8:49 Shame means I'm unworthy of love and connection because of the average that I did. Take a moment. Everyone in this room suffers from shame, including myself. Take a moment and think about it. In your quote-unquote honest moments, which are not very honest at all Do you judge yourself by your lowest moments or by your highest moments? I guarantee you that everybody here, on some level, goes. But I'm always going to be that girl that did this. I'm always going to be that girl that grew up in this home. I'm always going to be that girl that grew up in this community. I'm defined in some ways by the moments that I'm least proud of. And it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because if you have shame, if you think you're unworthy of love and connection You know what you do? You live a shameful life. Everybody lives out their inner paradigm. The way they see themselves is the way they behave. If you want to know how any girl in this seminary sees herself, it's very simple. Just look how she behaves.

9:52 How she behaves tells you everything you need to know about the way that she believes she is—not who she truly is, but the way that she believes that she is. Everyone lives out this sense of shame. And it's not true. The craziest part about shame is that it's false, it's wrong, it's a distorted way of seeing yourself. It's dangerous and it needs to be confronted. So let's take a look at it. Are you actually your lowest moment, or alternatively Is your lowest moment understandable? I'm not saying it's right. I'm not saying you should be proud of it. I just want to know if it's understandable. Take the girl that she was in high school. I'm not going to tell you what she did. You all can fill in the blank on your own. Take the girl that did something in high school that she's not proud of. What was she going through at that time?

10:47 Did she do it by accident? Did she slip into that? Or if you think about it, does her life make sense? Let's say she's in 10th grade. Let's say it's summer after 10th grade. That's the summer that all the bad things happen. It's the summer after 10th grade. You know what I'm talking about? It's facts. It's straight facts. I know what "facts" means. I work in a boys yeshiva. I have all the language. At 9:15 tonight, I'm gonna dip. I know all the words. I can slide into DMs if I want. I know how to swipe left and right. I'm very relevant. Summer after tenth grade. What has she been through for the last two years? Do you remember when you were in elementary school and you had friends and you were sure who your friends were? And then you showed up to ninth grade and all of a sudden you had no friends. And it's not because you changed, but because now you have to go through all the drama of ninth grade. I do not miss that.

11:44 Isn't it crazy? Girls in high school, these are the best times. You get out of high school, you're like, oh my god, that was crazy. Ninth grade is really hard. And then it's like tenth grade. I think I'm gaining my rhythm. Then eleventh grade. That's a whole different thing. We're only going to summer after tenth grade, just for a minute. So what happens? Summer after tenth grade, you're kind of lonely. You're still figuring it out. You're unsure of where you are. And now in that space of loneliness, in that space of a lack of belonging, in that space of I'm not really sure who I am. And now there's an opportunity to do an averro. But that averro is going to make you feel a little bit better about yourself. So you do it And honestly, it does make you feel a little bit better about yourself, at least for a minute. And now you're sitting here, and you're off from, and you're bare Miriam, and it's January, and you're sitting there working on yourself.

12:33 That girl, that 10th grade girl, I'll never, I can never undo that. For the rest of my life, that's going to haunt me because that's who I really am. That's not who you really are. That's what you did in a moment of weakness, which was totally understandable, and anything that's understandable is forgivable. The secret of Judaism, which we need to proclaim every single day, because you need to knock it into your head, is Elokei neshama shenatsatibi tahori. God, the soul that you gave me is pure, Rabbi. How could you tell me the soul you gave me is pure? You don't know where I was last night. I didn't have a 7:30 curfew last night. I was able to go out to that place where they sell fruit during the day. How could you tell me that I'm pure? Because you weren't present. There was a part of you that was present. There was something that happened that you weren't so proud of.

13:26 But it's not really you. A Jew has to wake up every single day and say, "Elokai neshama shanasa bitahori." I am not my lowest moments. When I was involved in that avera, it was understandable, and anything that's understandable is forgivable. But my soul never, not once, not even for a moment. Participated in that avera. The secret of Judaism is that shame is wrong. It's understandable and it's human, but it's wrong. It's factually incorrect. How could you say I am my lowest moment when the true you never even participated in the lowest moment? In the moment that you were doing that avera, the true you, which is not the part of you that did the avera, is the godly soul inside of every one of us. The true you was sitting there going, "Don't do this. You're bigger than this." You ever have a moment where you're about to do something and you go, "Don't do it," and then you actually, literally say to that voice, "Shut up."

14:24 What was the voice that came up? That was you. The other voice was the part. I can't do this right now. I have a desperate need to do this avera. Understandable. I'm not saying it's right, but it's understandable. But you never participated for one moment in that avera. You remain pure. How many people are walking around in a state of disconnection? Not because they're disconnected, but because they believe they're disconnected. It's the craziest thing. Imagine if this light said, "I don't believe in light." You would say to the light bulb, 'What do you mean? You're shining right now.' When a yid comes over and says, 'Rebbe, I feel disconnected,' you go, 'How could you feel disconnected? You're shining in this moment. Even the fact that you're coming to your teachers, that you're coming to your rebbeim and saying, 'I feel disconnected,' what is that? That's the connection. That's the part of you that desires connection because it represents the truest form of you.

15:17 But I can never undo the thing that I did. But why? Girls, this is a common question that comes up. What do I do when I'm dating? Do I have to tell him? I'm gonna tell you a secret. I married my wife, Baruch Hashem, 22 years ago now. When we were dating, it never came up. I'm gonna admit it. I'm gonna say it right here in public. It never came up. What age I was toilet trained. Never came up. Could you imagine? It never came up. How could it be that my wife didn't ask me? When were you toilet trained? Because it's so not a part of my life. There was a time in everybody's life when we wore diapers. But could you imagine if you were sitting here in Birmingham, going like walking over to like Mrs. Arbach or whoever, and going like, "Can we talk privately?" You know what I'm saying? You know that. By the way, that's what it sounds like, at least to me, when you go, "We talk privately," like that. It has that tone, that cadence. "We talk privately." You go into her office, you close the door, and you like start bawling, and you go "For a year and a half, I had to be in diapers." The craziest thing, right?

16:22 So then why are you doing it with the Avera that you did when you were 16? As if your 16-year-old self is any different. It was only because there's a recency bias. It's only because it was two years ago or it was two weeks ago. It was two years ago. What are you talking about? You are pure. You are connected. The part of you that went into the office to have that meeting is the true you. So this is what happened. I'm going to say a thing. It's not going to be politically correct, but I feel I have to say because it's on my heart. Kalay Yisrael is at the banks of a river. And the Yamzuf looks at it and says, "I don't recognize these souls. For 210 years" These people have been serving Avodah Zara. I don't recognize them. How many people in the room don't raise your hand and don't comment? I don't want there to be any lashon hara. How many people here have met people in their life that can't see past a person's actions?

17:15 That when they look at you, they define you by your worst possible moment. They go, "These are balei Avodah Zara. These are not the girls." These are balei Avodah Zara. We're not taking these girls. These are balei Avodah Zara. The sea won't split for people like that, because the sea judges them by their outside. And a lot of us have had that experience in our life. People that look and all they can see is the negative. It says much more about them than it does about you. If you're someone that can only see somebody based on their actions, that's because you can only see yourself based on your actions. You're not in touch with the true you, so you can't be in touch with another person's you. So the sea said, I'll split for these holy souls, but these people I would never split for. Until Moshe Rabbeinu bought the Achtzinas Yosef Until Moshe Rabbeinu brought the bones of Yosef, who was Yosef HaTzaddik. So we talk about Yosef HaTzaddik like he was Yosef HaTzaddik. He ran away from the wife of Potiphar. He was unbelievable. But when you actually learn the Gemaras, you know he was in the middle of doing the avera.

18:11 We don't talk about that. We he ran away, but when you actually learn the Gemaras, he was in the middle of doing the avera with Ayesha Potiphar. That he left That he said, "I'm not this guy." He tapped into his essence and he ran into the streets. He said, "I don't care what the penalty is. I'm not doing this. This is not me." His essence, his atzamot, his bones, came up. So when the sea saw the bones of Yosef, the sea said, 'it's my bad.' It's my error. I was looking at them based on their actions. I forgot to look at their essence. And then the sea saw the precious souls that he saw at the very beginning of creation, and the sea split. Girls, I have a question for you. Do we need to know this? Do we need to know what the sea thinks of a Jewish soul? We don't care what the sea thinks of a Jewish soul. So I'm going to tell you the deeper pshat. You ready for this? It had nothing to do with the sea.

19:05 It had everything to do with the way that we looked at ourselves when we were on the banks of the river. You want a gift? Here's a gift. Miracles happen for those that believe they're worthy of the miraculous. That's a gift. Miracles happen for those that believe they're worthy of the miraculous. There are girls walking around and they say, "I'm not worthy." So you know what they get in their life? They get unworthiness. You want to have an awesome family? It's a very simple thing. If you believe that you are worthy of having an awesome family, you will attract awesome people into your life. And if you believe you're a piece of garbage, you'll attract garbage into your life. It's a very simple rule. Look around; you'll see it all over the place. People who believe in themselves are powerhouses. They just somehow people go, I don't know how it happens. Somehow they attract it. This is not rocket science. If you believe you're worthy of the miraculous, the miracles will happen. Clovis was standing on the banks of the river. You know why the sea didn't split?

20:07 Because they said, "Why would the sea split for us?" We've been so bad for so long. Why would God ever do this for us? And then when they saw the bones of Yosef, they remembered about themselves. It's nothing to do with the C. The C is the metaphor. They looked at the Atzmos Yosef and they said, "that's who we really are." And then the C split. Everybody in this room You have a choice of how to narrate your life, including myself. We all have a choice of how to narrate our life. You could say, "I narrate my life" And I don't know why I keep attracting garbage. You're choosing that voice. You could change your narration. And I don't imagine any of you follow football, but can I tell you something incredible? I haven't followed football for a couple of years. I'm finished with all sports except for basketball. I can't tell you anything about baseball or basketball.

20:57 Football, or hockey. But I can tell you everything about basketball. There's a player in football who's one of the great running backs in the NFL right now. His name is Derrick Henry. And his nickname is King Henry. And King Henry, he's had this nickname since high school. He's a beast. He like he's an incredible football player And at one of the games, he came over to the sidelines after the game, and one of the fans gave him a crown. And he's walking around after the game in the locker room with this eight dollar Amazon crown on his head, and it became a thing. After they win a game, he walks around with the crown. Girls, you know what that means? That means that Derrick Henry Before a game. Packs a crown into his bag. You can imagine that. Imagine here is this multimillionaire, unbelievable NFL quarterback. What is he packing? His socks, his shoes, his underwear, helmet, the whole nine yards, and his stinking eight-dollar Amazon crown.

21:58 You know why you pack a crown? You pack a crown because you say at the end of this game, when we win, I'm gonna put the crown on my head. You know why Derrick Henry is as good as he is? Because he packs a crown. It's not the people go. He's really good, so he wears a crown. He wears a crown. That's why he's really good. He believes at the end of this game. I'm gonna wear a crown, so I have to pack it. Mameila, he wins the game. Anyone here ever visualize themselves winning something? You could see it before a game. Anyone here ever play sports in high school? You played sports in high school. What'd you play? Basketball. For which team? Valley Torah. I know Valley Torah. I've been to Sulberger's sleepover. I know the Valley. I'm holding in the Valley. I'm holding in the Machlokas. If the Valley is better or the City is better, I'm holding in it all.

22:55 The City is much better. Pasha, the City is better, but Valley people don't like to hear that. That's why the Yula chant by the basketball games is "You live in the Valley." So when you played ball, what position did you play? It's positionless basketball over there in Valley Toro. The girls weren't like that. They weren't as into it as you were. So did you ever see yourself at the end of the game? Did you ever like just imagine yourself with time running out and you hit that big shot? Did you ever have that daydream? No. Can you come with me on this? We're in front of a whole group of people. It's not that hard to go. I was daydreaming every day. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I meant no. For sure. I'm with you. There's something. I had this all the time in high school. I just sat there, imagining these moments and imagining myself victorious in these moments. Did you ever have a moment that you imagined, then you're like, not sure if you could do it? A lot of us don't realize visualization is a real part of success.

23:55 If you visualize failure, you're failure. If you visualize you're successful, you're successful. If you pack a crown, it happens. If you don't pack a crown, it doesn't happen. Is a gift that we can give to our children. We can teach our children that they're awesome. Do you know how many great people are great because their parents told them they were great always? The Rosh Yeshiva of Mevaseret is one of the smartest people I've ever met. It's almost like if I said you should be zocher ought to have a beautiful shirach. Now we know which one means more. Rashiya Mevaser is one of the most incredible people I've ever met in my entire life. He himself was a lawyer for one of the top five law firms in New York. And he worked for a company called Wild Gatchel. You have to be very smart to work for Wild Gatchel.

24:59 And he was fast tracked to make partner. He left. He quit and he said I don't want to do this anymore. I just want to learn in Kollel, and he moved to Eretz Yisrael and he learned in Kollel. The law firm that he worked at said you're crazy. You're just having a midlife crisis. Nobody leaves this. You're making a million bucks by the time you're 30. So he said, 'Well, I'm not doing anything in the summers. You want me to work for you as a lawyer in the summer?' So he worked in the summers and he made himself enough money in the summer to support himself an entire year while he was learning Kollel. Eventually he went from being in the Kollel to being a Sholom Meishiv in the yeshiva to being a Rebbe and now he's the Rosh Yeshiva. And he seems to me to be capable of doing anything that he wants. He's a ridiculous ball player. Even now, in his late 50s, he still plays ball with the guys, and he's still competitive. I once asked him, "Where do you get this confidence to do this from? Where do you get the confidence to pack a crown? Because wherever he goes, he's packing a crown."

25:49 Do you know what he told me? His mother. His mother had this. His mother passed away a couple years ago. He said, "In his mother's eyes, he could do no wrong." When you have a mother who believes in you like that, do you know what it gives you? It gives you the capacity to see yourself as awesome. And if you see yourself as awesome, then you will be awesome. That's why the Hebrew word for a womb is makar. Like the rechem is the makar, the source of all things, and makar is the same gematria as ratzon, desire. You want to see people who are on fire, alive with will, with desire. They got it from a mother who had irrational levels of belief in themselves. It's an unbelievable thing when you meet people who know how to love someone into being. It's the most incredible gift.

26:39 Is a principal in the five. Anyone here from the five towns? We're from which town? Northwoodmere. Shvach. I'm from Lawrence. I count Woodmere. I barely count Northwoodmere. I count. Where'd you go to elementary school? Hafter. I got thrown out of Hafter in fifth grade. It's a school for becoming a rebbe. If you get expelled from Haftar I know a tremendous amount of Talmidei Chachamim that got thrown out of Haftar. Did you make it through? It did. Kabbal for you. Where'd you go to high school? Hing. Some Nikki, at least some Nikki. My old friend. Do you remember? Rabbi Isma, Rabbi Islam, Nikki, Mrs. Nathan. I'm holding. I was Mrs. Nathan's next door neighbor. What in Farakway? In Farakway, before we moved to Lawrence. Rabbi Nathan Alavashalom was one of the most special people I've ever met in my entire life. Talk about someone who knew how to love people into being. The Nathans have this capacity to see people in the most beautiful way.

27:36 Richie Altobee is the principal of Halab Elementary School. Years ago, he was the director of a camp called Simcha Day Camp. Anyone here know Simcha Day Camp in the Five Towns? Simcha Day Camp used to have over a thousand kids. Richie Altobee, one summer, he hired two guys to work in the equipment shack. I don't know if you know how camps work. But you can always tell what the camp thinks of someone based on the job they give them. So the way it works is like this: if you're a counselor, that means we think you're capable of not abusing little children for a summer. If you're a lifeguard, it means you can only interact with kids in the water and only for a short amount of time. If you're a waiter It means you can't be anywhere near children, but will allow you to bring food to them. If you run the Camp magazine, it means you have no social skills, but you're capable of writing about people who do things.

28:28 And if you work in the equipment shack, there's no other better way to put it. That was perfectly the only way to put it. Richie asked two guys to be hired to work in the equipment shack, and these guys were the biggest stoners in camp. The equipment shack was this metal box, and they would hotbox it. You know what I'm saying? Like you open it up and there's smoke billowing out of it. And I'm sitting there going, and this equipment shack is in the middle of campus, and these guys were sneaking off behind the gym, and I went over to Richie and I was like Why did you hire these guys? What are you doing? And I remember he looked at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world, and he was right. He asked, what's the problem with hiring them? I don't know. They're gonna have a bad influence on other people in the camp. He goes, so what would you have wanted me to say to the people that once upon a time called me about you?

29:19 Whoa. I was like You're right, and I felt really stupid. But how amazing is it that there are people in the world that, in a kind way, he was very kind because he could have dunked on me much harder. But in a kind way, he said to me, "Really" You're going to look at those kids and say, 'Oh, they have old Azaro.' What about you? It's a tragedy when you have adults that don't remember what it was like to be 16 years old. Rav Moshe Weinberger, to the Rav of Eish Kodesh in Woodmere Somebody once told me that Rav Weinberger's godless is that he never forgot what it was like to be 16. And the reason that his words are so powerful and so profound is not only because his tirah is so beautiful But because he's speaking to the 16-year-old inside of all of us And it works.

30:12 We need to be muftachos. Muftachos doesn't mean that they were sure that it was going to happen. They weren't so frum. That's not what it is. That's not what Rashi means. Rashi doesn't mean that these girls were the girls who were shuddling and having a seizure while they were davening. One day you're going to have to explain to me, girls, why you daven like this. I don't understand for the life of me why girls daven like this. I don't understand this movie. I get the guy thing, like the workout davening. You know what I'm saying. I don't understand the girl one, but I one time dated a girl. I knew she was very frum because there was a tremendous amount of makeup in her setter, so it all rubbed off from the tears that she was crying. She was way too frum for me, but Muftachos doesn't mean these girls were the frumest girls. That's not what it means. Muftachos means that they were taught to be sure.

31:08 You can parent children into believing in themselves. That's a gift that you can give to someone. Look at the words of Rashi. Muftachos hayut zutkanu yeshabedar. They were raised to have emuna. It was in their bones. They were growing up their entire lives. Their mothers and their mothers before them and their mothers before them told them every night before they go to bed. Of course, we're worthy of salvation. When the time comes, bring a tambourine because it's going to be awesome. They weren't the frumest girls. They were the girls that were raised to think we are not slaves. I'll finish with a beautiful story that I just heard yesterday from my dear friend Rav Yaakov Klein. Those who have heard of Rav Yaakov Klein, get on the Rav Yaakov Klein train. It's leaving the station, but it's an awesome train to be on. You have to get on it.

31:58 Rav Yaakov Klein told over a story about a couple in the 1700s from Morocco Yosef and Rachel. They were very poor, and they lived in the mountains in Morocco. And there came a time when the family started to grow and they could no longer live in the mountains in Morocco. So they said, 'What are we going to do to make a farness ourselves? What are we going to do to make some money so that we could live, so that we could raise our family?' And Yosef said, 'I have a cousin who lives in the city.' So he said, "I'm going to send a message to my cousin to see if my cousin will give us a job. My cousin is a man of some means." He sends a letter and a letter comes back and says, 'Yes, come to the city. I'm going to have a job for you. I'm going to set you up. We're going to give you an apartment, a place to live.' These people were mountaineers. They were living in a hut in the mountains. They never lived in the city, and certainly I never lived in an apartment. And they traveled all the way to the city, and they were very overwhelmed by the hustle and bustle of the city.

32:51 And they came to the apartment, and the cousin is there, and he says, "I'm going to set you up, and it's going to be amazing. You're going to work for me." They had all their belongings. They had some meager clothing. They didn't have much. They had some, a little bit of things. And the apartment was unfurnished. So Yosef said to the cousin, he said, "Maybe you could find us a place to put our clothing." He said, "No problem. When you come home today, there's going to be a place to hang your clothing." And Yosef went and Rachel went into the shuk, and they went their separate ways. He went to buy some things. She went to buy some things. And Yosef is in the shuk in the Moroccan city, and he sees all these incredible guys. Talmidechachamim Muscular men Wealthy people And the entire time Yosef is looking at himself, going like.

33:39 I just feel so badly about myself. Rachel deserves so much better than me. And Rachel was in the shuk and she's having the same exact experience. They were in the mountains. Who do you see in the mountains already? Everybody in the mountains is a schlep. She sees the women wearing designer clothing, and she sees these very righteous women, and she's saying Yosef deserves somebody much better than me. And Yosef comes home. And when he comes home. He sees right as he walks into the door. He opens the door to his apartment. And he sees the most incredible man An honest man, a righteous man, a shining face, a hadras panim. He says, "I can't believe Rachel replaced me. I know we're in this amazing neighborhood with all these amazing people. I can't believe I was replaced." So he ran, running to the rav of the city And he said, "I just arrived here. I don't know where else to turn."

34:32 But I can't believe she replaced me already. It's this amazing guy. And the Rav is in there, trying to empathize with him, and he's like, "Wow, that's crazy. I'm gonna try to look into this and see what happened." And Yosef leaves, and he's all distraught. Rachel, in the meantime, comes home, and she walks in, and she sees the most beautiful woman standing there, right there, and she's like, "Oh my gosh" I can't believe Yosef replaced me. He found this incredible woman already. I thought we loved each other. We've been together for so long, but now he just replaced me just like that, and she runs to the Rav of the city and says to the Rav of the city, 'It's a crazy thing. I just walked home. There's a beautiful woman in my house.' And the Rav already realizes something is going on because that's not a normal thing to happen. Yosef says that Rachel replaced him. Rachel says that Yosef replaced him.

35:20 So he says, "I'm going to go check this out for myself." So he walks into the house And as soon as he opens the door, he sees the most saintly figure ever—a long white beard and a really shining person. And the Rav turns around to Joseph and Rachel, and he goes It's a mirror. The nimshel is very beautiful. Joseph and Rachel have never seen a mirror before. They were in the mountains. They saw on the outside all these beautiful people, but the only people they didn't see were themselves. So Joseph walks in and he sees this shining person. He goes, "It can't be me." She must have replaced me. Rachel walks in. She sees the shining person. She said, "Can't be me. He must have replaced me." We all need a mirror like that in our lives. Every one of us needs to be a mirror for others, and we need someone to be a mirror for us. Someone that, when they look at us, they see us with kindness and compassion, with positivity, and with the nitzotz of who we truly are. Someone who tells us, 'You are worthy of the miraculous' And then, Be'ezrat Hashem, the miraculous will come. Have a wonderful Shabbos.