Chanukah - Seeing the Oneness Beneath The Veneer of the Material World

2:32 So I want to ask three kashos on this Rambam. It's mechala. We could be a little bit briskier. We could do a high-level place. We could do a little brisker lamdas. See, Mrs. Spoonmakers, I can't say that next line that I really want to say. The Ezer Hashem, you all marry boys. Serious brisker lamdanim. Can I get an amen from the crowd? Amen. When you say a shahakol, you get an amen. You say a bracha for a shidduch from a seminary, you have to get a festa amen. I know it's 9:40 in the morning, so your shidduch drive hasn't kicked in yet. The fear of what if I'm left behind has not yet moved you to say a deep amen. But be'ez Hashem, you'll wake up in the next five, ten minutes. You'll say an amen. Last year we had suf ganiyo, now we have coffee and ragalah. Be'ez Hashem, later when you say a bracha. Have in mind I should have the best zivug possible, a real brisker lantern. Amen.

3:24 We're getting there. Three kashas on this Rambam. The famous kasha on this Rambam is what is so precious about this particular mitzvah. We don't find that the Rambam says, for example, about the Pesach seder That it's mitzvah chavivah he adam oyd. We don't find that lashon in the Rambam. Purim. Purim's a gishmak yontif. We don't find that the Rambam says that it's chaviva he admaid. We don't find it really anywhere. This lashon of the Rambam is exceptionally unusual and it needs to be understood in a very deep way. The second kasha is a small diac in the Rambam, but a beautiful diac. Initially, the Rambam says that a person needs to be very careful k'dey lo haydiyah hanes to publicize the miracle. But then, when the Rambam continues, he says, 'So the Rambam starts off, and he's speaking in the singular that there is a nace. We have to publicize the nace' And then the Rambam continues, and he says not just the nace, but the nisim.

4:34 So it sounds like what the Rambam is telling us is that when a person is careful about Neira's Chanukah and they publicize the miracle of Neira Ischanika, it sensitizes them to all of the miracles in our lives. And that's the tachlis of the mitzvah. The tachlis of the mitzvah is not only to light in their Chanukah, but to become sensitive to the miraculous nature of everything that's around us. There's a rebbe in Mevaseret. His name is Reb Bloom. Very special Jew. I'm very inspired by him. Rav Bloom has a journal. Every single day, he writes at the end of the day what the Hashgacha pratst things that happened to him that day. That's a beautiful sensitivity to live life like that. Most of us live life on autopilot. The Rambam says the nature of this mitzvah is that it sensitizes us to the miraculous. The shaila is again There are lots of miracles that happen throughout our calendar year.

5:36 Purim is miraculous. But the Rambam doesn't say that from the Megillah we're going to become sensitive to all of the other miracles that happen every other day. Kriyas Yamsuf on Pesach doesn't sensitize us to the miracles that happen every single day. So again, there's something unique about Hanukkah. It's not just precious; it even sensitizes us to all of the miracles that are happening to us in our life. The shaila is: what is it that's unique about Hanukkah that has that impact on our yearly life? And finally, it seems like the Rambam is connecting these two things, the preciousness of Chanukah leads us to be zahir in the mitzvah of Neris Chanukah, which leads us to be sensitive to all the miracles in our lives. Shaila is, what's that connection? What does the chavivus of Chanukah have to do with the sensitivity to the miraculous nature of our lives?

6:36 Of course, there's the famous kasha that we'll address at the end. Every Chanukah year, if you don't mention this kasha of the Beis Yosef and a Chanukah year, you're not yotzei the mitzvah of Chanukah. At this point, Mrs. Kuna Maker probably knows better than me. How many thousands of answers to this one kasha? The famous Beis Yosef's kasha, which I'm sure you all know, but we'll repeat it very quickly. The miracle was really only for seven nights because they had enough oil for the first night. What's the pshat that we light for eight nights? Baseless discussion. They have to be otsay. I want to share with you something that I heard from Rav Lapiansky a number of years ago. You girls are familiar with Rav Lapiansky. Everybody in this room must become familiar with Rav Lapiansky. If you're not listening to Rav Lapiansky's Torah, you are missing out on one of the great voices of our generation—a voice of unbelievable sophistication and clarity, and in tune with what's happening in the world. Rav Lapiansky, aside from being a geyn olim, is one of the most normal people you'll ever meet. I've been trying to build a little bit of a kesher with Rabbi Yonksy over the years. Truly special person. Anybody here from Silver Spring?

7:42 So you're familiar with Rabbi Yonksy, Am I exaggerating even a little bit? Not even a little bit. He's hidden away. He's hidden away in Silver Spring. Great things come from hidden places. But he's hidden away. If he was in New York or New Jersey, the whole world would already know of him. But his title would be even bigger, which is crazy to imagine. I want to share with you something that I heard from Rabbi Lapiansky years ago, which is absolutely genius. And he said as follows: Culture is the way that we deliver values to the next generation. It's the way that we communicate. And it's very subtle. You don't often realize the way that culture communicates values to you because the shifts are very subtle. And I'm going to speak Balashon Naki But I think you'll all catch what I'm saying. The things that are accepted today, that are mainstream, and if you don't believe in these things, you're considered sick and twisted.

8:47 If you would have told us in the '90s, when I was a teenager. My grandfather today of three Knei Mahr. My daughter is very close with the Schoonmaker family. She's a babysitter for the Schoonmaker family. Baruch Hashem, I've been around the block a couple of times. Favorite babysitter. Favorite babysitter. And one of my favorite daughters. I have five daughters. She's one of the five. If you would have told us in the '90s that the things that are acceptable But the things that are normal. If you had told us in the 90s that these things would have been normal We wouldn't have believed you. And I'm scared to think what will be in 30 years from now. It's terrifying to think what will be in 30 years from now. If I didn't believe in the light of the Jewish nation, the darkness would be so overwhelmingly frightening. I, Pasha, wouldn't know what to do.

9:47 The things that. That our children, that you grew up with, being transmitted through the culture today, are insane. Things that in Greece would have been considered kitsune Would have been considered extreme today are mainstream. And anybody who says anything can negate any of those things. They need to be They need to be shunned, and they need to be like canceled. And these things have become normal. And it didn't happen. For those of us that were paying attention, it didn't happen overnight. It wasn't. It wasn't like it was just from one day to the next. It's very subtle. And I'll tell you how they do it. They move the needle slowly. It's like boiling a frog. You don't even realize it's happening. I remember my high school rugby. Baruch Hashem, I still have a relationship with anyone here from Woodmere. What happened to Mechalat? There are three girls from Woodmere.

10:49 We'll do it like this. Anyone here from the Five Towns? We're saving. Anyone here from Lawrence? So we know we're better than everybody else in this room. Where in Lawrence are you from? Yeah. Everyone, we're okay. Sure, Harborview. Where are you from in Lawrence, Maria? Excellent. There's one more from Lawrence over here. Where are you from? You're not the best of us. I was at the border of back lawns, but Central Avenue is very strong. It's already like almost cedars over there. You have to be careful. My Rebbe in high school was Rabbi Axelrod, who today is the Rav of Gangazor Woodmere. Now is Rabbi Axelrod's daughter in the room? I kind of knew that, if I'm being honest. I kinda knew that. I didn't a hundred percent know it. I don't want to say it's an Ax Ross daughter here, and then you'd be the one girl that wasn't here.

11:54 I remember your father giving a shmoos to us in high school about a certain television show. I'm sure you girls have never heard of it. It's called Friends. Some of you never heard of it. There's no reason for you to have heard of it unless you're binge watching it on Netflix. And some of the girls in Mechalad don't even know what Netflix is, let alone binge watch on Netflix. I remember your father giving a shmooz about friends And I remember that in that shmooz, I was 15 years old. I remember there was because there was this thing back in the 90s called Must See TV, NBC Thursday, and it was like a whole lineup. It was like Seinfeld, Friends, and then there was a show called ER, and ER was like considered a clean show. And your father gave us the best mussar when ER stopped being like a clean show. Your father's like even ER became like a show that you can't watch. I was 15 years old. I was barely from, but I was like, "Yeah, I got to stop watching ER." Like it was like my. I was so inspired by him.

12:50 Your father, you should know. But your father, I shouldn't say this berava mix shavuach of bafanav. It's not. You're not your father. So I could say all the shavuach I want. I want you to know your father is the biggest anomaly in the world because your father was the original one of akeilish. Your father had all the tamidim that wanted nothing to do with limadatayra And he turned us on and he inspired us and the kesha that he has with us. Even Adayomaz is unbelievable. I could tell you stories. Your father's in touch with guys over thirty years. He loves these guys. The fact that he became a young Israel rabbi—none of us saw it coming. He was just the sweetest rabbi in the world. If Rabbi Axelrod In 1995 In the five towns with a group of guys who wanted nothing to do with Torah, giving a shmuz on Eir—if he knew what was coming in thirty years, I don't know what he would have said.

13:38 The shows today are insane. The things that our children are growing up exposed to are absolutely counter. I thought a cup was bad. It's absolutely counter to everything that we believe in. Shvichas damim gili arayas and avay de zara is not just in every show. It's normal to the degree that boys in yeshivas are asking what's the line between ridiculously inappropriate and absolutely inappropriate? Because these things are on mainstream television. A chaver of mine raised his children in a particular way. He's a wonderful guy. He's a real yarei Shamayim. But he raised his children with tremendous exposure to this type of culture. And then he called me up when his son was in ninth grade, and he said, I went on my son's Netflix account. I'm horrified at the things that he's looking at. Children are curious, of course. He's a curious boy. It makes sense, but now he's sitting there and he's taken in these ideas. And I'm going to speak Balashanaki. What does the modern family look like?

14:44 How long does it take you to meet your mother? These things take a minute. Falta Simone. My father was the president of the Syndicated Network Television Association. So almost all the shows that you haven't watched on television, clearly Were my dad's shows. Friends, Seinfeld, Everybody Loves Raymond, Oprah, Ellen, Jeopardy, The Office, all these shows were my dad's shows. I went to Darche, which was anti-television. My father was producing all the television that Darche was against. It was an amazing thing. It's a slow, it's a slow shift. You don't go. I'm not going to say any more names of any shows. You don't go from Friends to what we have today overnight. It's slow But it's there and it's embedded in the culture and it has an impact. I'll share with you a story from my rebbe. My rebbe, Rivudah Parnishlita, Shabizachar Rofu Shleima, he's 97 years old now.

15:59 I remember when I was a bachur in yeshiva, my rebbe said to us. A maesa that Rav Chatskal Levenstein. Rav Chatskal was the great mashgiach of Mir Yeshiva. And he was responsible for getting the boys from Mir through Shanghai all the way out to America and Eretz Yisrael. So there was a period after they escaped from Shanghai and they came to America. Before Rav Chatskal came to Eretz Yisrael, there was a period where Rav Chatskal was in America and he was mashgiach in Mir in America for a short period of time, and the boys loved him. The opportunity to hear from one of the great bale musr, and he was fire of Chatskel, and they loved him. After six months, Chatskel came and he said, "I'm moving to Israel. I can't stay here in America." The boys were devastated. They said, "Rebbe, why are you leaving us?" He said, "Chilul Shabbos."

16:46 The boy said, 'Rebbe, what are you talking about? There's no Chilul Shabbos in Mir Yeshiva. There's no Chilul Shabbos in the dorms.' And Chatskel looked at them and he said, 'It's in the streets, and if it's in the streets, then it's in the walls. And it's having an impact on you.' He said, "I can't be here. I need to be in the kedusha of Eretz Yisrael. If the chilul Shabbos is on the streets, then it's in the walls. And what if we bring these things into our own homes?" We've taken the culture of the streets, which has nothing to do with Yiddishkeit. In fact, it's the exact opposite of Yiddishkeit, and we brought it into our own homes. Everyone has to decide where they're going to draw the line of how much they're going to keep out and how much they're going to let in. And it's not for me to tell you where to draw the line. Someone once told me a great line. They said, 'How do you know where to draw the line?' The answer is somewhere.

17:34 Everyone has to draw the line somewhere. Far be it from me to tell people where to draw the line. But let's pay careful attention to what we're bringing into our home and to what we're exposing our children to, because these ideas that are in comedy shows These ideas that our children are growing up with, listening to these comedians, political pundits today—that people exposed to John Oliver and Jimmy Kimmel and Jimmy Fallon and all the chaver kedisha telling you what the value system should be—don't think it doesn't have an impact. It's in the walls, and if it's in the walls, it's coming in. It has a slow burn. That's the challenge of culture. I want to speak just a small moment about a very specific culture that has come into our universe. Perhaps today, I don't want to say more than ever before, but certainly it's high up on the list of things that we have to be talking about. The culture that's come into the Jewish community, and the culture I'm talking about is a culture that's deeply identified with Yovan, and it's the culture of materialism.

18:50 The challenge of materialism is not wealth. Yidden have been wealthy before. In fact, the Gemara says that Rav Yudan Nasi was exceptionally wealthy. He was the wealthiest person of his generation, and when he died, he testified that he didn't even lift one finger, not in the service of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Yidden can have exceptional wealth. That's not the problem. The question is what you do with that wealth. And Baruch Hashem, we are an unbelievable community of Chesed. We're such an unbelievable community of Chesed that we often don't realize how unique our community is. A friend of mine, who's a Talmid of the yeshiva And he's become a social worker. The last couple of years, he became a social worker. He said that he Dafka doesn't want to work in the Jewish world. Dafka doesn't want to work in the Jewish world. I said, why not? He goes, the nations of the world, they don't have. What we have, I'd like to go share with them what we have. They don't have hatsala. They don't have timechesh Shabbos. They don't have high lifeline. These things don't exist.

19:55 They don't have chaverim. What do they do if their car breaks down? Which chesedish men are going to come help them fix a tire? We are such an unbelievable nation of chesed, and Baruch Hashem yeshivas are cropping up and seminaries are cropping up. I was told by a guy in Lakewood. It's a pretty wild stat. I think it's true. It makes sense to me that it's true. He said every day in Lakewood, 25 boys and 25 girls are born. That's a class every single day. That's a grade every single week. If you, that's like 10 schools that need to be built every single year to accommodate all the new kids being born. And this guy told me he said the problem is not money. He said we can build the schools fast enough. There's enough money in the Jewish community. The problem is we don't have enough teachers.

20:47 Which is also just a crazy thing to think about. The challenge of materialism is not wealth. The challenge of materialism is not abundance. The challenge of materialism is that we think the material world is all that there is. We live in a scientific generation. That's why we ask questions. It's not that we never asked these questions before, but we ask these questions differently than we ever asked them before. Today, a guy comes to yeshiva, a girl comes to seminary, and they say, 'Prove to me that God exists.' What do you mean when you say 'prove'? What exactly do you mean by that? How could I prove to you that God exists? Do you want me to measure him in a lab? And if I could measure God, would that be a God that you would want to worship? The only reason we think that the word proof equals true is because we live in a scientific generation. But historically speaking, we knew that truth was much greater than the things that you could measure.

21:49 Art is deeply true, but you cannot measure art. Poetry is deeply true, but you cannot measure poetry. Music is deeply true, but you cannot measure music. Love is deeply true, and the attempt to turn love into chemicals is so sad. Imagine if somebody got down on one knee to you Your guy, your person. Of course, everything was set up. There was no vulnerability. There was no risk. He already knew that you were going to say yes. You already knew that you were going to be asked. The shadchan set everything up. We've removed all vulnerability from the process of dating. Imagine he gets down on one knee in the perfect moment on the boardwalk where you had your first date. It's beautiful outside, and he gets down on one knee and he says. Nobody makes me secrete serotonin like you. The dopamine hit that I get when I'm with you, I just—it's amazing.

22:45 Please marry me and make me secrete oxytocin for the rest of my life. Thank you. I think I'm funny too, but my daughters don't think I'm so funny. I have to stop. It's not funny. So people like you give me the validation that I need to get through my day. This is the trauma of having five girls. To turn love into chemicals, to turn music into sound, to turn poetry into words. This is the challenge of materialism. We look at the material world and we forget that there's something behind everything. There was music well before there was sound. There was poetry well before there were words. Love well before there were chemicals. And well before the material world, there is a God, and like the Gemara and Brachos says The Rebbe Nachsholom fills up the world. The soul fills up the body. In Yiddishkeit, our belief is that materialism is the expression of Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not the end; it's the beginning of the story.

23:52 And the challenge of materialism, especially when we have so much of it Is why were you given this materialism? What is the purpose of all of this materialism? Yavon reduces the physical body to the cellular level. This is who you are. You're a bunch of protoplasm. So be the best protoplasm you could be. Have the most exceptional physique. And if you don't, take as much Ozempic as humanly possible. Remember when all those people weren't taking COVID shots because they were afraid of the side effects? I don't think that was the issue. If a side effect of COVID would have been losing 75 pounds, people would have been like lining up to give them. Please, I need, I need more of it. It's this. It's the crazy. Your body is all you are, so be a perfect body. But isn't that tragic? Because a perfect body, at some point, is just going to wither away.

24:54 If that's all that you are That's what Yovan deeply believes. All you are is the material. Wisdom. This is another thing that bothers me. Different. We grew up different. Wisdom. It wasn't always just for the pursuit of knowledge. Wisdom was meant to make you a better person. Today we have sophisticated plumbers. You go to college. Nobody goes to college to actually learn something deeply true and change themselves as people. It used to be. That's why people went off the derech. It used to be people went off the derech because they had ideas. Today people go off the derech because I don't know. It used to be people went off the derech because they became communists. They became Bolsheviks. They had ideas. They were thoughtful. Today, it's like some kid doesn't have a care. He's like, I don't know if I believe in God anymore. Just because you didn't haveira, I'm not down to do. It's the funniest thing in the world. Sfardi boy came to Mevaseret many years ago to check out the yeshiva.

26:01 He said, I can't be where I am anymore. Guys aren't staging. I need to. I need to be in a different yeshiva. He came to the yeshiva. I love this kid. Came to the yeshiva. Set him up in the morning in a shir. At the end of morning seder, I came to him. I said, "How was it?" He goes, "I learned more this morning than I've learned the entire year. It was incredible." I said, "You're going to stay for the afternoon?" He said, "Yeah, I'm going to stay for the afternoon." I said, "Okay, we're going to put you in this shir." At the end of afternoon seder, I came to him and I said, "How was afternoon seder?" He said, "The Rebbe was incredible. The shir was so interesting. I loved it. I said, "You're going to stay for night seder?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Okay, why don't you go to this shir to check out night seder?" Came back. He said, "This is the best yeshiva ever. I love this yeshiva." Are you going to switch? He said, "Not a chance." I said, "Why?" He goes, "Too many Ashkenazim." It's deeply racist. Ashkenazi lives matter too.

26:54 He said, "No, I can't be around Ashkenazim." I said, "Why not?" He said, "Because Farhi kids, when they do an avera, they know they did the wrong thing. An Ashkenazi kid doesn't avera. He's like, maybe there's no God." You have to stop believing in God because you did an avera. People didn't go off the derech because they weren't down. People had deep tradition. Deep tradition. They knew in their heart and their bones that there was a God and that they were Jewish. That's the way the older generation was. I come from a family. I'm so blessed. Both my parents are balei chuba. And on my mother's side of the family, her sister became a balei chuba and she has one cousin that became a balei chuba. Everybody else is marrying gayim. That's the assimilation that we're watching in our family; it's off the charts. My grandmother became frum when she was seventy years old.

27:45 Seventy years old. She's the inspiration. She started dressing tnius. She only wore skirts. She was keeping Shabbos. She kept kosher. She became judgmental of all my cousins that weren't religious. She was super frum. I remember one time we were in Crown Heights for Shabbos at one of the family bar mitzvahs because that's where you get bar mitzvah in Crown Heights And one of my cousins was holding an umbrella on Shabbos afternoon, and my grandmother was like "Doesn't he know that that's usur on Shabbos?" And I'm like, "Grandma, he drove here. I don't think he's worried about an oil on Shabbos. " When my grandmother turned ninety, which was shortly before she passed away from COVID. My aunt, who was my grandmother's best friend, my great aunt She said on the video they made a matzega. What do they call that in English? One of those like video zaken. That's English. They made one of those like pernshpils. You know where they have the whole life.

28:44 So my grandmother's sister, who herself was not observant She said Sarah. She was crying on the video. Our parents are so proud of you in heaven. You did the right thing. You keep Shabbos. You keep kosher. And I'm listening to this video. You knew this to be true. You knew this. And I forget. The old generation, just because they didn't have Yiddish, just because they weren't from, doesn't mean that they weren't deeply, deeply Jewish. Of course, over time it withers away. This notion that wisdom is just for the sake of wisdom—that's not what Torah Lishma is. Torah Lishma doesn't mean I learn Torah for the sake of being a scholar of Ramban. I'm not trying to be a professor of Rashi. The whole Yeshayah of Yiddishkeit is that L'midat Torah is supposed to change you, and if it doesn't change you, then something is fundamentally wrong.

29:39 And by the way, it's not working. I say this even though I know what I'm about to say might be controversial. It's not working today. Torah is not changing people in the way that it once did. Because we've adopted this materialistic culture that a boy can go to yeshiva and that a girl can come to seminary and that they can take all the notes in the world and if the rebbe coughs they wrote down he coughed in this time But does it actually change us? Are we bale derech? Are we bale derech eretz? That it's really changing us as human beings? My rasha shiva, rabbi Yaakov bender shlitah. I was zaychet. I was zaychet to have a relationship with him when I was ten years old, and today, Baruch Hashem, I still have a strong relationship with the rasha shiva. I was sitting next to the rashi at a chasna this past year. And Rabbi Bender looks at me and he goes, Mordechai, the yeshivish world finally came around to my way of thinking that you have to push chesed first.

30:33 I said I'm bought in. You don't have to sell me. I bought in at 10 years old. I'm like, what does Rabbi mean? He goes, you know why they bought in? Because they're looking at all the failed marriages today. That if you have boys that are unbelievable talmidei chachamim, unbelievable. The amount of Torah that's being learned today is off the charts. But is that Torah changing the boys? Is it reaching their soul? Look how their fathers. Look how their husbands. Rabbi Bender has to get up in front of the entire world to speak about toa meha and that we shouldn't be drunk going into Shabbos. The comments section on Yeshiva World News asks who this rabbi is to tell us what to do. This is all part of the insanity of Yovan that a person could learn Torah and it has nothing to do with their life.

31:19 It has only to do with their mind. They've turned Torah into chachma. Chachma bagayim tamin. There's a side of chachma in this world, but chachma is not Torah. The difference between chachma and Torah is that chachma measures the world. Torah tells you why the world exists to begin with and how we're meant to engage in it. It's fundamentally different. If Torah becomes Chokhmah, then we lose the soul of Torah. We've lost everything that we came here to this world for. Torah was meant to be Kehem Chayenu v'Orach Yamenu. It was the air that we breathed. It wasn't something that we checked off a box that I could say that I did it every day. My Rabbi Shlita I remember I once asked him. When does Rebbe have time to prepare shear? My Rebbe shear was an hour and a half every single day. An hour and a half every single day.

32:06 He told me that he prepared the average shear seven to ten hours. I said, where does Rebbe have seven to ten hours in the day to prepare the shiur? And I learned with my Rebbe bechavrusa for several years. I saw he was unbelievable. The shiur was not just an exceptional shear. Every word was precise. I said, "Where does Rebbe have seven to ten hours?" I'll never forget. He looks at me. He goes, "Mordechai When I'm walking to my car, I'm thinking about the shir. When I'm driving, I'm thinking about the shir. When I get out of my car to go to my office, I'm thinking about the shir. When I'm walking from my office into the beis medrash, I'm thinking about the shir. I saw in my Rebbe it wasn't chachma to him. He was brilliant. He had a master's degree from Columbia in mathematics. But it wasn't chachma to him. It was his life. He once described Hasmoda as something you have to be ferocious about.

33:00 When Roshach Zecher Tzaddik Levrach the Rosh Yeshiva Panovich passed away, my Rebbe gave a hesped, a eulogy, on Thursday for Roshach. Three weeks in a row. At the end of three weeks, I asked. I said, Rebbe Roshach, no doubt, was a gadol b'tayra, but like three weeks in a row What's Rebbe trying to tell us? And I remember he looks at me and goes, "Mordechai, Rofchach gave shear into his nineties. Who gives shear into their nineties? What professor in Columbia University in Harvard is giving their class into their nineties? And if they are, I want to know why. Rofchach gave shear into his nineties. My Rebbe gave shear until he literally could not give shear anymore. Because it wasn't chokhmah to him. It was Torah. It was something fundamentally deeper. Ein od milvado is the culture of Yiddishkeit. Everything that we look at There's a rebbeinu shalalim behind it. There's not one moment of existence that doesn't have the rebbeinu shalalim behind it. Our physical body has a godly soul that rests within it, animating our lives.

34:07 Our material world. If you have a dollar, that dollar was given to you to be the custodian of that dollar. What will you do with that dollar? Last year, I met a tzaddik. He's a tzaddik nistar, and I can't say his name. But I want you to know, I wish I could say his name. If I say his name, he's going to be furious at me. I have a tayva to say his name. I'm going around the entire world telling the story of this guy. It's on the tip of my lips. I want to say it because I want to out him because he's the biggest tzaddik in the world. But I can't, I can't say it. He would never give me rishos. It's aser legamrei. I went to New York City last year. I started a couple years ago. I got mussar from my rebbe that I wasn't helping the yeshiva fundraise, even though my job is purely educational in the yeshiva. I wasn't fundraising for the boys that need scholarships.

34:55 Why wasn't I fundraising? My rebbe called me out on it. Gaiva, I'm a Five Towns kid. We give money, we don't ask for it. Even though I kind of look like a tzedakah collector. You don't know what to do with that joke. If you laugh at it, then you're confirming. I know it. I know who I am. I own it. One time, many years ago. When I was still in America and teaching there, one of my talmidim got sick. So I thought I was going to be a great rebbe. I went to his house at night and I knocked on the door. I was going to be mavaker cholim. He's not a great rebbe. His mother peeked through the curtains and she said, "I'm sorry, we don't give door to door." I'm your son's rebbe. Very awkward. But ever since then, I'm grateful. She gave me the mussar. I know who I am.

35:41 So I didn't want to go collecting. My rebbe said, 'You're a balgai. It's not for you. You're not asking for yourself. You're not getting paid more because you go. You're helping out boys that otherwise couldn't learn Tiro.' So I said, 'Mekabel on myself, fine. I'm going to be part of the fundraising team.' So I went to America last year. I went to New York City. Walked into this office of this partner of the yeshiva. We'll call him. Beautiful office, stunning office. One of these like offices in New York City where the elevators don't have buttons. You go in. You have to tell them beforehand. They send you up to the floor. You go to these gorgeous conference rooms. This guy sits down with us And he's like Tell me how I can help. And he just starts like, 'Okay, what do we need?' It was unbelievable. Usually you go in and you have to You have to like shmear. It's not like a nice feeling.

36:32 Baruch Hashem, yeshiva's doing well. You have to have that awkward beginning if you've seen this show before. And he was exactly the opposite, and he wrote us a very generous check for the yeshiva. So I asked him. I said, please tell me your secret. Tell me your secret. I want to talk to the boys about tzedakah and yeshiva. I want to be able to say to the boys. To give more tzedakah, but how do you train boys to give tzedakah? So he looks at me dead in the eyes. Rashi and I were sitting with him, and he goes Like perplexed. He looks at me and he's like It's not your money. It's not your money. What are you talking about? It's not your money. If the Rebbeinu Shlom gives you a dollar, that's your dollar to give to somebody else. And if you're going to use that dollar for yourself, you're going to have to give a din v'cheshbon on every single dollar.

37:26 And this is a man of serious, significant means. He was looking at me, and I'm the Rebbe in the room. He's looking at me like I'm crazy. What? You don't know? You don't know that a dollar comes from the Rebbeinu Sholom? If you spend that money on a car, you have to know that after 120, the Rebbeinu Sholom is going to go. Did you really need that Corvette? Did you really need that Porsche? Somebody else needed that money. He's like, so go back and tell the Talmidim there is a God, and everything you have comes from the Rebbeinu Sholom. And he was telling us. He told us the most unbelievable maysa. A very, very wealthy gever, one of the wealthiest Jews in the world. And there was a person he did not know. This gever, he never met this person in this person's life. It was a crazy story in a different Jewish community. The father left; he left behind six kids. The mother mamish couldn't make it. The rabbi of the community was going around, and he was trying to raise money. He raised a paltry sum of money, like thirty thousand dollars. This family needed to survive. This family was going to need hundreds of thousands of dollars.

38:29 It just wasn't going to happen. So this rabbi called up a different rabbi, and this rabbi went to this big veer and said, "There's this family that lo alenu doesn't have anything." Veer goes, "I got it." "I got it." He paid for their house. He paid for all of their children's education. He put the kids through college. How do I know this story? Because the youngest son, who had just finished college, met with this guy that I was meeting with to get a job. He had this whole plan worked out, and he wanted to get this job. How did he make that connection? Because this guy set him up. So he said, "How do you know this gvir?" He goes, "He took care of me my entire life." He never met the family before, and he paid for everything. They weren't even part of his community. That's what it means, ein od mivado. If you have a dollar, give it away to tzedakah. If you need it for yourself, Peseder, that's for you.

39:22 But are we running? Do we have the same chumras in tzedaka that we have in our matza? Are shiurim in tzedaka as significant as our shiurim in chareisus? Baruch Hashem, we're doing amazing things. I do wonder when we build these enormous houses and when we drive the fanciest cars and we go on the most lavish Pesach programs. I do wonder what the negative impact of that is. If we lose sight of this culture of materialism, if we lose ourselves to it, what will happen to Chassidus Shalom and the next generation? It's a topic that we have to be screaming about because we are watching it happen. A young man today wants to be a gvir. He's more likely to know the names of the wealthiest people in Klal Yisrael than he is to know the names of the Gedolei Ador. And it makes sense because all the gedolim have to go around fundraising. So who are the powerful ones? The ones with the money.

40:20 But we're creating a culture before our very eyes that is devoid of the Rebbeim Shlom. It's coming in from this Yovan perspective, this perspective of materialism. And we believe Ain Ov Melvado. In the world of Yovan, everything is fragmented. In the world of Yiddishkeit, everything is one. That's why the whole yisoid of the yevanim is to be metame all the shemen All the shemen, not a little bit of the shemen, not a lot of the shemen, all the shemen. They can't leave anything behind. The fact that one thing gets left behind is absolutely miraculous, because the nature of shemen is that it rises above. You could pour the shemen all the way on the bottom, but it separates itself from the water. There's something distinct, something that's distinct from the materialism of the world. That's the shemen. They come to the Shem and they say, "We need to destroy all of that notion. There is nothing else but materialism." That's why they say, "Kislu lechem alkeren Ashar, she'en lechem chelik belakeh Yisrael." On the horn of an ox, that you have no portion in the God of Israel.

41:26 The ox being the most physical animal that exists, the brute force of the Shor. There is no God. That's why they celebrate Yosef. Because they look at Yosef, we see Yosef HaTzaddik, and we see Yosef HaTzaddik as the person who shames Hashem Shoger B'Fiv. Everywhere that he goes, he's talking about the Rebbe Nisholim. But how do the Greeks look at Yosef? What a politician! What a statesman! But they only see the outside of Yosef HaTzaddik. They don't see the inside of Yosef HaTzaddik. They try to destroy the inside of Yosef HaTzaddik. That's why the message of Hanukkah is that the mighty Greek army falls prey to a couple of tzaddikim because the darkness is very strong But the light is significantly stronger. If you believe in the light, then you don't have to be afraid of the darkness. That's the whole yuside of Chanukah. The whole yuside of Chanukah is the world is coming and they're screaming materialism, and our response is we're not interested in your materialistic worldview. We're not interested in the culture that says that you're that you are who you are because your name is on a building.

42:34 That you're who you are. Because look at the car that you drive. Because look at the house that you have. That's not what we've ever been about. I remember. I grew up in a town called Farakaway for the first fifteen years of my life. Back in the day, Farakaway was considered a poor neighborhood. We said we're from West Lawrence. That's how we like, we're like a pig sticking out our feet, saying we're kosher. I grew up in West Lawrence. And then when I was 15 years old, we moved to Lawrence. We moved across 878, and it was like a totally different universe. And I remember, not Chasam Shlom saying anything negative. I grew up in an amazing community. Baruch Hashem, I'm blessed to have grown up there. I loved my childhood. But I remember it was different. The more you have, when you start focusing on the external Changes you. All of a sudden.

43:28 All of a sudden, you have that credit card. That credit card changes you. My sister-in-law is a big mechanechet here in Eretz Yisrael. She said it used to be, and she remembers this time. It used to be that girls did not come to Eretz Yisrael with credit cards. I didn't come to Eretz Yisrael with a credit card. My father grew up in the projects in the Bronx. He was like, 'Look, you're going to Israel for the year. I'll pay for your tuition, but spending money is on you.' We didn't have mommy and daddy's credit card. It wasn't just this notion of waltzing from the store that's five minutes away. It's like the irony of the guys who are in the gym all day long, but they won't walk five minutes to go because they. What do you mean? Like it's just five shekels, right? We that credit card it changes you. My sister-in-law said she can draw a straight line from the challenges of davening. A girl came to Yitzchak, she was able to get into davening very easily because she had to rely on the Rebbeinu Shlom. There was a finite amount of money in her pocket. She didn't know how things were going to work out.

44:23 Today you have mommy and daddy's credit card. What do you mean? Why should I daven to the Rebbeinu Shlom? I have a magic piece of plastic. Everything that I want, it comes from this magic piece of plastic. I remember when I was in Eretz Israel, we had to develop emuna because when we came to yeshivas and seminaries back in the day, it was true of every seminary in every yeshiva. They left us on our own. Mamish left us on our own to fend for ourselves. Do you remember people going to the Larom Hotel, the Inbal today, going and begging for? We were like beggars, begging for food on Sukkot. Is there anybody that will take us in and give us a meal? This is the way we grew up. There was no seminary taking care of us. They still do the same lunch every day here. Some traditions never die. Even in my time, that was what Mecholah was doing. Don't ask me why I know that, but it doesn't matter.

45:11 Because my cousin went here. It's not true. I don't have any cousins from there. Why should I dive into the Rebbeinu Shlomo? What do I need the rebbeinu shalom for? This is the challenge. The more that we have There's a very big veer. Today he doesn't live in the five towns anymore. But back in the day, this guy was an unbelievable person. Have you girls heard of Rav Fraym Waxman Shlita? Rav Fraym Waxman is one of the greatest speakers in the world. Many years ago, my chavrusha, some of you might know my chavrusha from back in the day. His name is Rav Aryeh Kohn. Rav Ayecon from DRS was my. We were learning B'Chavrusa together, and Rav Aye says to me one day He said, "There's a rabbi coming to speak tonight in the Five Towns." So he said, 'You got to come. This guy's unbelievable.' I don't know, like I'm not so into rabbis. I just want to learn. He's like, 'No, you got to come.' So we go to this guy's house, and we're sitting around the table, Hanukkah time, fifteen guys around the table listening to Rav Frayn Waxman speak.

46:18 And this guy kept bringing Rav Frayn Waxman back. It went from fifteen to fifty to a hundred to two hundred, and then eventually he had to take it out of his house and they brought it. I think it was the Red Shul in the Five Towns, and today I think it's in Shiyoshev. And hundreds of people come for the pre-Shavuos or Rifayim Waxman speech. But I was there when it was fifteen guys around the table. But in the in-between period when it was still in this guy's house and he had two hundred guys coming, his floors were beautiful wooden floors and these floors were getting scratched up. And a chas of Rashi Shiva in the neighborhood went to this guy's house to collect money, and he walks into this house, gorgeous, stunning house, but the floors are all destroyed, scratches all over these beautiful wooden floors. So the Rashi Shiva says to this gvir. He says you should know. In my yeshiva, we had the same problem. There's a special solvent that you can put on top of the wood. You can manage to drop like an atom bomb on the wood, and it won't leave a scratch.

47:14 So he said, if you want, I can tell you the name of this, so you could have it, so you can have these, your floors. It's ainol l'fichfodu. You have this beautiful house, and look at your floors. And this gvir said to him, he goes, I know that I could get the floors fixed. I don't want to get my floors fixed. He said, 'Why don't you want to get your floors fixed?' He goes, 'Do you know how hard it is to raise kids with this type of money?' That they see the house that we have, and they see. I want my kids to know that I'd rather live in a house like this with scratched floors. That's chinuch And there's a reason that gvir's kids became big bnei taira Because the home, it was a beautiful home. But the nature of the home was that it was for a purpose. There used to be a mitzvah in Kali Yisrael that they buried you in your dining room table. They would take the dining room table, they would turn it into a coffin, and you'd be buried in your dining room table. Why?

48:03 Because what came with you, your Shabbos table came with you. The arkhim that you had. That's what comes with you. That's our perspective on materialism, not this notion that the more I have, the more powerful I am. But it's seeping in. And if we're not careful It's coming soon to a theater near you. We want to raise our children comfortably. We want our children to have everything they need. But for a tachlis, there's a purpose to everything that we're doing. The chavivus of Ner Hanuka. The chavivus of Ner Hanuka is that the Rebbeinu Sholom says to us: the most precious thing in the world that you can do for me is to find me beneath the surface. That's what's unique about Chanukah. On Pesach, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is revealed. It's unbelievable. On Purim, the Rebbeinu Sholom is concealed, and we have to believe in the miracle.

49:00 But the belief that the Rebbeinu Sholom was moving all the pieces. On Chanukah, we thread the needle. We can see the Rebbeinu Sholom in the material world. That's the most precious thing of the Rebbeinu Sholom. That's what the Rebbeinu Sholom really wants. And if you'll be sensitive to the mitzvah of Chanukah. The Rambam says you will start to be sensitive to all the miraculous things that happen in this world. Because once you start to see beneath the surface, you can't help but see everything beneath the surface. So a person who zaher and neirah is Chanukah, a person who's careful to get in touch with the preciousness of Chanukah, of course, they start to see it everywhere. It changes their lenses. They're no longer living in the material world in the way that the rest of us are. They're looking at things and they're going. There's the Rebbe Nachshon. And those people, dafka, by the way, the ones that they can see it anywhere. They see it even in the darkest places. There are some people, and we know this is going to be the case. There are some people that they're going to sit there after the attack.

50:04 The latest attack in Australia, and they're going to say, "We need to fight anti-Semitism." And you should know there are people who will see much deeper than that. They're not interested in fighting anti-Semitism. They're interested in increasing the light. The Rebbeinu Shalom will be. You should know. I don't know how it's going to be, but in five years from now, in ten years from now, you're going to see that in that place in Australia, you're going to see that they're going to have built it up like crazy, and be ten Chabad houses on the beach in Bondi, Australia by the time we're done. Because some people know how to see deeper. They're not fighting the darkness. They're just increasing the light. They see Hakadosh Baruch Hu everywhere. That's our avoda. That's how this country has made it through the last two and a half years. We didn't make it through the last two and a half years because we were fighting Hamas or Hezbollah or Iran.

50:58 Anybody who was paying attention understood that the real battle was the thing that comes before that. Which is not Chassvasholom to say that we shouldn't give unbelievable shavua chodah to every single soldier who puts on a uniform and risks their life so that we could be sitting here learning Torah in Eretz Yisrael. That goes without saying. But what was amazing to me was all the stories of hearing all the hatufim. I'm reading a book right now. I can't get through it. I'm ten pages into it. It's heartbreaking. This book called Hostage. Have you seen this book? It's gut wrenching. I'm pushing myself to read it. My father said to me, "Why are you reading this book? It's so hard to read." I said, "I have to. I feel like I have to be emo and nochi butzara. I have to see what these people went through." And hearing how they were so deeply connected to the Rebbeinu Shalom in the darkest places is so inspiring.

51:48 That on October 7th it was the darkest day in the state of Israel's history, and October 8th was the brightest day. Every yid was connected to each other. We know how to see deeper. And perhaps the answer the Beis Yosef Kasha. I don't know if this answer has been said. Probably has, because thousands of answers have been given. But perhaps we could say as follows. That we, the people who see beneath everything, who see the oneness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in every single area of our lives, we know that the real mitzvah of Chanukah is one light that lasts for eight days, one that's kailal everything, that it goes beyond nature. Nature is seven; to go beyond nature is eight, but it's really one light. The first light is as much of a miracle as the second and the third and the fourth and the fifth and the sixth and the seventh and the eighth, because really it's all one thing. There's no fragmentation in our world. If you have a dollar, the Abanislam gave you that dollar. If you have a child, that's a trust from the Abanislam. How are you going to raise that child? If you have a marriage, what is the tachlis of this marriage? How can I build the bias naman be yisrael? What am I doing with my life?

52:53 Dafka in the hardest times. That's the secret of what it means to be a yid. Dafka in the hardest times. I see the Rebbeinu Shalom in everything and everywhere and in every moment of my life. We are an unbelievable nation, and we've been blessed with exceptional wealth. In this galus, we've been blessed with exceptional wealth. Baruch Hashem. The shaila is Are we going to look at the surface and fall for the trick of the materialistic world and say this is all there is? Or can we see deeper? If we can see deeper, the Es Hashem will be zeicher to see the oneness of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in every facet of our lives. And with that in mind, to be able to bring what's called the Yichida of the entire world, which is the name of Mashiach. Mashiach comes to reveal the oneness of the entire world, and if we believe that Mashiach will come because of our actions, then perhaps the thing that we need to be doing most in the world right now. Is refusing to believe in life's fragmentations and continuously saying, "I believe in the oneness of the Rebbeinu Shalom" in order to bring Mashiach. Girls have a lichtig Hanukkah.