Chanukah - Shifting Perspective: Seeing Through the Darkness

2:24 I also just want to take a moment to thank Barry and Aviva. I don't think we can possibly express our appreciation for everything that the Chizuk Mission does, and for the Leva Nefesh that Barry and Avivah pour into this program. And it's not obvious to come from Cleveland to be here this morning. The Mesirah Nefesh. I had the opportunity to speak to Barry. What was it a week ago? And she said, "Should I come? Should I not come?" I said, "You have to be here because there are things I'm going to say today that are going to embarrass Barry very badly." And if she wasn't here, it wouldn't be as geshmak for me. But as Hashem So I want to share with you a little bit of Torah this morning. The kedushas levi, the halagar of levi Yitzchak meberditchev. He pointed out that every single one of the Yomim Tovim is connected to a different one of our senses.

3:25 So Purim, we hear the Megillah. On Pesach We taste the matzah and the maror. Hanukkah is the bechina of vision. Hanukkah is the time where we sit and look at the Hanukkah neros and bask in their glow. We don't use them for anything. We're not active in that sense. We're literally just gazing longingly at the candles. So we have to unpack a little bit. What is this? Idea of vision. What are we supposed to do with that? How is it meant to impact our lives? There's only one time in the entire Torah that we have a concept of haroah mivarech. Haroah mivarech. This is a pasuk in the halacha that if a person can't light for themselves But they see the candles of somebody else So then they make the bracha of shas nisin la'vosenu simply by looking at somebody else's candles. I'm able to make a bracha on them. We don't find this anywhere else. If somebody puts on tefillin and we can't put on tefillin, we don't make a bracha on their tefillin.

4:34 If somebody shakes a lulav and we can't shake a lulav for whatever reason, we don't make a bracha on their lulav. This is the only time in the entire corpus of halacha that we make a bracha on what somebody else does. So we have to understand that also a little bit deeply. What is that idea that I can make a bracha on what somebody else does? In Befrat, just to be very specific, we know many places that Chazal point out that Yavon is the bechina of Choshech. The entire Yom Tov of Chanukah is the engagement with the darkness. It's a period of darkness in the Jewish calendar. And Yavon brings a certain darkness to this world. And we're meant to engage that darkness. The question is, how? I want to share with you a very powerful, and probably some of you had this as well, a very powerful experience that I had many years ago.

5:26 Has anyone here ever been to the Blind Museum in Israel? For those of you that haven't been, I'm going to ruin it for you right now. And for those of you that have been, it's a very powerful experience. I went to the Blind Museum with my family. You walk into the Blind Museum; it is pitch dark. You can't see anything. And you go on a tour, and they take you to different rooms, and you have different experiences in the rooms. And at the end, when you reacclimate into the light, it's like you're back. It's almost like you're reborn. Like you really lost something of yourself. And the spoiler is that your tour guide in the blind museum is blind. So when you go out into the light You realize that you just had the experience of somebody who lives that way. It happens to be that on the tour I took.

6:24 As we got out And I saw the tour guide; I recognized him. I teach in a yeshiva called Yeshiva Shari of Aseret Ziyon. On that campus, there's an Israeli kollel and an Israeli high school. And I recognized the tour guide. He's one of the teachers in the Israeli high school. So I got out, and immediately I said, "I know you." And he turns to me without blinking. He goes, "Sorry, I don't recognize you." I didn't have any words to say. I said I teach in the yeshiva. He said oh that's so nice and we had the opportunity to start talking and he starts unpacking with us with the group. I think this is pretty much what they do always. What was the experience like for you over the course of the last half an hour, forty five minutes, an hour however long you've been there? What was it like.

7:25 And you start describing naturally all of the lack, all of the incapacity that you had over the course of that forty-five minutes, what you weren't able to do. And he gave us the most unbelievable mussar. He said, "All of you are addicted to sight." He said, "Not being able to see is a tremendous gift" And this threw me for a loop. Sight is the most incredible gift that the Rebbeinu Shalom gives us. The world is a stunning place. Could you imagine if somebody robbed us of the ability to see the world? When you're flying If you ever fly over the Swiss Alps, one time I had the opportunity. I'm not like that story, Reb Hersch went to the Alps to see. I'm not going to Switzerland. My wife needs me at home. I'm making a chasnas Hashem in a week and a half. That's why I'm here.

8:23 I'm making a chassan in a week and a half. It's better for me to be away. For everybody's sake. I'm never going to the Alps. I'm not going to see Hashem's Alps. But one time I flew over. It's magnificent. It's magnificent to see a sunrise. It's magnificent to see a sunset. And I couldn't understand what he was saying, and it bothered me very much. Because I felt like I knew him a little bit, because I had seen him around the campus. So I felt very comfortable, maybe inappropriately. So I felt very comfortable to really try to parse it out with him. What exactly do you mean that it's a gift? What do you mean that I'm addicted to sight? And he said, as just an example He said, when you're talking to somebody, what are you paying attention to? I said, I don't know. I'm paying attention to everything. It's my training. My training is to pay attention to the way a person flinches their eyes, or the way a person is hunched over, or the way they're breathing. He goes exactly.

9:21 When I'm listening to somebody All I'm doing is listening to them. I'm not doing anything else. I'm totally attuned to the words that are coming out of their mouth. And you don't realize how much you're missing because you're paying attention to the physical things that they're expressing in that moment. And I wasn't so quick to take it. I wasn't like because he's also missing something. He can't see that body language, he can't see those cues. But I started thinking about it and I started wondering how much am I missing because I'm looking. I started thinking in Yiddishkeit we close our eyes when we say Shema Yisrael Hashem Elokeinu Hashem Echad to perceive unity. To be able to perceive the oneness of all things in Judaism begins with closing your eyes. Because when you open your eyes, you're living in a fragmented world. That's where we live. We each live in an individualized, unique world when our eyes are open, and when our eyes are closed, all we perceive is the harmony of everything.

10:28 And this is what he was telling me. He said, in every aspect of your life, try it. Just close your eyes. And it was a humbling experience. I started doing it when I was meeting with talmidim. That sometimes I get so focused on their body language, I just close my eyes and really try to hear the words they were saying exclusively. Try it; it's a completely different experience. But remember to open it, Crystal, before you sleep. Thank you so much for that. It's not a small thing. It's not a small thing to be able to really pay attention, not with your eyes. Because in a certain way, when your eyes are open, you don't see at all. And this was a revolution in the way that I began to think about the world. If we would all close our eyes for a moment, don't do it. It's not one of those things like everyone close your eyes.

11:27 If we all closed our eyes for a moment, if this room was completely dark Would anything in this room actually change? No. The reality of a room doesn't change just because we're in the darkness. What's the difference? The difference is in how we perceive the room. The truth of the matter is that every one of us is perceiving the room differently right now. Depending on where you're sitting, you're perceiving the room differently. I know, for example, my experience right now is for sure different than yours. I'm highly aware that Barry is recording me on her phone. Even that is just a completely different experience. I had the opportunity to take a class. A two-day course, full-day course with Dr. Anat Bornstein. Has anyone heard of Dr. Anat Bornstein? You just finished level one IFS. Is she incredible? She's incredible. So Dr. Bornstein is a therapist. She's an IFS therapist for those of you that know what IFS is.

12:30 And she was the Tamidamuvheke of Dr. Richard Schwartz, who was the founder of IFS. And Ainat, she is incredible. She has such presence about her. She's really like wherever she is, that's where she is. It's one of the most amazing things. So we took this two day course with her. And at some point we had to leave the place where we were because they had double booked the hall. So we had to find somewhere else. So for a day and a half we all sat in the same exact seats. And then for the last half of the day we had to switch to a new place, and people were sitting in new seats in a new room. And because the training that we were doing was so intense, if you've ever been to an A. Not Bornstein training, you know you're being asked to do the work yourself. It's not just about teaching you the skills; you have to actually do the work.

13:25 Shifting from one room to another, shifting places, everybody in the room had the same experience. We all said we're very thrown. And by the way, this group was all men. So just so you understand, for us to say emotional words like we feel very thrown, we don't feel okay right now. This is not safe. This was after a day and a half of real work. We had emotional language. It was very beautiful. It was a safe space for everybody. It was like a group of there were a lot of rebbeim. I know what I'm doing in life, rebbeim, and then all of a sudden people were like, I don't think I'm okay. Just changing your seat was totally disconcerting. Just changing your perspective—it's a totally disconcerting experience because we have these things not that we believe to be true. Things that we absolutely know to be true.

14:23 And then once your perspective shifts, the definition of real inspiration—they say excitement. Inspiration are different. People say inspiration doesn't last. That's not true. Inspiration lasts a lifetime. Excitement doesn't last because excitement is just a mood. Inspiration lasts a lifetime because the nature of inspiration is I changed the way that I saw the world. Once you see the world differently, you can't unsee it. I'll give you an example of this. I remember when I was in my early 30s. Realizing that my parents were only in their early 30s when I was a certain age And all of a sudden I was able to give my parents so much grace and so much gratitude. Because all the things that I had inside, my parents were wonderful. But we are all hurt children. Every one of us handling children is like handling glass. You're gonna leave a mark.

15:16 So I grew up and I was like, my parents should have done this. My parents should have done that. And all of a sudden I was a parent. They were just figuring it out themselves. I'm the oldest. Everyone knows if you're the oldest in the room, you know what you were. You were the guinea pig. You were the pioneer of their parenting. My parents were wonderful, but they had no idea what they were doing. Just like I had no idea what I was doing. Just that shift in perspective lasts a lifetime. So you're going through life, and you believe. Seeing is believing. I know what's true. Just because you see it doesn't mean you know it's true. The more you see it, the less you know it's true. There's a halacha that a judge who sees a crime is not allowed to pass in the case. Because you see it, you know absolutely what happened.

16:05 And it's not true. In the Gausha world, they say seeing is believing. In the Jewish world, we say you have to close your eyes in order to be attuned to what's really happening. How do we do this? How do we shift our perspective, and what are we shifting our perspective to? I'm going to tell you a var. It's a deep taira. It's not a small taira. It's a deep taira. This was one of the first taaras that I ever heard from Rav Gedaliah Shar from the Ar Gedaliah The great Rosh Yeshiva of Tarvadas. It's an amazing life-changing var. He says as follows. I'll say it in my way. Who knew better what happened at Akedas Yitzchak? Avram Avinu or Moshe Rabenu? What would you naturally say? If you didn't, and you weren't naturally going to give the other answer just because you know that's the way all rabbis work, what would you naturally say? You naturally say Avram Avinu. He was there. Moshe Rabenu wasn't there.

17:05 The Gemara says a fascinating thing. The Gemara says Moshe Rabenu had what's called aspaklaria meira. Avram Avinu had aspaklaria she'ena meira. Avram Avinu had a vision that wasn't clear. Moshe Abinu had a vision that was clear. The difference is that for Moshe, for Avram Abinu, it was like looking through this type of glass. It was tainted. If you're wearing pink glasses, the world appears pink. Moshe Abinu had absolutely clear vision. It was like looking through clear glass. Therefore, he was able to perceive reality 100%. What was the difference? The Gemara says. The Gemara says Avram Abinu said Anochi afar ve'ayther. I am but dust and ashes. Whereas Moshe Rabbeinu said, "V'nachnuma, what am I?" What's the difference between 'I am but dust and ashes' versus 'V'nachnuma, what am I?' It comes down to this: it's all a game of ego. It's all a game of ego.

18:10 We are all seeing the world through the lens of our own ego, of our own pain, of our own trauma. That's the way we see the world. I want you to know. Over the years, I've had so many opportunities to sit with people who are—I don't want to say fighting, but certainly people who are strongly disagreeing with each other. I'll give you an example of this. It was a young man who was engaged to a young woman. I knew both of them. They're wonderful people. Baruch Hashem, they have a beautiful marriage today. The engagement was Gehenna. For those of you that have married off children before. Some chasnas are less bumpy. Some chasnas are more bumpy. Some challenges with in-laws are a little bit more, a little bit less. This was the single worst engagement I have ever seen. Why? One of the families doesn't matter which one. One of the families I would call them a regular middle-class Jewish family financially.

19:07 The other family was Baruch Hashem blessed with a tremendous amount of financial abundance. For them to make a middle-class wedding. It was ein l'afich vodo. They could not bring themselves to do it. They needed it to be a 25-piece orchestra. They needed it to be like and again I'm not judging it in any way. They had certain needs. They needed the food to be a certain rama. They needed the shmorgasbord to be a certain rama. They needed to have balei gozma a thousand people at the wedding. They needed that just for the circles that they were in. The other family felt terrible. And they said we just can't afford to participate on that level in the wedding. We just don't have that type of money. The other family said, the wealthy family said we totally get it. You pay whatever you feel comfortable with. We will take the rest. Isn't that generous?

19:58 It was such a miserable experience, and I was in between it. Just trying to help people out. The middle class family called me up. They said, Rev. Berg. This is a despicable, disgusting event. We're embarrassed to participate. We are not people that make an extravagant wedding, and we feel like we're guests at our own wedding. And I remember the mother said to me, "She's like, this is a sudas achashveros. I feel so uncomfortable. The other side called me up and they said, 'We are paying for everything. We're doing our best to make them feel comfortable. We're giving them every choice in the world. We're just stuck. This is the reality of our situation. Who's right? Who's wrong?' I'm not sitting here judging. There's a lot to say about the weddings we make in the Jewish community, and perhaps that could be an entire series by itself.

20:51 But each side had a very valid point. The challenge was that they could not get out of their own ego to see from the other side. And all I was trying to do with each side—and that's why each side hated me. That's how you know you're doing a good job as a mediator when each side hates you equally. By the time the chasna came around, I was the enemy. It was the most beautiful thing. Thank you so much. I really felt like I was part of the wedding. Trying to say to one side, "Do you understand? This is just the mitzvahs of this family." This is what their culture is. This is what their social life is. They're not choosing to do this. This is just standard for the community. They couldn't see it. Saying to the other side, do you see how they could feel like guests at their own wedding?

21:42 Neither could see the other person's side because they were so rooted in their own ego, and each one was convinced that they were absolutely seeing the truth because they could not get out of their own ego. I like this in Alcoholics Anonymous. They say ego is Rosh Hashanahs edging God out. When you're in a state of ego, you're in a state of disconnection from Hashem. When you're in a state of disconnection from Hashem, you are not seeing the reality. Avram Avinu said Anochi afer ve'ayther. He was an exceptional prophet, one of the greatest neviim ever. Why? Because his own yeshus, his own existence, was so minimal. He said, "I'm just dust and ashes." But even that, what does the Gemara say? He had asbaklaria she'ena me'ira. He couldn't see clearly because he could convince himself on some level I exist independently from Hashem even if it's the smallest possible amount Which is an exceptional level.

22:35 Moshe Rabbeinu said v'nachnu ma? What am I? I'm zero. Ain od malvado. All there is Hashem. There is nothing else in this world. So when Hashem told Moshe Rabbeinu this is what happened by Akedah Sichon. That's what actually happened. By Akedah Yitzchak, it's quite possible that if Avram Avinu was reading the Torah, he would go, "I don't remember it that way." I don't remember feeling that way. But perhaps Moshe Abinu was recording feelings that Avram Avinu himself didn't realize that he had. Perhaps Yitzchak would have read the story of the Akedah and he would say, 'Really, that's what happened' And we're all convinced that we know the absolute truth. I read a story years ago. I don't remember where I read it, so don't ask me any of the details. But I don't know if it was true even when I read it. I'll tell you the story. It's an amazing story. There was a talmid who was embarrassed by a rebbe.

23:27 And because of that rebbe embarrassing him, he never spoke to that rebbe again. He was furious at him for years. Absolutely furious. Years later He received a. Remember tapes? By the way, when I speak to the guys today, I say, is anyone going to tape this? They go, what tape? Is anyone going to record this? I have to tell them what CDs are. I'm holding. Baruch Hashem, new generation. Because eight tracks. I'm holding. I had a record player. These are wild times. Remember, we used to have to figure out where the song was. It was a scratch. It was a scratch. Can we just all, for a moment, recognize what just happened? We all traveled back in time together. That was very beautiful. Thank you for coming with me on that journey. Some less than others. That's true. I was just in the back seat of a car, arguing with my parents about which tape to put in. Everyone had their place that they went.

24:45 This Talmud got a tape. He got a tape from that Rebbe, and for some reason he put it in, and it was the Sheer that Rebbe embarrassed him. It was the Sheer that he had asked a question in. And the Rebbe, in his mind, the Rebbe had lashed out at him and embarrassed him in public. It was the last day he ever went to that shiur. And he's listening to the shiur, and he goes, "Oh my gosh, this is the shiur." And he's listening to it and waiting for it. And he hears himself ask the question And the Rebbe responded with total kindness. And he said that he got the point wrong, but it was done very gently and really in a batamt way. This guy is driving his car, and he said, "What?" It was not the way he remembered it at all. It could be that at that time in his life, he was particularly sensitive. That he needed to be able to make the point that he was making in order to be heard. He needed the Rebbe to say that he did a good job. He needed the Rebbe to say that his spar was right.

25:45 And the Rebbe didn't do anything wrong. And he said in this story, he called the Rebbe up and he apologized. He said, 'Rebbe, I've been holding this resentment and this grudge against you for years.' All because my perspective in that moment was that you said something to me, and you pashat didn't say it. How many of us have had fights like this with our spouse? You don't have to raise your hand. The answer is everybody. How many of us have heard the words? Recorded arguments with spouses. We should totally record them, but it won't go over well. I have the recording right here. That's not going to work. That's not going to create more shalom bias. Your husband's not going to say, "Thank you so much. Now we have the ability to find out who was really right." I promise you, that's not going to work. They already know who's right.

26:31 That's true. We do know who's right. If you ever find yourself in the middle of a fight with your husband If you said something and then all of a sudden he was triggered and he just lashed out. Wouldn't the most amazing gift be to just stop and go? What just happened? Can I just ask you what you heard? Imagine if you did that. Imagine if instead of just responding from your place of trigger, you just tap the brakes gently and go. What story are you telling yourself right now about what I just said? Because I'm genuinely curious to hear your experience. We could save. That's assuming he heard you. He didn't hear you. He didn't. I promise. I promise you, he didn't hear you. I promise you, he didn't hear you. Because if heard you, and this is the key. Thank you for segueing me into this. If heard you, he never would have been triggered to begin with.

27:25 It's a famous line. We don't see things the way they are. We see things the way we are. That's the thing that triggered his inner child. It's always true. So everyone. He never heard what you said. He heard. He heard. He saw that moment through the lens of his own yeshus, and he had no capacity to hear what you're saying. With his own what yeshus? With his own yeshus, with his own existence. His existence in that moment was so thick he had to be defensive. He had to. There was something that came up. If we could tap the brakes and just go, "Help me understand what just happened." If you're genuine and authentic, you could probably stop 95% of our shalom bias issues just by being able to say, "Tell me what just happened." I'm going to tell you a secret. I've been waking up on this earth for 44 years. I've never once woken up wanting to hurt anyone, and neither have you.

28:23 So why is it that we're hurting people? I never. You woke up wanting to. You may have woke up. You may have woken up defensive. A little angry. But you never. You may have woken up and said, "I need to protect myself" But you never once woke up. Nobody in this room. I promise you, nobody in this room has ever woken up saying How can I hurt someone today? We show up to life doing our best to connect deeply with people, and that's why it's so painful when it's not working. And it's not working because we're so focused on what we absolutely know to be true that we're not paying attention to what's actually happening in the room. Your eyes are closed, so you think the room is one way. It's not true. The reality of the room is the reality of the room, despite your perception of what's happening in the room in that moment.

29:27 What was that? It's not an aprakummi. So here's the great secret. If you do this exercise. If you'll stop being so focused on what you perceive to be true through your vision If you actually allow yourself to listen deeply, not from that place of pain, but from an actual place of self, if you can get there The world becomes the most beautiful, positive place. I want you to know that there's a difference between pessimism and hope. Pessimists walk around. If you ever meet a pessimist, I don't know if anyone here is a pessimist. When you meet a pessimist, they tell you optimists are idiots. They're literally not seeing the world the way it is. And there's a lot of research that says they're right. But chaval They might be right. They might have a greater grasp of reality. But chaval to lead a life like that—it's not about being a foolish optimist.

30:35 It's about being a deeply hopeful person and knowing how to see beauty when other people can't. If you start perceiving the world from a deep place of self, you won't be addicted to your sight, and you find humanity and beauty everywhere you go. That is the gift. The gift of when you meet someone who's so in self, you'll see they're an enormous circle and they can contain so many people. And we know who these people are. If you want to go, if you want to know which Rebbe in yeshiva is in self, just take a look at how his talmidim talk about him. When they walk out of his office, do they feel better or do they feel worse about themselves? It doesn't mean that he made them feel good. It doesn't mean that he gave them a pump up shmuus. But it means that in their lowest moment, when that talmid was suffering so badly, that Rebbe held genuine space for them and said, "I see the beauty of the pain that you're going through." That is the gift that we can give to people.

31:35 As spouses, as mothers, frankly for ourselves. The gift that we can give people is that we can actually see them for what they are. In their lowest moments, we can see that they were acting out their pain. And we can see them not just with optimism, but with hope. Hope is the belief that life will certainly change. So when you see somebody for who they are, you go, "You're just in process. You're doing great." It feels like you're moving away, but it's like a circle. In a circle, when you're moving away, you're always moving back towards that beginning point. In the words of Shl Sliverstein, it's your falling upwards. There's something beautiful about being able to see deeply into another person. One of my favorite ideas ever, a word from the Labavitcher Rebbe, unbelievable word. There was a girl whose name was Miriam Bas Belga.

32:24 In the times of the Greeks, Miriam Bas Belga, in a time when Klal Yisrael was being persecuted. She had the ultimate act of betrayal. She married a Greek soldier, and Greek—I think he was a general—and she went into the Beit Hamikdash when they were plundering the Beit Hamikdash, and she kicked the mizbeach and she said, "Wolf" Referring to the sheep that we were making on the mizbeach. She said, "Wolf, you took our karbanos for so long, and where are you now?" And the Gemara says that as a result, the family lost their mishmar in the Beit Hamikdash. It was a very big deal. When the Labavitcher Rebbe read this Gemara, he said? He said, "Yeah, but she kicked them as be'ach." And listen to the words that she said: "Hashem, you betrayed us." How could you have done this to us? And in those words of pain, isn't there a great longing for connection?

33:14 You see the way a person who sees from a deep place of self sees the world. That kid who gets up and says, "I hate davening." If you have real, real eyes, if you can really see—not from your own perception, but from a real deep place of self—when a kid says, "I hate davening," you know what you hear? How badly I want to connect to davening. When a kid says, "I hate keeping Shabbos. I'm bored" What is he saying? He's saying, "I want so badly to connect to Shabbos in a meaningful way." When a husband says to a wife "I hate when you criticize me." If you can listen to the words that he's really saying, he's saying, "I want so badly to be loved and accepted and appreciated" And I hate that you're criticizing me because I want to be connected to you. But we're perceiving it through the lens of our own ego, so all we hear is the outer shell of those words because we're looking. We're too addicted to that sight.

34:12 And it's unhealthy. It's not the right way to be. Because we're destroying things around us, because we're seeing it from this fragile place of existence. There's an amazing story about Simon Wiesenthal. Simon Wiesenthal was the famous Nazi hunter. So he once spoke at a conference of European rabbis in Bratislava, Slovakia, and the rabbis presented him with an award when Wiesenthal was 91 years old. He was visibly moved, and this is the story that he told. He said in Mauthausen Shortly after the liberation The camp was visited by Rav Lazer Silver. Rav Lazer Silver was one of the Gedolei Torah in America. He was the head of the Aguda, and he came on a mission to comfort and be with the survivors at that time. And there was a special tefila that they had at that time, and Rav Lazer Silver invited Simon Weizental to come.

35:12 And Simon Wiesenthal refused. He said, "I will never step foot into a shul." I'll never step foot into a shul. And if Laser Silver asked him why So he said, "I saw in the camps that there was a guy who smuggled in a sitter" And he had that sitter. He would charge people to use the sitter. He would take their bread, whatever meager things that they had. People would line up and give him whatever meager subsistence they had to survive so they could use the sitter. After that, I'll never walk into a shul. And Rav Lazar Silver and Yedidah, she said to him, "You fool!" You paid attention to the guy that was charging for the sitter. You didn't pay attention to the people who lined up to be able to use the sitter. They were willing to give whatever meager substance they had in order to be able to use a sitter. Simon Wiesenthal, from his place of pain, was only able to see the negative. Rav Laser Silver, as a gadol b'tayr, was able to see the positive.

36:13 And Simon Wiesenthal said, for him, it was a life-changing moment. And he said he went to tefillah, he went to daven. When we see our children, what do we see? Do we see their beauty? We could see their pain without focusing on it. How many children are defined by their pain? Because as parents, we want so badly to help them, but helping them doesn't mean saying this kid is in pain. Helping them means understanding that this kid's pain is beautiful. And there's something positive about that pain, and there's a process that they're going through. When we see our spouses But most of all when we see ourselves. How do we see ourselves? Are we broken? Are we destroyed? Is there no coming back? Everybody in this room has been through something. Everybody is suffering from a pain that we know nothing about. Do we define ourselves by that moment?

37:14 How many people do we know in their 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s that are still living out their childhood pain? There's a therapist in Eshelaim. His name is Rabbi David Levine. David Levine is a phenomenal therapist. At some point David Levine was seeing, treating. He was with a couple in their 70s. They were doing marriage therapy in their 70s. And David Levine asked them, "What makes you come in your 70s?" They said, "Look, we don't know how much longer we have together" But maybe we have 10 years left, and maybe we messed up the last 40 years. But let's at least do the last 10 right. How amazing is that? That these people knew that for so many years they were acting out their childhood pain, but at least they had the courage to look inside themselves and to say, 'I know there's something deeper inside of me, and I want to start connecting from that place.'

38:12 I'm going to say something now. These are not prepared words And I said in the beginning that I'm going to embarrass Barry, and here it comes. And it's going to be bad, Barry. So buckle up. And it's going to be hard for me too with you. I don't know how to categorize myself within the realm of the Chizuk Mission. I don't really know exactly what role I play. I know that every time I come, Barry introduces me as Rav Gav told us to hire a bird. Could you say that again so I could send it to everyone? The Rav Gav doesn't need any more. He has enough confidence. You could send it to him. Gav, I love you. I know that boy since he was 16 years old. But I've been a part of the Chizuk Mission for three years now. Almost every trip that comes to Eretz Yisrael, I've been privileged to join you at Eishat Torah.

39:16 Spend Shabbos to come back at nights. But I don't work for the Chizuk Mission. This is not my job. This is not my baby. This Barry. This Aviva. But I want to tell you something. And what I'm about to say, I don't say everywhere. What happens at the Chizuk Mission is not stam, and it should not be taken for granted. And when you speak to Barry on the phone, I've had the opportunity to do so several times over the last three years. And if you know Barry at all, you know this is how it goes. There's usually somewhere between a three- and five-minute soliloquy. Where Barry's speaking, and I'm just listening. And in those three to five minutes, you will hear one of the most passionate Jews in all of Klal Yisrael going off. And she talks about what she believes And she talks about what we're doing.

40:17 And she talks about why she's dedicating her life to this. I had the opportunity in my life to meet Rav Na'ach Weinberg, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Eishat Torah. And I hear and bury what I heard from Rav Na'ach all those years ago. The same passion that Rav Na'ach had to change the world It's in this room right now. And it's being carried on by Rav Na'ach's, I dare say, his prime talmidah. She's changing the world. And I'm going to tell you, even though I've never read the mission statement of the Chizik Mission I'm going to tell you what the mission statement is because I'm watching from an outsider. And you could see You could see the values. You can impute the values of something if you watch it for a long enough time. It's one value. Perceive yourself for who you actually are and not who you think you are.

41:15 Unleash that greatness that you have inside of you. That is the mission of the chesed mission. She's not stum bringing you to hotels in different places so that you should be able to enjoy the food in the plaza and in the Waldorf and in Eishat Torah. She's not stum going around to take you to see different things. She's looking to unleash the potential that you have inside of you because she knows that every single person in this room has the ability to change worlds. That's how you show up as a mother and how you show up as a wife. And how you show up to your relationship with the Ebester It comes from your relationship to yourself. It comes from an accurate perception of reality. That's the definition of truth. And Barry has a hard time speaking about herself because she's a humble person. The only thing I've ever heard her say about herself, and I've heard it many times, is she says, "My husband says I'm the sweetest sledgehammer."

42:11 That's the only thing I've ever heard her say about herself. She doesn't talk about herself. Whenever we talk, she only talks about the Chizik mission. She only talks about you. So she's not going to be able to get up and say what I'm about to say because she's embarrassed, which is the right thing to do. That's a healthy embarrassment. The Chizik mission needs your help. The Chizik mission, if I'm being honest with you, should be 10,000 women lefachot a year coming to Eretz Yisrael. Because we're seeing what happens when you come and we're seeing what happens when you leave. There's a reason people keep coming back. There's something special that's happening, and it's not cheap. Nobody likes sticking out their hand and saying, 'Please help us.' For the first time ever, I had to go fundraising for Mevaseret last year. It was a miserable experience.

42:59 And I had to keep reminding myself, 'I'm not getting paid one dime more for asking people for help. It's for the boys in yeshiva that can't afford it. It's for scholarship. I'm not getting paid more money to do this, but it's hard. Because we're a humble nation.' We don't like asking for help. So Barry's not going to get up and say what she really needs to say, which is this costs money. And we need your help to make this huge. We need your help to continue doing this, to run even more programming. How many programs in 15 years, in the last couple of years, it seems to me, at least from the outside, that we're ratcheting it up. And Aviva joining us in the Chizik mission has brought it to new levels. And probably Aviva should have a staff of people working for her. And the only challenge is it's not people looking for inspiration. We Baruch Hashem have plenty of. We just need resources, and I can say this because I'm like an outsider. I come, I speak, I leave, and I'm telling you what's happening here is not stam. It changes the way we perceive the world.

43:54 You can make a bracha on somebody else's Chanukah Neros. But it doesn't mean it's yours. Haroah mavark. Just by seeing somebody else's Chanukah Neros, you can make a bracha. But that's not real. You can't. You can make the bracha. You could be inspired by somebody else's vision. But then to actually light Neros Chanukah, it has to be yours. You don't make a bracha if you see somebody else shaking lulav. It's not the same type of inspiration. You borrow somebody else's eyes and you see yourself differently. That's awesome. You can make a bracha on that. It's step one. But if you really want to make a bracha on the Chanukah menorah, it has to be your illumination. It has to be your lights. That's what the Chizuk Mission is trying to do. In the Chizuk Mission, we sit and stare at the lights. We don't use them.

44:45 It's not functional near os Chanuka. It's not like now you have to do something. The point of the Chizuk Mission is that we know your beliefs impact your perspectives. And ultimately, the way you see the world is the way you act in the world. The point of the Chizik mission is not to make an actionable change. It's so much more profound than that. Anybody can get up and say to do this differently. There's only one organization, to my knowledge, that's dedicated not to getting you to do something differently, but to see the world differently, to see the world with positivity and light and hope and yes, even optimism. And it's not trite to see the world optimistically. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. However, we should all be zeicher to do that. It's very dark in the world right now. We're living in very dark times. But some people In the darkness, I have been able to see the light.

45:41 If you had told us on October sixth that Hamas would basically be destroyed That Hezbollah would basically be destroyed That Assad would be in Russia. That the Israeli army would have had the opportunity to bomb people isn't even talking about it's the craziest thing. Do you know they bombed 320 sites in Syria? 320 sites nobody's talking about it's the craziest thing. It's only on the Israeli media. I don't know why. They find out about everything, every tiny little thing that goes wrong. The whole world is talking about this thing. We destroyed all the chemical warfare they had. All the air force they had left was destroyed last week. It's an unbelievable thing. We need our eyesight restored. We need to be able to see that we are living in Mashiach time. We are not even moments; we are precious seconds away from Mashiach coming. And we have to re-adapt the way that we're seeing the world. Some people are living in exile, mamish in exile, and there are other people whose eyes are open and they're living in Messianic times.

46:46 And that's our avoda. In these final moments before Mashiach, we have to start acclimating to a Mashiach vision of the world. And in the times of Mashiach, everything is unified; everything is one. In the times of Mashiach, our eyes will truly be opened. We should be blessed to continue to be a part of the Chizuk mission for many years to come. And I want all of us together to give a bracha to Barry and to Aviva. Not only that, we should be continuing to do this. That you should be zayicha. I mean this from the bottom of my heart. That you should be zeicha to continue to see yourself as the powerhouse that you are, the sweetest sledgehammer. To break through all of the klepas that we have, all of that shell that doesn't allow us to see us for who we are. You should be zeicha to bring us to Eretz Yisrael many times over and over again. And halavai from all the work that you're doing, Bez Hashem, these next trips that you bring, Barry Mashiach is going to come and everyone's going to be like, I got a flight, I'm already there. I'm staying in Mamila, the Waldorf. But it's going to be because of the work that you do. So thank you from the bottom of our hearts.