Chayei Sarah - Three Fundamental Lessons in Marriage

2:18 I did not know that. Nobody told me that. This is a true story. Can't make this up. I showed up at my own chasna. And my wife is sitting there waiting. Certainly, I've prepared something beautiful to say. Nothing. I didn't know what you're supposed to do. So I remember we hadn't spoken for a week. It got from now. A week became ten days in Eretz Yisrael. It's ten days, a new minute. So Hashem, soon it'll be three, four months. Nobody's talking. So I came to my wife, and I remember I bent down to see her and came close and said. What's up? And she looked at me with such a disappointed look. That Baruch Hashem, 23 years later, she has the same look. We're going strong, Baruch Hashem. There is a beautiful minhag in Klal Yisrael for the father to give a very specific bracha A bracha that's been given for thousands of years And the bracha comes from this week's parsha.

3:23 The Yivarhu es Rivka. This is Rivka getting a bracha from Lavan Harami. Vivarchus Rivka, vayomer Lo, achosenu at. He said to her, "You are our sister." Atayu laalfe Rivva May you become thousands of myriads. There are certain words that we only know because we're Jewish. I don't know if Ga'ym used the word myriads. There are things I've learned by the way. Ga'ym don't say the word chicken on the bone. I don't know. I think they just call it chicken. Chicken on the bone is a uniquely Jewish word. Also, they don't say pshh. It's good. I don't know if they teach you that in Stern. But if you go to a business meeting and you go pshh, nobody will know what you're doing. This is like the extreme ADHD version of myself. There's zero sleep. Nine o'clock at night. I'm absolutely toast. I have no idea what I'm going to say. But say it.

4:25 So you should become thousands of myriads. That's what it says. That's a beautiful bracha. You should have. It's like a super charedi bracha. You have thousands of children in a two and a half bedroom apartment in Ramat Hashkol. It's going to be a beautiful thing. But it's a funny thing that thousands of years later, the bracha that we're giving to our daughters is the bracha that came from Lavan. Lavan was bikesh l'kar esakol. Lavan in a certain way was worse than Paro. It was worse than Paro. Paro tried to destroy only the males. Lavan tries to destroy everybody. So we have to imagine that Lavan is a terrible rasha And it's not who we would expect to quote. I've married off daughters now. Baruch Hashem, I'm a grandfather. It's not. It's not a. It's not. You wouldn't quote Hitler Even if he said a beautiful thing, you wouldn't quote Hitler.

5:21 And yet we're quoting Lavan. What's the pshat that we're quoting, Lova? That's one question. Targum Yonosem Ben Uziel adds something when translating this pasuk. The Targum Yonosem Ben Uziel adds something unexpected. He says Uverchu yos rifka va'amrula ad kedon hebayas achdan. Until now, you were our sister. And now you're going to go and marry this righteous tzaddik Yitzchak. That's not the translation of the pasuk. The pasuk doesn't say that anywhere. The pasuk says, "You are our sister." May you become thousands of myriads. Doesn't say that she is marrying Yitzchak. So Tagmionos and Ben Uziel adds in this idea. We have to explore where it comes from. Targum Yonosem Ben Uziel adds in this idea that you are marrying a big tzaddik. So the second question is, where did he get this from? I want to share with you three ideas tonight that are critical to marriage.

6:35 I was talking to somebody just today, and she said, "How come nobody ever told me this when I was in seminary? How come nobody ever told me how challenging marriage is?" The emphasis is that no matter how much we prepare ourselves for marriage, marriage itself teaches us how to be married. We can prepare in a certain sense by trying to mind the wisdom of Chazal. We're trying to look at this pasuk and to try to take three things out from this pasuk. There's a vision that we have A vision that we all have for our homes, that our homes are going to be perfect. I remember when I was growing up. I'll say it about myself, so that those of you who feel the same way won't feel attacked. I remember growing up, looking at my parents and saying, "I'm going to do this better than you."

7:26 You have that. You don't have to shake your heads. About 20% of you betrayed yourself right now. I want you to know, you 20%, you're my people. The 20% that were looking down, that don't want to be seen, you're my people. We had a vision. We were going to do this better. I saw. I saw if my parents got into a fight, I promised myself I was never going to get into a fight. Everything in my marriage was going to be perfect. It's not possible. It's not possible. Marriage is designed tension. And there's nothing wrong with that. Not only because a person has the opportunity to use their marriage as a vehicle to become something unbelievable, but even more than that. There's a vision of marriage that we don't teach to our children, because it's better preparation. The vision of marriage is My love is most deeply expressed when I find you in the darkness.

8:21 That is the most powerful expression of love. When I have no desire whatsoever to love you at all, and things are so distant between us, yet for some reason I hold on to this irrational hope. That things are going to be good and that we're going to find our way back to each other, and then we do. That is the most powerful expression of love that we have. It's the most powerful expression of love that we have in our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's not an accident that Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates a world that appears to be broken. I was listening to an old friend of mine, Gersheir. His name is Rabbi Joey Rosenfeld. I don't know if any of you listened to Rabbi Joey's shiurim. And he was talking about the fact that the Labavitcher Rebbe insists that it's basi legani, that the world is a beautiful place But in Rabbi Nachman's chassidus, Rabbi Nachman sort of leans into the fact that it's not a beautiful place. There's a tremendous amount of chaos in the world.

9:25 And both of them on some level are true. But even if the Labavitcher Rebbe is right. And even if this world is the Garden of Hakadosh Baruch Hu It doesn't feel that way. It certainly hasn't felt that way for anybody who's been sensitive to living in Eretz Yisrael for the past two years. It mamish doesn't feel that way. The Rebbeinu Shlom Even if you want to say that the world is a beautiful place and that the world is Hakadosh Baruch Hu's Garden, the Rebbeinu Shlom created a world in which the chaos of everyday life. The shvira sakalim, the brokenness of our existence, is something that we confront all the time. And why did the Rebbeinu Sholom create the world that way? The greatest expression of our loyalty to our Kadosh Baruch Hu is when we refuse to acknowledge that the chaos will overwhelm us. That somehow, no matter what the Rebbeinu Sholom throws at us, there's a resilience that Klal Yisrael has. It says I'm staying in this and I'm going to fight for our relationship. I'm going to fight to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu into this broken world.

10:32 And that's not an obvious thing to do at all. There's a beautiful line from the Kaddushas Levi S'chusi yagan aleinu. The kaddushas levi says I'm playing hide and go seek with God and I'm finding Him everywhere. It's one of my favorite lines. To be able to say this world appears so broken. It's so dark, and I'm finding Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the darkness, and I refuse to allow the darkness to overwhelm me. We saw it. We saw it in Eretz Yisrael. We saw it with our own eyes. We saw it with our own eyes. We went to pay shiva calls to the parents of chayalim that were killed in battle. Twenty year olds Children, twenty year olds who were killed in battle, and we went to pay shiva calls. And the parents were being mechazik us, the people who came to be Menachem Avro. My wife's My wife's very close friend is a woman whose name is Miriam Noel.

11:30 Her son Moshi Noel was killed in battle this past summer. So she was sitting shiva in the basement of Eish Kodesh in Ramah Pechemesh. People were coming from all over the country. The craziest thing, people like from all over. People had no shayches to the family, but people felt the need to be a part of. And I was standing next to Miriam on the side, and my wife was standing next to me. The men were really on the other side, but I have a beard, so I don't have to play by any other rules. People just think if I go to the women's side, it must be for a firm reason. And that's really where I wanted to be. I wanted to be with my wife's very close friend. And there's this group of women that are sitting down in front, and then there was a line of women that were coming to say Hamaalke Minachim. And that line just kept growing.

12:17 And I'm standing right next to Miriam, and I'm watching every single person who's coming. And Miriam is just sitting with them. Hakadosh Baruch Hu, so good to us, and everything is fine. And I'm like, you don't have to be mechazik us. We're here to be mechazik you. Where in the world are you getting this kliach from? You just lost a child. Where in the world are you getting this kliach from? It wasn't just Miriam. I when I went to Peishav, I called Eli Moshe Zimbalist's parents. Alimo was an amazing kid. Mamish grew up in my parents' house. He was like a son to my mother. So I went to pay a shiva call to the Zimbalists. You walk into the Zimbalist home, and there are the parents, and they're being mechazek everyone that's coming. And it wasn't tens of people or hundreds of people; it was thousands of people. Where in the world do we get this kaiach from?

13:09 The kaiach of a yid is to be able to look into the most broken places and to be able to find Hakadosh Baruch Hu there. That's what makes us who we are. And that's the Torah of Rivka. The Torah of Rivka Yemeinu is not she was a tzadikess despite the fact that she came from a home of lavan and besuul. She was a tzadikess because she came from that home. The whole yisoid of who she is. This is the family that I come from. I come from a family that in their bones is trying to destroy Klal Yisroel. That's the family that I come from. And I became who I am not despite the fact that I grew up in such an environment. I became who I am because I grew up in such an environment Because that friction built me, because I understood, and this is the godless of Rivka Imenu, because I understood that wherever I am Ainod Malvado, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is present in that place.

14:11 So it's not a bug, it's a feature. A person finds themselves living in all the chaos of the world, and it's not an accident. To anybody who's paying attention, it's not an accident that we are living in the moments before Mashiach comes, and the world is more chaotic now than ever before. At least in my lifetime, I don't remember the world being this chaotic. And it's chaotic everywhere you turned. It was COVID, and the entire world shut down, and then it was October seventh. Now you have that Russia, Marussia, who's sitting in the mayor's seat. It's an and there's wild things happening in the world. To anybody who's paying attention, to be a Jew right now is to live in the center of the universe. Everything that's happening is like you're looking around. Is this really happening? And we've done such an unbelievable job. This is a dar mitzuyon. Anybody who speaks negatively about this generation has no idea what they're talking about.

15:09 The challenges. If I was a kid today, I'd be off the derech in a heartbeat. I wouldn't have a chance to be from. I wouldn't have a chance to be human. The things that are being thrown at kids today are unbelievable. And Adar Abba, we're seeing a tremendous amount of growth. And by the way, we're seeing a tremendous amount of growth in our community. It's not like we're looking at another community and we feel like we're falling far behind. Adar Abba, there's a tremendous amount of growth that's happening in our community, Dafka. Which, if you would have said to us 25 years ago, when I was 27 years ago, 28 years ago, when I was in Eretz Yisrael, if you would have said, "What's the future of our community?" Things didn't look great. And other, but there's more l'Ima R' Torah before than ever before. There's more commitment than ever before. Shuls are busting at the seams. There's an influx of inspiration. We have people that are being developed in our community. Again, Rav Weinberger was the first iteration of it, but now everywhere you turn, there's such a proliferation of Deep Torah and people learning in a deep way—it's an unbelievable thing that amidst all of the chaos of everything, this generation has not only stood the test but has steiged from the test.

16:20 That's from the spiritual DNA of Riffkei Menu. That's where it comes from. We take no credit for this. We came from Riffkei Menu, but we actualized it. Her kaiach was in our bones, but our generation is the one that actualized it. And it's easy to look at some of the negative things. It's easy to look at, but there's this problem, there's that problem. Besides, there's always going to be problems. But the people that are paying attention are seeing Look at the unbelievable amount of growth that's going on. So it's not an accident that in the most kadosh moment A moment that according to some shtetls, the bedekin is already the beginning. R' Salavitchik was makpid to have Adam at the bedekin. It's according to Rav Salavitch. It was already the beginning of the process of marriage, and the very beginning. Loveon is present. It's the bracha of love on that's present Because the message is the nature of marriage is not going to be glat.

17:18 It's not supposed to be glat. There will be periods of darkness, but embedded within those periods of darkness is the most unbelievable light. And that's what it means that there's one God. One God means there's no such thing as darkness and light. That binary way of seeing the world has to be removed. There is no such thing as darkness. Darkness is an illusion. It's all light. It's all rabbanishtam. But there are places right now in the world that have not yet been rectified to the degree that we could see that light. So we enter into that darkness and we enter in completely unafraid. I remember once I was listening to a labavitcher mashpia And they were talking to him about whether you are afraid to send your children to a college campus to be a shliach on campus because of all the crazy things that are happening on campus.

18:11 And this labavitcher mashpia was a very sophisticated person. He said, "Why would the light ever be afraid of the darkness? The darkness should be afraid of the light." I'm not worried at all. Why other abba? I'm sending my child in with complete confidence. Because I know that my child represents the light, and he's going to go into the darkest places. And the light has the most unbelievable capacity for illumination. Because darkness in the times of Mashiach reveals that it was always light, that there was never any darkness. So a person goes into their marriage and they go in And they might think to themselves, if they're children, everything is going to be gloved. It won't be gloved. But that's not a mistake. That's an unbelievable opportunity. I remember many years ago I traveled out to Baltimore for my roommate's wedding. And we got there a little bit early. Remember, we were playing football in the parking lot. A couple of Yeshiva guys playing football in the parking lot. It was a Conservative temple in Baltimore. I don't know that we are Makadoshem Shamayim.

19:09 We were playing football in the parking lot. And under the chuppah, my roommate His name is John. John is a real tzaddik. I'm talking about one of those guys who. Like he's like clasping, like he's like an edelmeidl, talking about, like he's like When I woke up in the morning, he would wake up with a smile on his face and say, "Good morning." I said, "Okay, buddy." I'm not a cheerful person. John is the nicest guy ever. And so when John was dating, we all wanted to see what girl he was going to marry, and he married himself. He married one of these girls who was the sweetest girl in the world, and just when they were engaged, everybody when they're engaged is a little bit gross. In other words, a little bit like Say there, but like the two of them, they were just like you had to make a bracha. It was so sweet. It was just like.

20:05 So under the chuppah, the masada kedushin It was a rebbe in the yeshiva. I was an aide under the chuppah. He turned to me and he said. How much does it bother you to know that this couple is never going to fight? And there were two problems with that. One, it's under the chuppah. We don't have to have that conversation right now. It's a good conversation, just maybe not at this moment. Also, the mic was on, so everybody heard. So I was just there. I don't know. Maybe we don't have to talk about this now. I was trying to save the moment. But I think that Rebbe was wrong. And I'm sure John has the most beautiful marriage. I'm sure he does. He's a real balmedos. Everybody's going to have some friction. There's no such thing as a marriage that doesn't have friction. The first lesson to learn from this is it's daf galavan.

20:58 It's daf galavan. That's number one. It has to be the darkness. A person has to come into their marriage ready to confront the darkness. That's number one. Number two. Rivka is the perfect wife for Yitzchak. Based on everything we just said, she's the perfect wife for Yitzchak. What's the avoda of Yitzchak? The avoda of Yitzchak is digging wells. That's what we see about Yitzchak. The avoda of Yitzchak is to dig wells, and that's literally what we just said. That the yisod of Rivka is to be able to go into places where there's absolute concealment and to be able to find that which is underneath, that which is kadosh, that which is pure. So she's the perfect wife for Yitzchak. In one sense. But in another sense, she is the absolute polar opposite of Yitzchak. There's a concept that opposites attract. They have a similarity, but they also have a difference. The difference between the avoda of Rivka Imenu and the avoda of Yitzchak is like this.

22:09 Yitzchak redigs the wells of his father Avram Avinu. Rivka. Discovers the kedusha that's in the house of Lavan. What's the difference? The difference is like this: Avram Avinu comes along. He does the initial work. He says, 'I'm going to find the Rebbeinu Sholom in this world.' The avoda of Yitzchak is not the discovery of light. It's the rediscovery of light. It's the rediscovery of the work that Avram Avinu already did. That's a tremendous avoda. There's no doubt. That's a tremendous avoda. It's like. The words of our tzaddikim are already present. Sometimes a person needs to tap into the words of the tzaddikim that are already there. The tzaddikim already did the work. The balshemtof, the Vilnagay, and the Maral, the Ramchal—they already did the work. The work is there. They already mined the nugget. But in my life I might have lost track of that yosoid of the balshemtof. I might have lost track of that yosoid of the Vilnagay, and because I lost track of it.

23:13 I now need to go through a process of rediscovery. Maybe a good way of saying this, and I'm sure it's not relevant to anybody in this room. At least I went through a period like this when you're in Eretz Yisrael. So that's the discovery of Avraham Avinu, right? I came to Eretz Yisrael. Wow, it was mind blowing. I learned so many new things. I was so inspired. I was walking in the streets of Yerushalayim, Yerakodesh. Inspiration is everywhere. Aviru the Eretz Yisrael Machkim. And maybe when I came back to Midtown Manhattan, nobody's fault. The darkness is very dark in Midtown Manhattan. My daughter came here this summer. My daughter had not been to America since she was five years old. Mamish, a sheltered child, like a real Ramah Beit Shemesh cloistered, sheltered child, raised in the ghetto of Ramah Beit Shemesh. All she wanted was to see New York.

24:04 So she got married. There was a family simcha. And they flew in for the simcha, and my daughter, sweetest girl in the world, she's like, "I have to go to, I have to see Times Square." "I don't think this like, I don't think this gonna work. Like Times Square is different than the Mercaz in Ramat Echernas. This is not like we have Katsefet now, so we think like we've made it. There's no Glee to land in Times Square. And she said, "but the buildings are so big." I said, "Yes, the buildings are very, very big." It's a very funny thing to come back, and a person could lose track of themselves in a certain way. So when we lose track of ourselves, there's an avoda of rediscovery. That's the avoda of Yitzchak, the rediscovery of Avram Avinu. It's not sourced within ourselves. Rivka Yemino is exactly the opposite. Rivka Yemino has much more in common with Avram Avinu.

24:58 She comes from a home that is so dark that she has no choice but to discover it for herself. So on the one hand, you might look at it on the outside and say, 'Look how much these kids have in common. They're both people that see beyond the surface.' But when you think about it a little deeper, you realize they have a certain similarity, but they're very, very different. And that's also a big yisod in marriage. There's a there's a there's a little bit of a game. There's a little bit of a game that we play in shaduchim. The game is And again, I'm not here to say negative things. Chas v'shalom. Every system is a human system by definition. Every system has its flaws. There's a little bit of a game that we play. The game is the shidduch resume. If it doesn't look exactly like the way that I think it looks on the resume, it's not for me. As if we could sum up a person in a piece of paper. It's a crazy concept.

26:00 And other rabba. There's so many people that like they tell me yeah I was never gonna go out with her I was never gonna go out with him but I was waiting for somebody else and I figured I had a night off and I wanted to get a free meal and now we're married today with five kids you know it's like a person's not a piece of paper so we play this game are you similar enough you're similar enough so you go ahead and you get married and then you find out that your similarities are not similar at all that the things that you thought made you similar are not similar at all. I'll share with you. I have tremendous respect for my wife. I have tremendous respect for my wife. I'm in awe of my wife. She is one of the most growth-oriented people I've ever met in my entire life. When we were dating, we had certain similarities, certain ways of wanting to be learners. We wanted to be passionate about our Yiddishkeit. We wanted to be people that saw beyond the surface of the world.

26:57 And at that time, as Chatay any Masgarayom I was super against learning any Chassidus at all. I was like, it's ridiculous, it's nonsense. People don't know what they're talking about. I don't know what a Sphira is. People are talking about the B'chinah of Chesed. I don't know what that's got to do with Shachris. I mamish would make fun of it. And my wife also came from a very misnagdish family, Dafka against Chassidus. And I remember we even discussed it on a date. And of all the sects of Chassidus that my wife's family was against, it was probably Chabad that was number one by far. And we were married for about a year before I found my way into Chassidus, and specifically the Chassidus that moves me the most is Chabad Chassidus. Still married, Baruch Hashem, everything is okay. Certainly, our marriage, Yechi to our marriage. It worked, Baruch Hashem.

27:58 On the outside, it looked like we were the same. We were both searchers, we were both growth-oriented, we both wanted to learn deeper svarim, but we had a very different vision of what that was. We often think that the yisod of marriage is I need to be the same as my spouse. That's not what intimacy means. Intimacy means I am absolutely different than the person that I'm married to. But that is exactly where the harmony occurs. There's an amazing line from Rabbi Palkowitz, Alav Hashem, Doctor Palkowitz, his father. He said, "In marriage, you don't need to learn to think alike. You need to learn to think together." That is a very profound line. It's not about finding somebody that everything lines up. We can't say we all see the world in the same exact way. That's not what it is at all. Other Rabbi, you have what to contribute to the conversation, and I have what to contribute to the conversation, and both of us together have found our way into creating a marriage where it's not obvious that we see the world in the same way—not obvious at all.

29:10 There's such a thing called a dilemma. A dilemma is different than a problem. A problem has a solution. What happens when a couple has a dilemma? I'll give you an example of a dilemma. A couple came to me and they said. The wife wanted to go to Eretz Yisrael. For the first two, three, four years of marriage, the husband didn't. They didn't want to go. He didn't want to go to Eretz Yisrael. He said, "I'm learning well in YU, and I have a parnasa here, and I'm able to learn and make a parnasa. And if we go to Eretz Yisrael, I'm going to have to let go of the parnasa. I feel like it's going to put a pressure on me." And she grew up, one of these girls who what do you mean, growth is part of the program? There's a. We have a program. This is like a hamster wheel, and one of the things on the hamster wheel that we do is go to Groz for the beginning of our marriage. And they came to me to talk to me about it. They had come to Eretz Yisrael, so they came to Yeshiva to talk to me about it.

29:59 And I said, 'This is the dilemma because either they're going to live in America or they're going to live in Eretz Yisrael. They're not going to live in. It would be very hard for them to pull off the commute to see each other. If she's going to be learning in Groz and he's going to be back in America, it's not going to be so bad.' So it's a real dilemma. So I said, what would happen if we punted on trying to find a solution? By definition, a dilemma does not have a solution. Let's forget the solution. What would happen if, for the next couple of months, you just traded seats? I just want to see the world the way you see the world. Just teach me why this is so important to you, and I just want to be present with you in that space of understanding why this is so important to you. And to both of us. So three months later, they called me up and said we made a decision that we're coming to Israel for the year.

30:46 I said, how'd you make that decision? So the husband, who was talmud of the yeshiva So the husband said He said I just spent the last three months wanting so badly for my wife to have what she wants. So we'll figure it out. We'll figure out the parnasah. Then they moved to Israel. Baruch Hashem, everything was great, but they had the same dilemma because he said he has to go back because his parnasah is there. So they did the same exact thing, and they made the decision to come back. Now they're here, and they're miserable. They both want to go back to Eretz Yisrael. But it's such a beautiful thing because there was so much difference in all of their approach. They learned how to approach it together. We make a mistake. We think when the Gemara says that the Talmidim of Beis Shamai married off their children to the Talmidim of Beis Hillel, and vice versa. We think that it's like despite the fact that I'm Beis Shammai, and you're Beis Hillel. Somehow, we were able to marry each other. It's because you were the Talmidim of Beis Shammai, and because I was the Talmidim of Beis Hillel, I was able to find value in what you bring to the table.

31:53 And because I was able to find value in what you bring to the table, even though it's not the way that I see the world, that's what makes a great marriage. How many phone calls do I get? We went out on a date, and it doesn't seem to line up hashkafically. What do you think is going to happen? You're going to marry somebody who you line up with hashkafically, and that's going to be it for the rest of your life. So you're going to daven in Bnei Yisroel, and it's going to be exactly like the way you want it to be. I just happened to drive there. I drove by there today. There was not a commentary on anything other than the fact that in my head Bnei Yisroel was there. It could have been Rina also. It could have been any shul in Tenek. We're all Bnei Yisroel. It's not the way life works. The contract of marriage changes because five years from now you're going to be different people. By definition, you're going to be different people. You're going to learn things that you never learned before. There's a myth. There's a myth that we tell young men and young women: you have to be whole before you go into your marriage. You have to be whole.

32:55 So then there's all this anxiety in the system. Am I whole enough? I don't know if I'm whole enough. What does that mean? By the way, every person that gives you that advice, you should know they were not whole when they got married. I'm gonna say what I'm about to say only because it's very late at night and it was already halfway out of my mouth. I probably shouldn't say what I'm about to say. I knew these rabbis when they were kids. They were my friends. They were doofuses, just like the same 21-year-olds that you see today. None of us had a clue what we were doing. How do you think? How do you think all these rabbis and rabbidsons got so smart? Because they just figured it out from the time they were 14 years old. They were perfect. They never made a mistake in their life. By the time they got to 21, they were so rectified that they didn't. It's the biggest joke in the world. You're going to change. Life is going to teach you unbelievable things about yourself. That's the gift. The gift is that 10, 15, 20, 25 years out, you're going to see the world so differently. That's why your parents parent your younger siblings so differently than they parented you.

33:57 I was a little uncomfortable in the room just now. Talking about if you're the oldest in your family, your parents parented you, and if you have a 12-year-old sister, your parents are just like it doesn't matter. Nothing we do actually matters. It's not because they gave up. It's a little bit because they gave up. It's not. It's not because they gave up. It's because they learned it doesn't matter. I don't have to fight about this. I don't have to fight to tell that girl that she can only wear those socks. She'll figure out what socks to wear. She's gonna only wear. She's gonna figure it out. So there's something we learn in life. It's called patience. This bracha is an unbelievable bracha because it starts off by saying "Achosenu at. You are our sister. This is where you come from. You see the world. It appears on the surface. You're like Yitzchak. You are not like Yitzchak.

34:53 And that's why the Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel said it. He said he understood it. Targum Yonasan Ben Uziel said it. They were saying, 'Achosenuat, you are our sister, and now you're going to marry a tzaddik.' They weren't saying that Rivka's not a tzaddik. They were saying the nature of the tzidkus of Rivka is different than the nature of the tzidkus of Yitzchak, and that's what makes a beautiful marriage. There's a concept in the world today. I got this question today in Frish. I'm so impressed by Frish. You should know such unbelievable things happening in Frish. Pashut nispol. See the kids today are incredible. I was in Hechal and Frish, amazing kids today. So a kid came to me in Frish And he said privately on the side, a deep, deep, deep thinker. This kid's going to be a special kid, a deep thinker. And he asked me a question about the atzeres. He asked me a question for those people that went That went to the atzeres, how would you defend them?

35:53 So I don't really know this young man, and I'm not going to get into that conversation with him anyway because it's not a conversation that I think is going to bring us closer to Mashiach. So I said to him: I said I don't know much about the atzaris, but I'll tell you about the atzaris that I want to go to. I want to go to an atzaris in Yerushalayim Where every single type of Jew comes together in Yerushalayim with the biggest protest in the world against Senaschinim. That's the atzaris I want to go to. I want to go. I want to stand in Binyanei Oma. I want to see all the gadolim from all different shapes and sizes of Klal Yisrael. I want to see Jews that aren't because you should know in Eretz Yisrael, just because a Jew doesn't wear a yarmulke doesn't mean he's not frum. In Eretz Yisrael, the taxi drivers that don't wear a yarmulke are the they're like mekubalim. Talking about like Sfardi taxi driver like is saying to him with a yarmulke on when you get into the cab and then he takes it off when he's like you don't need to take it off.

36:46 I'm not machpid. You could continue to wear your yarmulke. And then he starts telling you the very Torah from the Beni Shchai, who was his grandfather. And also, they'll tell you exactly what's happening in Gaza right now. They all have an inside source. I'm convinced every one of these taxi drivers was Mossad back in the day. I want to go to that atzaris. That's why I told this kid. I want to go to the atzaris where we have different opinions, and we should have different opinions, and there's something to talk about. But I want to be able to sit at the same table. I just want to sit at the same table with the people that I love. I'm, I'm, I'm. Haven't been to Meirone since the Meirone tragedy. A couple of years ago. I can't bring myself to go. I need to be able to go back, but I can't bring myself to go.

37:37 Meirone Lag BaOmer was my favorite thing to do the entire year. But not because of the reason that everybody else had. Not because they wanted to go to play that game of getting into Kevirashbi and being surrounded by everybody and the Maduras. I'll be honest with you. The Maduras did nothing for me. To watch these people light the fires, it did not inspire me really at all. Except for one time. One time it inspired me because there was a group of kids waiting in line with the Hasidim, and there was some rebellious fire there, and there was a stage, and they would give out cotton and oil, and you would put the cotton in and pour the oil in. And so I saw these three modern Orthodox kids on the line. And one of them had a glint in his eye, where he's gonna do something really dumb. So I was watching this kid. I'm thinking, what's this kid gonna do? Because he's looking at his friends in the crowd, going like this.

38:27 And I'm like, I'm like looking at him, going like I don't think they're gonna think whatever you're about to do is funny. And so he gets up and he puts his cotton in and he pours the oil in, and then he starts unbuttoning his shirt. I had that reaction too. He starts unbuttoning his shirt and starts swinging it over his head, then throws it into the thing that's going to be lit by the rabbi. I'm watching all the chasidim going And then he throws it in. It's Merel Lag Baomer, so I was like, yeah, it's amazing. All the chasidim started dancing with him. It was a beautiful moment. That was the only time I was ever inspired by the maduris. That kid made it out alive. That was the nace of Lag Baomer that year. I used to do Lag Baomer. That you'd take the yeshiva would go. I would go to the tent.

39:14 In the tent. There's like it was beautiful. They would serve chulent and kugel all night long. And I would go and they would give out these T-shirts for the people that volunteered, and I would just serve chulent and kugel all night long in Lubavitch. And then I would go sit at a table with Sfarim and Ashkenazim and people who identify with the Charedi community and the Dati Lumi community and the Hasidic community and Visionitz and Lubavitch and Satmar and everybody sits at the same table. And it doesn't bother anybody that we have different opinions. Achosenuat You're our sister. You're different than the tzaddik Yitzchak, but that's what makes it beautiful. I'm not trying to remove the differences. There are important conversations to have. A great marriage is where we value each other so much that I want to hear what you have to say that's different.

40:06 That's lesson number two. Lesson number three. Pay careful attention to the words of the pasuk. You will become thousands of myriads. It doesn't say that she's going to become a person who will have children who will come from those children, thousands of myriads. It's not what it says. It says you will become thousands of myriads. What's the pshat in that? There's a very beautiful way of looking at the way that a Jew is meant to have children. And I don't mean biologically. The way that a yid relates to the creation of a child is through the act of becoming. I was on the phone with a woman today. Super growth oriented person. Super growth-oriented person. Tsargidol banim is a real thing. It's not easy to raise children. It wasn't easy to raise you. I'm sure you're all wonderful and perfect, but I'm betting there were times where your mother was walking out the door and you said, 'Really, you're wearing that?' It wasn't so nice.

41:31 My mother did this to me last week. I told my mother about something that my daughter said to me and she said. Do you remember when you said that to me when you were 16 years old, that exact line? And I was like, 'Oh my God, I did.' So I'm like, I'm 45 years old and I'm a grandfather, and I'm like, 'Okay, mom, it's my time to do tshuva. I'm so sorry that I did that to you.' She's like, 'No. You don't need to ask me for forgiveness. Hashem paid you back.' My mother loves me very much. We have a very special relationship. Sagil b'banim is a real thing. It's not easy to raise children. The avoda of raising children is not to take chinuch habanim classes. These chinuch habanim classes today, for the most part, don't work. They don't work because then you end up in your head.

42:22 When your child does something, you're trying to remember what that rabbi you were with three classes ago said. You become very robotic about your parenting. That's not the way to parent. The way to parent is from a deep sense of self. There is nothing that can transform your children like the transformation that occurs within yourself. If you show up to your children and you're willing to say Let's talk it out, let's have the real conversation, and I'm genuinely listening to you. When you don't want to listen That is what will build your children. I'll tell you a maysa. I was in the car with a very big rasha shiva one time. I was driving this rishivah. Sometimes people have their cell phone volume on too loud, so you can hear both sides of the conversation. So this rishivah got a phone call, and I was driving him.

43:16 And the rishivah gets a phone call, and he picks up the phone. He's an elderly rishivah, so the volume was way up on the phone, so I'm hearing both sides of the conversation. Now I could have inferred what the kid was saying anyway, but it happens to be I heard it loud and clear. So this kid gets on the phone. His father says, "How are you?" And he goes, actually I'm not so good. Father says, "What's the matter?" He said, "You're going to get a phone call from my Rosh Yeshiva that I'm getting suspended." " So I'm like Trying to pay attention to the road. I'm a genuinely decent person. I don't want to be listening to this conversation, but there's no way I'm not going to listen. It's like right there, right? So I'm trying not to listen, but I'm obviously listening. And I'm waiting. How does a big rasha shiva handle a moment when his child calls and says, "I'm getting suspended from yeshiva?" So he said, "What happened?"

44:06 " So he said, "You know how the yeshiva was telling me that if I go to the workout room, I'm going to get suspended. In the middle of seder, you can't be in the workout room. So he said, "Yeah, I went to the workout room, and they caught me in the workout room, and now they've decided that they're going to suspend me." So this Rasha Shiva says to his son, "He says, I understand. It's okay." We'll deal with it. So the kid on the other end says thanks. And then his father says to him, "How are you feeling? How are you doing?" And the kid goes, 'Yeah, I'm a bit embarrassed. It's not so easy for me.' Father goes, "I understand. It'll be okay." And I'm thinking to myself I'd kill that kid. If that was my kid, I'd be like 'Why? Why did you do that? I want to take the kid and wring him by the neck. Why did you get suspended from yeshiva?' And this Rosh Yeshiva didn't have that response at all.

44:57 So after he got off the phone, I saw that he was a little too focused on the road. I'm saying there was a pleasant conversation beforehand, and now he's just focused on the road. But since it was obvious that I heard the conversation anyway, and it was right there, I was like Trying to politely think about how I could bring it up to learn the chinuch lesson, but I didn't need to. The Rosh Hashanah just turned to me and he goes He's going to be great. And I was like, "That's amazing." And I met that kid. I met that kid a couple years later, when he was on the mend. That suspension was the beginning of an avera gorera avera process, where the kid went off the darach for a couple of minutes. But years later, I met that kid again, and he was already on his way back. And now he's a married man who wakes up at four o'clock in the morning every single morning to learn.

45:49 And I asked him. I said, when we were getting close, I said I just want to tell you honestly. I was in the car when you called your dad and said you were getting suspended. So he said, "Yeah. So my father was pretty awesome in that moment. It wasn't the way that I grew up with him. There was a lot of growth that happened And he started telling me about what it was like. It's not easy to be a Rosh Hashanah kid. It's not easy. Two types of people have children that go off the derech. If you're a rabbi's son Or if your mother's a therapist, you're for sure going off. And my wife's a therapist, and I'm a rabbi. But so far, Baruch Hashem. Sarah. All your children will be amazing. I forgot about that. I forgot there are certain brachas that are part of it naturally. You should all find your ziva quickly and easily.

46:40 It's a game you could play. It's just like throughout these brachas. It's very beautiful. This young man started telling me it wasn't easy growing up in that house. My father had very strong expectations of me, and when I messed up, I was held accountable in a very strong way. He said, and over the years I saw my father change. And if I'm coming back today, this is what he told me at that time. He said, if I'm coming back today, it's because of the transformation that I saw in my home. Because I saw my father was a growth-oriented person, and I saw how he parented me differently when I was eight years old and ten years old and twelve years old than he did when I was sixteen and eighteen and twenty years old. Achosenuat, you are our sister. You will become thousands of myriads. Klal Yisrael doesn't come because Rivka Imenu married Yitzchak. Klal Yisrael comes because Rivka Imenu was a transformed person.

47:36 Because she was a growth-oriented person. I think today it's an unbelievable thing. I don't know. Back in the '90s Authenticity was not a buzzword. If somebody had come to my high school and said Like everyone has to be authentic, we would have laughed at him. Nobody was authentic then. The vision of being real, the vision of having a growth oriented life, it wasn't on the table in our community in the same way. Other Abba The vision was to walk down Central Avenue only with certain people and to be seen in a certain way. And it's changed so dramatically. I remember when Rv Weinberger moved to Woodmere and he started Eish Kodesh. And in the beginning, for those who had parents who were there in the beginning of Eish Kodesh, your parents were there in the beginning of Eish Kodesh. You'll tell me your last name afterwards. And we saw it was the wildest thing. All of a sudden, they were like these people who were sending their children to certain schools, and they're walking around with shrimels and backpshels and Woodmere. It was like Woodmere became Williamsburg overnight. It was like this.

48:44 And now there's so many shtibluch that have popped up, and there's KMH and Reb Zekatinsky. There's a vision now that the coolest thing you can do is to be a transformed person. And that's what the kids are yearning for. I'm telling you, I speak to these high school kids. All they want is to be real. All they want is to transform. And if you do that in your life, and you keep your eye on the prize, and you say, I'm in stern, but I'm a growth-oriented person, and I'm becoming, and I'm relentlessly becoming. And 30 years from now, I might look very different than I look tonight. Because the evolution of who I am does not have an end date. Thousands of myriads will come from you. Because our vision of raising children is not parenting strategies. Our vision of raising children is Who am I in this world?

49:39 I'll finish with a With a beautiful mase about my rabbi. Should be zaychater afur shalema. My rabbi was he's 97 years old now. Unfortunately, he won't let me see him anymore. Because he's unwell, he doesn't want to be seen. I miss him dearly. Because Baruch Hashem we were very close, and now it's like there's a part of me that's present but amputated. It's a very painful thing for me. I want to share with you. My Rebbe was an unbelievable Talmud Chacham. He was a Rosh Yeshiva in YU for forty years, fifty years, Mashu Kazeh. Close to fifty years, he was a Rosh Yeshiva in YU. A real lamdan of the highest level. She'er was the greatest show on earth. And I had tremendous respect for my rebbe. But I'll tell you the day where my respect for my rebbe went through the roof. The time my rebbe was in his seventies, I learned from my rebbe for eight years.

50:38 The last three years that I learned by my rebbe, I had the greatest privilege of my life, which was to prepare she'er at night with my rebbe. So chavruta started chavruta. It's a joke to say it was a chavruta. I was on the phone and my rebbe was bouncing ideas off of me to prepare for this year. But obviously he was a guy noyelam. The fact that I was on the phone with him was silly. He didn't need a chavruta, but he had a chavruta. Say there. So chavruta started at eight o'clock. I think officially we were supposed to go till ten. I don't remember ever ending at ten. And my rebbe was in his seventies. 10:30, 11:30, 12 o'clock at night. We would make sure work it out until everything in the shirt was 100% done. And my job the next day was to take the things that we learned at night and prepare a sheet with all the marimakomos for the boys to prepare. So one day I'm in the beis medrash, the boys are in shir. I wasn't going to shir at that point because I had learned with my rebbe the night before. So I was preparing for that night's chabrusa. To keep up with my rebbe, I had to basically learn. Around eight or nine hours a day of just the same thing over and over again, just to keep up with him. He was mamshad din alam.

51:44 The boys started trickling out of shir. I'm sitting in the beis medrash. The shir room entered right into the beis medrash, and guys are looking at me and they're going, "You are in huge trouble. Rabbi is so upset at you." So what could I possibly have done? I wasn't even in shir. I'm used to getting in trouble from when I was a kid, but I'm in kaiol now. I'm not used to getting in trouble anymore. I was like, 'What could I possibly have done?' They said, 'You gave us the wrong marr makomos. You gave us tomorrow's marr makomos.' I realized they were right. I just totally forgot because my rebbe, when we were learning, was a day ahead, so I gave them the mara makomos from last night's chevrusa as opposed to two nights ago, and they prepared. They prepared the wrong thing, and for my rebbe, shir was his life. Shir was his life. My rebbe gave a very famous shir when he was in YU. He gave a very serious shir in Ramban alatayra. It was like an Ian shir in Ramban alatayra, an art school. When art school was putting out the English rambans, they came to my rebbe to ask him if he would be involved in the editing process of the remban because he knew remban cold.

52:42 And my rebbe said no, and I asked him why. He said I only focus on the sheir. He was single-minded, focused on the sheir. So to give sheir for an hour and a half to boys who had no idea what they were talking about, it was devastating to him. And he came out into the basement deresh, and I was prepared for it because the boys told me I was totally in trouble. Because the whole yosode of the shir was the give and take, and these boys had nothing to say back because they literally prepared the wrong thing. My rebbe walked into the beis medrash and he had a look of real pain on his face, like real disappointment. Mordechai, what happened? I said, Rebbe, I'm so sorry. I didn't realize that you hadn't covered it and I gave the wrong marr makhomos by accident. He was really frustrated with me. We davened mincha and after mincha, usually we would speak and learn for a couple of minutes. We didn't speak and learn. He went right to the car. I knew he was so angry at me.

53:31 About five minutes later, he came back into the bais medrash. I was learning with my chavruta. We were second seder, and he comes back into the bais medrash and he asks me to come over to him. I went back to my rebbe. And he said, Mordechai, I have a flat tire. My rebbe was in his 70s; he wasn't going to be able to change a flat tire. Do you think that maybe you and some of the chaver could change the tire? I said, Of course, no problem. So we went to his car, me and my chavruta, and we jacked up the car and we changed the tire. We told my rebbe where he could get it fixed right down the block. All he has to do is drive up. And then we went back to learn. I didn't have my phone on during seder. I was sitting and learning. So at 6:30, when seder was over, I turned my phone on and I saw that I had a missed phone call from my rebbe. Now back in the day, there was such a thing called listening to voice messages. I don't think anybody does any human being actually check their messages anymore? There's no way. I never knew my code for this phone. I still don't know what it is. But back then, we used to check our voice messages.

54:27 So my rabbi called. I listened to his voice message. Listen to this voice message. This is what he said to me. In his seventies Mordechai, I was driving back to Brooklyn. And I was thinking to myself Why did Hakadosh Baruch Hu give me a flat tire? And I think it's because he wanted me to have to come to you to say, "Could you help me change the flat tire?" So that I could appreciate that. 99.9% of the time, you do exactly what I need you to do, and you're very helpful in the shir. And he left me this beautiful voice note of an apology for being upset with me, and hakarasatov for everything that I did for him, which is the biggest joke in the world. Because what my rebbe did for me, I'll never be able to pay back. Every 30 days, you had to re-up the voice message if you wanted to save it. Every 30 days, you had to listen to the voice message and then press nine to save that voice message.

55:24 Until we made Aliyah, until I gave up that phone, every 30 days I would listen to that voice message. Not because I needed to hear my Rebbe's apology. But because I was so inspired that in his 70s he was so growth-oriented to ask himself why did I get a flat tire? He wasn't going up into Shamayim to try to figure out why Hashem gave him a flat tire. He was a bal muser par excellence, and if something happened in the world that he could take a muser from, he jumped at the opportunity. In his seventies Freifeld, the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Sha'ar Hashamayim, he used to say "I know some people that are so old and they're really young, and I know some people that are so young and they're really old." There's some people that are so young, they're kids, but they're already totally jaded. They've given up on life.

56:18 And there's some people who are in their 50s, 60s, 70s, and they're young and vibrant. You see them in shul and they're davening and crying into their sitters. They're growth-oriented people. I saw a woman last year in May. I went to a chasna. Happens to be that I know this family. After the chasna was over. The mother went to the chuppah. Everybody packed out of the chuppah area. Everybody walks in to have the first course and wait around for a couple of hours until they get out of the cheder yichud. Don't do that. It's not nice. You invited people to come to your simcha. You could come, take a couple of pictures, and then join the rest of us. But I happened to have been out on a balcony because I was waiting and I didn't really know anyone at the wedding. It was a little awkward, so I was out on the balcony. And I saw this mother went under the chuppah And she took out a tahilim. And I saw her crying under the chuppah, saying Tehillim. And her son's in yeshiva. I said, now I know why her son is the way he is.

57:16 Because he has a growth-oriented mother. Here's a woman who's in her sixties, but she has the opportunity to cry into Tehillim. She's a growth-oriented person. That's the Yisodeh Riffke Yimino. Thousands of myriads will happen when we become transformed people. Achosenuat, you are our sister. But you are marrying a tzaddik, and the transformation you have undergone will result in Klal Yisrael being an amazing nation. Thousands of myriads will come from you. And I guess that's a good bracha. That's an actual bracha that we should all take in this moment. Beis Hashem will get it by the bedekin. But in this moment, to be able to take these lessons, to be able to say Number one Marriage is hard. And that's okay. I can do hard things. Bez Hashem, I will find my husband in the darkness no matter what happens. To be able to say it's okay if we not grow apart, chas v'shalom. But if we think differently, that's okay because we can continue to create harmony where there are polarities. And Bez Hashem, the process of transformation that occurs through marriage will yield the most amazing brachos in our lives. Thank you so much for coming. I really appreciate it. Hi everyone. We're