Devarim - Choosing a Godly Life

3:07 My Kadosh Baruch Hu said In Tirtze, if you want, Shlach. What's going on over here? There's a number of questions that we have to ask And not my questions. They're the questions of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Let's go see Yagan Aleinu and Chatzadek with Kadosh Baruch Hu. They're beautiful questions. The Rebbe points out that this is the very first time, Since Klal Yisrael has received the Torah That there is an initiative—something that Klal Yisrael is doing—that doesn't come because our Kadosh Baruch Hu commanded them to do it. Up until now, what Klal Yisrael does. We do because Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, "Do this" And here Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying It's up to you. What happened? What changed? What's the significance of the fact that now we're being given a choice? Do what you feel is right. That's the first question. The second question is: Should this have been a warning?

4:23 To my shirabenu, if Hakadosh Baruch Hu says imterze shlach, it's like sometimes Sometimes a parent or a rabbi might say to you if you come to him and you ask for advice. Should I do this or should I not do this? The rabbi goes, do what you want. Sometimes you're smart enough to hear what the rabbi is really saying. What's the rabbi really saying? That's a terrible idea. Don't do that. But I'm not going to tell you not to do that. But don't do that. I'm not going to tell you not to do that. But don't do that. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying to Moshe Rabbeinu, "Look, if you want, do it" It doesn't sound like the best idea. And we have many riyas that Moshe Rabbeinu knew that it wasn't a great idea. Why did he give a bracha to Yosua? Rashi says that Moshe Rabbeinu said, 'Don't fall into the hands of the meraglim. There's not a good intention over here.' So clearly, Moshe Rabbeinu understood this is not a good idea.

5:22 So why didn't Moshe Rabbeinu stop it? And not only that, but if you look at our pesukim It says, "Vayitav ve'ene adavar." This thing, this idea that you had to send miraglim into the land of Eretz Canaan, into Eretz Yisrael, it was good in my eyes. It was a good idea in my eyes. It's a good idea. You knew that it wasn't a good idea. That's why you gave Yeshua a bracha. What does it mean? It's a good idea. It's not a good idea. Not a good idea. What are you talking about? And if it's such a bad idea Then why does Moshe Rabbeinu only give a bracha to Yeshua? Why doesn't he give a bracha to all the miracles? Seems like only Yeshua gets a bracha. And then the strangest thing of all is that at the very, very end of the story. Who ends up going into Eretz Israel? It's Joshua, and right before Joshua goes into Eretz Israel, what does Joshua do?

6:24 He sends Miraglin. How could Joshua, the Talmud Muvok of Moshe Rabbeinu, make the same mistake? How could he send Miraglin into Eretz Israel? But fascinatingly, even though you think it's a mistake It doesn't work out as badly as it did the first time. When the Miraglim came back from Eretz Yisrael, it doomed that entire generation to die in the Midbar. It was a terrible risk. Why would Yehoshua do it? Somehow it worked out. Why did it work out? We have to see. We have to explain. But it's a bad idea And Yehoshua does it anyway. What's the pshat? So I want to share with you this amazing pshat. Once I saw this, I said, "I know this is what I want to share with you guys." What's on my heart right now? I want to talk about free choice. There are two types of free choice.

7:19 There's a free choice that's what we'll call a somewhat encumbered free choice. There's a type of free choice that you make, that choice and you own that choice and it's your choice. But not exactly fully your choice. I'll give you an example of this. If your mother tells you to take out the garbage Do you have free choice? Of course you have free choice. You could turn around and say, "Mom, I'm not taking out the garbage." But who's going to do that? This is your mother. She loves you. She gave birth to you. She cares about you. You care about her. Of course, you're going to say yes to that. Do you have free choice? Of course you have free choice. But it's not a fully free choice because the second there's any Any push, any tilt towards one side, you can't say it's a totally free choice. It's a choice. It's a free choice, but not a completely free choice.

8:27 A mitzvah Of course, it's free choice. To do a mitzvah is free choice. But is it really free choice? Is it totally free choice? The answer is, in a certain way, it's not a totally free choice. Why? Because we have godly souls. Because Anachnu Maminim B'nei Maminim. Because every single Jew in their heart yearns to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and do what Hakadosh Baruch Hu asks of us. Every one of us wants to do the right thing. Sometimes we don't. Sometimes we have a funny thought. We're in a funny place. We do a funny thing. But really, be'etzem, what do we want? We know what we want. We want to do the right thing. We have a godly soul. We want to connect to our Maker. That's the natural state of what it means to be a Jew. Had the opportunity today to interview somebody.

9:19 He's been doing tshuva for about a year now. He told me a story. I don't have time to tell the whole story, so I'm not going to. But it's a fascinating story. He has a Christian father. He has a Jewish mother. And somehow, with no Jewish education whatsoever, he found himself teaching in a Hebrew school. What were you teaching in a Hebrew school? You had no Jewish education. He said they gave me what to teach. They boiled it down so basic that I could teach it. I'm teaching in a Hebrew school. And then he somehow, when he was in college, ended up going to Shabbat for a Kabbalat Shabbat every Friday night, and so he was connected in college. And then somehow he ended up leading Berthright trips. The guy is not from Bichlal. His father's Christian. He has zero Jewish education, and he's leading birthright trips. And after his second birthright trip He just stayed.

10:12 He just stayed, and he's been an H for the past year. The Jewish soul does not know how to stop being Jewish. It's a crazy thing. You speak to people again. We grow up with it. We're so connected to it that sometimes we don't realize how connected to it we are. It's hard to go off the direct. You have to work at going off the derech. You see people who try to go off the derech. I have a friend who said to me, "I did my absolute best to go off the derech. I just couldn't shake it." I just couldn't shake it because the Jewish soul craves to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's why all of us in this room are frustrated. What are we frustrated by? We're frustrated by davening. Why are we so frustrated by davening? Because every one of us is hoping, wishing that we could daven and it would be meaningful. We want to connect to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. We're not bad people. It's just hard to read the seder every single day, three times a day, and not feel a sense of connection.

11:09 It's a hard thing to do. We yearn for that connection. When a kid goes off the derech, he's not going off the derech because he's a bad kid. He's going off the derech because he's like, I don't know how to connect to this thing. I don't know what you're looking for from me. And he's right. It's a hard thing to connect to, but sometimes the kids that go up the derech are the ones who are most on the derech because they're screaming out the loudest how badly they want to connect. It's just so difficult for them, and they're not going to be the good kid that just does it, even though it means nothing to them. They're going to scream and they're going to cry and they're going to throw a temper tantrum until somebody tells them how to get into it. The Jewish soul, when it gets a mitzvah It does not have absolute true free choice. But there is a second type of free choice And this is the free choice that I'm excited to talk to you about tonight.

12:00 There's a free choice where you're absolutely, totally, and unencumbered. You can make whatever choice you want. I want to talk to you about what that choice looks like for a second. It's not the choice of a mitzvah. It's not. Wake up and daven. Put on tizis. Put on tefillin. It's not a mitzvah that we're talking about. It's something much deeper. It's do you have the natural desire to make your life meaningful? It's nothing you could point to. It's not like you could say he learned another blockamara. He was harving on another tayser. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about the The things you can't point to The small gestures The sensitivities of what it means to be a yid And I don't want to get into the specifics because I don't want to start playing the game of whether this sensitivity is a good or bad sensitivity, and then people are going to lose the message in Berg roasted this particular sensitivity. That's not what this is about.

13:11 You all know for yourself what are the areas of sensitivity that we need to work on. They're not mitzvahs. There's no commandment. You could do with it what you want in your life. There's such a thing called being an accountant, and there's being an accountant like a yid. There's such a thing as going to college, and there's going to college like a yid. There's no mitzvah. There's just a sense of dignity. There's a sense of godliness that permeates your life. I'll share with you a mase. My wife is a fairly intelligent woman. And she was a national merit finalist, and she got a perfect score on the math section of her SATs. And she decided that she didn't want to go to college because she didn't want to waste her time in college. So she said, "I'll just teach myself from a book." I'll just teach myself actuarial mathematics.

14:01 And I'll pass all the actuary exams, and then I'll become an actuary. And if you don't know what an actuary is It's a high level of math. I personally failed out of math three twice, so that's why I married her. This way, my kids have a shot. Baruch Hashem, they're all good at math. But Lamaysa She got a job in AIG, and her boss's name was Pat Riley. Not that Pat Riley. There's two Pat Rileys. One Pat Riley lives in Miami. Slicked back hair, Showtime Lakers. He's a pretty cool guy. There's another Pat Riley, who's an Irish man. He wears suspenders and a bow tie to work. And he's a math nerd And he works in AIG. That Pat Riley was my wife's boss. And they had a meeting. And in the meeting Somebody cursed Somebody used a swear word. And so after the meeting My wife's in her little cubicle area.

15:10 And Pat Riley comes and he sits down with her and he says to my wife. Mrs. Berg I want you to know that we're going to go to HR to speak to this person about the language he used in the meeting in front of you. Because he dropped a certain curse in front of you. And my wife, she's a from woman. She doesn't want to make any waves So she said, it's okay. I have brothers. I've heard these words before. So Pat Riley says to her, no. We know you're not supposed to use these words in front of you. She wasn't a Robertson. She wasn't. I can't imagine that she was in the middle of AIG pulling out a tehillim and crying into a tehillim and shuddling like she was having a seizure. I can't imagine that this is the avirah that was around her.

16:09 So what did Pat Riley see? Why did he know? Not that he needs to go to HR because a person cursed in a meeting, but because they cursed in front of Eliza. Because when a yid lives with an avirah of kedusha around them There's no mitzvah that you could point to. But there's a choice that we make that Yiddishkeit permeates our lives. It's not a commandment. It's a chush. It's who you are. How am I dressing today? How do I show up to daven? There's no mitzvah. I'm not talking about a mitzvah. I'm talking about a sensitivity. I remember when I was in camp Summer after ninth grade, I went to a camp here in Israel, and my counselor gave me mussar that I was wearing shorts to daven. In my entire life, I had never heard of this sensitivity. I was dressed. Pants are for the week. It's summer in Israel, you wear shorts.

17:09 And he said to me, Matt, you have to know. There's nothing I could point to tell you that it's usher, but it's not the way a yid davens. It wasn't the conversation about shorts. He was sharing with me a tenua, a sensitivity. This is how a yid behaves. I remember when I was in sixth grade, I was davening with my hands in my pockets. Davening my hands in my pockets. Rabbi said, "Is there anything wrong with davening with your hands in your pockets?" There's nothing wrong with davening your hands in your pockets. But my sixth grade rabbi, Rabbi Glenn. He came over to me, and in the sweetest way, he said to me, "Mordechai Do me a personal favor. When you daven, don't put your hands in your pockets. Guys, I'm a long way from six three. I'm forty-three years old. Every time I accidentally put my hands in my pockets, Adayoimaze, I hear Glenn's voice, that sweet voice, saying to me 'For me, do me a personal favor. Don't put your hands in your pockets.' Rabbi said, 'There's nothing wrong with putting your hands in your pockets. You can't find me a siman in Shulchan Aruch that says don't daven with your hands in your pockets.'

18:13 But it's a sensitivity. Is this me? Is my Yiddishkeit permeating my life? When we're children, we get commandments. When we're first born as a nation, Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'Here's your tzevu. Do this.' As we're about to enter into Eretz Yisrael We're growing up. It's no longer about do this or don't do that. It's larger than that. It's what are you going to contribute to your Yiddish kite? What choices are you going to make? I was having a conversation with somebody today, and he said, "Rabbi, I've got these three options in front of me." I said, "There's no wrong choice here, but we're going to learn a lot about you from the choice that you make." Is this your value? They're all beautiful values, but now you have to have a hierarchy. Klau Yisroel received commandments at Ar Sinai, but now they come to Meish Rabenu and they say As we enter into Eretz Yisroel We need to own the process.

19:15 We need to own the process now. So Meish Rabenu was excited by this. He said, "That's good." That's a way to enter into Eretz Yisrael. You don't enter into Eretz Yisrael and take Achrayus like a child. You enter into Eretz Yisrael with true free choice, and you say it's mine to own. Moshe Rabbeinu was excited by this But he also understood that with choice comes risk. He also understood that when you get into the area of there is no mitzvah There is a risk. And that risk is very dangerous. He saw that the meraglim had certain hashkafas that were going to endanger them from coming into Eretz Yisrael in a way that was godly. He said, "I can't give you a bracha because if Moshe Rabbeinu gives you a bracha, then it will no longer be free choice. If Moshe Rabbeinu goes over to one of the other meraglim and he says, 'I give you a bracha that you should be successful,' then it won't be free choice anymore. It won't be them. It'll be Moshe Rabbeinu's bracha."

20:28 But Yeshua Ben Nun, who's the moon relative to Moshe Rabbeinu's son Yeshua Ben Nun, who's the one who sets up the oil, Yeshua Ben Nun, who's the talman mufak of Moshe Rabbeinu, to give Yeshua Ben Nun a bracha is not tilting Yeshua Ben Nun to one side; it's actualizing who he already is. The godless of Yeshua Ben Nun is that he was so connected to Moshe Rabbeinu. That the bracha that my shabenu gave him wasn't tilt to one side. It was be who you truly are, and let that shine through in this challenging circumstance. That is the ultimate nikkuda, the ultimate point that we have to make. Are we asking you to do something that you are, or are we asking you to do something that you're not? Sometimes there's a feeling that we're coming here and saying to you guys, we want Yiddishkeit to permeate your lives.

21:27 The way you act Your middos on the streets. When you get off a bus, do you say thank you? Do you say thank you to your madrichim after they give you a chabura? Are you appreciative of what NCSY Kollel is doing for you? Do you go over to the Hanhala of NCSY Kollel after a Thursday night like this? Do you go over and say thank you so much for everything you do? And not only in terms of our anhaga, but everything—the way we dress, the way we speak. Are we Jewish? I had a rebbe one time. It was a fire and brimstone rebbe. And some of the guys were making fun of Hasidim. They were making fun of the way they dress. And this rebbe was a fire and brimstone rebbe. And I don't agree with everything he said But he said to those boys on that day in a sharp manner. He said to them in a fiery manner, "Rabbi said you could make fun of them."

22:18 But at least when they walk the streets, they're Jewish. Powerful mussar. Powerful Musser And he said to them again. He was a sharp Rebbe, And he said, "Sometimes if I was walking down the streets of New York City and I see a kid in a baseball hat and T-shirt and shorts, I wouldn't know he's Jewish." The only people that would know they're Jewish. He said, 'The only people that know they're Jewish is Chabad' Because they have a sense of seeing somebody and knowing that guy's a Jew. It's generations of cultivating a sixth sense of that's got to be a Jew. I'm going to put tefillin on. But a regular person, he said, you would never know. So you might think to yourself Is that me? Am I somebody who could allow Yiddishkeit to permeate his life? And the answer is, we're not asking you to do something that's extrinsic.

23:11 We're not asking you to become something that you're not. We're asking you to align yourself with who you truly are. Aligning yourself with who you truly are is not heavy. It's light. It's inspired. It's motivating. It's exciting. It's not like I don't want to carry this burden. I don't want to carry the burden of davening three times a day. I hear you. I don't want to carry the burden of having to learn every single day. I hear you. If it's something extrinsic to yourself, I have to daven. I have to learn. If it's something internal, it's a completely different experience. Of course, I'm going to daven. That's what David Hamel said. I am davening. That's the Avodah Rabbi said. As we grow up, you're not children anymore. You're not eight, nine, ten years old. You're not 13 year old little kids. You're young adults now. You're 16 and 17 years old.

24:07 And you're at a point in your life where you have to ask yourself: Of course, I'm going to do a mitzvah. The shaila is: Is this just something where I check the box? I check the box of the mitzvah. I did the mitzvah. I check the box. Or is it truly a free choice, away from the influence of our Kadosh Baruch Hu's direct commandment? While I allow myself to shine through and really be the yid that I know I am That's the question that's in front of us. There's no one answer to this question. There's no, I'm leaving NCSY Kollel. There's no, I'm leaving NCSY Kollel. The answer to the question is yes. That's not the way this works. If you're walking out of this program thinking after six weeks I'm never going to do an avera again, I'm going to go to the top shiur, I'm going to strike away, I'm going to be perfect, I'm going to be a metsuyon. If you're walking away and you think that Rabbi said you're making a grave mistake Life is a series of ups and downs.

25:12 It's not the pshat that we're asking you to be perfect. What we're asking you is to be engaged. Ride the wave Be committed. Allow yourself to find yourself and to discover yourself with all dimensions. Sometimes it's a miraglim and it won't go and it'll be a disaster. But if you stay with it, Yeshua Ben Nun said, "I know the miraglim could be great." I know the concept of free choice of going in and exploring. I know that could be great. So Yeshua Ben Nun didn't give up on it. He said, "My Rebbe said Miraglim could be great, and I will figure out how to make the Miraglim great." And because Yeshua Ben Nun was the one who successfully was one of the Miraglim, he knew how to train them to be Miraglim too. So sometimes it will work, and sometimes it won't. But the main thing is, don't give up.

26:02 Don't give up. You had a bad day. You had a bad week. You had a bad month. You had a bad year. You had a bad two years. You had a bad decade. Don't give up. It's a wave. It goes up and it goes down. But we discover ourselves within the imperfections of life. People think I have to be a perfect Jew. I have to daven every day with kavana. It's an ambition. Some days you will. Some days you won't. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu, He loves. He loves the process. That's our avoda. Aaron Hakohen, Moshe Rabbeinu could give him a bracha because that's who he was. That's who we are, Rabbi Isaac. And especially now Especially now at this critical juncture of your lives, you're very young. I know some of you in this room. Have already become very old. Some of you in this room, I'm already sixteen. That's sixteen. I've already wasted half my life. Rabbi Isaac, sixteen years old. You're very young.

27:05 If it wasn't going the way you wanted to go until now, this is your opportunity to change. This is your opportunity to say it's not just that I'm gonna go to Chaburos But I'm paying attention I'm listening to what my Medrash has to say, I'm asking questions, I'm challenging him, and I'm challenging myself, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. But I'm baderach, I'm going somewhere. That's our desire. We're trying to be meraglim, Rabbi Isaac, in our lives. We're trying to be spies, looking at the territory of Eretz Yisrael and saying what this chilek is that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is giving to us. It's a beautiful land. But it has to be our choice to go in and see the beauty of Eretz Yisrael, of Tyre, and of Yiddishkeit. Rabbis, I have a beautiful shabbos.