Emor / Pesach / Sefiras HaOmer / Shavuos - Transforming From Animal Into Godly

2:07 What is the purpose of Yitzias Mitzrayim? So it's a pasuk in Shmos. The pasuk in Shmos says, 'Va'yomer ki'oyah imach. The entire purpose of Yisias Mitzrayim is Matan Torah.' That's the purpose of Matan Torah. The question is, how should we view Yisias Mitzrayim relative to Matan Torah? Yisias Mitzrayim is not just I took you out so that you can. It's not. I just took you out so you can. Really, as we're going to see Yitzias Mitzrayim and the Sphera Haomer is a part of a three-stage process that culminates with Matan Torah. If you look at the Torah itself. The process of Yitzias Mitzrayim is mentioned explicitly. The months are mentioned explicitly in the Torah. Nissan, you have here the pasuk in Shmos. Nissan is the Chag HaGeula. Then you have Iyar. Iyar is the counting of the Omer, and finally in Sivan. You'll see here. Again, I'm not quoting the pasuk, but you have the pasuk in front of you on the bottom of page two and the top and bottom of page three.

3:41 These pesukim, Sivan is the time when we receive the Torah. In other words, there's a three-stage process that is a three-month process mentioned explicitly in the Torah of arriving at Har Sinai. Har Sinai is not just a place that we go after we leave Mitzrayim, but rather there's a process. The process is stage one, you see, it's Mitzrayim. Stage two, counting of the Omer, and stage three is Matan Torah. How can we understand this process? In order to understand this process in true Jewish fashion, we have to look at the food. You want to understand anything in the Torah? You have to look at the food. The famous joke: They tried to kill us, we won. Let's eat. That's every Jewish yomtiv. In order for us to understand this three-stage process of how we go from matan to matan Torah. We have to look at the food. There's three types of food that we deal with in these three months. The first food, as we all know, is what? What's the first food? The first food is matzah.

4:50 The second food is barley. The karbanah omer is made of barley. And the third food is on Shavuos itself. What do we bring? The shtei alechem. There he is a good call. Growing up, the whole point of Shavuos was cheesecake. It happens to be that you stayed up all night learning, but the whole point we knew was cheesecake. They have wonderful cheesecake in Eretz Yisrael. Israel is the best cheesecake. So I shouldn't say this because we're in the middle of a shir, but do you know that Costco in the Five Towns won an award? It was like they got a thing that they sold the most cheesecake, the Riesling Borsuas, of all the Costco's in all of America. And the only thing that I could think of The only thing that I could think of, because it went viral, it was like somebody took a picture of it, congratulations to Costco, you sold the most. The only thing I could think of is, what if there was some Gentile In corporate Costco

5:50 Somewhere, there's this corporation of Costco presidents and leadership. What if somebody realized they sold the most cheesecakes and they wondered what they did differently? They started to roll this out across America, creating a whole cheesecake movement all across the country. Costco would sell more cheesecake, but really it was only a Shavuos blip. It was only because Jews in the Five Towns bought all the cheesecake from Costco. I imagine the letdown of this Gentile president when, the next week, Costco sold zero cheesecakes. Because who buys a cheesecake the week after Shavuos? So I wonder if there's a question like these. I imagine these Gentiles. I bet you the Gentiles in the Five Towns know. I bet you they're like, we got to make a lot of cheesecakes because it's that holiday where Jews buy cheesecakes. But somewhere in corporate Costco, there's got to be some guy who was so let down.

6:41 We did a record amount of cheesecakes last week. That's my imagination. I'm sitting around the corporate table discussing this. Just say that. On Shavuos we bring the shtei alechem. So we need to analyze all three types of food here. What is it about Pesach that it's about matzah? What is it about the karban olmer that it's made from barley? And what is it about Shavuos where we have the shtei alechem? And really, there's two questions here. The first question is when we bring a karban made from barley. It only happens twice. One is the carbona omer And the other is the isha sota. So you'll see here the gemara in sota says kol hamenachos baos menachitin, the zu ba minasaorin. All other carbon menachos come from wheat, and this one comes from barley. Rabbi Gamliel omer in the bolded words kashem shema aseha ma'isa behema, kach carbona ma'ichel behema. This isha sota, this woman. Who secluded herself with another man?

7:53 She acted in an animalistic fashion. It's an animalistic thing to do. She was married to somebody else. She shouldn't have been secluded with another man. Therefore, her carbon, the carbon mincha that she brings, is from barley. Because it reflects the action. It was an animalistic action. It's animalistic carbon. That makes sense when it comes to soda. But for us, we now have a real question on our hands. Why is the carbona omer brought from barley? Then, is this a particularly animalistic time that we're counting up towards our se'it? We're far from ready for answers. It's not worth guessing because it's going to have to tie in all of these things. By the way, in general, that's it. We always run to answer, but answer is best proved. When answer answers a lot of questions at once, that's how you know the truth of answer. So always best to let the questions develop. In the yeshiva world, they say nobody ever died from a question.

8:54 So it's good. Sometimes you blith with the kasha, it's called the niddah. Sometimes you just sit with the question and let the question fester. The longer the question festers, the more beautiful, the more true the answer becomes. So the first question that we have, as we analyze these three foods. Going from matzah all the way to the shtei alechem, as we have this in-between stage of the karbanah omer. The karbanah omer is made from barley. The only other time we see that is by the isha sota. Why do you bring a karbanah omer? It represents something about animalism About being an animalistic person. What is it about this time frame that we're engaging the animalistic side of ourselves? That's question number one. Question number two. We have a lot of questions so far. We'll review them in a moment. Question number two is based on a well-known Gemara and Brachos. I'm sure you all know this Gemara and Brachos, even though you may not have ever learned it inside. The Gemara and Brachos says, "Ribon ha'olamim" Golui v'adulif anecha shiratonehu lassos or tonecha.

9:52 Hashem, you know what is our will? Our will is to do Your will. Umi ma'akev. So what's stopping us from doing Your will? Seor shebe'isa v'shibat malchus. Two things. We're only going to focus on one of them for tonight. Two things stop us from doing Hashem's will. We'll do the second one first because that's not the one we're talking about. We don't live in Eretz Yisrael. We don't live under purely Jewish halachic sovereignty. We live in America. We live in England. We live in Russia. We live in Spain. We live in Portugal. We live in Italy. We live in Australia. We live in all these funny places. We're not in the times of Mashiach. We don't have David Melach Yisrael. We don't have David Malchus of Mashiach. That's one reason we have trouble doing your will. But the first reason the Gemara gives is saar shebeisa. What does saar shebeisa mean? The yeast in the dough.

10:45 What is the yeast in the dough referring to? The yeast in the dough is referring to the arrogance that's inside of every one of us. That's what yeast does, right? Because when you put yeast, I don't make challah, but I assume that some people in this room make challah. Men can make challah, women can make challah. You're all equal. Everyone's amazing. It just happens to be that I don't make challah. But I understand, having been married for a number of years now, and having five daughters, I understand that when you make challah, there's a process, and the process is that you put yeast into the dough, and then you have to cover it and put it in a warm place, and it can't get too big, and you have to punch it down at exactly the right time. I always get that phone call: Can you punch it down? Does it look like it needs to be punched down? How do I know what it looks like when it needs to be punched down? Just say the word. I'll punch it if you want me to. But what does the yeast do? The yeast is a leavening agent, right? It makes the challah expand.

11:40 That's what makes it delicious. If you have without yeast, everyone always says like sfardi matzahs are amazing. They're not. Sfaridimazas also don't taste great because they don't have that yeast in the dough. They don't have that leavening agent to make it look softer, but it's not actually delicious. So The yeast in the dough—what makes something rise—that's called arrogance. Arrogance is what makes us puff up our chest, so to speak, and say, "Look at me." On Pesach, we don't have any bread. We don't have any saar shabeisa. Why? No arrogance, but this leads us to an obvious question. And I'm sure many of you have thought of this all year long. What do we eat? Bread. What do we have on Shabbos? Delicious challah. All year long, we're eating bread. Comes along Pesach, and we say bread is the devil. Bread. What do you have to do? You have to make sure you have no bread in your house. All the OCD comes up, and all of a sudden, it's like I think I saw a crumb.

12:42 I think I got to get rid of that one thing. I heard a story once from Rav Moshe Weinberger Shlita, the Rav of Eish Kodesh from Woodmere. I like him too. He's a tremendous tzaddik. I heard a story from Rav Weinberger once. Rav Weinberger said you clean the house for Pesach and his little son on Cholomot. Rav Weinberger was sitting there at the table and he was learning and he sees his little son. Walk through like the living room, dining room area, whatever it was And he's eating from a bag of pretzels. And he goes Where did you get that? And this little innocent, to me, mystic boy goes, 'You were taking away all my treats, so I hid it.' So Rav Weinberger, when he told the story, he said that his wife was in the room, and she looked at him and she said to him, She said to him, "Now, Mosh."

13:43 There must be some way to separate the child from the chametz. Like at that point, you want to throw out the kid too. That's why Israeli houses have soragim; they have the bars on the windows. It's not to keep thieves out. It's to keep us from chucking our children out the window. Israeli kids could be levitic. So we go. We manage to get rid. We're like meshuganas. We get rid of every single little bit of chametz, and then what happens? The second Pesach is over. All of a sudden chametz is mutter again. And what are we doing? It's like a rite of passage in the Jewish community. You transfer over, and then somebody has to make that pizza run. Somebody has to go get that pizza because you don't eat pizza all the time. But if you don't have pizza on Matzah Yom Tov, it's like did you really even have Pesach? So I don't understand.

14:28 A minute ago Chametz was the worst thing in the world. Chametz is the sarsha b'isa, the arrogance. This is what leads us to go against our inner will to serve Hashem. And now, a moment after Pesach, all of a sudden. Chametz is mutter And not only is chametz mutter, but at the very pinnacle. Because remember, what's the whole goal of Yisias Mitzrayim? The whole goal of Yisias Mitzrayim is to arrive at Matan Torah. And what do we have on Shavuos? Steh Alecha. So how did we go? Follow the logic. How did we go from bread from Soar Shabaisa being the worst thing in the world And not only is it mutter. But on Matan Torah, on Shavuos, what do we bring? The Stei Alechem. How did we go to sell? What happened to the Sar Shabbisa? What happened to the arrogance? Why shouldn't it be a thing that Jews only eat matzah? Wouldn't that be amazing?

15:21 Just realized what that would be. It would be like the worst thing in the world. Can you imagine? There'd have to be some rabbinic hat there. Oh my God, I can't say these words out loud. But you know what's in my head. Can you imagine if we were only allowed to eat matzah all year long? Kids would go off the derech. Man, you imagine walking by like a gayish bakery and going like I like I would I honestly don't have time for a cheeseburger But if we weren't allowed to have cake, if we weren't allowed to have bread, if we weren't allowed to have yeast the entire year, that'd be the end of us. That'd be it. I understand there's good brownies without the you know, but still like it's it. We would go off the derech. How did we go to celebrating bread? So those are our questions. Let's review our questions very quickly.

16:09 The first question we had is why does it say mi'macharas haShabbos that we start counting the Omer on the second day of Pesach? It says mi'macharas haShabbos that leaves room open for us to misinterpret and think that it actually means like the Baisusim thought on Sunday. That was our first question. We had the three months mentioned in the Torah. We have the three types of food. The three types of food we had two questions. Question number one. Was why is barley animalistic this period? Why are we confronting the animal? The only other time we see that is by the Yisusota. How did we go from Pesach where matzah was like the best and lechem was the worst, and now all of a sudden we are celebrating lechem? I hate to do this. Do we have a remote in this room? Or we do not? I don't think it's by me.

17:02 If not, we'll struggle through it. If somebody has it, that'd be great. I apologize. I know that it's always a thing to mention the air conditioning in the room distracts us. Let's do our best. The pasuk in Shir Ashirim. This is where we're going to begin our answers. These are some very deep, fundamental ideas. Mashcheni acherecha narutza. You got to know this pasuk well. Page six. You gotta know this pasuk well to understand this. Mashchini acharecha narutsa Draw me after you. Narutsa, we will run. Heviani hamelech chadarav The king has brought me into his chambers. Magila venisma chabach, let us be joyous in this. Naskira dodecha miayan meisharim ahevucha Like new wine, we love. They love you. We're just going to be focusing. That was not planned at all. We're just going to be focusing on the first section of this pasuk. Mashcheni acharecha narutsa, haviyani hamelech hadarav.

18:15 These three phrases, as we're going to see, represent the three stages from Yishtitz Mitzrayim to counting the Omer. Until Matan Torah, Mashcheni Acharecha means draw me after you. That's you see at Mitzrayim. We'll explain why in a moment. Narutsa, we will run. That's the counting of the Omer. Haviani Amelach Adarab, the king brought me into his chambers. What are the chambers? That's Matan Torah. When we look at this, when we look at these words, we have to notice there's a grammatical issue here. I know any time you hear dikduk, people just turn off. Any time I've ever given a shiur and mentioned anything about dikduk, people like slowly close their eyes because it gets very technical. This could not be easier. This is one plus one equals two. Mashcheni acharecha is two things: passive and singular. Mashcheni acharecha. What are we saying to Hashem? Draw me in. What are we doing?

19:22 Nothing. We're passive. And also it's singular. Narutsa and we will run is both plural and active. Do you see how these two words in the pasuk that are right next to each other are very different? Mashcheni acharecha is singular and passive. Narutsa is plural and active. We will run. What's the idea here? So the idea is as follows. The Zarah Kodesh says. That really in Mitzrayim We were both unworthy and unprepared for Geula. As a result We did not truly change. We'll see what did change in a moment, but as a result, we didn't truly change. I'll give you an example. Imagine you have a person who was an alcoholic. And they're destroying their lives with alcoholism. So somebody comes, they pick them up by the collar. They put them in the car and drive them into rehab. Did the alcoholic do any work yet? No.

20:38 Are they drinking? They're not drinking. They're in rehab. But they have fundamentally changed. What changed? The first thing that changed is location. Just like the alcoholic used to be on the streets, now the alcoholic is in rehab. Klal Yisrael in Mitzrayim was under the dominion of Pharaoh And now that Hakadosh Baruch Hu took us out, we're under the dominion of Hashem. That's what happened. Number one, did we do anything? We didn't do anything. We just changed location. So what were we? We were passive in the process. In other words, did we leave Mitzrayim, or did Hashem take us out? It's a big mistake to think Klal Yisrael left Mitzrayim. Klal Yisrael didn't leave Mitzrayim. Klal Yisrael was taken out of Mitzrayim. We say Klal Yisrael left Mitzrayim because what we mean is location-wise, we weren't in Mitzrayim anymore. But we didn't leave. We were picked up by the collar and taken out. We were passive in the process.

21:44 Now this is where it gets deep. We have two parts of ourselves. The Balatanya explains. The first part is called the Nefesh Elokes. The second part is called the Nefesh Abahamis. Some of you take Tanya with Rav Weinberger's daughter. She still gives Tanya here. So for those of you For those of you For those of you that take Tanya, you should be familiar with this terminology. There's such a thing called the Nefesh Elokes and the Nefesh Abahamis. During Yitzias Mitzrayim, when Hashem took us out Which part of ourselves received the divine revelation from Hashem? Not the nefesh abahamis But the nefeshalokis. Not the nefesh abahamis The animal soul. After Yitzias Mitzrayim, remained an animal soul. Nothing about it fundamentally changed. How did we leave? From the place of the nefesh l'kis, Hashem revealed Himself to the godly soul, and He took us out. But the animal soul remained unchanged.

22:53 If you look carefully at the words, we now understand them very well, very deeply: 'mashcheni acharecha.' Mashcheni acharecha. I can't leave Mitzrayim. I'm an addict. An addict can. Girls, if an addict could stop being an addict, what would they not be? An addict. If you're in Mitzrayim, can you leave Mitzrayim? If you can leave Mitzrayim, you're not in Mitzrayim. You're a tourist. If you're a slave in Mitzrayim, you cannot leave Mitzrayim. By the way, there are things in your life that are not necessarily addictions. They feel like tough places to be. But that's not Mitzrayim. If you're in Mitzrayim, it means I can't leave. I need to be taken out. So mashcheni acharecha, Hashem, draw me out from Mitzrayim. I can't leave. You draw me out. I'm passive. And because I'm unworthy and unprepared for this redemption, which part of me is taken out? Not two parts. Only one part is truly taken out. Which part is taken out? The nefesh lo kis. But my nefesh abahamis remains a nefesh abahamis. In the world of addiction, this would be called you're a dry drunk.

24:12 A dry drunk is somebody who doesn't drink. But they're still a drunk. Why don't they drink? They're not drinking for whatever reasons. Maybe they're not drinking because there's no alcohol available to them. Maybe they're not drinking because they're in rehab. Maybe they're not drinking because they're suppressing their addiction, but they're not actually cured. They haven't actually done anything to themselves. There's been no fundamental shift. You cannot say in plural 'maschheni acharecha' because all parts of ourselves were not taken out. The nefesh lo kis received the divine revelation. The nefesh bahamis is physically out of Mitzrayim. But in its essence, what is it still? It's still an animal soul. Nothing fundamentally about ourselves changes after stage one. If you want to know the three stages of growth, stage one: leave Mitzrayim. Can you sober up if you're in Mitzrayim? You cannot. If you're in Mitzrayim, you can't sober up. But can you leave Mitzrayim? You cannot leave Mitzrayim. How do you leave Mitzrayim? Hashem has to take you out.

25:12 You didn't leave. You were taken out. You're passive. And fundamentally nothing changed about you. That is step number one. Step number two is the following. Again, this is a very fundamental, foundational idea. We are not meant to serve Hashem only with our nefeshalokis. We are not meant to serve God only with our godly soul. If you're only serving God with your godly soul, you're falling short of what we're meant to do. Take a look at the Gemara and Brachos. The Gemara and Brachos Nandala Manalev says B'chol levavcha, b'shnei yitzarecha, b'yitzar tov u'b'yitzarah. How we meant to serve Hashem with our yitzar tov and our yitzarah. The Chisconi quoted over here in Dvarim. Chapter six, verse five. Cheskuni says, "B'chol levavcha." He quotes Rashi, "B'shnei tziracha pirish libcholam matzi lemikrei alechad." Av levavecha matzi lemikrei levavecha shnei levavos. Why doesn't it say? It says we say, "B'chol mashcha, b'chol levavcha, b'chol mashcha, b'chol meodecha." Why doesn't it say b'chol libcha? Says the Cheskuni, it says it with two bases. You know why?

26:24 To teach you that you serve Hashem with your yitzar tov and your yitzar har. How do I serve Hashem with my yitzar har? So think about in a relationship. In a relationship If you only serve your wife or you only serve your husband With the part of you that loves your husband Then what's missing? All the other parts. Serving somebody means devoting your life to someone, meaning that you devote your whole self to them. If only part of you is in a relationship with your husband, then you're falling short of the goal of intimacy. Intimacy means oneness. Oneness means all of me and all of you are in a relationship together. Shalom bias problems start when When only some of ourselves is in the relationship. If eighty percent of you is in a relationship with your husband, then you're only going to be in a relationship up to eighty percent.

27:25 Very often, what happens is people turn around in their relationships and they go, "Why are we struggling so much?" Did you share with your husband these thoughts, these feelings that you have? No. Now you know why, because only a part of you is showing up to the relationship. If we only serve Hashem with our godly soul, that's the easy part. What's the more difficult part? Serving Hashem with our animal soul. That's what it means to be in a relationship with Hashem. Is there godliness in the places where there appears not to be any godliness at all? Only if you can introduce godliness into the places that appear to be other than God. Can you actually say that you're one with Hashem. The pasuk says, "V'rab tfoos bekowach shor." The rich harvest comes from where? From the power of the ox, meaning referring to the power of the animal soul. I want to share with you what the power of the animal soul is.

28:24 If you really want to know the power of the animal soul Go to a sports game. And I don't just mean the players. If it's a great sports game, you'll see it with the players. I mean the crowd. Because something happens in moments of great sporting events. I'll give you an example of this. I'm used to giving shit to guys. Can you just come along with me on this for a second? We know sports. Some of you do. Which sport should we choose? Toronto Raptors. So we'll choose. We're going to choose basketball because she's a Toronto Raptors. It does. I promise you, I'm definitely not choosing hockey. Toronto Maple Leafs. The no, I just I don't know anything about hockey. And also, I like sports where you keep all your teeth. But other than that, we're going to do basketball. Basketball. Imagine we'll take she took the Toronto Raptors. Imagine. A couple years ago, the Toronto Raptors won the NBA championship. It's never going to happen again in the history of the world, so Canadians can hang their hats on that. But Masai Ujiri once got them a championship ring.

29:31 What happened? They were playing the Toronto Raptors, who were playing a team called the Philadelphia Seventy Sixers. That was in the championship. Before they made it to the championship, I am holding. It was game seven. And in the final moments of the game, one of the players fell out of bounds, falling away Threw up a shot, and it bounced off the rim. And it bounced off the rim again, and it bounced off the ring a third time until it finally fell in. And if you watch the stadium when it's happening The entire stadium is on its feet And everybody there—it's like a moment of silence. You can hear the ball clanging: boom. And then an eruption of passionate screaming. We won! You didn't do anything. You were drunk in the stands. We won! This like it's Canadians. They've never won anything in their lives. This like no. I'm sure you have a big fancy Canadian army. I'm sure you'll do something with it one day. The Canadians are too polite to have an army. You'd show up. You'd be like, hey, maybe we should go get a donut.

30:38 What are you gonna do? Say it. I love Canada. It's a beautiful place. Canada is a wonderful place with a beautiful Jewish community. The no, and your Mounties are amazing. I grew up in NYPD. I know what a cop looks like. That's not what a cop looks like. They're very tough. It's very terrifying. Their horses are terrifying. It's not like Don't worry, don't even go there. It's not the same. So these fans in the stands are screaming and there was a player on the Philadelphia 76ers that just broke down crying in the arms of a Toronto Raptor player. And he's in there and he's just crying, he's bawling. With an opposing player, it's not like he's crying on his own shoulders, teammates. He's crying on the shoulders of somebody else who just beat him. And what you see in that moment is raw passion. That's the thing about sports.

31:53 Sports is so driven by the animal spirit. It's kulo passion. It's kulo energy. That's what the nefesh am ha'amis provides. And by the way When you have a contest of two animal souls against each other, you know who's more powerful—the one that has the greater attachment to their animal soul. That's why they say it's not the size of the dog in the fight; it's the size of the fight in the dog. It's because when you have more power, you're more drawn into your nefesh abahamis. You're going to be super powerful. You ever ask yourself why it's so much harder? To be passionate about your Yiddishkeit is more than it is to be passionate about worldly things. It's because the nefesh abahamis is passion. That's what it is. That's your engine. That's your animating feature. So your nefesh alokis is godly. But look what happens if the nefesh abahamis comes under the dominion of the nefesh alokis.

32:55 Think about the nefesh abahamis is your giant animal. That's your dragon. What happens when the nefesh l'okis can sit on top of that dragon? What happens when it has control over the animal? Now you have two things: you have godliness and all that passion, all that drive, all that energy. It now belongs to you. V'rab tfoos bekoach shor. Where do you get your energy from? Where do you get all this massive harvest from? It comes from the power al pichasodas. It comes from the power of the animal. The job of the nefesh l'okis is to harness. To sublimate the nefesh abahamis. Stage one Get the nefesh abahamis out of Egypt. If the nefesh abahamis is in Mitzrayim, you're in a bad state. But has the nefesh abahamis done anything yet? Do you harness its energy? Is it sublimated to you? No. At this point, still the nefesh abahamis hasn't changed. So what do we need? We need stage two, get the animal under the control of the godly soul. Now we can understand. A question that we asked just a couple of moments ago: Why do we bring a carbon haomer made of barley?

34:08 Remember, what was the only other time that we see a carbon made from barley, a carbon mincha, by the isha sota? It's because she behaved like an animal, so we bring an animal offering. Why do we bring a carbon mincha made of barley during sferas haomer? Because what part are we working on now? Are we trying to become more godly over the course of these forty-nine days? What we're trying to do is bring our animal into our godliness. We're trying to go from being passive to being active. We're trying to go from being singular, where only our nefesh Elokim was taken out of Mitzrayim. That now also our nefesh Abahamis should be sublimated, should be part of the service of Hashem. Now look what happens. This pasuk is so deep. Masheini acharecha. What is masheini? What do we say? Passive and singular. We move now to step two. What is narutsa?

35:04 Active and plural. Because now, in stage two, who serves Hashem? It's not just Hashem taking me out of Egypt. It's now I'm getting involved in serving you. Who's the I? Two parts of me. Not only my nefesh elokis, but also my nefesh abahamis. We're running in these times to serve Hashem. We're active. All parts of ourselves are active. This is another key psychological idea. I want to express it clearly. You want to know how to run in life? That's what we all want to do, no? We want to run. Did you ever feel lethargic? I don't mean like run, physically. I believe me, I'm the last person in the world who wants to run. But did you ever feel like a lethargy for life? Did you ever feel like I just like schleppy? I guess I don't want to do anything. And then you see people, they have just a certain zest for life.

36:07 They just wake up and they're smiling. They walk down the halls. I once saw a boy in a high school, happens to be in Mivasarit this year. He's an amazing guy. When he walked through his high school, I went to his high school to give him a faheret, to give him a bichina. Afterwards, I saw him walking through the hall. He just has such an energy about him. You like this? He was dapping everybody up. You like that? I know those words. Say less. The low key. Dapping. Meaning every single person. I saw a guy walk through the halls. He was alive. Do you know? Do you know how? Do you know how rare that is? Do you know that today you could walk through the halls of a high school and you could see kids and they're lined up in rows and they're all sitting on the floor.

36:57 You see it. And their knapsacks are somewhere underneath them on their back, wherever it is. What are they all doing? They're all on their phones. We're talking about dead people. We're talking about people sitting next to their friends. There's no joie de vivre. There's no life. There's no joy of life. There's no animal there. They're not running. Where's your passion? One of my mentors, Mr. Richie Altbe, is the principal of Halbal Elementary School today. We're two for two with you today. I'm a big fan. We love Mr. Altbe. Mr. Altbe saved my life on many occasions. But I want to tell you something. He once told me He said, "I'm never worried about the kids that are ball players." Kid could be messing around in high school, but if he's a ball player, you're not worried about him. You know why? Because he's lebedick. He runs up and down the court. He's got passion to him.

37:45 These kids today are bamish. We need tchias hamaisim for these kids. There's no narutza. You know why? They might be very godly. But they have no control over their animal. You want to know what makes you run? Whatever your passion is, that's your animal soul. Girls, I want to come to Eretz Yisrael. I want to be on fire about my yiddishkeit. If all you pay attention to is your godly soul, you're never going to be on fire about your Yiddishkeit. You need to harness the passion. That's the animal soul. You need to bring that dragon under the domain, so to speak, of the nefesh elokis. Draw me in. I'm passive, and it's only one part of me. To Naruto, now I'm on fire. Now I'm running. All parts of me. You can't run if half of you is gone. You can't run if the passionate part of you is not present in your relationship with Hashem.

38:35 You want to know how to daven? People think I daven from my nefesh l'kiss. It's true. You want to know how to be on fire? Bring your nefesh habahamis into your nefesh l'kiss. Now you'll be running. And then we're going to get to the final aspect of this, which is stage three. Stage three. I'm going to borrow this from you. Stage three, if you don't mind. Stage three is based on the Gemara and Shabbos. How do we get to Matan Torah? What's the final step here? The morning Shabbos peychesam adbeis says as follows: I'm Rav Yeshua ben Levi Called dibur v'dibur shayatzam ipi. Hashem baruch Hu yatzah nishmas nishle Yisrael. What happened by the Asayas adibros? What happened by Ar Sinai? Hashem opened His mouth. What happened? Everyone died. Shenemar nafsi yatzah bedibro. Are so left with your words. How did they get the second dibros if they all died by the first one? How did they get the second one of the asaros of dibros if they all died by anochi yasham lo kacha?

39:48 So what does the Gemara say? The achayosam. The dew that will one day fall during tchiasam esim fell by harsinai and they were all revived. What does this mean? What's the inner message here? We spoke about two steps. Now we're going to speak about a third. The third step is as follows. On Pesach we said no nefesh abahamis. On Pesach you have to get rid of your arrogance. You have to leave it behind. Are you doing any work? No work. Just get out of Dodge. That's why we have no chametz on Pesach. Step two. What's our next stage? We have our barley. We encounter our animal soul. And we recognize. I want to bring my passion into my Yiddishkeit. Step three is shvuas. This is what we're almost there. We're almost there. Step three is shvuas. Total nullification in the face of God. You know why we died when Hashem confronted us?

40:51 Because that's what happens when reality becomes clear. We are able to live in this world. This is a Chassidish idea. It's a beautiful idea. We're able to live in this world because we don't see Hashem. But when you see Hashem, what do you realize? You realize this entire world is just Him. Life for us is the experience of being other than Hashem. But what happens when Hashem speaks? What do we confront? We confront God Himself. There is no room anymore for self-identity. There's no room by Har Sinai when Hashem opened up His mouth, so to speak, and said, 'Anochi Hashem Eloka.' We all realized there's no difference between me and you or anything in this world. It's all just Him. It's all just Him. That's total nullification in the face of Hashem. These three processes are really something we do every single day during davening. The process number one of leaving Mitzrayim Number two: bringing our nefesh abahamis under the domain of our nefesh alokis, and then finally being totally nullified in the face of Hashem. Every single day we do this during davening. Step one is modaani. What does modaani mean?

42:10 Moda. What does the word moda mean? What's another word? What's another one? To admit To acknowledge Or another way of saying it, if you used Alcoholics Anonymous terminology To surrender. The first thing we recognize is Hashem. I can't take myself out of Eretz Yisrael. I need your help. Mashcheni acharecha. It's the first step we do. Then there's psuket hazimra and kriyas ma. Somebody a moment ago said, "How do we take our nefesh abahamis and bring it into our nefesh l'kes?" Psuket hazimra is all about the emotion. It's elevating your emotion. You're saying telem And then you come to kriyas ma. What are you saying, kriyas ma? Shema Yisrael, Hashem l'keino Hashem echad. You recognize, you understand the achdus haboreh. You recognize and understand the oneness of Hashem. And when you recognize and understand the oneness of Hashem, then what do you say? Hashem is one. Where not only with my nefesh lo kis, but also my nefesh bahamis. So step two in davening every day is we use our bino, we use our understanding.

43:14 To bring my passions under the guise of my godliness. But step three. Every day in davening, how do we start off Shmona Esrei? What do we say? Hashem sefasai tiftach ufi yaget ilasecha. Hashem, open my mouth. I can't open my mouth in front of you when I'm standing in Shmona Esrei. Where am I standing? This is why if a Jew doesn't daven, they're losing out on something massive. If a Jew doesn't daven, Chas v'Shalom, we're in danger of falling into the highest level of arrogance. Because every single day, three times a day during davening, what does a Jew do? Total abnegation, total bittul hayesh to Hashem. We stand in front of Hashem, like by we did by Arsina, and we say, God, if you don't open my lips, I cannot speak. Because all there is, you. These are the three steps that we go through in order to get to Matan Torah. Step number one, we leave our arrogance behind. Step number two, we sublimate our nefesh Abahamis to our nefesh Lukis. Step number three, what do we do?

44:17 Step number three is total abnegation in the face of God. What does this mean? We can use the saar shabeisla. Remember that bread that on Pesach was the worst thing in the world. But girls, you know what that bread is also? It's Hashem's creation. If it's Hashem's creation, then what do we do? We don't just nullify. We don't just sublimate. We don't just push down on nefesh Abahamis. What do we do? We use it. That's why on Shavuos, what do we bring? Shte Alechem. You see, girls, how we transferred? We went on Pesach. If you find one crumb Terrible. On Pesach, you have to leave your arrogance behind. But when you get to Shavuos, what is the physical world now? Now the physical world isn't just something to run away from. The physical world isn't even just something to bring into your godliness in order to have passion.

45:10 The physical world itself becomes a way to serve Hashem. If you have a dollar, what can you do with that dollar? Give it to tzedakah. If you have a car, use it to drive someone who needs some chesed. Klal Yisroel is full of unbelievable organizations that use the physical world in order to serve Hashem. Girls, why do we have bread all year long? We have bread all year long. What happened to the arrogance? On Pesach, we have to leave the arrogance behind. But once it's after Pesach, what do we need to be in process of? Not running away from the physical world. We have to run towards the physical world. We have to find the godliness within the physical world. But that's a very tall order. It's not an easy thing to do. So now let's finish up this year. Let's go back to our original question. What was our very original question? When do we start counting Omer from?

46:00 Mimacharas Hashabbos. And what did the Baisusim think Mimacharas Hashabbos meant? Sunday. What do we know it means? Second day of Pesach. Listen to the answer of the Lubavitcher Rebbe. This is so deep, such an unbelievable piece of Torah. To do this work, to get to Matan Torah Not only to sublimate the animal soul, but to be able to use the leaven in this world to use the Sohar Shabbisa in order to serve Hashem. You need to jump from a very strong spiritual source. Think of it like a trampoline. If you want to do this work, you need to be anchored. You need to be rooted in a very strong spiritual source. What's the most spiritual source that we have in this world? Shabbos. Shabbos is an unbelievable spiritual source. It's the seventh day of the week. But the problem is, even Shabbos in some way is limited. Why is Shabbos limited? Because it's still part of the week.

46:57 Shabbos in some way is still finite. Shabbos in some way is still within the world of time. What's a dimension that's higher than time? What's a dimension that's higher than the finite? Not the seventh, but the eighth. It's Chanukah. It's the eighth dimension. We have a bris milah on the eighth day. Any time you see the number eight, it means we're moving beyond the finite, beyond time and space. So mi macharas haShabbos says the pasuk If you want to do this work of going from being an animal to being a godly person, not just to run away from your animal side, not just to sublimate your animal side, but to use the animal, to use the physical in this world in order to serve Hashem. When you have to start counting? You can't just say the second day of Pesach because then we wouldn't know about the spiritual source. We leave mimacharas Shabbos from one day after Shabbos, not from the seventh, but from the eighth dimension. Why is this important to know?

48:00 Because this work seems to be impossible This work seems to be very difficult. Look around in the world today. What do we see? Do we see people that are serving Hashem Using the physical world, or do we see Sometimes Perhaps more often than not I don't want to say anything bad about the Jewish community because the Jewish community is amazing. And I don't want to say but because if you say but that means you just negated everything you just say. And. I think we can all acknowledge that the physicality, the gashmius, in the Jewish community today Is pretty, pretty rocking, no? Pretty intense. Our restaurants are amazing. When I was growing up My wife and I were just talking about this the other day. When I was growing up, we had a place on Central Avenue called Burger Nosh. And it was like McDonald's but for Jews.

48:59 Today, the stores. Whenever I go back to America These stores are unbelievable. The prices are unbelievable. But it's like even fast food in our community today is amazing. Walk around, it's a restaurant every two seconds. How many stores do you think there are on Central Avenue that are delicious? They're incredible. I went to Lakewood. When I was growing up, Lakewood was like a poor place. Today, the gasmias in Lakewood is unbelievable And sometimes we have to ask ourselves In a nice way, in a kind way, Chas Shalom, without saying anything negative about anybody or any community. Did we lose ourselves a little bit? What's more important to us? Size of our homes? What's more important to us? The brand of our cars? The author of Belvavi Mishkan Evne Rev. Schwartz. He once came to a certain community. It was a place where they have some towns, and it was his first time. Maybe it was in Canada. It probably wasn't. And it was his first time ever in America, and they were driving him to speak in a certain shul.

50:17 He's here from Yerushalayim. He had never seen anything like that. And they're driving him around, and he sees massive houses. And I went to hear him speak. The first line out of his mouth was, 'This world is a partnership between body and soul, 50% body, 50% soul.' In this community, you must have huge neshamas. He'd never seen such big houses in his life. And we have to ask ourselves Can we do it? Is it possible that we're going to go out into the world, girls? We're finishing up our year in seminary now. We only have one year left after this. Is it possible that I'm going to go back to America or back to Canada, Lo Aleinu? And we're going. I meant for both of them. And we're going to go, and I'm going to get involved in the physical world. I'm going to go to college. I'm going to become sort of therapist: the speech therapist, the physical therapist, an occupational therapist, the aqua therapist, the hydrotherapist, an art therapist, a play therapist. I'm going to become sort of therapist or a nurse, and or nursing homes, and I'm going. And I'm not going to get involved in the physical world. I'm not going to lose myself to it. Is that possible? I feel like that's what the question everybody asks. I feel like I'm going to lose myself to the physical world. What's the answer?

51:32 We're a nation that comes with our spiritual source. And Mimacharas Hashavas A Jew lives beyond time and space. That's the nature of who we are. We have the capacity to act on our world because we are from beyond our world. And so, if you're confused If you're afraid. To engage the physicality of this world and to find a way to serve Hashem with it, remember You're counting the Omer from macharas haShabbos, not from the seventh dimension, which ain't a chenami. It's very powerful, but it's still within the world of time and space. The source of our neshama is from macharas haShabbos. We can get to Har Sinai because we jump off not from Sunday. Sunday is day one. But we are mimacharas haShabbos Jews. We are eighth dimension Jews. Girls have a wonderful Shabbos.