Emunah in Action

2:13 Life here in Eretz Yisrael is exceptionally complex. The five towns is certainly much simpler. Just by show of hands, how many people here are from the five towns? Shalnu, I grew up in Lawrence. I moved to Israel about 16 years ago. There's a duality to this country. Of somehow bridging the gap between devastating levels of tragedy and life moving on. I'm sure you've seen it over here. How long have you been here? No, not even. Yesterday Two days. I'm used to speaking at the tail end of our trips. The last couple of days, it sort of felt like things were calming down. I have friends. And colleagues And children that grew up in my neighborhood that are in Gaza, that are in Lebanon. So it's been a pretty wild seven weeks. I think the last couple days sort of felt like much more calm in this country.

3:20 And then to hear this morning, again, we constantly need to make the bracha of pokeachivrim to open up our eyes because it's very easy. Forget to hear this morning that a 24-year-old girl, Loalena, was murdered by Knessaleir And eight more were injured. The terrorists were—we use this word 'neutralized.' I don't know why we use that word. We shouldn't use that word. We killed those people that attempted to kill us. That's what we do. So it's unfortunately the perfect segue to the topic that you asked me to speak about Which is a Hanukkah topic to begin with. The topic of emuna in dark times. But I want to try not to do I think the classic thing, which is the emuna of it'll all be okay. I think for many of us that doesn't really resonate anymore because it's not okay. It's not okay, and I think we're allowed to say that it's not okay.

4:16 And if I'm being perfectly honest, I sometimes think that sort of very childish. Immature. Close your eyes. Stick your head in the sand. It wasn't okay what we saw. It wasn't okay. I'll share with you Simchas Torah what it was like here. You've heard from people who have already shared. Share No. See This is the difference between teaching guys and girls. Guys, like I heard this already. Girls, like you could share. It's like a safe space to be yourself. If you can explore your experience, we can, in a nonjudgmental and deeply compassionate way Try to. Afterwards, you're gonna pay us. That's right. A lot of money. So I'll share with you what it was like on Simchas Torah. I was in Mivaser for Simchas Torah. And I got up early in the morning. There was a boy from the neighborhood who had come onto the campus playing basketball. The dribbling was waking me up, so I went out in a nice way to try to say to him maybe it's not a good idea to be dribbling this early in the morning.

5:27 And as I got to the court, he wasn't there anymore. He must have gone the other way. And then I heard a siren. And so I knew that this was nothing. I knew it was nothing. I've had this before. Once in a while a siren goes off. The Mishagoim over there sent over a rocket. We have an iron dome. And I actually saw the explosion right over the yeshiva, so I was like, "Stay there." I didn't think anything of it. I went. I woke up my wife and I said, 'Just you know, a siren went off in case you need to know where to go. This is where to go.' And she sort of rolled over, 'Okay, stay there. It's not gonna, nothing's gonna happen.' My wife woke up the kids just to tell them. My six-year-old son, very sweet. I have five daughters and a six-year-old son. And expecting, blessed Hashem, my first grandchild is January.

6:13 Thank you. My six-year-old son rolled over and he said, "Ugh" Why do they have to fight with us so early in the morning? I don't even care if they fight with us. I was trying to sleep. He had been up late the night before for some chasdei And then the barrage started, and all of a sudden it's sirens every other minute, and the rockets keep coming, and it's boom, and you hear it in the distance and you hear it close. And then the sad part, the really sad part was people rightfully started turning on their phones. The people in the neighborhood Who are chayalim who are in miluim Turned on their phones And they found out, higi yizman. We have to go to war. And so I watched as many of the young men in the kollel, the merits kollel, where we share a beis medrash with these Very talented young men sitting and learning post army.

7:06 And they got dressed in their madim and their fatigues, and they went to war. I saw one of them giving a bracha to his children, giving a hug to his wife, getting in his car, and driving away. And one of the boys in yeshiva saw it, and he said to me, Rebbe, I just saw a look on a man's face that he said goodbye to his wife and his children, and he doesn't know if he'll ever see them again. And I said, Yes, that's what we saw. That was real. That's what we saw. And then watching the rebbeim in our yeshiva, those that are in miluim Leave their wives. I had to knock on the av bayit of Mevaseret. He lives on campus. He was a Talmud in our yeshiva. I had to knock on his door and say, "Avichai, they came to get you. The army came to get you." And he turned on his phone, and then he was gone for 22 straight days. Bashtach came back with mosquito bites all over.

7:54 It's wild to see what our country is going through, what our people are going through. It's difficult to see what's happening on social media. In my wildest dreams, I couldn't have predicted what we've seen. I'm used to the playbook. I've seen this show before. I've been here through wars before. So week one, everyone has our back. Week two, it starts to waver. Week three, it's really wavering. Week four, everyone's on the other side. I've seen this show before. But then week six, everyone's like, maybe Osama bin Laden had a point. And I was like, really? That's where we've arrived at? Americans saying maybe Osama bin Laden was right? We're living. We're clearly living in messianic times because we're living in a world that's so the opposite of normal. It's not possible logically to try to understand what's happening here. So to sit and say that it's okay and we should have emuna that it's going to be okay, I don't think that's I don't think that's what emuna means, and I don't think that's what emuna calls upon us to do right now. I don't think that's what it means. So I'd like to share with you five features Of perhaps a deeper way of seeing emuna Because I know that this is a Barry Feld admission. Please feel free to interrupt and ask questions.

9:04 I'm confident that so far, both times that I've spoken here, I was kind of able to get a word out. Baruch Hashem. So I'm ready. I'm used to this. So if you have something, if you don't like something I said Please ask or fight. I'm open to all criticism. The word emuna has five different permutations. I'm going to go through them real quickly. And then I'm going to explain what each one of them means for us today. Imun. Which means we'll call it self-esteem Confidence, or strength. Le mot neemanos, Which for our purposes will mean truthfulness or authenticity might be a better word. The word amna Which means to be loyal or to be faithful. The word umnos Umanut, to be an artisan or a craftsman. And finally, to be a nurturer or a lover. The first one again, I'll go through them again. Imun was self-esteem, strength, or confidence. Neemanos means truthfulness or authenticity.

10:18 Amna would mean to be loyal or to be faithful. Umnos would mean a craftsman or an artisan. And then finally, to be omene would be to be someone who nurtures or someone who deeply loves. By way of introduction, I want to share with you something that I'm sure you've all heard before. But I want to explain what it means. I'll pee the Torah. How many of you, by a show of hands, have heard the poker chip moshel? Great. Very, very rare that I haven't gotten that. I got nobody in the room. It's not a boy moshel. It's very much a girl moshel. Usually It's the girls that know it. It's the boys that don't. The poker chip marshal goes as follows. There are two children. Ones in Texas and ones in Minnesota. The one in Texas is a senior in high school. His name is Joe Cool.

11:11 And Joe Cool is the captain of the football team. He's in Texas Friday Night Lights, the big football games. That's everybody in the town goes out to play football. So Joe Cool is playing in the championship game on Friday night. The whole town, grandparents, parents, all the kids, everybody comes out to see him. The game is a tight game, and as time is running out, Joe Cool throws the winning touchdown pass to his best friend. The crowd goes wild. His teammates carry him off. How many poker chips? If we're thinking about the game of life as accruing poker chips, how many poker chips has Joe Cool accrued in that moment? Let's call it a million. A moment that he'll never forget for the rest of his life. The next day, they have the big parade go down Main Street. Everybody comes out to see him. He's riding in the back of his pickup truck. Everyone's cheering his name as he goes by. Every little kid wants to be him. For those from the five towns, picture Central Avenue. There's all the sidewalk sales. Everybody's selling things.

12:14 I just missed it. Chaval, how did it? It's funny the things that come back to me. I haven't thought about that sidewalk sale in years. I just remember people going crazy about the sidewalks. I've never been there in my life. I'm old enough to remember sapphires. King David. I'm holding pre-sidewalk sale days. So Joe Cool is going down Main Street. Every kid wants to be him. Five hundred thousand poker chips. The next night is prom. And Joe Cool wins prom king, and his girlfriend wins prom queen. So let's say that Joe Cool has accrued by Monday morning. We'll call it two million poker chips, to be conservative. Now Joe Cool is sitting in the classroom. The teacher puts a problem on the board. And Joe thinks he might know the answer to the question. But if he's wrong He's going to be really wrong, and everybody's going to laugh at him.

13:07 Does Joe Cool raise his hand and take the chance or not? Absolutely. So different ways of thinking about it. One way is I say no. I say no. By the way. Don't take this the wrong way. The answers to these questions reveal more about you than about the story. We always have this. Always people go like, no, because people sometimes who are at the top, even if you have two million poker chips, they know that being at the top of the totem pole, it's a long way to the ground. And so, I actually had a Talmud years ago in NCSY Kollel who was like the coolest kid in Kollel, and everybody wanted to be him. But I saw this kid had very little in the tank. And one time I gave a share about this. I said, "You think it's easy to be the cool kid? It's very hard to be the cool kid because you make one mistake and you're not the cool kid anymore. It's a big fall." And this kid was like in share.

13:57 And afterwards he came to speak to me, and he's like, "That share was for me, right?" And I'm like, "Yeah." Like usually I say I'm speaking to the group and I lie about it. I was like, "No, it's right for you." He's this amazing kid, but he's living terrified, and everybody wants to be him, and he's trying to run away from who he is. Generally, we would say. It's okay. Let's say everybody lasted him. He loses ten thousand poker chips. The guy just made two million poker chips. He's fine. You can take that risk. If you have a lot of money in the bank, you can afford to take a risk. You can afford to invest five, ten thousand dollars, and maybe you get it right. There's another kid whose name is Davy, the learning disabled kid. Davy, the learning disabled kid, grows up in Minnesota. Nicest kid. He's ten years old. He's a sweetheart of a kid. His parents are amazing. His mother, in specific.

14:44 It's cold in Minnesota. And he wakes up in the morning and sees that his parents, his mother, have laid out his pants and shirt on the radiator so that it'll be warm when he puts it on. There's no better feeling than putting on clothing that comes straight out of the dryer. By the way, that was amazing. But how many people in the room just went like this? So it's so good that we It's like people remember a meal and think, oh that was a good meal, you just did that with the dryer. Something to think about. So he rolls out of bed, sees that his mother put the clothing on the dryer, and he's like wow, my mother loves me ten thousand poker chips, that's amazing. He goes downstairs and smells that his mother is making blueberry pancakes. And Davy, the learning disabled kid, loves blueberry pancakes, and his mother's doing it because she knows that school is hard for him.

15:42 Another ten thousand poker chips. He walks into the kitchen and he sees that his mother put the maple syrup on the stove so that she shouldn't pour the cold maple syrup onto the pancake, cooling it off. This is an amazing mother. None of us are really like this, by the way, right? All of you are hearing that story, going, "I have kids and I have no time to do that," and don't make me feel bad. Okay, say that's your own stuff, yeah. But let's say in the Marshall, that's what this mother did. So he's got thirty thousand poker chips before he gets to school. He gets on the bus. He walks into the bus, and the bully in the back of the bus calls out, "Losers on board!" He lost fifty thousand poker chips in that moment. He's starting his day at a deficit. So how does Davy, the learning disabled kid, handle the problem on the board? One of two options: either he says, "There's no way I'm going to raise my hand" Because there's nothing I could possibly do.

16:34 To get that poker chip back, I just have to be quiet and go through life being very quiet. And we all know children like this. These kids who were amazing kids who were like three year olds—they were vivacious, they were alive, right? And then when they come to school, they just get beaten to death, right? It's hard to watch. So very often those kids will be quiet, or alternatively, and this is even worse, those kids will play the game of life completely recklessly because if I've got nothing left to lose, I can do whatever I want. And so those kids will very often be the kids that turn to drugs, to drinking, to all those types of coping mechanisms to deal with the fact that I just can't possibly handle life. The poker chip muscle is a really great muscle because that's really what almost every one of us are going through. Do we have enough in the tank to be able to make withdrawals?

17:26 So I don't know how many. I know that this is a popular thing to say. I don't know if you've ever said these words before. Have you ever gotten to a place where you just turn to your husband or to your friend if you can't say it to your husband and you just go, "I'm done." Have those words ever come out of your mouth? I've been studying your half of the species by the way. Come at my entire life. Men don't say that, by the way. Men don't say 'I'm done.' They just go. They just explode with anger. It's the same concept, right? Whatever it is they do, or they get very quiet and they go into their caves. Which is the flip side of anger. That's just bottled up. That's just anger waiting to become rage. But it's when people say I'm done, what they really mean to say is I've got nothing left in the tank. I got up early in the morning with the kids. I worked all day. The kids came home. My teenage daughter told me that I'm not enough, even though I've been spending my entire day running around for her.

18:15 That withdrawal was massive. And then by the time you get to the night, you're like, I'm exhausted. I can't do this anymore. I've got nothing left in the thing. I'm done. Do that for a week, a month, a year. There's a reason that we're as drained as we are. What's the secret to poker chips? Everyone has their like vision of what the secret to poker chips is But really, there's nothing you can do to accrue poker chips. In this model, by definition, there's a flaw. When we think about, like let's say the game of life as currency, so then you're always in a state of like deposits and withdrawals, right? So you're never really balanced. You're never really like. In fact, if you think about our lives, you would need to have trillions of poker chips to be a Jewish mother. Like to handle what we handle To think about the mortgage and the kids and my husband and my life, this thing that I'm supposed to have.

19:11 You would need a massive amount of poker chips. You would need incredible investments to be able to match the amount of withdrawals. And so what happened? The buzzword became, and this is, I'm not saying it's wrong, but it's a little bit wrong. The buzzword became about self care. As if there's like, if I'll only take care of myself enough, if I'll only have this many deposits, then the withdrawals will matter less. But then you end up getting called selfish, because it's like, well, no, I'm involved in self care because I'm exhausted. You're supposed to be doing this, you're still living within that tension. Is there a way of getting off the train? Is there a way of saying I can live a balanced life and I don't need to have these constant deposits because I don't constantly have withdrawals? And I think the answer to that question is emuna. And I'm going to walk through each one of these things. This is what it means, emuna walking. We talk a lot about The concept of emuna. What we're talking about today is emuna walking.

20:07 The concept, the fundamental concept, the emuna. Is as follows: You have an infinite amount of poker chips. What you are is a godly soul. That's not something you have. That's what you are fundamentally. If we think about using IFS language, anyone here familiar with IFS? IFS is something called internal family systems. It's a way of seeing the self. So if you think about what is the self versus what are your parts, the self is the godly soul. That's what you are. So that knowledge, that deeply embedded knowledge, that I am a godly soul, means what? If I am a godly soul, that means I have an infinite amount in the tank. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinite, that means I'm holding an infinite amount within my tank. In other words, when we speak about emuna, we don't mean some flighty 'I believe.' That's not what we're talking about. Emuna is a deep knowledge. That only comes with real meditation, and I don't mean meditation like closing your eyes meditation. I mean like a real deep focus every single day that I am a godly soul.

21:16 And once you have that knowledge, you're no longer in the parsha of deposits because I have everything I could possibly have, and I also no longer in the parsha of withdrawal. You can't withdraw from the infinite. It doesn't even make any sense. Let's unpack this for a second. If you have an infinite amount of anything, what does infinite mean? Infinite means beyond the realm of time and space. So if you have a lot, or if you have the most, you're still talking about. I can make a deposit and I can make a withdrawal. Infinite means beyond time and space. You're not making deposits and you're not making withdrawals. You're off the system. You're off the grid. You've risen above it. Now that's a big thing to say, and I like what you said before. Because it's a lifetime achievement award. This is not something you're going to walk out of this year and you're going to automatically know. Hey, I have an infinite amount of godliness inside of me, so I'm out of the game. This is something you spend the next thirty forty years working on.

22:10 But I want to tell you what the Naftkomians are. There's five practical differences of knowing how to live your life this way. Let's start with the basic. The basic is self-esteem. Think about this not for yourselves for a moment. Let's think about it for our children. There's a sad day, I'm sure you've seen this. There's a sad day in every parent's life. If you have daughters, then you'll know something about this day. It's the day that our daughters trade authenticity for people pleasing. So I have a daughter who's now nine years old. And she loves unicorns. And growing up, everything in her life was unicorns. I would buy her unicorn watches and unicorn. She didn't have any money. I bought her a unicorn wallet, unicorn stickers for her bedroom. Then, till she turns seven years old, she goes to first grade, and she has to get a new knapsack. That's like a rite of passage that every kid goes through. At first grade, you get your new knapsack.

23:07 And she says to me, "Abba, I don't want a unicorn knapsack because unicorns are for babies." Now, I know this kid still loves unicorns But what is she saying? She's saying my sense of self, which makes sense at six years old, seven years old. My sense of self is not anchored enough to know that I can be okay without having the external validation of my friends saying, 'You're okay.' Why is it so painful for kids that are isolated? Remember in ninth grade when the When you were first coming from eighth grade to ninth grade and the girls were figuring out which group they belong to. Have you seen this show before? It doesn't stop. It doesn't stop. It seems to me that ninth grade. It seems to me ninth grade is like the worst time for this. I'm not sure if my friends from eighth grade are still my friends anymore. And you're going through that thing. There's a tremendous amount of externalization of I'm not enough for myself. I need you to be with me in order to let me know that I'm okay.

24:07 What would we want for our children? Right. Can you be confident enough not to wither when you're criticized? Not to be desperate for validation. Just to be able to say I am enough for myself and this is who I am. That's what we want for our children. Same thing in our marriages. I did something that my husband doesn't like. Am I still okay? If the answer is Right, that codependent type of I'm not okay unless he's okay, and he's not okay, so I'm not okay So then I'm drawing power from outside of myself. I'm trying to make that. I'm trying to draw from him to make a deposit within myself, so that when he makes a withdrawal, everything is still okay. Emuna means I'm confident and capable within who I am. I'm okay. I am enough. What would it look like to have emuna in times of darkness?

25:10 I just want to say this because it's very real for everybody. The whole world right now, when you look at it, you pay attention. If you're on social media, watching the news, or looking at people marching in the streets, what's the world telling us right now? What's the world telling the Jewish people? This is a traumatic time period for all of Klal Yisrael. What are we being told? There's no love for us. You have no place in our world. We're not interested in you. If people can march down the street in Madison, Wisconsin with Nazi flags? If people are posting, ripping down posters, and I mean, the irony of well, wait a second, we're returning the hostages, so we're the good guys. But three weeks ago, you told us we never took the hostages to begin with, right? And it's like we don't even know what you're saying anymore. But we know this. We know. And Sonny Perlman recently spoke about this. Anyone here know Sonny Perlman? Sonny Perlman was originally from the Five Towns. He's the founder of Our Place. He was on a podcast recently.

26:08 And Sonny spoke about this. He said, "Trauma is anything that tells you that you're not loved," and that's what we're being told right now. And so there's a sense of this withering Jew, this cowardly type of, 'I'm not enough for myself. I have to be quiet.' I'm going to America right after Chanukah, and I had a question: Will I go to certain places? For example, Detroit. I feel comfortable going to Detroit. And the answer was no. I won't feel comfortable going to Detroit. I don't feel comfortable walking through the airport in Miami. So I'm not going to Detroit. I made a. I sent a different person to Detroit. They felt comfortable going to Detroit. I'm not comfortable going to Detroit. I won't go anywhere where I can't be a proud Jew. I'm not going to wither. Don't go to Seattle. It's the worst. You're from. You're from Seattle.

26:54 I. You know. I have a good friend. I have a good friend whose name is Ari Hoffman. I know Ari. Ari Hoffman and I go back twenty-five years ago. And from what I see, from what Ari's posting, Seattle seems crazy. I am going to Los Angeles. I am going to Los Angeles, but honestly, I am not nervous. I am not a coward. I am not trying to get the world to like me anymore either. I am just going to go where I am, and if people like me, then fine. But there is this need. You see it. These people like posting on social media, look which celebrity supports Israel. Why do we care? Why do we care? What is that need that we have to be drawing power from the outside? That's the darkness. To find a munah in the darkness means there's all this darkness around me, but I'm perfectly rooted within myself.

27:43 Question. Please. In my workplace, it's only Jewish. Where do you work? In urgent care as an urgent care nurse. All workplaces have a lot of Jewish cultures. My bosses are very understanding of my culture and background. I planned on coming on the ship before the war happened, and once everything happened, I thought I thought I said we'll see if I can hear and she makes a joke I'm not being your grandson anymore joke Joking, and it's very beautiful. It's a great joke. It's great. By the way, you would never be able to. I just want to point. You would never be able to do that on the other side. You realize if we would say a joke like that She said, I'll protect you here in America. You're going to a war zone. No problem, and I have an old coworker who is completely pro-pal. I'm posting all over social media, and she's a her husband's a big manager in the hospital system, like a director level.

28:42 And it's very like she was a person who went on like corporate and you see the two from so going to work, it's very hard and painful, and I'm very vocal about being pal. Very vocal about the truth about what happens. Is that wrong? Is that the wrong mindset? I'm very proud. I don't mind. I want to wear my leather to work. People hate me. That's fine. But I want people to see the truth. So is that wrong? So your question relates to the next one we're going to do. Let's hit pause on it and I'll tell you what I think the answer will hopefully become a little bit more clear. But at least just to initially answer your question. There's a difference between I'm proudly Jewish, which is what we're going to speak about next, versus I need you to like me. That and it's internal. On the outside, you might not be able to tell the difference. There are some people who have this Hasbara need to prove to the world that everything that's happening on our side is justified. I have no need to justify this.

29:47 I'm not interested in justifying this to you, and I probably never going to win any debate against you anyway. So I'll be who I am, and you could be who you are, but I'm not pulling from you. Does that make sense? Do you disagree with the people that are Like Ted with Shapiro? He's very vocal and politically, his words. There, there is that, disagree with people that are. Not all. It's awesome to get out there and to say something that's real. The question is, where is it coming from? I'm not going to talk about Ben Shapiro just because I don't know him at all. But I think it's great to do that. The real Hasbara is there is a God. There was a man whose name was Abraham. God gave this land to Abraham. We are his children. This is our land. It's the first Rashi that we speak about. So if we're spending our time doing it because this is our opportunity to be in our Lagayim, if we're doing it because we're Jewish, and I want you to know that this is a beautiful country where we value people and we value life, and we're spreading that message to the world. Then fine.

30:58 But what very often happens is that we post something, or we'll say something, and then it's just like a shouting match in the echo chamber of the insanity of social media today. So I wonder why people are doing that. Are they doing that because they feel the need to stand up and be proudly Jewish? Could very well be. Are they doing it because they want to say, 'Look, we need to have political power from America? Speaking truth to power is an important part. That's great. I think a lot of people are so hurt by what we're hearing that we're like "Shoot, what happens? What happens now? Where are we going to go?" This question of "I don't belong, so I need you to like me." And when we have, we saw in Tenek, I think just yesterday there was this big walkout in a public school in Tenek, this pro-Palestinian walkout. I think it's scary for people in Tynec to see that would happen in Tynec.

31:48 I don't know if there's public school kids left in the Five Towns, but I think if they did have a walkout, it would be like, what in the world are we talking about? This is crazy. Where I grew up. My rebbeim always told me the Holocaust could happen again, and honestly, I thought my rebbeim were crazy. I didn't have old school European rebbeim who were like, you think you're safe in America, and I was like, you're too old to understand the new reality, and it turns out I was too young to appreciate they were right. But there's a deep feeling of this doesn't feel okay, so I have a desperation, a need to be liked. Emuna means I have enough in the tank. I don't need to be liked. I'm okay for who I am. I'm proud to be myself. Does that make sense? Yeah. People like to say I have a lot of uneducated people or classical or they're just not educated, not intentionally. And people make a comment and there's just no way to sit here and spend the time and try to clean it.

32:42 Because I'm doing it out of place of being proud. I'm not doing it out of place of being proud. So then I don't care if they're friends with me. I would tell you to trust yourself. The self has an intuition of what it knows it needs to do. If your self is telling you this is an opportunity to be in our lagayim and to share with them, I think you're just getting this wrong because you're not exposed to the truth. That's beautiful. I think that subtlety of am I pulling from you or am I giving to you? I think that's everything. It's by the same thing with our children. When we have to punish our teenage daughter or son, and we know what they're going to be saying and doing after we punish them. And we say, "Look, you broke curfew, so now you're going to have an early curfew for a week." And it's like, I don't understand why you're so much worse of a parent. Do you understand that parent does nothing? She's the much better parent. Like that need to have your child, you could very often create a barrier to providing appropriate boundaries for your children. It's that very subtle difference. Let's move on to the next one, which is authenticity.

33:44 Self-esteem would be the first. Now we're going to authenticity. How many people here? Don't have to raise your hand. The answer, I imagine, is everybody. How many people here have some sort of imposter syndrome in their life? You're all on a chizik mission, so let's just assume that you all have some level of imposter syndrome, right? There's this part of me that's this way and another part of me that's this way. I kind of feel like I'm a bifurcated life. I'm up here pretending to be Rabbi Berg, the whole bearded, knows everything type of person, right? But really, you have no idea who I am in my personal life or who I am in my heart of hearts. We're all two people, right? There's two words here: klipa and kedusha. Are you familiar with these words, klipa and kedusha? Klipa means shell. And kedusha is wrongly translated as holiness. Kedusha doesn't mean holiness. Kedusha means transparency.

34:37 Klipa means shell. So what that means, when you like in Israel Transparency. Same type of concept. We'll talk about what it means in a second. Unity will be a part of that for sure. Let's say, for example, klipa just means shell. Like the shell of a watermelon is very thick. You can't tell what's happening inside of the shell. Things that are not kadosh are klipa. Means their godliness is hidden. Things that are kadosh, their godliness is revealed, transparent or translucent even. So if you think, for example, somebody mentioned unity. Unity is a function of the fact that the inner truth of our connected souls are all seen in a state of kedusha. The natural reaction would be unity. So let's say, for example, on October seventh, if you break the shell of a Jew, the inner unity of all Jews has come out. This country has never been more unified.

35:41 They say since sixty-seven, they've never seen anything like this. Charedim, Chilonim, Mizrahnim, Batilumi, Svardi, Ashkenazi—it doesn't matter anymore. It's an unbelievable thing to see what's happening in this country. Halavayit should spread to America. The idea that most of us are living klipa oriented lives, hiding who we are Which inhibits us from making deep connections with others because the space of connection comes from self. Very often, the reason why we're frustrated in our relationships is we're not. We know that we're not operating at a hundred percent in our relationships. Let's say in our marriages, we know that we're married only about eighty, eighty five percent, and there's maybe a fifteen or ten percent gap in the marriage. The reason why that gap exists is because we're not willing to show our true self to our spouse.

36:28 I'm not willing to share with you because it's too vulnerable. I'm not willing to share with you that this is what I'm going through because maybe you're not going to empathize or validate my experience. Or you're going to tell me what to do, and I don't want to be told what to do. I just want to be. I don't want this. This is not a problem to be solved. I just want to share with you that I'm going through something. So we end up hiding ten, fifteen, twenty percent of ourselves, depending on who we are, and then we externalize and go, "I don't know why my husband is treating me this way." Well, the answer is because you're living in a state of klipa. A true connection can only happen on the level of kedusha. It can only happen on the level of self. So authenticity means I have enough in the tank to confront the vulnerability of life. And vulnerability is the price we pay for love. It's the entrance fee for love. So. If we want to be a light in the darkness. If we want to live with emuna, if it's as emuna walking The world right now is an exceptionally vulnerable place. The question is, will I be authentic?

37:26 So somebody asked me, I'm going to America. They said, Rebbe, are you going to wear a kaffiya through the airports? Because if I just tuck my beard in my pais a little bit more, that's all I need. It's not that bad. It depends where you are. It depends where you were. I was in San Diego not that long ago. And I was called a really racist word just walking down the street. I was there for an Eishah Torah Shabbaton, and somebody rolled down their window and called out that word. Where are you from? So living in that bubble, I think you're having a. I happen to work in the Bronx. I live with all guys. I don't think JFK is a bubble. Why do we? I work in the Bronx too. And everybody is. Literally giving me the Bar Torahs. Why? No. Why? It's the Jews' world.

38:16 And why Jewish people are too weak And we should be fighting more. So you're so right. Also, we're also. So let's. It's do it. It's my. It's it's my. It's my fault for saying it that way. Let me see it. Let me rephrase. For sure, you're going to have pockets and meaningful-sized pockets. I'm not saying this is everywhere. For sure, you're going to have pockets where you can be yourself, and you'll have plenty of people behind you. But I think we have somebody here from Seattle who maybe has a very different experience. And I think that if you went on Twitter and you just typed in any one of those biz big Hasbara accounts, just scroll. How many people are saying nasty things? There is a vulnerability. Just because you don't feel it in you, first of all, call a kavod if you are not seeing it on social media. That's awesome. There is no reason to be doom scrolling.

39:11 But it does exist Right? And that's right. That's true But it still exists. And I think that's the difference. There is a difference between, for example, I have a Talmud who was from LA who took the video, went pretty viral. Outside of the Holocaust Museum, called the Museum of Tolerance, Gal Gadot showed the straight video of what happened on October seventh, and there was a pro Palestinian rally right outside the Museum of Tolerance. If you're living in L. A. If you're on Pico It's different. It just is. There are people reporting that they're having these types of experiences. You're in Tenek and you saw that walkout. And you went to that march. You're having that type of experience. The fact that we saw La Alenu, those Jews that went and sat with Ilan Omar and had that ceasefire thing, it's real. Whether we pay attention to it or not, it's real.

40:06 So I think to answer your question, this is the second thing. Authenticity means can I show up and be myself? I'm not taking my yarmulke off on this trip. Sometimes I do, but not because I just don't like getting stopped at the way. If you look like me, they always assume that you're smuggling something in. So sometimes I wear a baseball cap just to see if they'll still stop me. I have a good thing, I have a whole thing, I do. I have a Lakers thing, and it's a whole move. They never stop me when I'm wearing the Lakers jersey. I know that I know that probably some people know, but when you dress like that, they don't tend to stop you for taxes. It's not like I'm smuggling anything anyway, but it's just funny to get stopped. The idea that I could be proudly Jewish. For example, what would it look like to be authentic in a relationship? What would it look like to be authentic with your husband?

41:07 What would it look like to be authentic with your kids and to know that my kid is not going to be happy with what I'm about to say right now, but I'm going to show up as the best possible parent? I appreciate it. I appreciate. What is? For example. There's a vulnerability. Let's say even in the workplace. I don't want to. I'm nervous to say this. I don't want to say this. I don't want to be seen as that person. There's value in being authentic. There's value in showing up and saying this is who I am. By the way, that doesn't always mean that you say everything that's on your mind. By the way, I feel like number one, self-esteem, then these install. All these things. The order of them will all follow, right? Because if you have a deep sense of self, then you have the capacity to show up and be vulnerable, right? I have a question. I want to.

41:56 Let's say you're in terms of being that authentic, in terms of showing up as a proper wife As a mother As a friend, as a right. Where you don't want to, where you Where does the place of not wanting to hurt somebody But you have a responsibility to be authentic. So where does that balance come in? We're harming the other person by letting them trust. So there's no consequence if I don't show up. If I let my kid get away with everything, I'm creating a monster. So somebody once told me a great line. They said, if somebody ever asks you where you draw the line, the answer is somewhere. Right. And I think. I believe deeply in our sense of self to be able to intuit what we need to do at that moment, and let's say, for example, when we parent from a deep sense of self. So intuitively, we say, what's coming up for me? I don't want my kid to be in a fight with me now because we're going on vacation in a week, and I was really looking forward to having this really beautiful vacation. On the other hand, my kid did something that really needs a consequence. The part of me that wants this vacation to be beautiful, I need to tend to that part so that I can know.

43:15 How to do for my kid what they really need right now? Or alternatively, this is not the battle to fight. We have much bigger battles to fight. I believe strongly that when a person is deeply rooted in self and they have enough poker chips in the tank, an infinite amount of poker chips, they allow themselves to experience their parts and to be able to say, okay, I have that part. There's nothing wrong with that part, but I'm not going to parent from that part. I'm going to parent from that self. Does that make sense? And then you'll draw the line somewhere. But if it's creating a monster, that's the point. If it's creating a monster, I imagine you're parenting from parts. So where it is, or it could be with a friend, it could be with whatever. But that part of being clear that this is an overstepping of a boundary, and we're one asserts themselves or one does not like.

44:06 We have to live with that authenticity of I will not allow myself to be treated this way, let's say by a friend, but at the same time with compassion that I know my friend is going through something. So we're going to draw the line somewhere. It's going to be a million different places in a million different relationships. There's no formula that I could give you. I can't say do this in this situation. Somebody called me recently and they said my friend is going through Gehenna, but honestly she is all over me. I have no space for myself. And I was like, your friend is going through Gehenna. Happens to be I know that friend is going through Gehenna. Is this the time where you want to stand and draw your line in the sand? And she said, No. I think right now she's in so much pain that to pull back from her right now would be an act of cruelty. I said, So right now you're willing to be able to say, I'm going to draw the line somewhere else because we're going to make a boundary at a different time. Other times she'd say, No, I can't do it anymore. And maybe that's from a deep sense of self. So I can't tell you where the line is. I can only tell you how to do it.

45:00 There is a line. Of course, there's a line. But somewhere. And from it, and sometime, and from a deep place of self. We have three more, and I think we only have eight more minutes until Rebirquid comes. I personally would stay forever, but I think you have an amazing opportunity here from Rebirquid. So I'm just going to go a little bit faster. And Chaval, because all these are beautiful, we could spend an hour on each one of these. And maybe Rebirquid will be late. So who knows? Amna. Amnah means to be loyal or faithful. Esther was amnaito. She was loyal to Mordechai in the palace of Achashverosh. What does it mean to be loyal? It means to know that we are always in a state of connectedness. The soul can never be severed from God. Afal pisha chato yisraelu. No matter how far a person leaves, they're always deeply connected.

45:57 I'll share with you that a chaver of mine who lives in the Czech Republic, who's totally off the derech, will eat pork on Yom Kippur. Used to be my chavrusha, wake up five o'clock in the morning to learn with me before we went to work when we were working in the summers. Mamish, nothing from nothing. And there are times that he's told me, 'I'm not a Jew.' Like it's a ridiculous thing to say that I'm a Jew. My father had a national identity of Jewish, but I'm not Jewish. And he posted on Facebook at the start of the war, 'I'm Jewish,' and I was like, 'I haven't heard him say anything like that in years.' The nature of a Jew is we cannot be cut off from our Judaism. A soul can never become impure. And we say that every morning in davening, Elokei neshama shanah sat be'tahori. Part of the challenge, I think, of what's happening in the world right now is that we're so deeply identified by our shame.

46:45 Shame means I'm unworthy of love and connection because of the way that I behaved. Not a part of me behaved this way because I was coping, and so that it was I didn't show up as my best self. But I am my worst moments. That's what everybody, every kid right now. This is like all sixteen-year-old kids. If you want to know what's happening in the world of sixteen-year-old kids, it's I did an avera, and now I am an avarian. I'm a bad person And it's not true. It's not a Jewish outlook. It's actually much more a Christian outlook than a Jewish outlook. But the notion that the soul remains un Unsevered from God, I'm always going to be in a state of attachment. You heard from Rabbi Yaakov Danishevsky, right? The soul will always be in a complete state of attachment to God. So that means that what we do to cope doesn't define us. And so, play it out first. Let's say in the realm of relationships.

47:38 Have you ever had a really bad parenting day where you just behaved in a way that was not right? And whatever you did, you were passive aggressive, or straight up aggressive, or you were totally not present, or you were just like, you need to go away from me now. You just need, for your own safety, you need distance from me. You ever have a moment like that? So then you start to say to yourself, on some level, there becomes this inner negative voice of, I'm inadequate as a mother. And that exiled wound of unworthiness—the mother of all wounds. If I'm not adequate as a mother, then I'm not worthy as a person. That's a really hard thing to feel. My husband said something that triggered me. I know it had nothing to do with him. That trigger was born thirty years before I met him.

48:27 That was intergenerational trauma that I brought into this relationship just now. Knowing that the soul can never be disconnected from God means that no soul will ever be truly disconnected from any other soul. And I'm not defined by my worst moments. In the world of rupture and repair, we can stay in repair if we believe that we have an infinite soul. What's that line from John Gottman? The difference between master and disaster couples is how they stay in repair. Right. Everybody has ruptures in their relationship. The question is, do we have enough in the tank to stay in repair? And to say that I'm not defined by my coping mechanisms, I'm not defined by my lowest moments. This relationship is not defined by our lowest moments. A master and disaster. The difference between a master and a disaster couple is how we stay in repair.

49:14 Right. It could be sitting down with your loved one, your husband, and saying, "I really messed that up, and I'm sorry." It could be, "I really want to hear from you what that experience was like because I saw that I triggered you, and I didn't know what I did, and I don't want to do it again because I really do care about you." It could be, what you said really hurt me, and I want to share with you why because I care about you. And so I want to make sure that we're always moving towards each other, even when often it feels like we've moved away from each other. We're always falling upwards in our relationships. But if we're defined by our shame, we're never going to be enough in any relationship. Because what I am fundamentally is wrong. How many kids walking around today think they're wrong Like as people, I'm wrong because I've done this. I'm wrong because I don't like that.

50:07 It's hard. It's a really hard space to be. So having an infinite amount of godliness in the tank tells a person I'm not wrong. I am okay. I'm capable of being in relationships, and I'm not defined by my lowest moments. Only because we're running out of time, I'm going to move a little bit faster. This one is really hard. Omnis, which means that God is an artisan or a craftsman. Which means that every single moment is perfectly designed to be exactly what it is. And I am always in the space that I need to be by design. And that is the secret of joy. I used to drive on the Van Wyck. Yimachshemo, right? The. So I would sit in traffic on a Sunday morning. Yes Correct. That's a tremendous line. I'm definitely going to steal that from you. So there's always people that drive on the shoulder of the Van Wyck because they're just like I'm done with this. I'd rather take the ticket.

51:06 On a Sunday morning, a drive from the five towns to Queens is like a 17 minute drive. On a Monday morning, it's an hour and 15 minutes. Even with the construction, it's. So you always see that person who's late to a meeting and punching the steering wheel. Have you ever seen someone in the middle of road rage, just terrifying? You see a person turning beet red and screaming in the car. The reason they've lost joy in that moment is because they think the moment is wrong. This is not the way it's supposed to be. My marriage is not the way it's supposed to be. My children are not the way they're supposed to be. My house is not the way it's supposed to be. My community is not the way it's supposed to be. The world is not the way it's supposed to be. As long as you're in that space, you're saying this moment is chaotic, this moment is haphazard.

51:55 There's no sense of joy. Joy comes from knowing that I am exactly where I need to be. Everything is exactly as it should be. The only question is how I respond appropriately to what's happening. So you can hold the definition of emotional maturity is to be able to hold two conflicting emotions at once. So I can hold a tremendous amount of pain because what's happening is exceptionally hard. And a tremendous amount of joy, because I know exactly what's happening is exactly what I need. So that rupture that I just experienced with my child or my husband Is going to be what we need in order to make this family more beautiful. And while it might be exceptionally painful, I could tend to that wound and I could say I'm going to give that wound space to breathe, to heal, to be able to say I'm hurt, I'm not losing myself to that wound. A lot of people today don't want to feel a feeling because they feel like if they feel the feeling it's going to overtake them. The reason the feeling will overtake you is because you think the feeling is wrong. I shouldn't be having this feeling, and any time we think about something that it shouldn't be here, we give it more power, so it starts to hold on to us a little bit deeper.

52:57 So knowing that everything that's happened in the world over the last seven weeks is exactly as it should be, is the secret to this entire country's success. What happened is exactly what it should be. The question now is how do we respond. That's why you only hear very little glimmers of well, who are we going to blame for what happened on October seventh? You hear about it for a minute and then it's gone. People don't do that. We're not in the process of looking backwards. We're in the process of looking forwards. It's the same thing with our children. My kid is not as he should be. We all have that one kid that's not as they should be. Hopefully, it's only one. I have one And honestly, she's my most talented kid. But she is not as she should be. Sometimes, there is not a thought that's come into her head that doesn't immediately come out of her mouth. She's just like It's there, and I say, I'm like, I say to her, I'm like Do you realize your words don't have to come out of your mouth? And she goes, there. It's much more fun this way.

53:57 And my ability to parent her is, if I'm sitting there going, you're wrong, my capacity to parent that child is going to be severely limited, right? Alternatively, she's exactly as she should be. The question is, what now? It's a totally different way. I can be joyous with who she is, even in those more difficult moments. Does that make sense? And last one, because I do believe her. Berkowitz was supposed to be here already. And then anyone who wants could ask me afterwards. To be an omene, to be someone who loves, to be someone who nurtures. The definition of love, and I think a lot of people give a very glib definition of this. They say to love is to give. You've heard that before, right? Really, if you think about what love is, the ultimate act of love was the creation of the world. The creation of the world starts with Hashem pulling Himself back to create space for creation.

54:45 Love is about pulling ourselves back to create space for another. That's what love actually is. It's very hard to pull yourself back if you feel like you're going to step off the cliff. If I don't have enough in the tank, and now I'm going to be giving to everybody else. Then I don't have the capacity to pull myself back. So my husband, like husbands do this. Can you just do this one thing for me? It's like, are you serious? Just one thing? Do you understand that you're just one thing is coming on the heels of one thousand other just one things? So you start to take it deeply personal because you're overwhelmed, and I don't have enough, and I don't know how to make space for this because I'm already overwhelmed. So my capacity to make space for another is directly dependent on how much I have in the tank to nurture and to love the people in our lives, especially in dark times. Only comes when we have the capacity to know I am fundamentally okay.

55:39 And so, just to review very quickly, if you have enough in the tank and you can follow the progression now, and we'll finish with this, and then you have your berakhot. Baruch Hashem Who's here? Number one. Self-esteem, deeply rooted in self. I have an infinite amount of poker chips in my tank. Number two. I can be authentic. I can show up in my relationships as real. I don't need to be afraid or people please. Number three, I can be loyal. I can remain in a state of connectedness even when I feel hurt. Number four, every single moment is exactly as it should be, so I can live in a tremendous state of joy. And number five I have enough in the tank to pull back and create space for others, even when I feel like I'm up to my head and I've got nothing left and I'm done. There's still an infinite amount of space inside of me. That child, that husband, that community member, that friend, there is a space for them. It's not over just because I feel like I'm done. There's so much to draw from. I'll share with you one final thing before we leave because it's a beautiful story, and I can't leave you without telling you this story. There's a story of Rashiya of Karesiir, the great tzaddik of Shiloh.

56:44 And Rashiya, when he was a young man, his rebbe was Rav Hershel. And Reheshlah was watching Shyela very intently when Shyela was giving out the bokalach. He was pulling out bokalach little rolls from the bag, and Reheshlah was watching him very deeply. And Reheshlah, somebody asked Reheshlah, "Why are you watching Shyela like draw from the bag? He's just pulling out rolls from the bag. And Reheshlah said, 'That bag ran out of rolls like an hour ago' And he's pulling from an empty bag and taking out these bokalach. And I think that's the call for many of us. The call for many of us is: we feel like we're running on empty. We feel like we've got nothing left. But if you have an infinite amount, then somehow you can reach your hand inside of that bag and pull out what doesn't exist. We should be blessed to be able to do that as Hanukkah approaches.