Finding the Sweetness in Torah

2:37 For us Coming from the background that we come from here on Mechalad NCSY It's pashut. It's obvious to us that we're going to marry Jews, we're going to raise Jewish families. These things are not chidushim to us. But in the summer, I have the opportunity to learn. To spend time with some of the chevrut from TJJ Kids that are coming from public school backgrounds that may not necessarily have the same yeshiva background, Beis Yaakov background that many of you have And the question of Jewish continuity is not obvious to them. It's not a simple thing. This past Shabbos, I was with TJJ and had a question and answer with this exceptionally wonderful group. From Florida. And the question came up: Who's a Jew? Is it fair that someone whose father is a Jew and whose mother is not a Jew is not a Jew? And do you think that somebody whose father is a Jew but whose mother is not a Jew should be considered a Jew?

3:48 And what's the big deal if we don't marry a Jew? One of the girls asked me if I'm a girl. So even if you say That I'm Jewish, even if you say that a person who has a Jewish father is not Jewish. If they don't have a Jewish mother. The girl says to me So what's the big deal if I marry a Gentile? That's a question I receive this Shabbos And in so many ways, it's such a gut-wrenching, painful question. Lameisa, most of Klal Yisrael looks that way. Most of Klal Yisrael doesn't look the way that we look. They don't come from the same advantages that we have. We were born on top of the mountain. Many of these people that I spoke with this past Shabbos, amazing, incredible people. Things that are obvious to us are not obvious to them because they didn't have the same things that we have.

4:44 So I understand making a bracha for the continuity of Klal Yisrael for people that didn't grow up like us. But for us, it's pasht. So here, we're making a bracha. Why? We're davening not only for ourselves. We're davening for our children. We're davening for our children's children. We're davening for all of the children of all of Klal Yisrael. Why are we so concerned with the next generation? Why is this part of the bracha of Berachah Teyra? So there's a very simple answer, but there's a tremendous amount of depth to it. This bracha teaches us at the very outset. It's okay, you can go again. I'm very blessed to have my son Mchal Shlomo with us. Mchal Shlomo is a He's a growing Ben Torah, and his mother is at a bat mitzvah, so he gets to come with me to mechala. And he said when we're walking in, he goes, "I'm very confused." He's six. "I'm very confused," he said. "Are we teaching boys or girls tonight?"

5:49 So I said, "We're teaching girls." I asked him if he wanted to give the she'er, but he said he'll let me do it. The continuity of Klal Yisrael cannot happen without Torah. Why is that? There's a question you hear sometimes from guys in yeshiva. I'm sure girls ask it also. What do I need to learn all these things? Just tell me what to do. Can I be a good Jew without learning Torah? Is that possible? Can I be a good Jew without learning Torah? I am a balchesed. I am a balmidos. I am going to send my kids to yeshivas and beis yachovs. Why is it so critical that I learn Torah? Why is that fundamental? The answer is because, as we're going to see, Torah is not just a system of laws. Torah is not just telling us what to do. It's not just halacha. It's not just hashkafa.

6:40 There is something about Torah that makes it absolutely mission critical. Without Torah, it would be impossible to transmit Torah to the next generation. It would be impossible to transmit Yiddishkeit to the next generation. I'll share with you my parents are exceptionally wonderful people. I'm very blessed that both of my parents are balei tshuva. Both of my parents came from backgrounds that were not observant, and they both decided to become Shabbos and keep kosher and raise us in Orthodox homes. Most of my family. It is not that way. Most of my family did not become bali tshuva. And most of my family are marrying gayu. It was when I went back to America for my grandmother's hakamas matzeva. My grandmother passed away from COVID a couple of years ago. So until she had her unveiling, until she had her hakamas matzeva, it took a long time.

7:33 When I went back, my cousins came to the hakamas matzeva. They came to the unveiling. I was looking around and I was realizing. Not everybody at this Hakamas Matzeva is Jewish. There are people that I'm biologically related to that are not Jewish. Some of my cousins have married out. The question of Jewish continuity is a real question. It's one that stares us in the face. But it's not just for people that didn't grow up in observant homes. The truth of the matter is, it's a question for us also. Because there's a movement today. I imagine some of you have felt this way. There is a movement today that exists in the world. A question that girls are asking, that boys are asking Which is Why should I care about this? It's not. I am not talking about people that are going to go off the direk and that's going to be it for the rest of their life. I am talking about a much more subtle and perhaps insidious question, which is, isn't it possible for me to be a yid but to feel nothing at all?

8:28 Isn't it possible for me to dive into the sitter rather than to dive into Hashem? Is it possible to have a yidish kait? That's a Yiddishkeit that lacks passion, that lacks any sense of soul. And we see that kids are rightfully rebelling against this concept left and right. That kids are no longer willing, and Baruch Hashem, the rebellion always comes. This holy rebellion, it always comes from the children. The kids are saying today, I'm tired of a Yiddishkeit that's devoid of Hashem. I don't want to learn Torah if I'm just learning. If I'm just learning a Rashi, if I'm just learning a Ramban, if I don't understand how that connects me back to Hashem. If it doesn't inspire my Shabbos, if it doesn't inspire my davening, why should I do this? And so, the question of continuity is not just a question of whether people are going to marry Jews. There's a more large, more perhaps more important question for our crowd tonight, which is, if our Yiddishkeit doesn't mean much to us, can it possibly mean anything to our children?

9:27 If we're checking the boxes, you know what I mean by checking the boxes, girls. I'm talking about if we're checking the boxes. If you could say after a Shabbos, 25 hours, I kept Shabbos. I didn't turn on my phone. I kept Shabbos. You kept Shabbos could mean I was involved in Shabbos. Shabbos was alive for me. It was a real tangible thing. Or it meant I didn't do molacha for 25 hours. Today, kids are rightly saying they're not interested in a Shabbos that's just turning off my phone for 25 hours. They're not interested in that. Shabbos has to mean something for me in order for me to keep it. So the question of continuity is a fundamental question. We dive in every single day, not only for ourselves, but because what we have within ourselves is what we will pass on to the next generation. And if you think that it's too early to start speaking to you about these ideas, I promise you that it's not. My sister-in-law is the head mechanecha in a particular seminary.

10:19 And when a girl is going through certain difficulties, certain challenges that they've been dealt with, and they're really They're in the throes of it, and they're not sure if they're going to be able to overcome. My sister-in-law has a line. She says to them, "Your future children are rooting for you." It's a very powerful line. Because what she's trying to teach her students is the decisions that you make at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen years old. These become the people. I don't know how to say this well, but they enforce the person that you are. The person that you are speaks so loudly that it's communicated naturally to your children. You know what I mean? You know how, you know your parents better than anyone else. You know how your parents say they believe in one thing, but then you know what they really believe. I don't mean in a bad way. It could be even a good way. Like, parents like to say nobody knows my child better than me, and that's certainly true.

11:18 But nobody knows our parents better than us. Because we've been watching them our entire lives, we look to them to see what our values are. Who we are speaks so loudly. That's what we communicate to the next generation. So already now, even though you might say I'm only summer. Is it summer after tenth grade? This is the summer after tenth grade program. So you might say it's summer after tenth grade. Rebberg, why are you driving me crazy about thinking about my children? There's a story with the Chafetz Chaim about a set of parents who came to the Chafetz Chaim. I think the mother in the story was new, newly pregnant. Maybe she was four or five months pregnant. And she said, 'When should I start learning chinuch habanim? When should I start learning how to raise my children?' So the Chavetz Chaim said, 'You're four or five months pregnant.' She said, 'Yes.' He asked, 'How old are you?' The girl said, 'I don't know. Let's say twenty years old.' He said, 'You're about fifteen years too late.'

12:08 Raising children is something that we do already before our children are born. The decisions that you make this summer. Who you become, how you go into eleventh grade, how you go into twelfth grade, what seminaries you choose to go—this is all part of building your family. You might look at it and say, 'But my family is so far off,' and you're right to feel that way. But it's not so crazy. If you're 15 years old, there's a good likelihood that in the next, God willing, six, seven, eight years of your life, many people in this room will already be married. I have a 19-year-old, just turned 20-year-old daughter who's already married. It's not a crazy thing. There was a couple years ago that she came to this shiur in this beis medrash. I didn't give over that shear that night. It would have been cool if I did. But the idea that you girls are a stone's throw away from starting to build your families, which means that building yourself in these moments is of critical importance.

12:59 So we have to analyze this bracha very carefully because this bracha holds the key to understanding how we're going to become the people that we need to become. In order to raise the next generation of Klal Yisrael, the very first thing that we see in this bracha is the concept of sweetness. I think you girls already grew up in a generation where it's not like this But there's a story with Rav Moshe Feinstein One of the most important stories That after the Holocaust People came to America and were going off the derech left and right. And the parents, they didn't understand what was going on. They said, 'Why are our children going off the derech so much?' And somebody came to R' Moshe Feinstein and asked him this question. And R' Moshe said very, very beautifully. He said, 'A generation of children that's raised with an attitude that it's schwer to be a yid, that it's difficult to be a Jew' Those children will not want to be Jewish.

13:59 Those children will not want to be Jewish. If you're raising your family in a home, if you yourself believe that Yiddishkeit is a burden Nobody wants to give over a burden to the next generation. I got in some trouble. Can I share with you? I got in a little bit of trouble for something. I got in a little bit of trouble. I went on a podcast. And I spoke in this podcast And I said It's very difficult today. The level of expectations that we set. For men in the Orthodox community, it's a very hard thing that we ask them to do. What do we ask a man to do in the Orthodox community? We ask him to wake up at five thirty in the morning. So that he could be at a six o'clock in the morning dafyomi, and the daf is over by six forty-five, and then he goes to a six forty-five minyan, and davening finishes at seven thirty, and he's home by seven forty, and he gets his kids out, and he goes to work, and he takes a train and goes to the city, and he works all day in the city. The only break that he has, what does he do? He daven's mincha.

14:58 So he eats a quick sandwich at his desk, and then he runs to Daven Mincha. He comes back, has the second half of his day, takes the train home, chaps a mirev, spends some time with his kids doing homework, chaps a little bit of time with his wife, and he has to go to sleep because he has to wake up at five thirty in the morning to do it all over again the next day. We ask a tremendous amount. So the podcast that I was being interviewed on, the guy said to me, he pushed back. He said, "You're making it sound terrible." You're making it sound terrible. And the truth is, the reason I was saying it was because I was trying to let people know that we see that it's difficult. And it's okay to say this is really hard, and it's a really ambitious thing for a person to say. I'm going to daven with a minion three times a day, and I'm going to have a job, and I'm going to learn, and I'm going to spend time with my kids. But the guy pushed back, and he was right for pushing back because he's saying, don't make Yiddishkeit sound like a burden.

15:48 Because it's not a burden; it's a privilege. But it doesn't always mean that it's an easy privilege. Very often, the most real privileges are really hard to do. If you've ever been a part of, take a second for yourself. Take a second for yourself. Think about anything you've done in your life that's great. You did it because you loved it, but that doesn't mean it was easy. My wife, when my wife was in twelfth grade, anyone here go to Shavuot? Nice. It's always good when it doesn't work at all, like when nobody raises their hand. My wife went to Shavuot, and in her twelfth grade, she did production. The girls have production. So she was in charge. She ran her production. So all twelfth grade, she was consumed by production. We're talking about twenty-four, twenty-five years later. My wife still talks about running production. It was a big thing that she did in her life.

16:46 If you asked her at the time to run production, if you asked Imo, is it an easy thing to run production? She would have said, "No, it's a very difficult thing to run production, but she loved doing it." If you love what you do, that's something that permeates your home. Learning Torah cannot be an academic exercise. You cannot be a professor of Rashi. Girls, I want to share with you. There's a lot of girls that come to seminary. Not everybody, but there are some girls that come to seminary. I should say it right. There are a lot of girls that come to seminary and are not interested in any textual learning. They're not interested in any textualing. They don't want to crack open a sefer and break their teeth over a Rashi or a Ramban. Why? Come on, just teach it to me. Just tell me what it is.

17:34 Girls. There's shvitz involved. It's sweet, but you have to work for it. If you're walking around and you're going, it's so hard, then you're not owning it. It's difficult, but it's beautiful. So you'll say, but it's not. It's not beautiful. Lameisa, it's not easy. I'm learning something and it doesn't feel very relevant to me. So I want to share with you the secret of this bracha. This is the secret of the entire bracha. You ready? The secret of Torah is that you're not learning math. The secret of Torah is that you're not learning science. The secret of Torah is that you're in a conversation with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's what Torah means. It's learning what Hashem wants from us in this world. It's learning who Hakadosh Baruch Hu is to the extent that we can understand him. The very first word that Hakadosh Baruch Hu spoke to all of Klal Yisroel was "Anoichi." Anoichi stands for "On a Nafshik Savis Yehovis." I wrote my essence into the Torah. Girls, I want you to think about the following scenario. Imagine you have a married couple And the wife She wants to tell something to her husband.

18:38 She wants to talk to her husband. So she wants to talk about her day. So she says they sit down and they're sitting in the living room. You can picture the scene. They're sitting in the living room. And the father is sitting. The husband is sitting there, and the wife says, "I had a hard morning, and I was talking with my boss, and this and that." Imagine the husband, in the middle of his wife talking, just pulls out his phone. And he just starts, "What's happening? What's the feeling that the wife has? So the wife says Nicely, I'm sure, she says, "Could you put away your phone?" So the guy says to her, "You know this move. You've seen it before." I'm listening to you. What's the feeling the wife has in that moment? You're not listening to me, because if you were listening to me, you'd make eye contact. If you were listening to me, you'd be interested. You'd show that you're interested. So she says, "I'm listening to you." She says, "I don't feel like you're listening to me."

19:33 No husband would ever say this. Obviously He would say, "I'm sorry." It just doesn't seem relevant to me what you're talking about. Could you imagine a husband who said that to his wife? She's telling him about her day. And he goes. It doesn't seem relevant to me. Is there anybody here that would think that's a healthy, good marriage? How many of us do the same exact thing? How many of us sit and learn a piece of Torah? Is this really relevant to my life? Is this how it's helping me? Guys in yeshiva ask this question all the time. They're learning a tishas. They're learning what happens if an ox gours another ox, and inevitably, one guy raises his hand and he goes, Rebbe. I do not have an ox. I do not know anyone that has an ox, and I certainly don't care what would happen if my theoretical ox goes another person's theoretical ox. It's of no interest to me.

20:25 Now you'll say it's a brilliant question. Because they're asking, 'What has this got to do with my life?' But that's not a brilliant question because the first thing that you're saying, if you're in a relationship with somebody, is, 'Teach me what it looks like to be in a relationship with you.' Now, if you ask the question, 'Help me understand, how being in a relationship with Hashem means I need to understand what happens when an ox squires another ox.' That's a good question. That's a good question. But if you're saying it's not relevant to me, then who is the relationship about? That's selfish. That's narcissistic. There's a type of Judaism where people are just asking themselves all the time. How does it feel to me? You ever have this? You ever have a girl? Asks a question. It's a good question. It's an understandable question. You ever ask a question? It sounds like this.

21:14 I don't know. I'm just not finding davening meaningful. It's a good question. But what does it mean? You're not finding davening meaningful. How many of us really mean, include myself? How many of us really mean? I don't know. I'm just not excited about it right now. I'm not passionate about it right now. There's nothing wrong with saying I'm not finding my place within davening. But that's very different than saying. I only daven when I feel like davening. Whether or not you feel like davening or don't feel like davening, you're still a Jew, and you're obligated to be a Jew. Finding the sweetness in Torah doesn't mean Chas v'Shalom saying I'll only do it if it's sweet. It's sweet when you realize that the value of learning Torah, the value of davening, is that I'm participating in a relationship with Hashem. This is every morning. This is the consciousness that we have to have. To be a Jew means to be in a relationship with God. It's not academic. It's not math or science. You don't have to get up and pick somebody random. Where do you go to school?

22:18 Hadar. Hadar. Where is that? Boca. Boca. Gvaledik. Do they have a bracha in Hadar that you have to make before math? And if they did, what bracha would it be? It's no bracha because that's just using your intelligence. Learning Torah is not about using your intelligence. It's not math or science; those are academic. If you don't like math, I don't like math. I failed math three. Who's in from New York? They still have Regents. I heard they're getting rid of Regents. Somebody told me a rumor that they're getting rid of Regents. I hope it's true. I hated Regents. I failed math three twice. I'm not embarrassed to tell you. I failed math three twice. My wife is an actuary. I figured that if I marry somebody who's really good at math, then my children will have a shot at being good at math. Michal, are you very good at math? Yeah.

23:04 He's very confident. Should I give you a math equation to do right now? What's seventy-two plus eight? Plus is vod. Plus is vod. This is an Israeli boy. He doesn't know plus and minus. Seventy-two plus eight. You think about it. You let me know when you're ready. I have to keep him occupied as well. It's by the way, just in case you didn't figure it out. That's my way of keeping you occupied. You notice that half of you in the back all of a sudden just started paying attention. I just want to know. Welcome back. It's good to have you. Seventy-eight. Seventy-two plus eight. You think carefully. He's got my genes, maybe. We don't make a bracha on math because it's just academic. You don't like math, don't learn math. You don't like science, don't learn science. Did you figure it out? Don't cheat. This is not. That's what I did. That's how I failed math three times.

24:00 It's like telling me the answer. The problem is I cheated off the wrong guy. Also, you shouldn't cheat. We make a bracha because we're trying to orient ourselves to learn that when we learn Torah, we're showing up to a relationship with Hashem. That's the key. But there's an unbelievable sfas emes. But before I tell you the sfas emes, I need to tell you a story. It's a story that happened this Passover. It was worth it to come to Mechelat for the summer just to hear this story. I'm going to tell this story for the next five weeks. It's all I'm going to do. So I'm with TJJ Southern this past Shabbos Shabbos morning. There's a kid in the group. His name is Michael. Michael's from Savannah, Georgia. And he speaks like he's from Savannah, Georgia. So he's got a nice Southern drawl. You know what I mean? He doesn't speak like a New Yorker. He speaks nicely, like the words fall off his lips.

25:00 So Michael says to me, Rabbi, can I walk you out? So I said sure. As I'm walking back to my hotel, you can walk me out. He goes. I have the following question for you. Ready for this? I'm from Savannah, Georgia. I go to a Catholic military school. Okay. I go to a Catholic military school. Where are the monks from Pennsylvania. Come to teach in my school. And I'm the president of JSU in Savannah, Georgia, the Jewish Student Union over there. Because of the anti-Semitism that I confronted in my school His response to the anti-Semitism is that he can't wear a yarmulke and he can't wear matzitzi because of the anti-Semitism. So his response was to become the president of the JSU, and he's very active. He's a board member in National NCSY. This is his question for me Rabbi. I think it's okay for me to wear my yarmulke and put on my tzitzit in my school.

26:08 So I'm walking. We're by the tachanah merkazit when he's asking me this question. We're walking back. I'm walking back from the tachanah to the center of Yerushalayim. And I'm very nervous. I don't want to answer the question because if this kid gets jumped in school because I told him to wear a yarmulke and tzitzit. I don't want to take that on my shoulders. But before I can even answer the question He says, "My rabba, let me make the question a little bit more complicated for you." I have the opportunity to go to a yeshiva in South Florida. And I could wear my yarmulke and I could wear matzitzi And I could get a Jewish education for the next two years before I go to Orsa Mayach because he's convinced he's going to Orsa Mayach. But then I'm going to be leaving behind all the Jews in JSU in Savannah, Georgia. How can I leave those kids behind? Because I'm like the lifeblood of JSU. If I'm not there, I don't know what's going to be with those kids.

27:02 He's your age. He's your age. He's post tenth grade. He's your age. Girls. Do you chop? He's your age. He's not from Boca. He's not from Jersey. He's not from New York. He's not from Muncie. He's not from the Five Towns. He's not from Chicago. He's not from LA. He's from Savannah, Georgia. And his question for me is: If I stay. I can't. I just want to be proudly Jewish. I want to wear my tefteet and I want to wear my yarmulke. But if I leave where I can be proudly Jewish I'm leaving behind these Jewish kids. Girls, you know the reason we're not passionate about our yiddishkeit is because we didn't have to fight for it. We were born on top of the mountain. The sfas emes says vaharevna means not only make it sweet. From a lashon of erbuvya, it has to be mixed into you. It has to be integrated.

27:59 Your Yiddishkeit doesn't get integrated if it's this academic thing that you do. You go to class, your teacher teaches you a Rashi, you memorize it so you can take it on. You can pass a test. It's like sometimes when I'm teaching girls, the girls are taking notes. If I cough, they're just like stenographers of what the Rebbe is saying. And then there are other people that don't take notes. I'm not saying take notes, don't take notes. But there are other people that you see they don't take notes, but they're engaged. They're engaged. They're living it. They're thinking about it. They're making it a part of themselves, and they're willing to sacrifice for it. To the degree that you're willing to sacrifice for something, is the degree that it comes alive. If we want this to be real, not only for us but for our family, then it has to become something that's not external to us. It has to become who we are.

28:46 To the degree that when we're faced with what Michael is faced with, we have a question, a real question. On the one hand, I could do what's best for myself and go to South Florida. On the other hand, I could stay in Savannah, Georgia and do what's best for Klali Israel. Girls, it doesn't matter what I answered him. You know what matters? His question was so holy that I was the student in that moment. He taught me something. I grew up in the Five Towns. What type of challenges did I have growing up? What did anyone here from the Five Towns? I just need to know how I'm about to insult. So about twenty five percent of you. I told the guys in yeshiva this year As shocking. I told the guys in yeshiva this year. Did you know that there are buses in the Five Towns? Do you know there are buses that go up and down Central Avenue?

29:32 So the guys in yeshiva, guys from the Five Towns, they're like There's no buses in the Five Towns. Guys, there are buses in the Five Towns. There's bus stops on Central Avenue. Guys, like Rebbe, there are no buses on Central Avenue. Guy went home for Pesach. He messaged me. He goes, "He took a picture. Check it out, Rebbe. There is a bus on Central Avenue." You were right." I said,"Yeah. It's like not everyone gets a car from the time they're a fetus. Some people take a bus. I'm not picking. I'm saying all of us. We grew up with a tremendous amount of excess. We grew up with everything that we could possibly need. And then you know what happened? It's our fault because we gave so much that we took away any notion of sacrifice.

30:18 There are stories of the great tzaddikim, the great gedolim, that they would learn by the light of a candle until late into the night. They became the tzaddikim and they became the gedolim because they had to sacrifice. They had to push themselves. We, Baruch Hashem, are the generation where you get everything. If a girl shows up at the seminary and the mattress is not exactly like an American mattress with the perfect I'm sure here everything in Leva Torah is beautiful and wonderful. I'm sure there's been no complaints the entire summer. I'm just looking at the room to see about how many complaints we had this summer. Not bad, not too bad, right? It's a little too cold for me. My roommate likes it a little bit hotter, but I like it a little bit colder. There's all that roommate drama that exists. By the way, thank you to all of you who just did this move of looking at your roommate just to see.

31:04 All of you just gave yourselves away. L'chaim! Shalom Bayis. It's after the three weeks now. Coming on mechlelet is not a sacrifice. It's a privilege. It's an opportunity. But to push yourself To make it become part of you, it requires. It has to be sweet, but it also has to be you. If we do that, we get two things and we'll finish with this. Number one Yoyde shemecha. What does it mean to know Hashem's name? To know Hashem's name, you can say I'm not telling you that this deep shot. I'm telling you this ape shot. You ever walk into a room and you know nobody? You know that feeling when you walk. Anyone here not from the New York, New Jersey area? Anyone here from a cool place? Where are you from? It's a beautiful place. Not what I'm looking for. You know what I'm talking?

32:20 Tell me. Australia, Mitsuya. Perfect. I can't see you. Can you stand up for a second? What? No. Don't, don't sit down yet. Don't sit down yet. What's your name Elie Shava? What? And are you from Melbourne or Sydney? Melbourne Gold Coast. Are there any other Australians here? No. So you showed up in the beginning. Did anyone know who you were? Was that? No. So nobody knew your name. Was there a madricha who knew your name? Was there somebody then in the beginning who came over to you, Elie Shava? Was there somebody that came over to you and said, "Oh, welcome, Elie Shava, you're the Yossi"? Did anybody give that to you? It's okay. I'm not trying to call out NCSY. It's fine. I see already. You have a lot of friends. Was it very lonely? Was it? Can you be? I'm saying. I feel bad. I'm calling you out. I didn't ask for permission.

33:31 Did you feel like? Do I belong here? Did you, for a second, think maybe this wasn't a great idea? You don't know. I don't know. See, that's the difference between a guy and a girl. A girl says, "No, I don't know." A guy goes, "Yeah, I didn't want beer." It's a whole different thing. The worst feeling in the world, you could sit down. Thank you very much, Elie Shavit. The worst feeling in the world is to feel like I don't belong. To feel like nobody knows my name. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants to be recognized. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants that when we walk into a room, we call out his name. That we could see him in the places that we go. It's something very beautiful when you walk into a room and you feel like you know nobody, and then somebody in the room calls out your name and they go bracha.

34:25 And you go, I know somebody. All of a sudden, it's like I said, Bracha is my oldest daughter's name. I didn't mean to call anybody up. There's something very beautiful about walking in somewhere and feeling like I'm known. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is infinitely lonely in this world And what He asks us to do if we're in a relationship with Him is He says, "Can you know My name?" Like when you show up somewhere, can you say, 'that's the Rebbeinu Shalom.' There are people in this world that walk around and go, "I see God" And there are people in this world walking around oblivious to God's existence. And it's painful, so to speak, for God, because what He wants is to be recognized. He wants us to look and go, and not just like we do it in like the worst situations. And then go, or miss a plane, or something happens, and then in the back of your head.

35:17 And obviously, you don't say this that loud, but you go It'd be a crazy story if something really bad happened to that bus. Because then I'd have a Hashgacha prata story, right? I missed the bus once. I missed the bus and I posted on social media. I was like, "It's too bad everybody on that bus has to die now." So that this could be like. Just because you missed the plane or missed the bus doesn't mean that's the finger of God. It's a terrible example. But it's true. The Rebbeinu Shlom is everywhere in our lives. There are people that walk around and they're grateful because they see Akol D'Shbarakhu everywhere. I asked the guy in NYC that's why I called last night. I said, "Tell me five real things that you're grateful to God for. Don't give me a mushy list. I want five real things."

36:12 And he got to three. And I want you to know, most people can't get to five unless you start training yourself. Most people can't get to five because they're not grateful, because they're not God conscious in their life. People are walking around all the time and they're like, 'I don't know, life is good. I'm not thinking about anything.' So one of the guys told me he started a WhatsApp group called Hapam Oide Es Hashem. It's a WhatsApp group. All the guys in NCSY Kol are signing up for this group, Hapam Oide Es Hashem. They want to be grateful for three things every single day. How cool is that? It's about being. It's recognizing the Rebbeinu Shalom gave me something amazing. If you do it, you'll start seeing God everywhere. It's an amazing thing. If you want to recognize God in this world, start with gratitude. You know what I like watching?

37:01 I like watching videos of people who get hearing aids, cochlear implants, and hear for the first time. I like watching people that wear those special glasses that make them go from being colorblind to being able to see colors. I love those videos. Watch the videos. Watch the people that see color for the first time. They break down crying. Because all of a sudden the world is beautiful. The world is beautiful to us all the time. We don't think. Again, unless I'm offending someone who's colorblind, most people in this room see all the beautiful colors. You hear. You know what it's like for someone to hear the voice of their child for the first time. A person who is deaf and only got cochlear implants later in life gets to hear the voice of their child, the voice of their wife, the voice of their parent. What an unbelievable gift.

37:48 If we're going to be Yodei Shemecha, we're going to recognize Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this world. It's going to be because we learned His Torah. I listened to His communications. I made those communications part of my being, and now I see Him wherever I go. The last thing is learning Torah lishma. It's hard to give this martial because you're not married yet, but you'll understand what I'm saying. Imagine you went to your husband and you said, "On your way out to shul, would you mind just taking out the garbage?" There's always that garbage that stands by the door, and somebody just needs to take it out. You're from Eretz Yisrael, so you know in Eretz Yisrael, taking out the garbage could sometimes mean taking the garbage out a block. For me, taking the garbage is like a block and a half. So if you write to us, you can take out the garbage? Imagine if somebody said I'll take out the garbage, but what's my reward?

38:45 Would anyone in their right mind say that to their spouse? It's a sick thing to say. And yet, people do it all the time. They go, "I get this question a lot, Rabbi. How bad is it?" It's going to be bad when they start off like, 'How bad is it? How bad is it? How bad is it?' That is not the way you participate in a relationship. What do I get if that's the way a child speaks? To be in a relationship l'shma means I don't. I'm not interested in reward. Reward is of no consequence to me. Like the Gemara says, "Schar mitzvah." The reward of a mitzvah is doing the mitzvah. The reward of a mitzvah is that you get to be in a relationship with Hashem. Somebody who's integrated Yiddishkeit into their being, who's listening to the communications that they're getting from Ankudash Baruch Hu, who's sacrificing for it.

39:32 Somebody who's taking their Yiddishkeit, and it's not just something chas v'shalom that's like an intellectual thing. But everywhere I go now, I see God. They stop worrying about reward and punishment. There's a system of reward and punishment. It's not interesting to us. You always have these guys in NCSY Kol or in Yeshiva. They go, 'Rabbi, you could do tshuva for anything.' So why do you get punished? Why do you get karis? Why are we obsessed with punishment? Who's talking about punishment? That's a child speaking about punishment. Mikey, if you did something wrong, would Abba punish you? Of course not. First of all, he would never do anything wrong. Even if he did, it'd be okay. He's Baruch Hashem, a very good boy. You don't raise a child to be terrified of punishment. This type of yiddishkeit is debilitating to people. How do you want me to participate in a relationship? Because I have to be good. I had a kid tell me a svarty boy. He told me once, and I'll tell you why it was important that he was svarty. He's a svarty boy. I was interviewing him, and he goes, "Rabbi, why should I come to mivaseret? I already know everything I need to know about gehenna."

40:40 So I said, 'Maybe you need to come to yeshiva so that you can forget what you learned about gehenna.' So he rolled his eyes at me, and he goes like this. You ready? He goes, shkanaasim. I was like, ayvei Because he had heard some svari rabbi gave him like this. If you don't do this, then you're going to go straight. This not learning tayr lishma. Learning tayr lishma means I'm interested in being a relationship with you. Ganeid and gehenim, like the outer rebbe said, Rebbe Yisshalom, I'm not interested in your elam azeh. I'm not interested in your elam haba. All I want is you. That's what it means to be in a healthy relationship. The sad part about Bereshis Hashachar is that most of us fly through it. But if we take our time saying the brachas in the morning, we would orient ourselves to the lives that we want to live.

41:33 If you're a person who's wondering where God has gone in your life I strongly encourage you to take a bracha like this. It doesn't take more than twenty seconds to say a bracha like this with kavanah. But if you say it's not just Torah, it's Hamelam made Torah. It's not just about Torah. I'm interested in the one who teaches Torah, meaning Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I want to connect to Hashem. I'm looking for the sweetness. The sweetness of learning Torah is not the words themselves. It's the fact that they're Hashem's words. If you want to integrate these words into your being, have Kavanah in Berachos HaShachar. This is the way we orient ourselves. This is the way we build the next generation of Klal Yisro. Girls, have a wonderful night. Thank you very much for allowing me to. I want to thank you so much for coming.