From Tisha B'Av to Tu B'Av: Restoring the Light to the Darkness

3:11 That's a very beautiful day for us in Maliso. Tuba is a little bit of a strange day to call it the greatest Yom Tov of Simcha. One would have expected some chas Torah. One would have expected Hanukkah, Sukkot, Purim. Most of us really don't even know what Tuvav is about. So it's a funny thing that the Gemara tells us that this is one of the greatest Yom Tovim in the calendar. Even in Halacha, we don't really find anything special on this day except for the fact that you don't say Tafnun. I know in some Minyanim that not saying Tafnun is like the best thing in the world. That's the big simcha. We know. I'm sure all of you girls know. You've probably been thinking of this day since you were very little. On Tu B'av, all the girls who weren't married would borrow dresses. They would dress in white and go out into the fields.

4:18 And they were there for shidduchim. I saw very beautifully. Ravelio Kito says, "Isn't it like a little immodest?" Girls going out into the field like that and the boy is coming. So since it was such a day of kedusha and kubav, they didn't have to worry about it. They didn't have to worry about any immodesty. Just like Yom Yisrael, mamash, just the exact same thing. I saw myself. I saw a big mechitza. It was mamash atara sakadosh. It was a beautiful thing. I was standing right there in the middle, and I saw Baruch Hashem, nobody was together. The taka was very nice. It happens to me. I was very inspired by it. It was very, very beautiful. Especially with Elie Wiesel, wasn't that incredible? Maimon's the most incredible thing. I'm still Maimon's shaking from it. She's such a powerful woman to get up like that in front of everybody to bare her soul in such an authentic way.

5:13 Maimon's the most beautiful thing, and we were so happy to see it. So on Tu B'Av, all the girls would go out and they would dress in white. And the girls that were very beautiful would go out and say, "Marry me," because I'm very beautiful. And those that weren't so beautiful, but they came from good families They would say, 'Marry me,' because you're marrying into a family. I'm a good family to choose from. Those that weren't very beautiful and didn't come from good families They would say, 'Marry me l'shem Shamayim.' Could you imagine that poor girl has to go around saying, 'Marry me l'shem shemayim' "Marry me l'shem Shamayim." It's a little bit heartbreaking. But get me good jewelry. Get me good jewelry. You'll see that if you give me nice jewelry, I could also be beautiful. It's a very strange thing for a girl to go out, allowed to say that she's beautiful, say that she comes from a good family. The truth is, who really cares? Again, it's important what family you come from, but is it really the most important thing that a girl should say? A Jewish girl? Could you imagine a Jewish girl say, 'Marry me because I'm beautiful'? It's a terrible thing to say.

6:18 Beauty doesn't last. Marry me because I come from a good family. I know plenty of wonderful people that don't come from the best families. Myself included. It's an unbelievable thing. You don't have to come from the best family. Brother? My two daughters are here with me tonight. This is the first time they ever came to Yom Yisre. My daughter Bracha and Hani in the back Girls? You don't come from the best family. You have an Abba that manages Levasi. I'm sorry. I promise you'll stop. This is what we do to give children complexes. Some therapist somewhere in Beit Shemesh is smiling. And a girl should say, "I'm not beautiful." A Jewish girl should say, "I'm not beautiful," but give me jewelry. We need a deeper explanation. And the truth of the matter is, if you think deeply about it, the fact that Tu B'av is a day of marriage is really only a symptom.

7:18 It's really only a symptom. What happened on Tu B'av? That makes it into a day of shidduchim. What happened on Tuvav? So there's six reasons, and I just want to go through them very quickly. Some of you all know this, but just to go through it very quickly, there's six reasons that Tuvav is such a special day. The first reason is because there was a terrible thing that happened in Tzitzis. You all know the Cheta Meradlim. The Meradlim came. They spoke lashon hara about Eretz Yisrael. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu decreed that generation is not going to go into Eretz Yisrael. But many of you may not know that the halacha was that when the people turned sixty years old So on that Tishav Raise the microphone. Is that better? On Tishav they would bury themselves in their own graves. Did you know that on Tishav, a person who was sixty years old?

8:18 Would dig his own grave. Imagine, think just pictures. It's like a Holocaust story. They would manage to dig themselves their own grave. And after Tishavu, the next morning, they would all be dead. And Klal Yisrael would go and they would bury them. This is what it meant when they didn't go into Eretz Yisrael. That meant it was you who buried yourself. Manage dig your own grave. So on the last year before they went into Eretz Yisrael On Tishbav, all the men that were sixty years old dug their own graves. But Tishbav came and went, and they didn't pass away. But they didn't believe it. They said maybe we miscalculated when Tishbav is. So the next night, they all went to sleep again in their own graves. But they woke up again. They thought maybe they miscalculated. And every single night until Tuba of. They buried themselves in their graves, but they kept waking up.

9:16 Finally, when it came to Tubav, they looked outside. They saw that it was a full moon and realized that it was the fifteenth. It wasn't the ninth And they realized that Hakadosh Baruch Hu had done them unbelievable chesed. And this year they were going to be spared. And those people, even though it was decreed on them that they should not go into Eretz Yisrael, were going to be allowed to go into Eretz Yisrael. So the first nase of Tubav. Was that these people that were supposed to die They were allowed to go into Eretz Yisrael. That's the first nase of Tuba. The second nase of Tuba is the Bano Slafka. Everybody knows the Bano Slafka. Those heroic women that went to Moshe Rabbeinu and said, "It's not fair. We also want a chayla in Eretz Yisrael." And since Hakadosh Baruch Hu granted them a chayla in Eretz Yisrael, there was a problem Because now those girls from Bano Slafka, if they get married.

10:10 So their husbands, who were from other shvatim, were going to take those lands, and now there's going to be an imbalance in Eretz Yisrael. One shavet is going to have too much, and another shavet is going to have too little. So the banoes slavka weren't allowed to marry into other shvatim. Finally, on Tu B'av, after years of being in Eretz Yisrael, those girls were allowed to marry throughout the rest of the shvatim. That was the second big inyan that happened on Tu B'av. Another beginning that happened on Tuba, a very sad story. I'm not going to get into the whole thing right now. You all know the mice of Pilage to give. That woman that was killed in Shevet Pinamim. So Shevet Pinamim, they chopped her up into eleven pieces. And they sent the pieces of this woman to all the rest of the Shvotim, and they said, 'Send us the murder. We're going. We want the murder to be extradited to our Shevet, and we want to take care of this murder.'

11:08 And it became a big machlekas between the Shvatim, and the Shvatim made a xayra. You're not allowed to marry anyone because of the cruelty of Shevet Ben Yamin. You're not allowed to marry anybody in Shevet Ben Yamin. And on Tuba, that xayra was lifted. So the third big inyan, beautiful inyan, is that Klal Yisrof can once again get married to each other. It's also another big inyan. Another big inyan. Yerovam Ben Avad. We know, you girls know that Eretz Yisrael was split into two. There was a northern kingdom and a southern kingdom. Yiravam ben Neva set up guards so that Klal Yisrael would not be able to go to Eilu Reigel in the Beis Hamikdash. Can you imagine? For us, it's not such a big deal. For us, there's no Beis Hamikdash, so we don't think about what it must be like to not be able to be Eilu Reigel. But could you imagine if the Beis Hamikdash was there?

11:58 And there are guards preventing you from going? You could see the Beis Hamikdash. But you can't go. And on Tu B'av, We know that Kosehiah ben Ele finally opened up the roads of Yerushalayim, and Kli Yisrael was once again able to be eithered. Another beautiful image. We know that on Tish B'av there was a korban in Beitar. The korban in Beitar, where thousands upon thousands of Yidden were slaughtered And for years, we were not allowed to bury those Jews. Today in the Israeli army, there's a beautiful thing: if a soldier is killed behind enemy lines, they do whatever they can to get the body back so they can bury it. They'll even negotiate and give away territories to get back the body of a Jew. Could you imagine that in Betar there were thousands upon thousands of slaughtered Jews, Jewish bodies sitting there for years? Chazal tell us the bodies didn't decompose.

12:58 They weren't able to be buried, but finally on Tu B'av were able to bury the bodies. It's a beautiful thing to be able to bury them. And last but not least, and this is the least well known Is that every year on Tu B'av they would finish chopping the wood that they needed for the Beis Hamikdash for that year. What happens after Tu B'av? It starts to get a little moist in the air, so the wood is no good anymore. Tu B'av was the last day that they would chop down the wood. And that wood was the wood that was used for the beis hamikdash for the entire year, and then they would take the axes that smashed down that wood and break all the axes, destroying the axes. And so it's a very beautiful thing that we were finally done with our avoda of getting the wood that was necessary for the beis hamikdash. So six beautiful things.

13:49 The problem is I don't know if you're like me. But if you're like me and you just heard those six things So there's six nice things Six beautiful things, even. But does that make it the biggest day of Simcha? I don't know if it makes it the biggest day of Simcha. So I want to share with you what I think is a very big revolution. Most of us believe that our Yiddishkeit is a set of laws. Do this and don't do that. If you do what you're supposed to do, then you're a good Jew. And let's say you don't. So the way I was brought up, if you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're not a good Jew. Took me many years to find out that wasn't true. And I'll share with you why. Every year I give this year about how to propose to your wife.

14:59 So far, I have two tell me them that have used my line. This is the best way to propose. I'm going to tell you the best way to propose. If your husband uses this line, he ripped it off from me. Write it down now. Don't forget. The story of a young man that he met the girl of his dreams. She was unbelievable. She was everything he was looking for. She went to Mechelat. She was the most. She was the biggest Masmida on the program. She wouldn't stop bothering Rabbi Rosenblum all day, giving me better answers. And unbelievable girl. And then she got older and she went to the best seminaries. And she was Matmash and Eishasheya. And she met her husband. And her husband was an unbelievable guy. And they went out for about two hours. And the guy says, 'This is the one. He knows Kriushur.' " How long do you meet? They. I knew right away. She didn't know right away, but I knew right away.

15:49 So the guy gets down on one knee, very romantic. Takes her to the beach at night. The sun is setting. He gets down on one knee and he says Marry me. I can't live without you. Wait! That's a terrible thing to say to somebody. You can't live without me. What are you sick? Who said that? It's a terrible thing to say. You're obsessed. Oh no! It's a terrible thing. I can't live without you. What was that? Oh. Ah, okay. Thank you for the explanation. I can't. The girl looks at me. Can't live without me. She slaps him in the face. Not the achiba. She's totally shomer. Laughs him in the face And she says, "This is sick. I don't know. I don't want to be with this guy." She's heartbroken. She thought he was a good guy. The next guy that she dates, also an unbelievable guy, went to the best yeshivas. He's an unbelievable.

16:59 He's an unbelievable lambdin. He's going to be a great husband. And right away, they know this is the one. And he takes her out to the park where they had their first date. Very romantic. And he heard already this guy that the last guy had proposed didn't do such a good job, and he found out from his friends. Everybody talks. As Meir Shlaimberger says, a Jewish secret is told one person at a time. So you know how it is. So the guy in Yeshiva heard. Oh yes, she slapped the guy in the face. It didn't bother him. He liked that about her. But he's going to do it right. So he gets down on one knee. And he looks up at her, and he says "Marry me." I can live without you. You can live without me. So go live without me. Oh for two Oh for two.

17:53 Finally, she finds a guy from the Basere. Nothing about this. She finds a guy from the Basere And he's the most amazing guy. Great personality. They connected on such a deep level. He didn't know any of those things, but she knew that they connected on a deep level. I don't know if you know that about guys. That when you date, it's going to be like two separate planes. He's going to be one place. You're going to be some. If you try to talk to him, this is the worst thing that girls do on dating. I'm asking you, please don't do this. It's not nice. Girls always say to guys, "So where are we holding?" I promise you, no guy has ever understood what that meant. I don't know. Right now we're sitting and talking. What do you mean? Where are we holding in Bubmitzia? Like they don't know. It's not a nice question. I want you to know. I know this for sure. Every girl was up for three straight nights talking to every one of her roommates and every one of her friends that she ever met in her entire life. I'm gonna ask him, but I don't know if he's exactly in the place that I'm in. Don't worry. He's nowhere. He's gonna be wherever you tell him to be for the rest of your life. So don't worry about it. Anyway.

19:01 My wife was supposed to come tonight. I encouraged her not to, just to take these jokes. I'm gonna go home tonight and do whatever she tells me. Brother? Hey, you. Guy gets down on one knee and he says Marry me. I can exist without you But what type of life would that be? That's my line. That's my line. What was that? You didn't hear? Marry me. I want the same Oz. Marry me. I can exist without you. But what type of life would that be? Oh! Why is that a great one? It's a great line. Because it means I'm me. I'm me And I'm doing okay. My existence is fine. But what I'm missing is something from my life. There's a difference between existence and life. Existence, scientifically, means it takes up space. Right now On some level, don't take this the wrong way. On some level, you're all ruining my existence because if I It's not a nice thing to say, but it's true.

20:36 Why do we build such big homes? Because, from an existence perspective, we want a lot of existence. But it's the exact opposite when it comes to life. The more people that are in your life, the more enhanced your life is. When you say to somebody When somebody says to you "Marry me," I can exist without you. What they're saying is, I have everything I need except for one thing. My life is missing you. What's amazing about this? What's revolutionary about this? What changed my entire attitude towards Yiddishkeit is that that's how Hakadosh Baruch Hu proposed to us. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, "I know thee, Hashem." I am God. My existence is perfect. My existence is infinite. I don't need you to exist. But Elokh But I'm your God Because without you, who will have Kodesh Baruch Hu share his life with? So when Kodesh Baruch Hu proposed to us, it was the single most beautiful proposal that ever could be.

21:48 Yiddishkeit is not about a set of laws. It's not about did you do this, did you not do that. It's how engaged are you in the relationship? I'll tell it to you the way Rav Noach Orlovich says it. You've heard of Rav Noach Orlovich? He's one of the greatest mashgichim in Eretz Yisrael. It's a true story. Rav Orlovich was giving a shir in Yerushalayim Mirat Kodesh. And there was a group of people that he was giving shir to. He didn't know who was in the shir, but unbeknownst to him, there was a writer from Hollywood. Guy who wrote movies, was in the shir. And Rav Orlovich said over the following machzor. He said "Imagine." Your wife asks you to go shopping for drapes. This is another thing you're going to do. You're going to ask your husband to go shopping with you to make choices that you think are important that he could care less about.

22:40 Your husband could not care what color the drapes are. But you're going to ask him. I know you. You're not going to listen. You're going to ask him. And if he says no, what's going to be? He's going to be in big trouble. There's no wife that's going to let their husband get away with it. They might say, "I'm telling you, this is what women do." I know you. It's okay. It's not okay. I know when you say it's okay, it's not okay. I've learned this. Girls all over, seminaries all over the country. I'm so sorry I can't speak to you tonight. Can we speak tomorrow? It's okay. Next day, I find out she is so angry. When you say it's okay, it's not okay. So if he says I don't really feel like going shopping with you, it's not okay, and you're not going to let it be okay. So he could say no. It's a bad answer. Let's say he says yes. It's going to be much, much worse.

23:27 But if he goes shopping for drapes, this is what's going to happen. You're going to hold up two sets of drapes. And you're going to ask him Which one do you think? And he's going to say, I don't know, whichever one looks nicer to you Because he doesn't really have a functioning brain that's able to make decisions. This is what he married you for. If he says whichever one is more important to you, this is what women say. I know this. This is what women say. They go, "I'm not trying to be insulting. It's just a reality." Women say I feel like you're not here. Now, as a man, I can tell you once again, we have no idea what you're talking about. Because whether I'm here or not is not a feeling. I feel like you're not here. I'm standing right here. I literally have no idea what you. This is this. Women wake up in the morning and say, "I feel like it's a yogurt."

24:24 In my life, I have never woken up and felt like a day involved a yogurt. Is it true? It's true. It's true. You felt like heaven. I feel hungry. If I go to the fridge and there's a yogurt, I might eat it. But I never felt like a day had an essential part of it that was called yogurt. There's some sort of like I just need to have a froyo. I don't know what happened in your lives that froyo or rebar became a staple of female diet. But if you ask your husband what treats he likes, and he tells you whichever one you like I feel like you're not here. You don't know what you're talking about. You feel this is a scientific fact. I'm standing right here. So Rav Orlovich said, 'This is what you do.' He's giving a shiur to men, and he's giving men advice on how to deal with women.

25:19 Which you can never get enough of And he says This is what you have to say. You have to really look at the drapes and you have to really care about the drapes, but not because you care about the drapes, because we know you don't care about them. But if it's important to her Then it has to be important to you. So this Hollywood writer in the audience was so moved by this concept: if it's important to her, then it's important to me. And he came back to America, and it stuck with him. And he started writing a screenplay. There was already one movie out. He was writing the second one. In this movie, there were some ogres and a donkey. Shrek. This is Shrek Two. If you think deeply about Shrek Two The whole thing is about: if it's important to me, it's important to you.

26:14 He wanted to make her happy. So he becomes a prince, even though he wants to be an ogre. She wants to make him happy. So at the end of the movie, what happens? They turn into ogres. If it's important to you, it's important to me. If you watch the credits in Shrek Two. It says screenplay based on a class given in Jerusalem by Rovnoah Horlock. That's pretty cool. What's really cool is I spoke in LA. I've been privileged to speak all over the world. And I'm telling this story And one of the kids in the audience goes, "Yeah, it's a true story." I said, "Yeah, I know. I heard it from Rivorlowik." He goes, "No, it's a true story. I heard it from my dad." So I was thinking to myself, Rivorlowik is a little bit more of a primary source than your dad who saw the movie.

27:03 So the kid goes, "No. My dad wrote the movie." Rivorlowik said. That he's never seen the movie. Could you imagine if somebody came to one of my classes and wrote a successful movie about something that I said this year? That would be on a twenty four six loop in my house. It would be like part of our Arab Shabbos Avodah, turning off that movie. I don't even have a TV in my house, but I would buy a TV just to have. I wouldn't even play the movie, just the credits over and over again. Why do we keep mitzvos? Because if it's important to you, meaning if it's important to Hashem, then it has to be important to me. How many times do we feel like I don't know? I don't know how much I'm getting out of this. This is a thing I hear from people all the time. It's a sick thing to say. People don't even realize how disturbed it is.

27:58 I don't feel like I'm getting anything out of davening. I don't feel like you're getting anything out of davening. It's not about you. Imagine if you said to your wife Your husband. I'm used to speaking to guys. Your husband comes to you and says Would you mind reading me this book every night? It's in German. You say to him, "I don't know. I feel like I'm not getting anything out of this." He says to you, "Yeah, but I've asked you to do this. I'm inviting you to participate in something that's important to me." There's nothing more important in the world than Hakadosh Baruch Hu's mitzvahs. Why? Not because they're important to us, but because they're important to Him. So it's true the Rebbeinu Shalom wants us to be devoted. He wants us to do what's important. So we do mitzvot. He gave us an opportunity not to have a checklist: how many mitzvot, how many avodas. That's sick. That's not what a relationship is about. He's asking: is your mitzvah as important to you as it is to me?

29:00 It's imagine if you were online in Starbucks or coffee bean And you said you were going to the simashas. I don't know where people go. You're going to some concert, a Miami Boys Choir concert. Yeshiva boy's back. You go into some very kosher dinner. You go into Yom Yizkor, and it's and you're saying to your friend, you're online at Starbucks. You're saying to your friend Oh, I have great seats. I'm sitting in section one thirteen, row F, seat eleven. And the guy behind you goes on StubHub.com And he looks and he sees section one thirteen, row F, seat twelve is open, and he buys that ticket. And you show up at the concert that night, and he's sitting right next to you. And in your head, you say, "Where did I see that guy? Was he behind me online in Starbucks?" What do you do? You run Run. Why? Because he's a stalker. He's a dangerous person.

29:52 How many people here from New York? That's not something to be excited about. All people do that, New York. Why are you so excited to be from New York? You're not from New York. Where are you from? Columbus. Ohio. Columbus, Ohio is a beautiful place to be from. Florida, New York And then I get And then I get like eighty girls who are like Woodmere. I also grew up in the five towns. I also grew up in the five towns. I always thought it was interesting that the only place you see five towns in the Torah was Stone. Stone had five towns. I grew up in the Five Towns. And I want to tell you about one of the most inspirational people I know in my life. This guy is my mission inspiration. Maybe some of you have heard of him. His name is Mr. Shiko.

31:07 Mr. Shiko is a bus driver. Is a bus driver, African American man. He's also a teacher. Teaches in Yeshiva B'akhtar. He teaches math. He wears a yarmulke. He's not Jewish. He wears a yarmulke. And he says Baruch Hashem more than anybody I've ever met. Mr. Shiko loves Yiddishkeit. He loves Yiddishkeit. And he asked if he could convert and become a Jew. The halacha is that if somebody wants to convert, the first thing he's supposed to do is try to fuck them out of it. So Mr. Shiko came to Rabbi Bender. Rabbi Bender said, "for you there's something called seven mitzvos." And he explained to him what to do. But Mr. Shiko said, "I have to keep Shabbos." The halacha is a guy is not allowed to keep Shabbos. In fact, a guy that keeps Shabbos is a guy of mis. So every week, Mr. Shiko keeps Shabbos except for one minute of Shabbos.

32:08 He turns on and off a light. Mr. Shiko told me the worst part of his week. The worst part of his week is flicking that light. He says, "I want so badly to keep Shabbos, but Shabbos is for Jews, and I'm not a Jew." Growing up in New York, my mother always told me, 'It's cold out. I'm cold, so you put on a coat.' You ever had that? In Florida and Texas, they don't have this. I don't think it's ever cold. But in New York, it's not really that cold. But my mother always said, "I'm cold, so you have to put on a sweater." So I always thought that about Shabbos. Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, 'Six days a week I worked, and on the seventh day I rested.' So you keep Shabbos And I always wanted to say back to Hashem, "You're tired. You keep Shabbos."

32:56 I'm not tired. Why do I have to take a nap? Until I learned this idea It's not my Shabbos; it's his Shabbos. I'm being invited to participate in Hashem's Shabbos. Mr. Shiko can't keep Shabbos. You know why? He wasn't invited. Only I was invited. And today, we have people that have lost sight of this because they think Shabbos is another one of those things on a checklist. Shabbos is an invitation. Who would turn down such a beautiful invitation? Why does a friend love us? I want to tell you something very beautiful. If anybody gives you a reason why they love you That's a terrible thing. If somebody tells you, "I love you because of the way you make me feel" That's crazy. Because what happens when they stop feeling good about themselves from you? Then the relationship is over. If somebody tells you, 'I love you because you're an excellent cook,' I love you because you're such an intelligent woman. What happens if Chasam Shalom is not as intelligent, or what happens if I burn the kugel?

34:13 You know why Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves you? No reason. There is no logical reason why Hakadosh Baruch Hu created us. We don't know why. That's the single most beautiful thing in the world. Because if you love someone for no reason. Then you'll never stop loving them. Because if I love you for no reason, then I always love you. I always feel like I wonder sometimes, Zachodosh Baruch Hu. And I remember it doesn't really matter if He's proud of me. As much as it matters if he loves me We don't know why anything in the world happens, but we know that our Kadosh Baruch Hu loves us. So now let's go back a little bit to our two bobs story. Let's try to understand something a little bit deeper. Three types of girls. The first girl She comes and she says, "Marry me, I'm so beautiful."

35:16 We know that our Kadosh Baruch Hu is often compared to the man, to the chassam. And Klai Yisrael is often compared to the bride. So when the bride, when Klai Yisrael pulls out and says, "I'm so beautiful" You know what they're saying? They're saying Hakadosh Baruch Hu I've invested so much in learning about you that the love I have comes from looking out at the sunset. I see you in the sunset, going to the beach. I see you in the beach. When I learn something, I see you in that learning. When I do chesed, I see you all over the place. And not only that But I also have this natural love that I can't explain. I've been working on cultivating this natural love. That's called beauty. When you have both the intellectual love that becomes an emotion, and you've cultivated the natural emotional love of a Jew.

36:11 Not everybody has that. Some girls come and they say, "I may not have beauty" But I have yichus. I have yichus." It's true, I never spent so much time thinking about you. But I love you because in my DNA, starting from Avram Avinu, my family is Jewish, and I worked on feeling close to you. So I have yechus. Marry me, we're saying to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Marry me because I have yechus. But what about those of us that never had the opportunity to learn about Hakadosh Baruch Hu And let's say we never went. To mechalel, or we never went to seminary, or we didn't have the opportunity to go to a high school that teaches Torah. It was one of the most beautiful things. I go and see this boy. I was sitting and I was talking to this young man for about forty-five minutes. He's already been to two of my shiur. T. J. Came. I spoke on T. J. When he came to Kibbutz. This boy has such unbelievable questions.

37:14 The public school kid. Forty-five minutes as the buses were leaving. He wouldn't let me leave, Rabbi. I have another question. Public school kid. Can he come to a kol ichvora and say I'm beautiful? He can't. He never learned about a kol ichvora. Did he ever work on that natural feeling from Avraham Avinu? He didn't work on that either. So you know what? That kid comes and says, "I might not be the best looking to you, Hashem." Maybe I didn't have the opportunities that everybody else had. But give me jewelry. Give me the opportunity to look beautiful, and I promise you I will be the best one out there. We see that all the time. Give a Jew an opportunity to be great, and they take it every single time. In the Holocaust, there were kamufa stories of Yidden that were totally off the derech, but died with shmaestro on their lips.

38:12 Because when push comes to shove. In an extreme situation Jews always show their true colors. So we say on Tuba, we come to our Kaddish Baruch. We say on Tuba, there are those of us that are beautiful, and there are those of us that are lihus. But maybe if you're like me, you don't feel like you have either one. Have I really learned everything there is to know? For sure not. Have I really spent time? Coming to love Hakadosh Baruch Hu, cultivate that natural love that I have inside me. Even if you can't in the club, how many times before this summer did you really see Hakadosh Baruch Hu in the world? Maybe not as many as you'd like. But on Tu B'Av you get to come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and say But love me because I'm a Jew. Give me the opportunity, and I promise you I'll fly.

39:08 Now I want to tell you something that I think is incredible. Every single test that we did on Tishavov Remember those six things I told you in the beginning of this year. They correspond to every single thing that went wrong. On Tishavov, the Mirablin spoke about Eretz Yisrael in a negative way. And Nebuch those Yemen died; those Jews died. And on Tuba, it ended. The churban by Esrishon we know was because of Shvich Hasdan and Gili Arayas and Avayd Hazara. But which one was the worst? Avayd Hazara was the worst one. And on Tuba of Toshe'a Ben Ely removed the guards, and we were able to serve our guard. So you see, everything on Tishbev comes full circle on Tuba. Whatever went wrong on Tishbev It gets rectified on Tuba. The second Beit Hamikdash was destroyed because of Sinas Pina. But on Tu B'av, and this time we have two because it's a pair. It's about marriage.

40:15 Binyamin was once again allowed to marry into Klal Yisroel. And the Benos Lachva were allowed to marry the rest of Klal Yisroel. So you see that there was Avas Pinam in the place of Sinas Pinam. On Beitar, in Beitar, on Tishavah they were all wiped out. But on Tu B'av we came back to Beitar and we saw that their bodies had not decomposed. And we were finally able to bury them. And on Tishav, we know that the Romans plowed Eretz Israel and used salt and sulphur. You know why it's difficult to make things grow in this land? Because thousands of years ago, the Romans took salt and sulphur and plowed the land because they didn't want anybody to ever be able to live in Eretz Israel again. And on Tuva We had enough wood. On Tuva Eretz Israel was ours. We were able to cultivate the land.

41:12 Shlomo Carvach used to tell the following story And it's such an important story. It's one of my favorite stories of all time. There was a couple that lived in Rome, in Italy. It's a guyish story. There was a couple that lived in Rome. And they were married for many years, but they didn't have children. And girls, you should never know from these things. But when it's hard to have children, sometimes there can be a period, a little bit of a split, or maybe a lot of a split between the husband and the wife. I have a friend that, in order for him to have a child It costs him minimally twenty thousand dollars. All the different procedures that they have to go through And for so many years I think almost seven or eight years into their marriage, as they watched everybody else have children, they were in search of two children.

42:11 And he and the Chassid was one of my closest friends. Used to tell me, "It's hard." And this couple, it became very hard. Couples start to fight, even though they love each other very much. But sometimes couples fight. And finally, after one fight The wife just had enough. She couldn't take it anymore and she said I need to move out. I need to take a break. Chassid Shlomo, it never happened to us, but it happens sometimes. And she says, "I'm going to go live in a different province. I'm going to go live with my parents." And the husband says, "it's a good idea." It's a good idea. Maybe let's take a break and let's think about things. And he says to me, "I've always wanted to travel the world." Never really had the opportunity to do so. So you go to your parents. I'm going to travel around. She goes to her parents.

43:05 And the next week Thursday. She gets a postcard in the mail from Germany from her husband. He writes her all the things that he's seen in Germany. At the end of the letter, he says And I met someone. I met someone. She's great. She's amazing. And as the wife is reading this Her heart drops. You know that feeling when your heart drops. What happened? I thought it was just a separation. To recollect, what happened to her? She was so distraught. She didn't go to her parents because she didn't know what to do. The next week, she gets a postcard from Russia. And he's telling her all the amazing things that he's seen in Russia. That he saw the freezing cold in Siberia, and he saw Moscow, and he saw all these things. At the end of the letter, he says And I met someone. She's amazing. The girl starts crying. She breaks up crying. It's my husband. What's he doing?

44:05 And every week goes by, and every week she gets another postcard from Switzerland, from France. And every postcard has met another girl. She tells her parents because at some point she just has to tell her parents. And her parents, you know how parents are. I think they know everything. I think I know everything. I know I don't really, but I think I know everything. And the parents. I knew he was a bum the entire time. We never should have married him. We knew we should have stopped him. And you know how it works. Sometimes you confide in your parents, and then the worst thing you ever did was confide in your parents. And you regret it because they're constantly talking to you. Like we told you. She can't take it anymore. So after two months, she finally goes home. She goes back to the house and she puts her key in the door. But as she puts her key in, the door opens. It was unlocked.

44:55 So she walks in. She sees. She looks down the hallway. She sees the light is on in her husband's study. So she quietly walks towards her husband's study and she looks in the room. There's her husband sitting behind his desk. And she looks. She sees him. She's totally She thought he was in France. How did he get back? She sees on his desk a pile of postcards from all over the world, and she realizes in that minute that he had never gone anywhere. He'd never been anywhere else. So he was sending her these postcards. The whole thing was made up. So she looks at him. Not in anger, but just totally bewildered, and she says, "What's going on over here?" So he says to her, "You know I knew things were really hard with us, and I knew you needed a break. But I didn't really want a break. I was really happy.

45:51 But you told me you needed a break, and I just wanted what you wanted. So I knew that you needed a real separation. So I made it as if I left. How could I leave our home? This is our home. This is where we belong. It feels to us. It feels that way. We went all over the world. We come back. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is sitting at the Kodesh Mikdash. I never really left. I never really wanted to. It just felt like I left. So on Tisha B'av we sit. On our first day of Shabbos, on Tu B'av, seven days later, at the end of Shabbos? You know what the reality is? Hashem Rabbenu is there the entire time. Every single thing that we did wrong on Tu B'av There's a tikkun, there's a rectification. Because Hashem Rabbenu loves us for no reason. So we're over on Sinas Chinam.

46:51 Even Sinas Chinam can't really chase a rash. It's an avoda from now until Tishah B'av to Tu B'av. It's to realize, on Tishah B'av we sat and we cried and we took off our shoes and we cried about the river, but on Tu B'av we have to remember how the sparkle never really left. It's just the way it feels sometimes. And this is why Tu B'av falls on the fifteenth when there's a full moon. You see, in Yudishei the sun is for the times of Mashiach. In Galus it's all about the moon. We're not interested in turning the darkness into daylight. Right now, we're interested in illuminating the night. That things should be dark. That's the way it has to be right now. Things should be dark, and things should be confusing. But is there enough light in the world to light up that darkness, and for us to see that even in the darkness Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves us?

47:45 That's why Rabbi Chaimi says that we broke the axes. Why did we break the axes? How could we break those axes? That's not a Jewish thing to do. We don't waste things. You know why we break the axes? Because we're tired of change. We're tired of all of those things that are bringing destruction into our world. And Tu B'Av is a day when we reconnect, and that's why Tu B'Av is a day of shadoch. So my bracha to all of us is as we find ourselves now right here, smack in the middle of Tishav and Tu B'Av. We should be zeihter to reconnect. We should be zeiher to stop thinking of Yiddishkeit as a checklist. We start thinking of Yiddishkeit as a relationship. We should stop doing mitzvot because of how important they are to us, and we should start doing mitzvot because of how important they are to our kaddish baruch hu.

48:42 And we should be zeiher above all of us to destroy that which brings destruction to our lives. To look inside of ourselves. To look at those axes that never have broken. So many trees in our life, and just to be able to say, I'm tired of destruction. A little bit more light, a little bit more light of the moon, a little bit more illumination of the darkness. Baruch Hashem, this should be the last Tishubah. Next year, you're all invited back to Mechalad to the Tishubah barbecue. Let me no more churban. We're going to come to realize that Baruch Hashem, all these thousands of years, Hakadosh Baruch Hu never left. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. Thank you very much.