Haazinu - Speaking With the Higher Self

2:06 Vatishma ha'aretz imreivvi, and the land, the earth, should hear the words of my mouth. And many already point out that there's two different types of speech that we see here: 'Hazino hashamayim va'adaberah.' So when it comes to the heavens, it uses the lashon of dibur And when it comes to the aretz, v'teshmaha aretz imre fi, and that the earth should hear the amira, the words of my mouth. So the question is, what's the difference between dibur and amira? This seems to be a lot of times we have synonyms in the Torah; they appear to be the same exact word, but they're not. And what's the exact difference? What is the Torah trying to convey? What is Moshe Abinu trying to convey? That when it comes to Shamayim, there's a lashon of dibur, and when it comes to Arutz, there's a lashon of amira. So I want to share with you a gemara in B'choros.

3:01 The gemara in B'choros tells the following story: Rav Yochanan ben Chananya said to the leader of Greece, the head of Greece, that he was greater, and that the sages of Kallahisol were greater than the sages of Athens. And so there were all these different like debates that happened between the sages of Athens and between Rabbi Yosheu. I'm sorry, Rabbi Yosheu. I said Rabbi Yochanan before. Between Rabbi Yosheu ben Chananya And listen to one of the debates. It sounds like a very strange debate, but we're going to unpack it and make a little bit of sense about it. They said the sages of Athens said to Rabbi Yosheu ben Chananya If you have a certain man. And he goes and he asks to marry a woman. And the family doesn't give her to him. Why would he? Why would he see fit to go for a family that is greater than the first? This is the question that the sages of Athens posed to Rabbi Yeshua ben Chanania. A very strange question. If a guy goes to marry a girl and she's from a certain family, and that family says no, why would he go to a family of greater stature to try and marry their daughter? In other words, if he's been rejected by the lower family, why would he see fit to try and marry somebody from the higher family?

4:29 That's the question they ask. And Rav Yosher responds to this question by taking a peg and attempting to stick it into the lower part of a wall, and it won't go. And then he sticks it into the upper portion of the wall, and then it goes in. So he takes the peg. First goes to the lower portion of the wall, and the peg won't go into the wall. But then, when he goes to the upper portion of the wall, the peg is able to go in. And Ravi Yosheua ben Chanania said to them, "The same way that I couldn't stick it into the lower part of the wall, but I could stick it into the upper part of the wall, the same thing is true when it comes to finding a wife." Sometimes it doesn't work with the lower part; it'll only work with the greater family. And this is the whole Gemara. So we're left wondering, what in the world is this Gemara talking about?

5:18 Why are the sages of Athens talking to Yeshua ben Chananiah about if you can't marry a girl from a lower family, why would you be able to marry a girl from a higher family? What does he mean by taking a peg and putting it in the wall and saying it doesn't fit into the lower part of the wall, but it fits into the upper part of the wall? And the same thing is true of a family. What does a peg have to do with marriage? I want to share with you something that's very personal to me. And I think it'll resonate with you. It's really probably the thing that I'm living with every day these days. There are two types of education that you could receive. There's what I'll call a lower education and a higher education, and I want to describe to you what a lower education looks like.

6:11 A lower education. That's where your rebbeim, your teachers, your mechanimcho, your rakazo, they get up, and what they do, well intentioned. Is they try to sell you Judaism. They're making a sales pitch. They try to sell you Judaism. You've been in on these classes before. The sales pitch of Judaism. I want to share with you what the sales pitch of Judaism looks like. Judaism's awesome. Here's why it's awesome. And very often they'll bash everybody who's not. And they'll say like that classic rabbi, do you think they're really happy? It's like, I don't know. It doesn't seem to me that everybody who's not Jewish in the world is miserable. There's eight billion people in the world. There's 15 million Jews. I know plenty of Jews that aren't happy, and I know plenty of non-Jews that are. But you know that pitch, like the best life is a Jewish life. You've heard this year, and they sell you on all the things that God will do for you.

7:07 In other words, it's a big distortion of what Chazal actually meant. They'll say things like, and I know I'm going to get misquoted here. So this is being recorded. When you misquote me, you could just say go back to the recording so that you could hear exactly what I said because I know I'm going to get misquoted. Somebody's going to misquote me. It sounds like this. They go, God is a giver. And God wants to give the ultimate pleasure. To you, right? This is what the shir sounds like. Obviously, then Judaism is the ultimate pleasure, and your job in life is to pursue the ultimate pleasure. Isn't that what you've heard this year before? Isn't that what it sounds like? It's not true, by the way. It's true that God is ultimately a giver. And He's the ultimate giver. It's true that the ultimate goodness that God wants to give is Himself. He wants to bestow the ultimate goodness upon another. That's all well and good. But it's not true that our job in life is to pursue the ultimate pleasure. Our job in life is to do what Hashem wants. But that last part—it's like you're going to get the ultimate pleasure if you pursue Judaism, and if you're not pursuing Judaism as the ultimate pleasure, it's just because you're not a connoisseur of pleasure.

8:24 But really, you should be pursuing pleasure. But what happens when you tell this to a fifteen-year-old boy And it's the summer after tenth grade. What does a fifteen-year-old boy say? He goes, "Awesome." So you think that's the ultimate pleasure, and I think this is the ultimate pleasure. Whatever this is. We can all imagine what this is. You think Judaism is the ultimate pleasure for some reason. Our fifteen-year-old, very intelligent young man says you think waking up in the morning and davening to Hashem is the ultimate pleasure. I think staying in bed is the ultimate pleasure. You think not talking to girls is the ultimate pleasure, and I, a fifteen-year-old boy, somewhere after tenth grade. Think it's kind of really exciting that a girl wants to say hello to me, especially given the condition that I'm in. The condition of a fifteen-year-old. It's a cruel thing that Hashem does to a fifteen-year-old boy.

9:17 At the peak of wanting to speak to a girl, Hashem says, "Try this. Do it with your face looking like a pizza pie." And also with your voice cracking fairly regularly. So I could go over to that girl and you're like, 'Hey, how's it going?' It's want to get a cup of coffee. It doesn't It doesn't work. It's not like a cool thing. But that fifteen-year-old thinks like wow. And a girl wanted to talk to me also in camp. She also wanted to say hey, what's up? And she also wants to be like, yeah, I want to get a cup of coffee. And it's like, And you think that's not the ultimate pleasure. The fifteen-year-old agrees with you. The fifteen-year-old says, look. We're both going for the ultimate pleasure. For some reason, you think fasting on Yom Kippur is the ultimate pleasure, and I think eating is a much better pleasure than fasting.

10:09 The pitch. I'm not saying it doesn't work. I'm saying it works sometimes, but it's not a great pitch. Do you know what I mean by that? There's something about that pitch that leaves us uninspired. And we can walk out of these classes where people like to pitch Judaism at us. There's a feeling I think that at least I have it, and I know that some other people that I've spoken with have it. There's a certain sense Being spoken down to. It's like you're not asking me to do something great. You're telling me to get what you want. Doesn't it leave us a little bit underwhelmed? It's like we should be asking more of me. I want to share with you before we take any questions. I want to share with you what a higher level education looks like. A higher level education—we don't have this very much in the world today—but it used to be that even the world had this. A higher education in the world says something like Ask not what you can do for your country, ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.

11:11 There was a time period in history where a president of the United States got up and said, "Not what we're going to do for you, but what are you going to do for us?" And you know how people responded. It became such an iconic thing to say that we still say it today in 2023. That people will read Abraham Lincoln's letters years later and be inspired by them because what he gave us right back then was a call to action, a call to be part of something greater than yourself. And so there's something amazing that's happening in the world of education today, and I think that you girls are right at the center of it. There was a time period where we fed into the narcissism of the generation, and we said, "Oh, this is the generation that pursues pleasure. Perfect. We're going to tell you that the ultimate pleasure is God."

12:02 And it didn't work. But something is happening today in the world, and it's very different. We see that kids who are coming to—Chas v'Shalom. I shouldn't call you children. I mean that legitimately. It's not the right thing. You're in adult bodies now. So you're adults. The idea that we're asking you to be part of something larger than yourself, and we're seeing guys and girls go. Now we're talking. You're telling me not about the ultimate pleasure that I should be pursuing. What are you doing for somebody else? What are you sacrificing? And these words are very important because if you grow up in a culture that says Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What will happen to a generation of children that are raised to pursue happiness? That's what they're going to do. They're going to pursue happiness. And kids will grow up in such a generation and they'll say, "Why should I daven? I don't enjoy it."

13:01 You ever have that? Why should I daven? I don't enjoy it. Why should I learn this? I'm not enjoying it. There's something very holy about that sentiment. And as I want to enjoy this, why am I not enjoying this? But there's something that we're saying today that's more profound than enjoyment, and it sounds like this. And it doesn't sound great. But when you actually let it sit for a second, you'll realize it's much more empowering. It's much more ennobling. You should do this because it's true and it's right. You should stop asking yourself what you're enjoying, and start asking yourself what you're bringing to this. What's your contribution? It's a completely different thing. I'll give you an example of what this looks like. You have two opportunities in the summer. Opportunity number one is to go work and make some money. Girls, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with working and making some money. People can do good things with money. But there are people in this room I imagine that are going to ask themselves this summer What am I doing for Klal Yisrael?

14:04 What am I doing for Klal Yisrael this summer? There are girls. I'm not making any specific pitches here. But there are girls that are going to say, "Okay, I'm going to Hask Because what I want to spend my summer doing is taking care of somebody who can't take care of themselves. And it's an amazing thing. If you ask somebody at the end of a summer in camp Hask, you say, 'How was it?' They'll always tell you the same thing: the first week, ridiculously hard. The first week, I thought I was going to leave, and the only reason I didn't leave is for two reasons. Number one, peer pressure; I don't want to be that girl that leaves. And number two, I called Rabbi Rosenstein and I called Mrs. Rosenstein. I called somebody, and they said, 'Stick it out.' And in the end, I was able to do it. And how was it at the end of the summer? Best summer of my life. What was so great about it? Did you hang out on Shidach Lane?

14:51 But I was like Shidach Lane adjacent. I was scouting. It was in my peripheral vision. I was looking on the side going Right like that. And there's always that guy who's like. That guy in the camp, right? I'm not saying I noticed him or that he once spoke to me, but we kind of once spoke. We were in the pharmacy at the same time, but I wasn't there for that. That's not what it was about. Ask them why it was the best summer of their life, and they'll tell you because I was completely dedicated to somebody else. It's an amazing thing. We're raising these children to pursue happiness. We're throwing everything at them: the most amazing schools, the most amazing camps, the most amazing vacations, and they're depressed. You put them in an environment like Camp Pes, you put them in an environment like Camp Simcha, and it goes the exact opposite way. All of a sudden, they're like, "That was the best, but it wasn't for you."

15:44 " Exactly The lower order education says Judaism is for you. How can we serve you? The higher order of Jewish education is Who are you serving? What role do you play? What are you doing for God in this world? What are you doing for the Jewish community? I want to share with you something. I have my fair share of tainas on the Lubavitch community. But I want to tell you something that they do better than us, and it's light years better than us. If you're growing up in a Lubavitcher yeshiva or in a Lubavitcher seminary, you know what your chinuch is. What are you doing for Klal Yisrael? What are you doing for Klal Yisrael? From the time that you're a little kid, you know what you spend your summer doing when you're 14, 15 years old. You're getting flown out to some random place in the middle of Uzbekistan, right? And you're running Ganizzi. You're running some camp for some Jewish kids, maybe there's five Jewish kids in the entire Uzbekistan, and somehow that Labavitcher Shliach found them, and you flew to Uzbekistan to take care of those kids. That's what you do. I walked in, I davened mincha. I had a meeting in Crown Heights a couple years ago.

16:47 And I was like I had to chapa mincha. I didn't know where I was going to go to chapa mincha. And I saw a bunch of Lubavitcher kids going into this yeshiva, so I jumped out of the car and I said, 'Is there mincha now in the yeshiva?' They said, 'Yeah, there's mincha upstairs.' It was right by Shkia. I figured Lubavitcher was a good place to get a late mincha. If it's basically dark outside, I figure I still have a decent chance of getting a mincha there. So I walked in and obviously a bunch of rabbis came over to me right away, Shalom Aleichem. What's your name? Where you from? This one punk fifteen-year-old kid. I loved this kid. He was obviously the leader of the class. Obviously very funny. All the rabbis are like schmoozing, standing around, "Where you from?" "Oh, from Ramat Echemish." "What are you doing here?" Whatever. Say this one kid comes over and he goes, and he's got like the crumpled hat and like the jacket on and like disheveled, like the whole. But you can tell he's a cool kid, right? And he goes, "Are you Jewish?"

17:35 So I said, 'Yeah, I'm Jewish.' He goes, 'Did you put on tefillin today?' And obviously I've put on tefillin, and he knows that. But he's trained that when he sees a Jew, the first thing that he does is he says, 'What can I do for you?' I'm willing to stand on a street corner and ask random strangers if they put on tefillin. I'm willing to ask random girls if they want Shabbos candles. I'm willing to do this because I exist to serve another. And if you think about one of the things in our community that we should be doing better I don't know where you all came from, but you know this concept of I don't. I don't mean to rip Chas v'Shalom. I'm just going to say it because it's like on my heart. But you know this Chesed hours like fake concept. You know I'm talking about. At least some of you know what I'm talking about. Just like check the box of Chesed hours. It's not actually like a devoted life of chesed, but somebody said they should really have chesed hours. And so he asked some of the boys, 'What'd you do with chesed hours?' I don't know, I was in some nursing home on my phone.

18:34 But he checked the box on his chest. That's an actual example, by the way, that somebody told me recently. That's why. Choosing it. I was like, "What do you mean you were on your phone in a nursing home?" He was like, "I was in a room. The person was basically comatose. I was just on my phone." "It's quite a chesed you did. I'm not making fun of it in the sense that I don't think it should be part of the curriculum. I'm making fun of it in the sense of how this is not more a part of the curriculum?" Why did we say that? This thing that we're learning, which probably most of us forgot three seconds after we were in the class. How did we decide that was more important? Then people who are actually dedicating themselves to giving to another. And I'll tell you what the nafkamina is. Because then, if a girl came to us and she said, "I don't like davening," you know what the conversation would be? We would start the conversation by saying, "It's really important for you to enjoy davening. Of course it is, because if du es Hashem be simcha is a very real thing." That all the kloos that come upon Klal Yisrael come because we didn't serve Hashem.

19:33 But why is it important that we enjoy it? It's important because that's what it means to be part of a relationship. I'll tell you what I mean by this. Everybody here, Hashem, you're going to get married. Very well done, first domain of the year. Very proud of you, girls. But Hashem, we're going to work on a little bit more. That was like shvach, but we'll get there. Pretty good. That was like a seventy-five percent on that one. Ironically, I'll get an amen. I'll get a greater amen to the shidduch one than I will to the bracha. But I understand, and I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. I'm wondering why the volume of water is here. I'm trying to figure out what you're saying about me. Just in case they'll hydrate you. But also just in case it spills all over me. So it's a chas v'shalom. I agree. We have to say bli neder chas v'shalom.

20:29 All the things. I come from a very superstitious family. My grandmother. Are you sparring? My grand. But even worse is my grandparents like weren't from, so they only had like the heebie-jeebies stuff. So I had one grandmother who saw me walk over my brother one time And she was like, "It was like I was idolatrous." "Like I'm like a frum kid who's like keeping Shabbos." And she said, "What did you just do?" I was like, "What did I do?" She goes, "Walk back over." I was like, "That cannot be right. You can't like undo what you did. And she would. I was such a chutzpah kid. She would always say, Make sure that you get on the plane with your right foot." And I used to say to her. Grandma, I'm gonna jump on with both feet because two feet is better than one. And she's like, No, right foot only. Right? I was like, Very superstitious, Grandma. Anywhere I go. I'm not superstitious. I'm a little stitious, but she was superstitious.

21:21 That's a rabbi joke. Thank you very much for coming. I want you to know, you get smicha for jokes like that. But your laugh, I want you to know, I give you a bracha that years from now, when you're making corny ima jokes, I want your children to do that to you. I want your children to go, ach ima. I'm at a stage in my life. I want you to know, I get pleasure from bringing pain to people with puns. I hated puns growing up, but I reached a certain age, and I have certain children now that for me to say something and for my daughter Racheli to go like "Abastah, stop!" I'm like, "You don't like it, right?" She's like, "I hate it. I was like, "It's delicious." So I want you to know, I was that kid, Rabbi, a good one. But trust me, it's coming soon to a theater near you.

22:16 What was I saying? I was saying something. I have no idea what I was saying. About your grandmother, superstitious. Oh. Oh no, this guy was in a nursing home. So we would say this. Let's say you're married. That's what we say. Let's say you're married. Good. I appreciate you. I should know my ADHD and your sometimes focus. Between the two of us, we can get through this year. If you tell your husband, "I want you to bring out the garbage" And he does So is he a good husband? He did the right thing. You'll have to ask him. I do want to share that it's important to actually verbalize what you want to your husbands. I know that your species, for some reason, doesn't feel the need to do that. I want to share with you on behalf of your future husbands. If you tell us, we can do it. But we don't know how to read your mind, and it's very painful for us when you're upset at us and we have no idea why. On behalf of your future husbands, just tell us what you want.

23:23 As long as what you want is reasonable. Putting socks in the laundry is not a reasonable request. We can put our socks near the laundry. That's about as close as we can get. We're going to ask you to be mabatzer on that one. If your husband does everything right, but is clearly not present when he's doing it You get very frustrated. And you say you're like, "This is what women say to men." I feel like you're not here And men have no idea what to do with that statement. Does that mean you feel like I'm not here? I'm literally here. I just did the thing you want me to do. But I just feel like you're not really here. What are you saying? What are those words? But what you're saying is, I've learned this. What you're saying is, it's not so important to me that you do the right thing. What's much more important to me is that we're in a relationship. And when I see you just doing it and going through the motions, it doesn't feel like we're really participating in a relationship. Rav Moshe Weinberger, the Rav of Eish Kodesh, says the following story And it's such a powerful story. He says that a couple comes to sit down with him.

24:30 And when the couple comes to sit down with him, they're having some issues at home, and he says, "Who wants to go first?" And the wife says, "The husband says I'll go first." And the husband says, "I don't know what this girl wants from me. I do everything. I take out the garbage. I change the light bulbs. I make a good parnasah. I'm a little league coach. I do everything she wants." And the entire time that he's talking, Rovinberger describes how the wife is sitting there with her arms crossed and just shaking her head. And the husband goes, "There's nothing that I could possibly do to be enough for this woman. There's nothing I could do to please this woman." Even now, as I'm talking, she's sitting there shaking her head. And so Rov Weinberger turns to the wife and he says, 'What's going on? Sounds like he's a really good husband. And she says to Rov Weinberger You think I married him to take out the garbage? You think I married him to change a light bulb? I didn't marry him even to make a parnasa. I married him because of the way that he looked at me under the chuppah.

25:19 And when's the last time that he looked at me that way? We're not here for our own enjoyment. We're here because enjoyment is the litmus test of whether or not you're participating in a relationship. Coming to your rebbeim, to your teachers, to your mechanchol yirakazod and saying I don't like davening Doesn't mean you don't daven. I got to take out the garbage whether I want to take out the garbage or not. I have to show up for davening because I'm part of something larger than myself. We're part of a community, right? We're part of something bigger. It's not just loyalty to the community, it's loyalty to Hashem. I'm here in this world to serve Hashem. If I'm not enjoying it, you're coming to your teachers and you're saying something is obviously not working in this relationship because I'm not feeling connected. Help me feel connected so that I can serve Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Isn't that a much more inspiring way of living life?

26:09 It's much less inspiring for a teacher to get up there and go, 'You're going to love davening when you learn what davening really is.' That might be true, but the point is not your loving davening. The point is your relationship with Hashem, and the love is the litmus test. That's a much higher level of education. The conversation between Rabbi Yosua ben Chananya and the sages of Athens was as follows: They said, "Let's talk about a relationship." There's a girl you want to marry. This is code for our relationship with Hashem. And you try to go to the lower family and the lower family rejects you. You try to go to a lower person and you try to say to them, here's why Judaism is awesome for you. And it doesn't work; they're not interested. So now you're going to start talking to them about the soul. You're going to start talking to them about responsibility, about grit, about perseverance, about loyalty. If you couldn't sell happiness, what's the chance you're going to be able to sell?

27:07 The higher level thing Shervi Yeshua Ben Chananyah says to them, 'No! It's exactly the opposite.' He takes a peg, and he goes, 'You want to see how you make a dent? You want to see how you can get the peg to stick? You put it in the lower half. It doesn't work. People don't want to hear the lower thing. We are capable—not only capable—we want deeply for somebody to challenge us and say, 'Live a higher order life.' That's what we want. That's what everybody in this room wants. You want to walk out of this year, and you want to know not what Judaism can do for you, but what you can do for Hashem, what you can do for Klal Yisrael.' And that sticks. Rabbi Yeshua Ben Chananya takes the bag and he puts it in the wall. It works. He says, "Look, the low order thing doesn't work. The higher order thing works. You go to the lower family, it doesn't work." But if it doesn't work by the lower family, go to the higher family. There are people that say you have to get up. Certain type of rabbi. They get up and they're like, "I can't say anything to my congregants because they're always going to get upset at me." So what does he speak about? He speaks about whatever's happening in the news that week.

28:08 But he doesn't actually challenge them. He doesn't say to them, 'Come on, let's serve Hashem. Let's be bigger than ourselves.' He doesn't want to say that because he's afraid of what's going to happen. But Yeshua Ben Chanania is saying, 'Don't do that.' Speak to people's souls. Speak to the higher thing. Challenge them. Anything you've done great in your life, it's because there was a challenge and you rose to the occasion. Nobody ever felt good about anything they've done that came easy. Remember the test that you were really committed to. I'm studying. Remember in the beginning of the year when you got that notebook and you're like, okay, this year I'm actually taking notes, and it lasted maybe for a couple of weeks. And that first test you aced, and you did it really well, and you felt awesome about it because you rose to the occasion and then you actually did it. It doesn't feel good to cheat on a test. You might want the results of cheating, right? But it doesn't feel good to cheat on a test because, at the end of the day, you didn't actually work hard for anything. You didn't become anything. Nobody wants that.

29:03 What does Moshe Rabbeinu say? Hazinu hashamayim v'adaberah v'tishmah aretzim refi. Rashi says Amira is gentle. Amira is a very nice type of speech. It's very calm. Amira is like look We're going to give you the happiness. If you're speaking to the arzios, if you're speaking to the material person, you're going to sell them on the low stuff. But what does Moshe Rabbeinu say? Hazinu hashamayim va'ada beira. Amira is for lower level things. But if you want to speak to a person's soul, if you want to speak to the shamayim, if you want to speak to the spirituality, you have to be willing to have dibur. Dibur, as opposed to amira, dibur is not nice. It's not like. It's not nice, but Amira's gentle. Dibor is right to the core. You ever have a rebbe who finally said something and you knew it was not what you wanted to hear, but you knew it was true.

30:01 You know what I'm saying? Like, like no sugarcoating, just like straight for the jugular. Like, let's just be honest. I was hoping for that. I was hoping for it. I was hoping that I would have a rebbe in high school that would just sit me down and not in a chasvashol, but just straight sit me down and go, "What are you doing with your life, man?" Like, is this what you want to be? I remember I was at an NCSY Shabbaton and there was a guy that had come back from Eretz Yisrael. I knew that before Eretz Yisrael he was this great basketball player and I knew that he was like a big ladies' man and like everybody loved him. I never knew him because he was like a couple years older than me. But I went on an NCSY Shabbaton when I was in high school and here was this guy, newly flipped out back from Israel. He was on this NCSY Shabbaton as a madrich and all of a sudden he was like frum and cool. I kept hanging out with him all Shabbos because I was hoping that at some point over Shabbos he was going to put his arm around my shoulder and go

30:54 "Come on, man, you could do more than this." And all Shabbos long, I gave him every chance, and he probably didn't even realize I was giving him this chance because I didn't verbalize it. I just was hoping in my heart. And he never did it. And I remember I walked away from that Shabbos thinking, "What a missed opportunity!" What a missed opportunity! By the way, years later I told him He lives in Israel. The guy has a massive talmud chacham, a beautiful family. He's the real deal. Years later, I ran into him. I said, "I want you to know, I was waiting on that Shabbos. I was waiting for you to just say it to me real, say it to me true." Sometimes before Yom Kippur We have to be hazino ashamayim v'adaberu. Sometimes we have to say to a person, "Let's get real." Is this the life you want? You came here to Yerushalayim Yerakodesh this year.

31:41 Every one of us came with hopes and dreams, expectations and aspirations. Are you doing it? You've been here a couple weeks already. Remember the things you promised yourself you weren't going to do when you got here—you've already done them. There was a guy who said to me last week, great guy. He said, "I promised myself I was never going to leave yeshiva, and I've already left like a zillion times." So he invited me to say it, so I did. I said, "How's that working out for you?" He goes, "Not well." I said, "Maybe it's time to recommit. Maybe it's time to say, I'm going to be more present in yeshiva." You have all these things you want to accomplish this year. Are we speaking to your lower self, or are we speaking to your higher self? It's Yom Kippur. That's serious business. I don't mean to say that it's scary, because I'll say that it's the happiest day of the year, along with Tu B'Av. It's a day of a relationship with Hashem. We don't eat, we don't drink, we don't wear leather shoes. We don't want there to be any separation between us and God, because we want to connect to God with all of our hearts and all of our souls. Are we setting the bar high, or are we pandering to our lowest common denominator?

32:45 If you want to have a real Yom Kippur, maybe it's time to have a zino hashamayim ba adaberah. If you want to live on a shamayim level, maybe it's time to get honest. Maybe it's time to say, 'Give it to me straight.' And really, the only people that can give it to us straight is ourselves. And that doesn't mean that you have a critical voice that knocks you down, Chassid Shalom. And maybe it's an honest voice. Maybe it's a voice that says, 'Okay, this is what I hope to accomplish this year, and this is how I'm going to make it actionable because it's time to get real.' Blessed Hashem, it should be a tremendous Yom Kippur for all of us. It should be Yom Kippur of Kapara and Mechila, and we should be Zeicher to a Gemar Chassim a Tav and a good Geben Sh'ti.