Hashkafa - To Live is to Give

2:22 Does that make sense? So there is only one answer to this question. The answer is that life, by its definition, means to give. If life is given to you, that's not accidental. The nature of life is that it comes from giving. If God gave us life, it's not just that in order for us to get it, God had to give it. If God gives us life, then what does that tell us about the nature of life? The nature of life is that life is given. If life is given and you have it, then what are you supposed to do with it? Give it. Does that make sense? So when people speak about self-love There's no such term. Self-love doesn't even make any sense. If you have love, what are you meant to do with it? Give it. Love is meant to be used to love another.

3:25 Of course, the baseline is that you're loving from within yourself. That's obvious. What happens today is that people are corrupting the notion of life, which we'll get to in a moment. So when you give your life to another, what's the feeling that you have? The feeling that you have is the vitality of your life is increased. It's coming from Hashem's front. I want to explain what it means: Hashem's front and Hashem's back. Whenever we care about someone We face them. Whenever we don't care about someone, we turn our backs to them. For example Let's say someone is giving you a gift. If someone's giving you a gift and they just toss it over their shoulder to you Why is that uncomfortable? Why doesn't that feel so good? It's not socially normal. I agree. Because the way we communicate that we care about someone, that they are not just necessary but also important, is by facing them.

4:39 When something is necessary but ultimately unimportant Then we show them our backs. For example How do you receive a package? Someone knocks on your door. You come to your door. You see a package on the floor, and the UPS guy is already walking away. You see his back. Why do you see his back? Because the relationship between you and the UPS guy is necessary, but ultimately unimportant. He's just a vehicle to deliver the package. If the UPS guy knocks on your door and you open the door and he gazes into your eyes as he delivers the package What do you feel? The look on many of your faces is telling me you're deeply uncomfortable. Because our relationship should only be limited to what's necessary, but ultimately this relationship is unimportant. When a person gives their life to another The feeling they have is, 'I'm not just necessary; my life is important.'

5:52 Hashem's vitality that He instills into us is the feeling that we have. I'm doing something important with my life. I'll give you an example of what this looks like. Here's another word for vitality: life force. Let's say I ask you to paint my house. I ask you to paint. Let's say we'll say I ask you to paint this room. We'll make it easy. I ask you to paint this room. I tell you I'm going to give you a hundred dollars for painting this room. And you do. At the end of the job, you come into my office, and there's a crisp one hundred dollar bill. But you sit down, and I say to you I want you to know I really appreciate the job that you did. I went into the room where you painted, and I noticed very specifically that the corners are perfect.

6:39 Really, there's not one inch of blue on the ceiling. You really did it perfectly, and I noticed the way you did the corners. I even noticed that there was a hole that you gave a double coating to make sure that the shadow of the old hole wouldn't be seen. It's an interesting thing. What do you feel better about? Do you feel better about the money, or do you feel better about the compliment? There's something about the compliment that drives us. It's like if you were ever a camp counselor, at the end of the summer Two people give you a tip. One person gives you a bigger tip. The other person sends a really nice, thoughtful letter about how much you meant to their son or daughter. It's interesting. The letter means more than the money. The truth of the matter is, we don't work for money. Money is what allows us to give. Money is what. Since now I don't have to worry about food because you've given me money, I could buy food. Now I get to use my life to do what was actually meant to do, which was to give.

7:36 And when we have the recognition of what we gave, it's worth more than the money that we got. Does that make sense? So far, so good. What do you mean by when you say like when a person gives like? Anything really, but let's say the feeling we have after a hard day of work, giving ourselves to another. For example, it could be a mother who sat and listened to her daughter and didn't say a word, but just sat and listened for an hour. That could be draining. But it's an interesting thing. As draining as it is, at the end of the day, there's a certain sense of accomplishment, a certain sense of natural importance. That we all feel around that day. It's like you know, that was a good day. I didn't just work hard. I really gave myself Right? And when we do that, what we want, and this not bad. This not chasing after covet. What we want is an appreciation that we gave ourselves to another.

8:38 Does that make sense? What's the opposite of this? And this is where it gets good. The opposite of this is when we use life the wrong way. Like anything in life, life has a specific usage. For example Imagine you tried to use a vacuum cleaner as a baseball bat. You could do it, right? It's just not the right design. It doesn't mean it won't work. It just doesn't feel right. A baseball bat is designed to be a baseball bat. A vacuum cleaner is designed to be a vacuum cleaner. The design of life is to give. That's why life is given. What happens when we're selfish? What happens when we're arrogant? What happens when we start our days in a posture of taking? What I'm really saying is, what happens to a generation that talks more about self-care and self-love than they do about caring and loving another?

9:40 What will happen? Let's go back to what the Alter Rebbe said. This is a very deep idea. The life force, the vitality that you get, comes from where? It comes from Achorayim, the kedusha. Of course, God still gives you life. But what's the feeling of life that you get? The Alter Rebbe explains, you feel a diminished sense of life. It's an amazing thing. We're looking at a generation of people, even though the Alter Rebbe taught this many, many generations ago. We're seeing it playing out in two thousand twenty-four. We see a generation of people that are spending their time consuming And we wonder why these people feel so lifeless. Isn't that what we're seeing in today's day and age? People that are pusha lifeless. What does it look like if I have less life? I feel depressed. I feel anxious. I feel the need for addiction to numb my pain.

10:42 Why do you feel the need to do that? I'm not talking about chemical addiction. I'm talking about American addiction. You know what I mean? I'm talking about chemical depression. I'm talking about American depression. If you use life wrong, you literally get less of it. But it's mida kinege and mida. Because if life is meant to give and God gives you life and then you use that life to consume and you use that life to take, what do you get less of? You get less life. This is a very subtle but very important point. If you give life, then what happens? You receive life. God acts as we act. So God says, "I'll give you life. It's not yours. It's mine." The design of it is to give. Go give it. What do we do? Either we give it, and then the feeling is expansive. The feeling is amazing. The feeling is accomplished. And guess what? We get more life. So people who give life ultimately are happier people.

11:45 People who give life are less depressed. People who give life—they're amazing to be around. They have energy. They're alive. Do you ever meet people that are not alive? They're not alive. They're just not alive. You talk to them. They're not alive. I'm not here to bash phones, girls. It's not like my thing to just bash technology. But why do you think people have this need to just numb out on their phones and watch Netflix for all these hours? You ever meet someone like that? They're unpleasant to be around. Nobody wants to be around somebody who has nothing to talk about. You want to be around people that are having a great time, going out, we're making a matzav, something is happening. When we talk about people who consume life, they get less of it. That's why they get less of it. Because they've used life in a way that it's not meant to be used. They consumed it. If you consume it, then God acts as you act. You get less of it.

12:42 So as we look around, this is why this is such a subtle but such an important topic. Every one of us in this room wants to feel alive. If I ask you, what's your goal? What do you want in life? You don't realize you probably wouldn't say it like this, but basically, all of us want to feel alive. This, and we hear this all the time. People go, what's my mission in life? What's that question? What's my mission in life? What are you really asking when you say, "What's my mission?" Say, what am I here for? What am I? How am I meant to be giving? Which part of you told you to ask that question? That's the life force that's coming into you from Hashem. That's saying, if you're here, you're here to do something. If you take the energy that's supposed to be used to do something and you say, 'I'm going to consume that energy,' you feel like you have less of it.

13:30 And here's the other thing you feel: you feel like the energy that you do have is exiled. What does exile mean? And that relates to this week's parsha: to be exiled. Means to not belong. That's what it means to be exiled. I'm supposed to be here, but I was exiled to a different land. So the Jews are supposed to be in Eretz Yisrael. That's the land that God gave to the Jews. What happens when a Jew goes down to Mitzrayim? What's the feeling that the Jew has in Mitzrayim? It's not my place. It doesn't feel like I can be my full self here. That's what anti-Semitism does. Anti-Semitism tells us you better watch out. You're not truly welcome here. You never know when you're going to be expelled, or murdered, or tortured, or have your property destroyed. Why is it so deeply uncomfortable for us, even when we see videos of Palestinian marches happening in Teneck, New Jersey?

14:34 Because the feeling we had in Teaneck was I belong here, it's okay for me to be in Teaneck. And then when they specifically marched down the street in Teaneck, New Jersey, what are they saying? Don't feel comfortable here. You don't belong here. So the feeling of being exiled is it doesn't feel right for me to be here. This is the amazing part. This is what the Alter Rebbe is teaching. You don't have to raise your hand. But did you ever feel really uncomfortable in life? Not just like uncomfortable because you were in the wrong camp or in the wrong sin. I'm talking about. Did life ever feel uncomfortable? Did it ever feel like it's almost too much to bear? It's just like I don't feel like I belong here anymore. It's a very deep expression of pain. People literally say this. They'll go like I don't know what I'm doing in this world.

15:31 Guys in yeshiva, they come to yeshiva. They go, I just don't know what I'm doing in yeshiva. I feel like. Just wasting my time. It doesn't feel right. I don't feel connected to anything. It's a terrible feeling when life becomes so diminished that not only do you get less of it, but whatever you do get, it doesn't even feel like it's in the right place. There's a reason for that Because why were you created? You were created to give. If you don't give Maybe you shouldn't have been created. That's the feeling we have. If I'm designed to give and I'm not giving, the feeling we have is maybe I shouldn't have been created. Almost like I'm in this world, but I'm exiled in this world. So there's a feeling of discomfort, a deep feeling of discomfort that comes along with creation. Because if we give, we feel totally comfortable in creation. Our creation is justified, it makes sense. I'm doing it the right way. It's the way it's supposed to be.

16:39 But when I'm not giving I'm asking myself, "What am I doing here?" So, what's an example of this in the Chumash? Rachel Imenu said, "V'imayin mesa aneichi." If I can't have children, it's like I'm dead. Why was she saying that? Because what does it mean for a Jewish mother to give? It means I need to have children. I need to give my life to another, and especially for a woman who is literally the creator of life, life forms inside of her. If she can't give her life to another, then what's the point of being in existence at all? So we come into this world to give. What does it mean to be in exile? What does it mean to lose yourself? It means you're not giving; you're taking; you're consuming life. Does that make sense? Questions, comments, reactions. I have two things. But one is you said something. I don't know if I got it wrong, but you said we want appreciation that we give to another.

17:46 Not that we're chasing cover But when we give And we really give of ourselves. And someone gives of themselves and takes the time to recognize that we gave It feels better than just getting the money. But does that show more that we're giving for giving not to give? So that's a great one. If I'm only giving in order to receive the recognition Then I'm not really giving. Or I shouldn't say. Maybe I'll scale that back a little bit. It's not the highest level of giving. So how much? It's an exact balance here. How much life force do you get? It depends on how much you give. So if you give in order to receive, remember you're not going to get as much life as you would if you were giving altruistically. So the more life you give, and the higher level you give it at, the more life you'll get. We're all human beings. We all have an aspect of ourselves that wants, perhaps needs and craves the attention and the recognition. To the degree that we can go, I'm doing a good thing because it's a good thing. I'm doing the right thing because it's the right thing. I wake up with a sense of mission and giving because that's who I am. The antidote to a lot of these problems is like I can't get out of bed.

19:12 I'm so depressed. The answer to that question is I'm not. I keep saying it because I don't want anyone Chassid Shalom to think. Obviously, depression is very real, and obviously, people are suffering tremendously. I'm talking about more the American depression. When that person gets out of bed and has a life. The depression starts to go down. So much of the problem is that they're caught in that endless loop But I have no life force And I don't feel right in this world, and I don't feel safe or comfortable in this world. I don't feel like there's a place for me to be. Of course not, because whatever life you've been given, what have you done with it? But if you take that person, for example I see this every year in yeshiva. You have guys that come to yeshiva, and in yeshiva they're okay. I wouldn't say that they're on fire. I wouldn't say that they're alive. They're okay.

20:04 And then they go to camp for the summer. Eight weeks in camp, and they come back shonabet, and you're talking about a different human being. And he's more alive, and he's smiling and he's happy, and you see his davening is different. What changed? The answer is he spent his summer giving to a degree that he never thought possible. So here you have a kid who's never done an uncomfortable thing in his life. His parents bought him a car at 16 years old. He's got every creature comfort. He's been to the finest camps, the finest yeshivas. He has everything he could need. And now he needs to change the diaper of a special needs person. This kid has never done anything remotely close to that. The notion, the thought of doing it nauseates him. But he goes ahead and he does it, and he becomes accustomed to it. And now, an interesting thing happens: the need of the special needs person becomes more important to him than his own need.

21:04 And it's like, I was exhausted. It was three o'clock in the morning, but they woke up, and I had to take him to the nurse, and we had to get him to the infirmary. It's like this kid has never put another human being above him in his life. And now all he's doing, and you see something. All of a sudden, they feel more comfortable, more confident. They're more alive. You look at a guy in yeshivah at eighteen years old; he could be one way. Look at him again when he's twenty-seven. Now he has a wife, he has kids, he has a job, he has responsibilities. He's giving his life to somebody else. You see, all of a sudden, that guy at eighteen years old who wasn't confident at all now he's like a totally different human being. This is always the challenge in dating, because girls date a guy and they go. He's not like it doesn't seem like he's alive. He's like, where's the oomf? Where's the fire? Give it a little bit of time. You see what happens? That guy eventually will get married, and all of a sudden he comes out of his shell. All of a sudden he's got confidence, and not too much arrogance. I'm talking about like he just stands a little taller, right?

22:02 What's the pshat? So it's always the joke is that someone married him, so finally somebody told him that you're worthy, that you're good. So a girl told him that, and he's like, maybe I am. It's not the marriage thing. It's the fact that now he has the opportunity to give to another. And that somebody's given themselves to him. Giving builds life. This is not your average shmuze. I want to be clear. This is not like you know, like a hava is from lashon hav. Hav means to give, so giving is love. That's not what I'm saying. It's much more sophisticated than that. Giving is embedded in life itself. If you don't give, don't be shocked when your life force diminishes. You ever have a day where you just spend the entire day watching Netflix? You have to raise your hand. You ever have a day where you completely vegged out and did nothing? Didn't even get up in the morning. You ever have a day like that? How do you feel at the end of that day?

22:52 You feel sick, no? You ever get a headache at the end of the day where you're like, I gotta go to sleep because I had a headache from doing nothing all day. I just sat in front of the screen. I remember there were days when I was a kid. I liked playing video games. Girls, do you ever play video games? Girls probably never play. You play video games, yeah? Yeah. Talking. You know where you get a callus on your thumb, your thumb starts to like. You know what I'm talking about? Like your thumb starts. And it's uncomfortable. I remember being on a Sunday afternoon, around four o'clock in the afternoon. I had played. I was maybe ten or eleven years old, and I had played Super Mario Brothers for eight hours. At the end of eight hours, you just feel like ugh. It's very crazy to compare that to running around helping people all day. It's crazy. You could, at the end of a day of running around helping people, what do you feel? Amazing. At the end of the day doing nothing, you know what you feel? Schleppy.

23:47 It's the catch twenty two. That was your first question. What was your second question? You like you're talking a lot about how the inside life is giving and everything that what if somebody's actually not capable to give. Do it given a different way, how is that they're not capable? I'd be curious what you mean by that. You mean they're not capable because they're like a special needs person, or because they feel so debilitated that they can't give. I don't know. You can take either, but my version of it is okay. So let's deal with that one because that's easier. Haskafically, the other one presents a lot of interesting opportunities for conversation. Let's deal with the other one, where someone is just so debilitated that they feel like they have nothing left to give. Again, if we follow the hashkafic math equation here. If they're alive, what does that mean? If you have life, and life is literally given, and embedded within life is giving, then what do they have?

24:47 They have the capacity to give. And they may not have the capacity to give much because that life force has been deteriorated. But if they're here, they can give. And the more that they give, the more that they'll receive life itself. So for those people, what we need to do is we need to say, let's start small. Let's get out of bed. Let's do something. What do we want to do today? Something as simple as today we're going to visit people in a nursing home. They may feel like I can't do it for more than ten minutes. But if you do it for ten minutes, what starts to happen? I'm worth something. My life is worth something. I do belong here. It's just a question of finding the right cause, finding the right spark, finding the right kivun. This is the giving that speaks to their soul.

25:38 Because it has to be purposeful. The whole purpose is to give. By the way, even getting up and davening in the morning and learning Torah, you're giving to Hashem. Hashem has brought you into this world, and He said, "Build for Me a world that is kadosh. Build for Me a world where I will feel comfortable." Every time we daven, we're in a posture of giving. We're making the world a more godly place for Him. Understand? Every time we learn Torah, we're doing that. We're making the world a more godly place for Him. Every time we do Chesed, by definition, everything that we're doing in this world—if we're doing a mitzvah—it's for something larger than ourselves. Yeah. I don't know if this is a point. But something that was frustrating me a bit is that when we're equating or even relating God's giving to our giving, so diff like from us at least, so many people have such a hard time giving, and it takes something from us. But I'm making a point. You're doing great.

26:42 I'm saying with Hashem, there's like endless gift. It's just not the same. Because sometimes we give and we feel drained. And. It's like they'll say the muscle of a candle, right? A candle can illuminate a million other candles without it being diminished. And that's the nature of the flame. What happens is that God is perfect, and so God can give infinitely. And we are not perfect But we have a part of ourselves that is from Him, and that's called the godly soul. We have another part of ourselves that's called the nefesh of ahametz. An animal soul. And so what happens is the godly soul—the design of it is to give, but the animal soul is often in survival mode because the animal soul is what brings you into this world. It's what gives you life force in this world. So the thing about the animal soul is that when we give, the animal soul gets triggered.

27:45 It's like if you give that away, what are you going to have for yourself? The animal soul will tell you, 'Give in order to receive.' Make that big donation and make it anonymously, then tell everybody that you're anonymous. This way, you'll get the credit for being the anonymous donation. So This is where it gets tricky. Because your godly soul can give infinitely, just like Hashem. Because it's godly. It's literally a chelak elokamimah. It's from Him. So it has the capacity to light a million flames. But we're not all godly; we're also human, and that part of ourselves is what holds us back from giving more. So here's the way it goes. Refreyfeld, when he met the Chazonish, girls know who Refreyfeld was. Refreyfeld was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Shoyashiv, and he was very big tzaddik. He was a tremendous educator, and he was a tremendous leader of Klal Yisrael before he passed away.

28:46 And Refreyfeld was sent by his Rebbe, Reb Huttner, to go to Eretz Yisrael. And when he was in Eretz Yisrael, he met the Chazon Ish. And he wrote in his diary after he met the Chazon Ish, a gadol is a circle. The bigger the gadol, the larger the circle, the more people he encompasses. The Chazon Ish was so large that he encompassed so many people. And so the more humble we are The more in touch with our godly soul, the more we're able to give. The more we're stuck in survival mode, the more giving feels debilitating. So I'll give you an example of this. Last night in Mevaseret, we had the very special privilege of hosting Rav Daniel Kalish. He was the Menahel of Waterbury. And he landed yesterday. I think his flight landed at six, and then he went to Shalvim to speak there first, and then he came to Mevaseret at ten thirty at night.

29:42 And hundreds of talmidim from all over the place came to see their Rebbe. Guys from all different types of yeshivas, some who were connected to Rav Kalish, some who weren't connected to Rav Kalish. When you think about the two hundred plus Mavaseret guys, and at least another two hundred guys in the room, the beis medrash was packed. Four hundred people came out to see Rav Kalish, easily four hundred. Was he the Menahel of Waterbury? So what was amazing? I'll tell you what was amazing. He stayed in the Mavaseret until one o'clock in the morning. He had just landed at six. He had already given two shiurim. First of all, any guy that came to say shalom aleichem gave them real attention. Usually you just do a shalom aleichem. He gave real attention to every single person. And then there were people that wanted to speak with him, and he literally, if they didn't pull him away in his talmidim, were like Rebbe, he giasman. We have to go. Otherwise, you're never going to go to sleep. I'm telling you that if they didn't pull him out of the base mentorship, he would have been there till vasiska.

30:42 What's the pshat? What's the pshat in that? Some people can get off a plane and just go give. I'm here. The talmidim are here. I just want to spend time with them. And other people like myself, we get off a plane and we're like, I just need to crash. I can speak to you soon, but I need to take some time for myself first. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with crashing and taking some time for yourself first. I'm afraid that some people are going to walk out of this room and go, R'berg doesn't believe in self-care and you have to just give and give until you drop. That's not what I'm saying at all. You have to know who you are. But I think the reason that Rabbi Kalish is able to do what he does is because he's so in touch with the part of him that's naturally giving that it doesn't feel debilitating to give. And for some of us, giving feels so uncomfortable, not because it's not the design of life, but because the other part of us is in survival mode. When we give, it becomes afraid.

31:33 It's like you're giving so much to others. When are you going to fill yourself up? Is that something to work towards? The thing about giving is that it's circular. The more you do it, the more you do it. So there are people that literally, and we see these people, and not everybody's like this, but let's say we see these people and we're blown away by how much they give. So let's say for example Again, I shouldn't say specific people, but I'm just thinking of people that are like famous. Rabbi Scholar, who is the head of Chai Lifeline. Your girls know what Chai Lifeline is. Everyone knows what Chai Lifeline is. Could you imagine what Rabbi Scholar's day is like? You imagine how much he's giving in any given day. That is, it's inspiring. When we hear of somebody who gives their life to Klal Yisrael, isn't it inspiring? In fact, it's like when you hear of these stories, let's say there's this guy going around. His father, Alav Hashem, passed away. His son is going around. He's like the biggest baches in Eretz Yisrael throughout the entire war. I'm sure you've seen videos of this guy, Shai, going around doing all these amazing things. That's Dedi's son, right? Why are we inspired by that?

32:48 It's not an inspirational shear. Why are we so inspired when we see someone give? Because it touches the core of life itself. The more you give, the more you are inspired to give. So, of course, it's something that we should be aspiring to. Here's the good news: in your life as a Jew, you will naturally be giving a tremendous amount without even thinking about it. So you wake up in the morning to daven. You're giving to Hashem. You're making the world a more godly place. You make breakfast for your children. You pack their bags for lunch. You send them off with a kiss and a smile. That's a tremendous amount of giving. Then you go to work in order to support your family, and in your job, you're giving a tremendous amount to the people around you. You show up ready to work, ready to be a team player. You come home at the end of the day, and what do you do? You're making dinner for your kids, you're doing homework with your kids. Your husband walks in the door, you greet him with a smile, even though you yourself have had a long and exhausting day.

33:41 Do you realize how much natural giving is in our day? It's unbelievable. You say Tehillim for the soldiers, right? You're in a posture of giving. So the good news is You don't have to work hard to find areas to give. You just have to become conscious of the fact that you're giving and give intentionally. So that's what's key here, because you're giving anyway. You may as well do it with intent. You may as well say, "Hinani mucho mizum ala kaiyem mitzvahs are giving," because if you do it with intent, what happens? Now I'm changing because of it. I'm realizing, I'm connected to life itself. This is an amazing antidote to all the things that we're struggling with. And it's not kitschy. Make sense? Questions, comments, reactions. Five, four, three, two, one. Clear? Less of a question, more of a clarification. When we all have a specific job in the world So which is some form of giving.

34:49 So we find what way of giving makes us the most satisfied. I would have just ended. You said it perfect until the end. I would just change the ending a little bit. We find the form of giving that feels most authentically us Because we're not searching for the satisfaction. For example, if you said to me, Revberg, your job in this life. Is to be. I know what job I can take. Your job in this life is to work with Work with dogs and bring those dogs to girls in seminary so they can pet them. So that they can feel emotional. They're like emotional health dogs. What's the name of that? Emotional support dogs. Rumburg, you're gonna run a clinic for emotional support dogs, and we're gonna bring puppies around to different places, obviously out of the way of other people, and we're going to all relate to those emotional support dogs. I'll be honest with you, I don't think I'd be very inspired to do that job.

35:58 That man was so happy. That's exactly right. So obsessed with his job. But for that guy Something about him, something about his unique soul. When he wakes up in the morning, he goes, "You know what I'm going to do today?" I'm going to help people really get in touch with their true self. By sitting on the lawn and just playing with those puppies, I totally respect that. It's just not my way of giving. But other people have different ways of giving, and those are great. So what you have to do is find your way of giving, and I'm betting that you already experienced at least a little bit of it. I'm betting that in your life, as you think about some of the experiences that you had. Ask yourself, what are the experiences that made you feel most alive? That they were most uniquely me.

36:48 And then see what was the spark of giving that was in those things. And if you want to know what your mission is, that's a great way of discovering your mission, because I like, for example, for me, so much of the reason that I went into Chinuch is because I was a camp counselor. For kids who had intense behavioral issues And so we spent. I know it was preparing myself for my future career in cheder, but let's say, for example, these two summers that I worked in a program called Lij. So the ratio of counselor to camper was two to one, two campers for every one counselor, because the kids had such intense behavioral issues. Off the charts behavioral issues that if you had a four to one ratio, those kids would run all over you. There was one young man who suffered from something called oppositional defiant disorder.

37:48 Which means that he will do the exact opposite of whatever you tell him to do. My favorite moment with this young man, who I love dearly, hasn't heard from him in years, but he will always have a special place in my heart. These kids were anywhere from seven years old to thirteen years old, and they were in two different bunks. This thirteen-year-old boy Tal, we had picture day. Picture day in camp. They give you a thing, like a sign to hold, and you sit on a bench. We're all there. It's all the counselors and all the campers, and all of a sudden, this woman Andrea Hershkov, who was the photographer, says, "Okay, everybody, pay attention. Here we go." And Tal, I hear him under his breath go, "One." Two and I'm like And he goes three And every camper ran in different directions. He had organized with the entire bunk that as soon as he said three, everyone would chase off in different directions.

38:45 And it was such a tall thing to do because all we said was now we're going to take pictures and in his head he said no we're not. I want you to know those summers were so intense. Every other counselor gets to show up when the campers show up. We have to be there before the campers show up because they can't be in camp by themselves. So if the first camper rolls into camp at eight, we need to be there at eight because if they're by themselves, they will destroy the camp. And then when every other camper gets to go home, they get on the bus at three thirty. We have a meeting with the therapists every single night. So it was sometimes one, often three or four therapists that we'd be meeting with every single day to track their behavior. And all day long, this is not like being a counselor. All day long, you're working like a dog because in this specific program, any action that a child did had a points consequence.

39:44 For example, a kid had great sportsmanship. You would go, and there was a specific number of points you had to memorize, and you started calling out points in your sleep. So it was amazing. You would be plus twenty five for great sportsmanship, and one of the counselors had a clipboard, and he would mark it off. And it was an amazing program because you were actually able to track the kids' progress, and they got rewards for their progress. And it was in fifteen-minute intervals, so you'd be able to track when their meds were wearing off. It was amazing. Of course, if they did the wrong thing, it could be negative twenty-five or a negative fifty or a negative ten. So you're constantly on. And then when it came to sports These kids, a lot of these kids had tough lives. They've been told by the system that they're bad and that they're wrong. So when it came to sports, the counselors, and we always had the most amazing counselors in our bunk because it was the hardest job. But the counselors would go nuts because we had to make it the most gishmak, like the most gishmak game ever. And so, especially if it was leagues, our bunk would play against other bunks, and we made these kids unbelievable. We called ourselves the River Dogs. We everyone was like walking around barking like we're the Riverdolls.

40:50 He'd show up and all these other kids are so intimidated. The coolest counselors are there, jumping and pumping up the kids like crazy. And every time one of them gets on base, we'd go crazy. Every counselor would go crazy, and that would create an excitement. And the kids would do well. We ended up winning the championship. And other kids felt that was very inappropriate. It's not fair. They have the best counselors. They're making the biggest matzim. We made it awesome. At the end of the day, we were bonkers, exhausted. I probably went into Chenoch because of those two summers. No better feeling. It was called now it's called the Diamond Summer Program, but back then it was called Lij. It was run through Lij Hospital. It was a Bill Pelham behavior modification program being run in an Orthodox camp. It was an incredible thing. Richie Altiby was now the principal of Hal, but it was his innovation, and it was run by a woman whose name was Dr. Mary Courtney, who was a top, top, top psychologist in her field. And it was an amazing program, but what's more amazing is I'm not the only one that went into chinuch from that program. In fact, almost every single one of us who was a counselor in that bunk went into some form of chinuch or psychology.

41:54 And most of us are in chinuch. I think it's because at the end of the summer you just felt like that was the best thing you ever did. It's the feeling that you're not even chasing. It's not for your own satisfaction. It's so natural for you that you can't see yourself doing anything else. There girls. There was at some point a girls one, but I don't know if it ever made it. But that's not the point. The point is, you'll find your one. I'm just saying. For me, that was my one. But I see so many guys that I'm telling you—they come out of Hask. They're different people. They work in Camp Simcha in the summer with High Lifeline. They're different people. Everyone will find their way to give. This is a simple equation. If you want to feel alive. Give to somebody else. Don't tell me that you don't have opportunities right now to be giving to each other.

42:43 Every one of you has opportunities to be giving to each other. Just have to start thinking creatively, and small acts of kindness will have tremendous impact on yourself, on your own vitality. How good would you feel if there's one person who's still missing who hasn't come back yet? You're the last one. But there's one. You said there's one more. Good. So here's a good act of giving. What are we doing to make her feel comfortable? Who's just reaching out to her? A one sentence text, just one sentence WhatsApp, or a little voice note says, 'Just want you to know, you came up and shared today that you weren't able to be here, and you really missed.' Wait, only one person can text? Because if you all do that, then obviously. The opportunities for giving are all over the place. You just have to pay attention to them.