How To Truly Live With An Ayin Tova

3:04 People just don't see. You could walk around today in Eretz Israel, and it's being built like you can't imagine. I used to have when I first moved to Eretz Israel. I was so excited. I moved from Farakway. I lived in the ghetto in Farakway. I didn't exactly have the most choshav neighbors. I had neighbors that reminded me of the value of growing up with a Jewish education in a Jewish home. We were mamish out like in the furthest point of where Jews lived in Farakway. I was so excited to come to Eretz Israel. And we moved into an apartment where we had rolling hills. Mamish rolling hills off of Armir Peset. There was nothing; sheep literally were grazing in our backyard. It was the most incredible thing. We moved into our apartment. I walked down at Armir Peset. I said to my wife, "Sheep. It's like this is what you dream of." I grew up in the five towns. This is what you dream of: sheep in your backyard, sheep in a mikvah. There was a mayan there, and several chassidim used to go to mikvah every Friday. And then when they realized we moved in, Baruch Hashem, they stopped going to mikvah because it was a little uncomfortable to go out onto the merpeset on Shabbos.

4:08 But today, I don't have rolling hills anymore. They built Ramat Beit Shemesh Gimel, massive buildings and homes. They're building a mall in Eppikah where there used to be sheep. So initially, my feeling was very frustrated. You took away my sheep. That's what I wanted. Now my backyard. I look out. What do I see? I see a mall. We have to remind ourselves that every brick that's built in Eretz Yisrael, this is one step closer to Binyan Adiyah. This is one step closer to Mashiach. But we have no eyes to see it. So how do we develop eyesight? That's the topic of tonight's shiur. How do we see the world in a beautiful way? Because you should know, if you want the biggest tip for all relationships, it's so much just about having an eye in Tova. Everyone today is suffering from this like negativity that we have and that they feel is being projected onto them. I was talking to parents, wonderful, beautiful, the sweetest parents in the world, Mamish, amazing parents, and their son is not so happy with me.

5:10 And he's not so happy with me for whatever reason. He's not so happy with me. But what did the parents say? They didn't say he doesn't like your policies. He thinks you don't like him. Thinks you don't like him, because when we see someone in a negative way, and I talk about this case, but he just feels so much like Berg doesn't like me. So it must be on some level there's some tzaras ayin. Maybe it's from my perspective, maybe it's from his perspective. But everybody is suffering from the way that we see each other. All husbands and wives. What are the? You see me like this, and you see me like this. Every person who's dating. How does he see me? How does she see me? It's all about having this tzaras ayin or ayin tovah. So how do we develop this? There are three questions I want to ask tonight.

6:01 The first question is: There's a bird. This bird goes by three names. It's called the Raah, the Daya, and the Ayah. The Gemara says these three birds are really one bird. The Torah mentions these three birds. It's really one bird, and this bird is not kosher. The Gemara says the Maran Chulin explains what is the attribute, what is the feature of this bird. It is incredibly keen sight. That's its whole thing. It can see for miles. How many miles can this bird see? Over five hundred miles. This bird can see. The Gemara says that this bird could be flying in Bavel, and it could see all the way to Eretz Yisrael, which is over five hundred miles, and it could see the carcasses because it's a bird of prey. It could see the carcasses in Eretz Yisrael. The problem is, usually, why do we say a bird is aser?

6:55 Why do we say girls? Why is a bird ulcer? If it's a bird that has some negative quality, so you are what you eat, and we don't want to take those negative qualities inside of ourselves. But the problem is here, the bird seems to have such an amazing quality. If you imagine if you could see, that's like X-ray vision to be able to see so far. Why would Chaz? Why would the Torah tell us that this is Oser? This bird should be the most mutter bird in the world. We should take it in. We should be able to see so far ahead. What an incredible gift that would be! So that's question number one. Why does the Gemara tell us that this bird is Oser because it can see so far? Question number two is the Cheta Meraglim. Everybody knows that. What was the Cheta Meraglim about? The Cheta Meraglim was that they said that we went to Eretz Yisrael and we saw the giants there. We were like grasshoppers in their eyes. We were like grasshoppers in their eyes. The Gemara says they were liars because how do you know how somebody else sees you? You felt like a grasshopper, but to say how they saw you.

8:02 That you don't have the right to say. But the problem is Who were the Miraglim? The Miraglim were the greatest leaders in Klal Yisrael. We often hear that story as children. Remember when you were little, they gave you those projects that you had to color in, The Miraglim coming back with the giant grapes. The problem is, that's the last time we learned seriously the story of the Miraglim. The Miraglim were Rav Chaim Kaniewski. The Miraglim were Rav Yashiv. The Miraglim were Rav Aron Leb Steinman. The Miraglim were the biggest Gedolim in the world. Were the Miraglim? So if for the Gemara to say that the Miraglim were liars. There must be something deeper going on beneath the surface. G'day lehadar, the see him of Klal Yisrael don't stam ladi. So what was deeper that was going on over there? And last but not least, it's very interesting. The Torah says that Moshe Rabbeinu, when he found out that it was known that he had killed the Mitzri, the Torah says that Moshe Rabbeinu became afraid. And the next pasuk is what Paro knew about it, and Moshe Rabbeinu fled. Why does the Torah highlight for us that Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid?

9:11 Is this like a chiddush? If I commit murder and somebody finds out about my murder, what's my feeling going to be? Of course, you're going to be afraid. But the Torah puts an emphasis on the fact that Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid. What was the gevul diga fear that Moshe Rabbeinu felt? And the Torah puts such an emphasis on it to let us know that Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid. What? There must be something deeper going on over here. So I want to tell you the most incredible vort. This vort, really, the first time I read this, This mamish is very, very special vort. How does sight work? You need a brisker hakira to understand this. How does sight work? When I'm looking at this watch right here Where is this watch? Is this watch here on the table, or is this watch in my mind? From a perspective of sight, obviously, from the perspective of physical reality, the watch is on the table. But from my perspective of seeing this, where is this watch? Is it here on the table, or is it in my mind? Which one is true? You hear the question? It's a subtle question. And also, you might ask, what's the difference? We'll see that perhaps both are true.

10:34 From a scientific perspective, it's clearly in my mind. What happens? Light is bouncing off of this watch right now. That light is being transformed into rays that are going into my eyes. Through my eyes, it goes through the retina, into the brain, and the brain processes this watch. Really, where am I seeing this watch? I'm not seeing it here. Where am I seeing it? Everyone right now exists only in each other's minds. Isn't that true? From a scientific perspective, where are we right now? We only exist in each other's minds. On the other hand, to say that I only see it here and that I don't see it out here sounds absurd. So we'll see that both are true. But first, let's understand it from the perspective of the mind. From a kabbalistic perspective, if everything we see occurs in the mind, then where is life really occurring? Life really occurs inside of ourselves. Which means we do not see things the way that they are. We see things the way that we are.

11:46 Again, if all of life is happening in my mind, if every visual perception that I have in my life is something that's coming into my eyes, being filtered through my eyes into my brain, the electrochemical impulses in my brain are telling me what's really going on. Then where is life really occurring? Life is really occurring inside of my mind. If life is occurring inside of my mind, does it really matter what's happening outside? Because I'm not seeing what's happening outside. I'm seeing what's happening through the lens of my own ego. Which is why the greatest arguments in the world are about what really happened. You ever have those arguments with somebody? What really happened? Who's to say what really happened? People are so convinced that what they saw with their own eyes is true, and in fact, it's not true at all. Which is why, what's the halacha? If a judge is walking down the street and he sees Reuven murder Shimon, can he adjudicate that case? Can he be the bezdin? Can he be on the bezdin?

12:50 So you would say he should be the best judge in the world. Why? Because he saw what happened. Every other judge doesn't know what happened. He's relying on witnesses, right? He's relying on testimonies, relying on other dayanim to try to trip them up, but he saw with his own eyes. That should be the ultimate judge because he knows exactly what happened, right? Because once you know what happened because you saw it with your eyes, it's impossible to see it any other way. And that is not true. Just because you saw something with your own eyes, just because you're convinced of what happened It's not doesn't mean it's what happened at all. How common is the following story? A couple walks into my office, sits down with me, and they tell me exactly the same story. Exactly, no details are changed whatsoever. But somehow, each one tells the story totally differently. I'll give you an example.

13:57 The husband says, 'I do so much for you. Over the period of these three weeks, this is every single thing I did for you, one after another. And then you went and you did this terrible thing to me.' What does the wife say? 'It's true you did these amazing things for three weeks, but you neglected to say that right before that three week period started, you did something that really wasn't so nice to me.' Are you kidding me? That was I only did that And then they pull it back a little bit further because of this. They're telling the same exact story. They're not arguing about the details of the story. What are they arguing about? What happened? This is why women are much better at this than men. Women know that your experience is valid, even if I don't see it that way. It changes the whole way. As if somebody comes to me and they say, 'Rebbe, you mamish embarrassed me in She'er.' So I'm a curious person. What did I do that embarrassed you in She'er? You did this. Did I? I didn't know that. That's what I did. But people are so sensitive because we see the world not from what's actually happening.

15:16 We see the world through the lens of ourself. Which story is more true? Avraham Avinu's version of Akedas Yitzchak, Yitzchak Avinu's version of Akedas Yitzchak, or Moshe Rabbeinu's version of Akedas Yitzchak. Which one was more true? The Gemara says Moshe Rabbeinu. Why? Because Avraham Avinu did not have aspaklaria me'ira. He didn't have perfect vision. Aspaklaria me'ira means clear glass. When Avraham Avinu experienced nevuah, it was aspaklaria she'ena me'ira. It was colored glass. If these glasses were Elton John purple, I would see the world as purple. Ego is a taint. Avraham Avinu said, "I am dust and ashes," which means that he had this tiniest little ego. But he had an ego, so he didn't see the story of Akedah S'Yitzchak as it truly was. How did he see it? Through the lens of his own ego. Where does life really occur? In our minds. Our ego corrupts our minds. The more diminished ego you have, the greater your perception of the truth. Moshe Rabbeinu said, "V'nachnu ma? What am I?" Which meant that Moshe Rabbeinu

16:28 Because he was Anaf Mikol Adam, he had no ego. So when Moshe Rabbeinu told over the story of Akedah Sichak, it could be that Avraham Avinu would read the story and go, "That's not what happened." But it is what happened. But the way that Avraham Avinu understood it is through the lens of himself. And even though Avraham Avinu had the most diminished ego in the world, there's still something there. So Memale, when it comes inside of you, it's not what's really happening, but it is a meaningful experience. I can't give too many details to this story in case this person hears this recording. A father comes to me and he tells me I want you to know, I spoke to my son about this issue and he really gets it now. It was a great conversation. I set him straight and told him it can't be this way anymore. Next day I called the young man into my office. I'm sitting with him. I said I heard you spoke to your father. He rolls his eyes. You know how the young men can roll their eyes. He rolls his eyes so far into the back of his head that I was afraid they would.

17:50 I don't know where it was. It was a full-body motion. He was mad. He was clearly so hurt. Said yeah, it was just another one of these. It was another one of these dumb conversations with my father. I said, What happened? He just lectured me and told me this is what I have to do. So honestly, I just said whatever I needed to say to get him off the phone. The father's mamish walking around convinced that he set his son straight. Don't worry, Berg. It's not going to be a problem anymore. He sees it through the lens of his own ego. He's seeing what's going on in his mind. He's convinced that his son is at a place of maturity that a son should be able to see that when he said a harsh thing, he really loves him. And the father knows how much he loves him. So Mameila, he assumes that the son knows, but it's not true at all. Let's go back to that first question: the Ra' the Daya.

18:46 You know why the Ra'isn't kosher? It's an unbelievable pshat. Because if you can see 500 miles into Eretz Yisrael and the only thing you could see are the carcasses of animals, there's something so wrong. There's something so treif going on inside of you. All you could see are carcasses. All you could see is the negativity. All you could see is the brokenness. You don't know how to see the beauty in a broken person. Today, there are people that are mamish. The way they see the world is chaser treif. I hesitate to speak this way, but it needs to be said. For example, everybody knows about it. So I can say it, even though it pains me to speak about it. Because it's the most tsarist, iron, narrow-minded, despicable, disgusting way of seeing the world. But everybody knows about it, and Baruch Hashem, Rav Weinberger spoke out against that, and many rabbis spoke out against it. But after that horrific massacre of Yidden in that synagogue in Pittsburgh, that quote-unquote rabbi, and it wasn't just him, by the way. It wasn't just him. He was just the video that went viral. But there were so many people.

20:01 There were so many people saying the most despicable. It wasn't so many people. It was some people who happened to have a platform. There were people that were saying it happened. By the way, it wasn't even true. They were saying that it was a story of a bris of a couple, two men that were married that adopted a child. That whole thing was a lie. But people were saying maybe they deserved it because that's what you get for going to Azas Simcha in that type of shul. It was such a sick, broken way. If all you could see are the carcasses. How many yidden are left in the world that are going to shul? My cousins, Baruch Hashem, I come from a wonderful family where both of my parents were choicer b'tshuva. None of my cousins go to shul. They're marrying gayim. The fact that someone conservative, Reformed, orthodox—what are we talking about? We're talking about Jews that went to shul. Jews that went to shul, you know how few Jews there are that still go to shul.

21:02 To look at those Jews, and you could only see the carcass because they didn't go to the type of shul that you like. And I'm not saying that it's okay. A person has to know the halachah of when they can and cannot go into a conservative synagogue. This is not what I'm talking about right now. To see it in such a negative light, to see it in such a negative light that when a massacre like that happens, your immediate reaction is to say they deserved it. What a sick way of seeing the world! If all you can see are the carcasses, if you can't see the beauty in people, that is the most destructive thing ever. That's the most destructive thing ever. We know from a chinuch perspective. I have one question I ask. I'm in the middle of interview season, so I'm going around giving bechinas. I have a standard list of about seven or eight questions that I ask every single kid that I sit with. One of the questions is: Which Rebbe are you closest to in high school? Which was the one that really moved you? It's a good question because it gives me a little bit of an insight into what type of kid this is. Some kids say this Rebbe because he taught the most Torah.

22:05 This guy gave the most incredible shear. Almost nobody that I speak to gives me that answer. By the way, what's the answer they give me? This Rebbe, He really understands us. He really gets us. He understands that even though I might do things that I myself am not so proud of, but he sees me for who I truly am. That's what moves people. You can go through, and I really, you're not supposed to do what I'm about to do, but I'm going to do it anyway. There are certain sadikim that are out there in the world today. That they just know how to see a person in the sweetest, kindest, softest way and they just know how to reach them because it's not the pshat that they're not saying, 'Hey, you messed up,' but they're saying it in such a soft way. There's a rebbe in Yula. Is anybody here from Los Angeles? Is a Rebbe here? You're from Los Angeles? So you know Rabbi Abramchick in Yula.

23:00 He's the most exceptional person in the world. I want to tell you. Eleven years ago, I started working in Mevaseret. It was the first time in my life that I traveled to Los Angeles. I was a five towns kid, so to go to New Jersey was like going to the West. Like when the only reason you ever crossed the G W B was to play ball against whatever other schools you were playing against. I never had any tayva to leave the five towns ever. The only reason I even went to the city was because that's where the Knicks played, and in my mind that was a chiddush. Why didn't the Knicks play in the five towns? Or my parents schlepped me to some museum. Other than that, I had no tayva to go to the city. So for me to go to Los Angeles is like a different universe. To get off the plane in LAX and to walk around, I had to push. Never been there. By the way, once I went, I didn't want to leave. It's the most incredible place. I walked into Yula, and there's this big man, Rabbi Abramchik, and he comes over and he goes, Riffberg. I said, Yeah. He says, Shimon Abramchik, and he gives me the most giant bear hug I've ever had in my life, and he's squeezing me. He's like squeezing the life out of me. I'm not a small person.

24:08 He's like squeezing me. I thought, I guess I just met my long lost best friend that I never knew that I had. I'm like, who doesn't want to be around this person? He said, let me teach you how to do this. Let me show you the ropes. Let me walk you through how it goes. You should know, it's eleven years since I felt that hug. I'm going to Yula next week. I'm looking forward to getting my Rabbi Abraham Chicago. You know what it must be like to be a Talmudist. To be a kid who's a twelfth grader in Yula who's going through whatever twelfth graders go through at that time, but knowing that you have a rebbe that just loves you so much that'll give you the most giant bear hug. He'll just pick you up and make you feel like a million bucks. It's the most incredible feeling in the world. Why? Because what we want is to be seen through the lens of other people as worthy.

25:04 So for us, let's speak first for ourselves. For us, seeing the world in a broad way, seeing the world in an ambitious way, where we can see not just what's happening, but seeing right beyond that, not to the carcass, but to the life. It's such an important quality. There's a video, and if you haven't seen it, you should see it. I'm sure you've seen it, but if you haven't seen it, you should see it. Type it in on YouTube. It was a commencement address that was given by a writer. His name was David Foster Wallace, who unfortunately died. The video is called "This Is Water." You've seen this. You've seen this video. You must see this video. It's incredible, mammish incredible. And in this commencement address, he speaks. But you've seen it, right? Is it incredible? It's mammish. I can watch that. When I get into watching it, I watch it twenty, thirty times in a row, and then it holds me for like a year. Every year or so, I have to chazar it.

26:03 And he speaks about how seeing the world in a positive way and being don le kavzhus. Forget for the other person for a second. But for yourself we have so many ways to see the world. We choose to see the world in a negative way. He starts off the video with the most incredible. It wasn't a video; they made it into a video. But he starts off saying two fish are swimming along. And one fish is swimming by them. And he says, "Hey guys, how's the water?" And the two fish look at him and go "What water?" And this is the way we live our lives. We're totally not conscious of so much positivity that's around us. Some of you went to Medrashat Moriah or to Shalvim or to Ami. My dear friend Rabbi Rafi Rosenblum gets a big mazel tov this week. Just had a baby boy. I can't believe I'm missing the shalom zocher. I have two beers. I drink them by myself. I have two beers just to be yotze with him this Shabbos. Even though I'm going to be in America.

27:13 Why was I talking about Rabbi Rosenblum? This is water. His daughter Adina lives in my house. She sleeps by Rabbi Rosenblum, but she lives in my house. Even so, she doesn't always sleep by him. She sleeps with me too. She's best friend. She's a sister. She's in our family simcha pictures. So she came to my house the other night before I left. And I don't know why I was saying this to her. I was saying it really to all my kids, but I was like saying it to her. I'm like, Adina, are you happy? So Adina's like the most sweet, sweet girl in the world. She's like, Yeah, I'm happy. I'm like, Are you ecstatic? She's like doing that little giggle that she does. She's like, I'm ecstatic. I'm like, are you like beyond, amazed at how awesome your life is? So I said to Adina, let's say you were blind. Let's say you had two holes in your head where your eyes should have been.

28:12 You've never seen a thing, and now I'm gifting you with eyes, and you could see everything in perfect vision. How amazingly happy would you be? How ecstatic would you be? She says, I'd be the happiest person in the world. I said. And you already have them. I said, imagine. I don't know if you've ever seen these videos on YouTube. They're dafka, very moving. People that can't hear, and they can put cochlear implants in, and they're able to hear their children for the first time speak. You ever see these women when it happens? They burst out crying because forever they've always been. They've been lip reading. They've been sign. We should be the most exceptionally happy people on the planet. We're living in a way. Forget the basics. We're all baruch Hashem for the most part healthy. Forget the basics. This table was a table that a king would sit at. Do you understand? We speak about what kings had. Kings did not have as much as we have. Kings didn't have light like this. Kings had fires. That and that's the room. Have you ever been in a room with a fire? It does not smell good.

29:13 When you walk through a hall where everything is lit by fire, it doesn't smell good. It smells burning. It's tough on the nostrils. It's not a sweet light. We have the most incredible light. We have the most incredible tables. I'm sitting in a chair a king would have sat on. This chair and said, "Wow, it's incredible." And this is just a folding church. If a king could have walked into Costco, I walk into Costco. The internet, so we don't yet have Costco. We have Vikruchnius and we have Rami Levy, but we don't have Costco. You walk into Costco and you see the amount of food, the abundance that exists. It's a joke. My grandmother, Olvasham, she used to collect sugar packets. She was one of those grandmothers. She was always concerned the next Holocaust was coming, and for whatever reason, she was ready with sugar packets. I'm not sure exactly what the connection was.

30:06 But she was when she passed away. My father was cleaning out her closet, thousands and thousands of sugar packets. My father said that he was going to split the Yerusha. He was going to take the money. His sister could take the apartment, and he was going to give his brother the sugar packets because there was at least a million dollars worth of sugar packets in there. People lived. My grandmother lived, coming from a place where she mamish didn't have, she pasha didn't have. So now with all of this abundance, you would think we would be the happiest generation in the world. Why aren't we? Because we see the world in such an egotistic way, we have no gratitude. You want to know how to be happy? Gratitude. You want to know how to see the world in a beautiful way? Have gratitude. I'm giving you actionable information right now. I'm not giving you pie in the sky theory. Be grateful for everything that Eibushder gave you.

30:58 You will not see carcasses in your life. Because gratitude creates focus. The more focus you have, the happier you're going to be. The happier you are, the more you're going to see the world in a beautiful way. Why do couples get into fights? Because somebody had a bad day. Somebody had a bad day and they take it with them. They come home. They have no place to put it because they're filled with the poison of the way somebody else saw them. And they have to see. And then their spouse does something and then they go off on them. They don't even realize why. It's because earlier in that day something happened that made me want to kill somebody else. But it's happening inside of ourselves. That's great because if it's happening inside of ourselves, then it's subject to change. The most powerful tefilla. I love it when boys do this. You ready for this? Maybe I don't understand why I should daven. Davening is about asking for what you want, and I get what I want anyway. Since when is davening about asking for what you want? If you think about davening, there's brachos, there's karbanos, there's psukah de zimra, there's berachos kriyashma, there's kriyashma. One section of shmona esrei is bakasha. One section of shmona esrei is bakasha. And all of a sudden, all of davening became about getting what I want.

32:05 So I tell boys a secret. I tell you, like I told them this. I said, run through all the bakasha. Don't even pay attention to it. Have a twenty-minute modim every single day. Twenty-minute modim of just stopping and saying thank you to Hakadosh Baruch Hu for every minute that you breathe, every second that you have, everything that you have in your life. I love it when guys tell me this. I just can't get along with my parents. Your parents have given you everything. Everything. You would be nothing without. Literally, you'd be nothing without them. You wouldn't exist. Without your parents, Gemara says that you wouldn't exist without your parents. It's still not enough. They gave you the clothes that you're wearing. It's still not enough. They paid for yeshiva this year. It's still not enough. They gave me. They gave you a car. You turn 16 years old in this world. You turn 16 years old. You get a car. You have a car. You ride a chariot. I know, but they don't understand me. Give me a break. Where is the gratitude? You could see the world in an expansive way if you know a. It's happening inside of yourself, and that's the good news because you can always recalibrate. What was the chet hamiraglim?

33:07 The chet hamiraglim was they said v'chein hayinu be'enehem. We were grasshoppers. Why? How did you know they were grass? That you were grasshoppers? These were the gadolim hadar. If you feel like a grasshopper, if it's happening inside of you, that's what you're going to project onto the outside world. So why did they see Eretz Yisrael with such a tsaras ayn? Because they had such an impoverished mentality. In the Midbar, we have everything we need. If we go into Eretz Yisrael, we're going to stop living in a miraculous fashion. Memela, how did they see it? We're grasshoppers. We're nothing. We're nothing. We can't live without the Eibushter having divine intervention in our life every single minute. You can't live like that. So either they saw the nastiest things and they said, and it must be everyone else sees us that way also. But there's another dimension of seeing. And really, this is as important as the first part.

33:59 Can I ask a quick question? Always. A lot like psychology says that happiness and seeing things with a new perspective. The reason why we don't get excited about things or why that excitement lasts for such a short time is because you get excited about a new dress or a new. I always do. Watch, It's it's cool. It's okay. We're having an honest conversation. It's 2019. We're very progressive. So you get excited about having something new, and then you get like it just becomes your new norm. When someone says, Oh well at least you won't have cancer, you're like that's not even on my radar. We hear this year and we're like yes, looking through a new perspective. It's so important that really is how you attain true simcha and Hakaras Tov in your relationship with Hashem. But how do you take this and make it a part of your everyday beyond the next twenty minutes after this year?

35:08 It's a great question. I'm just going to highlight the same point again. It's all about gratitude. You're right. The newness of the dress will wear off. If it's just a question of being excited now, it will wear off. There's an amazing thing that they do in anonymous groups in twelve step programs. At the end of a session, often, they'll do something called a gratitude shout out, where people just shout out things that they're grateful for, and they could do it for like five minutes. It's just people saying, and they'll do things like today's gratitude shout out is the letter J, and you have to go for five minutes of just thinking of all the amazing things. I don't have cancer. Because that's not our baseline. We don't expect that, even though it would be just as righteous if we did. We're not really playing the Eibusha. We don't know what's going on, but just shout out things that start with the letter J. You know why it's such an amazing thing? Because addicts are addicts because they have a spiritual disease, not a physical disease. The nature of the spiritual disease that addicts have is they live with this very narrow vision of the world. They can't see spirituality in the world because they're deeply spiritual people. They need to be deeply connected to spirituality.

36:31 And we know that the only way to do that is through gratitude. If you work your way through the alphabet, even in English. And you say in your davening, because davening is a huge part of it. As we're going to discuss in a second, if you'll become grateful not for new things but for random things. If you could start to see like every gift in the world, you'll stop focusing on the carcasses in your life. And this is not just positive psychology, right? There are going to be a lot of tough things in your life. Because nobody promised you that life was going to be easy. We promised you that life was going to be amazing. So what's the difference? How could life be amazing and be difficult? The answer is: Are you really focused on what you have? As I was walking into the building just now, I ran into a Talmud. He's heading out to Myrev. He's an accountant, so right now he's coming off of finishing the craziest season. He's like, "Yeah, Baruch Hashem, I'm able to come home at eight thirty at night in the busy season, and like some of my co-workers are only able to come home at one o'clock in the morning."

37:32 You know why it must be an amazing thing to be married to him? Because he's grateful for coming home at eight thirty at night. Me, I'd want to kill myself. Eight thirty at night. I get home at seven. It's not so much different. But eight thirty at night, being an accountant, filing all those papers. But he's grateful that it's not one. You understand? So it's not. It's not a question of new. That will new excitement never lasts. Inspiration does. The problem is we always say inspiration doesn't last. It does. That's the nature of inspiration. If it's not lasting, it means it wasn't inspiring. There's a difference between exciting and inspiring. The new dress is exciting, but it's not necessarily inspiring. What could be inspiring is the fact that you have the vehicle in your life to get that right. You gotta take it one step back. Otherwise, you'll just slip back into it. And then 20 minutes after the shiur is over, the excitement of the new shear that you just heard will fade. Can you become conditioned to become a person that sees the world in a beautiful way? Can you have the abundance mentality? That God has gifted you with the most incredible gifts in the world.

38:34 You hear the difference, then you'll start to see it in a beautiful way. Just back to what you were saying about the. Thank you for getting me the water. Just back to the ego. How do you know if it's your ego speaking or if it's you, your object, your objectivity speaking? There's a Seinfeld episode. I shouldn't be quoting Seinfeld, but it's my gersud yankusa. That's what I grew up on. There's a Seinfeld episode where there's a conversation between Kramer and George doesn't know what to do. And Kramer says to him, "Ask your little man." And George says, "What's your little man?" And he says, "Everyone has inside of them a little man that knows exactly what to do. Just ask your little man." And George responds in typical George Costanza fashion. He goes, "My little man's an idiot." I'm a big believer in intuition. I believe that intuition is godly.

39:38 If you find yourself really questioning and that kind of feels like my ego Trust your intuition. But if you feel it's you know how like after you make a decision, sometimes you just feel like amazing about it. You feel like yeah. That was good. Sometimes after you make a decision, you just feel like I don't feel happy about that. Yet, trust your intuition. How do I make a decision? Trust. Listen to the voice inside of yourself. I'll tell you this one. In marriage, it's almost always ego. How's that? Almost always. Why? Because marriage. The hardest part about marriage is having the abundance mentality to know that taking the loss is a big win. Nobody likes to lose a fight. So you and your husband have an argument, a person and their husband has an argument, right? It takes a tremendous abundance mentality to just go, even though you totally disagree. I really hear what you're saying, and to just drop it, because you know that person walks away saying, "I told them, right? I got what I needed." So you're mamish going into it saying, "I'm going to lose this battle."

40:45 Ego always needs a win. Hakadosh Baruch Hu always says there's tremendous power in taking a loss. Does that make sense? So we've spoken about vision as happening inside of yourself. Where's the cup? It's in my mind, but it's also a little crazy. The cup is also here. So there's another perspective on vision in Kabbalah. Not only is vision happening inside of your mind, but the vision that you have impacts the cup. It impacts the world around you. The way you see something tells you a lot, not just about what's happening inside of you, but what will happen outside of yourself. What was the real mission of the Miraglim? Up until now, what did we always think? Why were they sent to go to spy out the land? But when you look in the Pseukim, it's not true. You know what they were sent to do? Not to spy on the land. They were sent to see the land. If you look carefully at the pesukim, that's the lashon haPasuk. They were sent to see the land. Why? Because vision acquires. The way you see something

42:02 It changes the thing itself. I'm telling you, we see it with children every single day. We see it in every relationship in the world. The way you see something is called countertransference. It impacts what's going on outside. Which is why we spoke before about the miraglim. It wasn't just that they saw themselves as grasshoppers and memela. They said they saw us as grasshoppers. They did see them as grasshoppers. Then the Siam weren't lying in the sense that they were wrong; they were lying in the sense that they were projecting, but they weren't wrong. The giants of the land of Eretz Canaan saw the Miraglim and said, "Grasshoppers." Why? Because that's what they put out there in the world. What you put out into the world it matters. I want to tell you the most incredible verb from the Labavitcher Rebbe: "Skosiyagan Aleinu." Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid. What does the next pasuk say? And Paro found out. The Bava Metzia Rebbe says, You know how Paro found out? Because Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid. When you put out fear into the world, that's what comes back at you.

43:28 What you put out there changes the world. So it's not just a question of okay. Again, the first part is 100% true. The way I see the world says a lot more about me. It's not what's actually happening. It's in me. It's also bringing into the world what's really happening. That's what I'm bringing out into the world. You understand? It changes. Say a maysa, that the son of the Balatanya of Dov Ber. One year The Alter Rebbe who used to lay in the Toicha. One year he didn't lay in the Toicha. Somebody else in Shul leaned it. Girls, you know the Minig and Klal Yisrael is that we say it very quickly. We say it. We lean the initial part of the Parsha. We lean it louder so that we could lower our voice when we're saying the Teicher. That year of Dovid Ber became very sick. He became very sick. Arkadekach that on Yom Kippur the Alter Rebbe was considering saying that he shouldn't fast because he was so concerned for his health.

44:42 What was the matter? He was crippled by fear. He was crippled by fear from the way this other person read the taichah. So they asked him, 'But every year you hear the taichah.' He said, 'Yeah, but when my father reads the taichah, the way that I feel when he reads it is I don't feel scared.' Because there are ways of saying teuchah. There are ways of bringing out the way you see into the world. And if you're not careful, if you're not careful of the way you say something, you can destroy people with your eyes. You can mamish destroy people with the way you see them. For example, we're going to need in our lives to discipline our children. But the question is, what words come out of your mouth? Do you say things like, 'I can't believe you did this. What put yourself in the eyes?' Put yourself just for a moment. If you could flash back. I know it's hard, but if you could flash back to when you were fourteen. Fourteen is a very tough age, no? You're just starting high school. You're in a very mishubach place in your life. Imagine somebody comes and they say to you, 'I can't believe you did this.' What would be the feeling you would have? Think about it. Feel it in your body.

45:55 What's the feeling that you have? Somebody described. I was talking to somebody who said, "I feel like my heart just dropped in my body. I can't believe you did this. It's such a cruel thing to say. I can't believe you can't believe I did this. You, it's so unbelievable. It's so dreadful. What did our children do already?" I had a conversation with a young man just a couple of weeks ago. I'm begging him, please have an honest conversation with your father. The things you did them years ago. It'll be b'sed that your father loves you. I can't. I can't, Rabbi. I can't. I can't. His father came to Etsdot to visit. He could not speak to him. He couldn't have an honest conversation. I said, Do you chapp? What you're giving up? Do you chapp? What you're giving up? You're giving up having an authentic relationship with your father. You're holding on to these lies. You know how much your father loves you. He goes, Rabbi. You don't understand the way that my father spoke to me as a kid. He's holding on to it. The way we see people, it matters. It hurts people. You girls know yourself.

46:59 Isn't it true that there were some teachers that loved you and you felt loved? And isn't it true that you sensed that there were teachers that just didn't feel the same way? How did you feel about those teachers? It wasn't because they weren't dynamic or good speakers or didn't have good content. But you may not have gone to their shiurim. Why? Because you put out a vibe into the world the way you see people. It comes across. And I'm not even talking about the secret. I'm not even talking about the law of attraction. I'm just talking about stop micro bursts. Microbursts—the way somebody squints their eyes at you when you say something. A little bit of an affect—it comes out and it impacts the world. And yes, Paro found out because Moshe Rabbeinu was afraid. When a person goes into a meeting with confidence and they project that confidence, people look back at you and they say, "Wow, that person has exceptional confidence." If you come in with a vision of "I'm not enough," it won't be enough, and I'm going to be—I believe in vulnerability being the birthplace of connection. So I'm going to share with you something that happened yesterday versus today.

47:56 Yesterday I was invited to speak in a certain yeshiva. I was there doing interviews anyway. I was in such a bad place in myself. I was sitting there, one interview after another. There were certain things that were going on. I was in a bad place. I canceled the speech about an hour beforehand. I canceled. I said, I can't. I can't. I was supposed to speak for fifteen twenty minutes. A big kavit to speak in front of the entire school. I couldn't do it. I said no. And I'll be honest. I was afraid. I'm not a person who's afraid to give speeches. I was afraid to give the speech. So I begged out of it. I don't feel bad that I begged out of it. I wasn't in a place to get up there. This morning, Dafka, I was in a better place. I got a good night's sleep. I'm staying in a nice hotel in Long Beach, with a beautiful view of the beach. This morning, I was in a great place. They asked me again to speak to the entire senior class, so I said yes, and it was awesome. The difference was, I was in a better place. And I saw it in the faces of the talmidim that I was speaking to; they were enjoying it more because I was excited to speak to them. If you get up in front of a group of people that you're not excited to see

49:00 They will know. If you come home at night and you're not excited to see your husband, he's going to know. And it doesn't mean you need to be excited all of the time. That's why husbands always do this. What happened? So they walk through the door. If you're just in there, what happened? They need to go right away into fix-it mode. What happened? Why? Because the way we see the world becomes real. This is really the nature of davening. We talk a lot about the efficacy of tefillah. Tefillah works. Why does tefillah work? Pallel means to imagine. That's what the word means. Yaakov Avinu said, 'I was never pallel that I would see you again.' To Yosef, he said, 'I never imagined.' Chazon means envision. That's what a chazan is. A chazan is not someone who has a nice voice. We want him to have a nice voice because it's important through music to create this collective imagination.

49:58 A person who doesn't daven in the morning isn't prepared to see the world in a beautiful way, and they will bring negativity into the world. What does it mean when we say this year should be a shlos or a full shalem of David Chaim Ben Fraydul? It's a main matter because it's real. We become people who bring healing into the world because we're people. We believe, as people, that we have the capacity to bring this positivity out there, and it matters. It really matters. That's what tefillah is all about. So I'll finish with an amazing story from R' Shmuel Munkus. He was one of the great Lubavitcher Hasidim, and he tells a story. A magid is somebody used to come and give mussar. The magid was going from town to town, and he came to the town of Shmuel Munkus. He got up there and gave fire and brimstone mussar, telling the townspeople they were terrible and they're going to burn in Gehenna for the averus that they did. He mamish scared the town people half to death.

51:05 So the place that he was staying, Shmuel Munkus showed up and he knocks on the door. The maggid opens up the door, and there's a shul monk standing with a shaykhitz knife and a sharpening stone. He walks in and says, 'Holy Rabbi, thank you so much for coming to our town.' As he's speaking, he's sharpening this shaykhitz knife, this very sharp, very dangerous shaykhitz knife. So this maggid is like, 'What? What's about to happen?' So he's saying his drasha was mamish amazing. It was incredible, and the whole time he's sharpening the knife. So finally, the maggid says to him, "Shmuel, what are you doing with this knife?" So he said, "We here in this town were very simple folk, and as you said, we're sinners. We're terrible sinners. But I was thinking, one of the reasons we're such terrible sinners is because we don't have any kivre tzadikim that are close to our town that we could go daven in. So I'm going to kill you." So that this way we could bury you.

52:07 Right here, and then the townspeople will be able to do tshuva because we'll have a place to go daven. So the maggid says, 'What are you talking about? Are you for real?' And he's sitting there sharpening his knife. He says to him, 'He goes, you don't understand. I'm just. I'm not the tzaddik that you think I am. I do some small averes from time to time.' So Shmuel says, 'No.' That's just your anivus, Adar Abba. You're a bigger tzaddik than I even thought. It's going to be an amazing shchus for us to daven at your kever because even now you're saying that you're not really a tzaddik. You're so hidden. So the guy starts saying, 'No, Rebbe, you don't understand. I do this avera and I do that avera.' And he goes, 'Come on, it's a small time avera. You must be the biggest tzaddik.' And fine, the guy starts listening. I do this avera, I do that avera, and he starts spilling. He's crying and he's saying all of the averas he's doing. So Shmuel finally says to them, 'So.' If you are not the tzaddik that we should all be davening at his kever, how dare you come into our community and speak this way?

53:06 To get up in front of a group of people and to speak words of mussar, to bring that out from the way that we see the world, we have the capacity to murder people. We have the capacity to murder people with the way that we speak, and the opposite. If we see people with a beautiful eye, if we'll be that Rabbi Abramchik type of personality that's willing to go out and see not the carcasses, but willing to go out and see the beauty, it changes the way people see you. It's interesting. This Ra'el bird and the Chet Amiraglim have something in common. They both see the carcasses of Eretz Yisrael. Eretz Yisrael is a lightning rod. Eretz Yisrael is a lightning rod because you could see Eretz Yisrael in the worst possible way. It's disgusting the way that we hear some people speak about Eretz Yisrael. I don't know if you know this. I'm assuming you don't. Do you know that there are people that speak like they say the most foul things about Israelis, Jews, their brothers and sisters, because culturally they're different?

54:13 Oh my God, it smells so bad on the light rail. Somebody's got tissues. Israelis about deodorant. This is like all I hear all day. What they do? They don't know how to shower. It's like, how could you speak that way? Everything in this country is dirty. Everybody in Mayur Sharm spits. Some people, some crazy people. Everybody. Eretz Yisrael is a lightning rod of. If you want to see negativity in the world, you can find it in Eretz Yisrael. Isn't that true? And yet, the real tzaddikim didn't see it that way. The real tzaddikim, when they meet That Jew in Eretz Yisrael, that so far they know how to bring them back. What was the godless of R' Kook? And the godless of R' Kook is unfathomable. What was the godless of R' Kook for us? That R' Kook knew how to see people that were mamish running away from Yiddishkeit with both feet as fast as they could possibly go, and all he saw was the beauty, and all he saw was the kedusha.

55:15 And it's inspiring a generation today. In 2019, people are learning R' Kook's Torah more and more. Why are they so enamored by R' Kook's Torah? Because he just saw the world in such an incredible way. You should know the Chazon Ish was very critical of R' Kook. He was very critical, and the Chazon Ish was Chazon Ish. We have, that's pretty serious business. And my Rebbe told me that he said about R' Kook, "Can govern kaya chadimyon mekaya chaseichah," That his imagination was much bigger than his intellect. That he was just so it was in such a world of imagination that he wasn't even paying attention to the reality. That was the critique that the Chazon Ish had of R. Kov. So you know what? I think the Chazon Ish was right. But isn't that the beauty of R. Kov? Isn't that the beauty of R. Kov that he knew how to see every single Jew, and even though the reality was different, his imagination was, I can only see the beauty. There's an incredible story with R' Kook and R' Yosef Chaim Zunemfeld, and again, this is a prototypical story. R' Yosef Chaim Zunemfeld was the head of the Ahd Haridis, and R' Kook was obviously very much in the religious Zionist camp. They were walking by each other.

56:30 They had many disagreements about how to see the world. They were walking by each other, and R' Yosef Chaim Zunemfeld looked at R' Kook, who was surrounded by his talmidim. He looked at R' Kook and said, "May you be up to your knees in blood." And all the talmidim of Rabbi Yosef Chaim Zunilfeld were like, "Ooh, he really got him." Afterwards, the talmidim of Rav Kook asked him. They said, "Rabbi, what was that about?" So he smiled and said, "I'm a kohen." He was giving me a bracha that the Beit Hamikdash should be rebuilt and I should be shechting karbanos all day long. I should be up to my knees in blood. And I'm telling you, he was right. That is what Rav Yosef Chaim Sonnenfeld meant. Rav Kook saw it and it was so obvious to him because he wasn't looking for the machlekas. And when you're not looking for the machlekas, you bring out that beauty into the world.

57:21 Israel is a lightning rod. All the things, the whole world. If you think about it, the whole world is even Trump. What does he talk about in his State of the Union address? I move the embassy to Jerusalem. The whole world is talking about the tiniest little place. It's a lightning rod. We could choose how we want to see. We could choose to look at the negativity. We could choose to look at the fact that they're being mechal shabbos, that they're opening up parking lots, or we could choose not to see the carcasses. I want to give everyone a bracha. Give myself a bracha. That we should have the clarity of vision to know that when we see negativity in the world, it's a treifkeit that's coming from inside of ourselves. And if we could work on seeing the world in a more positive way, then, for real, in an actionable way, we will live in a more beautiful world. We will attract that positivity. If we live with fear, we're going to attract the paros in our life. But if we'll live beisr Hashem with an abundance mentality. Knowing that we're filled up with a chelik alakam mimal mamish, that a nefesh lekis is a real part of us, we should be zeicher to live in an exceptionally beautiful world. Amen.