It's Not The Bite Of The Snake That Kills You, It's The Venom. ~ Baal Shem Tov (Part 1)

2:50 A person could have tsaras. A person could have to run away to your miklot, which was a rehab center. Other abba, a person could say that it's because of those things that you see that you're worthy of love and connection, as we're going to explain. You've been chayv. Yeah. Isn't I mean I'm sure you'll explain more, but isn't just from what I've heard, isn't one of the aspects of cheshuvah To regret it, and I feel like regret and shame are two completely different concepts. There is a difference between regret and guilt on the one side, and shame on the other. Let's just jump into that nikkuda right now. The Rambam brings down that the first step The second step, depending on how you understand it, is not only azivasachet. Not only does a person have to not do the avera, but charata. A person has to regret doing the aveira, and what does regret mean?

3:48 What does regret mean? Regret means, I would argue, and please push back if you don't agree. I would argue that regret means that this behavior is undignified relative to the worthiness of my godly soul. Meaning, I have a godly soul inside of me, and this behavior goes against the very nature of my being. Because I feel that I am a godly soul, because I have an inherent worthiness, this behavior relative to that inherent worthiness is undignified. Behaving in this way is inappropriate, and I even feel guilty that I behaved that way. It was an unbecoming, undignified behavior. But guilt, like those bumps on the side of the highway that remind you, 'Hey, I gotta straighten out my car.' " That's what guilt is. Guilt can become, if left unchecked, it can become shame. To answer Gershuni, just very quickly before we get to you There's a notion that if I do something wrong, there's a consequence. For example If I murder somebody by accident, there's something called an ir miklof.

5:02 What does this mean? Imagine you had a shirt And your shirt got a stain on it. And the stain is capable of coming out. It's capable of coming out. So you put it in the laundry. And you pre-treat it with a serious chemical that will remove Something like that. You take a serious chemical and put it onto that stain. And then you put it in a hot soapy washing machine. And then you put it in a dryer and hang it to dry. If the shirt could talk, the shirt might say something like The shirt might say something like Hey, this really hurts. It's uncomfortable and painful. I don't like having chemicals on me. I don't like having hot water. I don't like having suds on me. But we would respond appropriately to that shirt. What would we say? It's precisely because you're still a good shirt that we're putting you through this process. If the shirt was no good, let's say the shirt was torn, or let's say the stain was of such a nature that it wouldn't come out.

6:21 Would we subject the shirt to this uncomfortable process? Of course not. So when we say that the shirt has to be quote unquote. Punished, right? Which is really just a consequence, but we use the word punishment. Is that a bad thing or is that a good thing? The masha'allah, I believe that Charlie Harari gives is a very good one. When you get called into your boss's office and he tells you this is what I'd like to see you improve upon, is that a good thing or a bad thing? It's certainly an uncomfortable thing, but is it a good thing or a bad thing? What would you say, Rabosei? It's obviously a good thing. Because if the boss takes the time to say, "I've checked on your performance, and here's what you could be doing better," that's an investment of his time and energy into making you into the employee that you need to be. If we have a halacha, for example, that says that if you have tsaras, you need to go mikchos la'machane. That doesn't mean that you are unworthy of rejoining the machane.

7:25 It simply means that in your current state, because of what you did, the natural consequence is that you need to leave the machana. If you murdered by accident, go to your mikla, be with all the levim, be with your yeshiva, be with your rebbeim, go through rehab and do tshuva. But it's not chas v'shalom to suggest that a person is unworthy of love and connection. It's not chas v'shalom to suggest that Hashem has given up on them. Just the opposite. So how should a person's analytical thinking look when it's not something that they did, but something that happened to them? That's not the same thing either. When you say, "Oh, I don't know how it happened, but I ended up doing this avera," that's also not taking responsibility. Taking responsibility means I did this. It didn't just happen. That's not even what I mean. What do you mean?

8:24 Let's say a person goes through some sort of abusive relationship. And then they feel some sort of shame as a result of that. What is the right line of thinking? Is it something they necessarily dismiss? Something that happened to them. Are you saying in such a case where they were a victim? What's the line of thinking then? Again, if they don't have any responsibility, then the line of thinking should be if first the person should always evaluate what level of responsibility they had. Let's say a person participates in an abusive relationship and they don't leave. They might want to check in and say to themselves that Hey, my stuff was that I stayed, or my stuff was that I didn't realize it. You know what I mean? You have a question for? Yeah. Yeah. Wouldn't it? Not only make sense, but it can very easily lead to shame. But there's a very fine line. Wouldn't it make sense to judge ourselves? Not based off, because you said based off Like our godly soul. But wouldn't it be like for a person they're going to judge themselves based off their previous actions? And if like to say they're always doing something and they keep on doing something When they do it, they're not going to be like this is I'm not living up to myself because I've been doing this for three years.

9:43 That is the challenge. I think you're hitting the nail right on the head. Hundred percent. It's hard for us to believe in our worthiness when our actions have been so contrary to that worthiness for so long. If a person is struggling in a particular area, it's hard for them to say, "I'm not that person," even though they're doing that action over and over again. This is an old machlokus in football. Bill Parcells was the coach of the Giants many years ago. He was the rebbe, his talmud mivak was Bill Belichick. He was the Rebbe of many of the great coaches in the NFL. So Bill Parcells famously said, "You're as good as your record." What did he mean by that? He meant that teams would come and they'd say, 'Yeah, we're really good on paper, right?' And he would say, 'There's no such thing as being really good on paper. There's you're as good as your records.' He had these teams that are really good on paper, but they're three and twelve.

10:41 They're the best five and sixteen. Exactly. And come move on. You have it this year with the Lakers, right? Before the season, everyone was like, "Oh my gosh, they're going to be amazing." Except for those who knew anything about basketball, right? And now I'm saying, and they're clearly there are some five and sixteen. In a canami, I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rule, but it's hard. You can't say that you're a great Lakers team, right? If you're not performing, if you've lost ten out of the last thirteen, right? On the other hand. On the other hand, it's true. Let's bring Fag into the mix over here. Let's say you have the Philadelphia seventy sixers. You're just one beard away from being awesome. It's quite a beard, and it is quite a beard. We all know who that beard is based upon. It's the only time the Sarabosai.

11:31 So Gersley's point is well taken. How could I say that I'm a good Jew if I Haven't been davening. If I haven't been learning. If I've been doing certain averes repeatedly for years on end What's the appropriate response to that? We have to be mechanical here. We have to split between two very important things: what you do with your life. And the life itself. When we speak about life itself, that's your neshama. Your neshama is pure. No matter what avera you've done. That's what we say every morning in davening. Elohai, neshama shen asatibi. Tahori. The soul that you gave me is pure. It's impossible for the soul, in its essence, to be corrupted. I'll say that again because I want to make sure everybody understands that the soul, as a piece of God, in its perfection, cannot become imperfect. So the godly soul that we have inside of us is pure.

12:40 And its essence is what defines your life. But then, there's what you do with your life. The worthiness comes from I am a godly soul. That's what I am. The feeling of guilt and regret cannot be on an essential level, and that's the split. It's a very important distinction. On an essential level, you are Jewish, no matter what you do. That's what the Gemara means when it says 'Afa pishachata Yisraelu.' Even if you do an avera, you're a Jew. The simple understanding of the Gemara is I don't lose my Judaism just because I did an avera. But the deeper understanding of the Gemara, Samuel appreciate this. The deeper understanding of the Gemara is that it's impossible for my essential status to be changed. I am a Jew. Aye, but Rebbe, I just did the worst avera I've ever done in my life, and let's say I've done it repeatedly, and let's say I've done it for months or years on end, and let's say I'm feeling that now it's March of my Shana Aleph, and I'm feeling like I'm still doing that same avera. There's a tendency to say it must be on a psychological level. It must be, I'm not who I think I am.

13:55 That's incorrect. It's incorrect. You may not be playing the game well, but you are a player in the game. So you have to be mechalik between your life, your neshama, and what you do with that life. You can regret and feel guilty in a healthy way over what you've done. Only if you have a one hundred percent appreciation of the essential life force that's inside of you that is a piece of God. You see, the challenge is that we don't know the first thing, so we corrupt the second. I'll explain what I mean. Make sure you guys get this. This is probably the most essential point of this year. If you don't understand that you are good That in your essence you are good, not only good but godly. What's going to naturally happen when you do an avera? You're not only going to say, "I did a bad thing." What are you going to say?

14:49 I am a bad person. So you start to conflate your action with your being. That's why it goes back to that Bill Parcells line. Is anybody a bad person? There's a notion of evil. There is a notion of evil, but let's just say that essentially. But I'm saying I don't want to start splitting between Jews and Gaon. Let's just keep it to people in this room. Essentially, you're defined by your actions. The opposite. Essentially, you're not defined by your actions. You are a godly soul. That's your essence. No. That's a big mistake. Be very careful. You're missing the point. I'm explaining. You're making a big mistake. Don't do that. That's a very dangerous path. What defines you is not your actions. Bill Parcells was wrong. You are better than your record. But you can't say that you won X amount of football games. You could say I'm a great football player. But then you have to take that into the world of action and be a great football player in action. So there's life And then there's what you do with that life. The life itself that you have, which is what defines you, not your actions.

16:03 That's what it means. Atal pisha chatu yisrohu. You are not defined by your actions. Even if you do the avera, you're still a Jew. You are not defined by your actions. But let me get the point out. But what I do with that life. That's what's critical. So if I don't do the appropriate thing, if I have the knowledge that I am good, now I could say and therefore what I did is beneath me. But if you don't have the knowledge that you are good Then what you did could come to define you, and that's very dangerous. We cut him off before he even did right. For sure. See—that's the other side of the coin. But first of all, it's a bad example, right? Because in history, Ben Sira Mora never happened. Fine. And let's just well That by itself is also an interesting question of what defines a person as a Russia and what does the word Russia mean? Because I'm not convinced that the word Russia means evil person. Russia could be, in my mind, when we use the term Russia, and this is the way it's used in the Balatanya.

17:11 I'm sorry, in Tanya, by the Balatanya, Russia means if a person is uncalibrated with the truth. I'm not convinced that when you say Russia, you mean evil. I don't accept that definition within the realm of Judaism. Let's go to your Ben Sora Amora case. First of all, it never happened. That's important. And number two, the Gemara tells us that the only reason it existed was for us to learn from it, but not Chas v'Shalom to say that a person is defined by their actions. And again, just because there is a punishment for the way that a person behaves. In that case, it would be a really bad example because the whole point there was that you are worthy, and we would not want you to sully your worthiness. So it would be actually the exact opposite point of the point you are trying to make. But even aside from that. Just because you do something and it has an impact, that's a value statement. That means you are worthy. It's the opposite of what you are trying to say.

18:03 Some value actions don't. But actions do matter. I'm not saying that they don't matter. I'm saying they don't define your essence. Avera is when a person is uncalibrated with the truth. It's an action that's uncalibrated with the truth of reality. No. No. It doesn't. That's what I'm trying to tell you. To Hashem, it does not define you. Here's a jumping point which I wanted to get to later, but I'll at least touch on it now. If we want to talk about Hashem's infinite judgment, and we want to assume that judgment is perfect, then we also have to assume that judgment is perfectly compassionate and perfectly calibrated. For example, everything that we do on some level is understandable. If we understood ourselves infinitely well, come on in. If we understood ourselves infinitely well, Sam, make space for we're moving.

19:01 If we understood, for example, if we understood our parents. This would be a good example. If we understood our parents and we understood how our parents came to be our parents, which means we understood their parents, and we understood the social context in which they lived. So let's just take a recent example. Let's say you had a Jew who was growing up as the child of Holocaust survivors. This was very relevant. In my generation, a little bit less so in your generation. Though for some of you, it's probably still true. Let's say you had a kid who was the child of Holocaust survivors. Let's say that child was regularly woken up at three o'clock in the morning by his mother or father having night terrors that the Nazis were coming. Right? It's. It doesn't define you. It does define what just happened. Yeah. So. Let's say that mother who has those night terrors was never able to say the words "I love you" to her children, because she had lost children in the Holocaust. Let's say she saw those children be killed by the Nazis. The child grew up and was regularly woken up at night, and his mother never said "I love you."

20:14 Her mother never said 'I love you.' Now that child becomes a mother herself. Can we understand the complexity? Of what starts to happen in her own She's now a mother who never heard the words 'I love you' from her own mother, who was regularly woken up by night terrors. These are just extreme examples, but we could have chosen a million things. She was bullied as a child. They were poor. They were rich. There's a million different things. How do you think that impacts the way that she parents? And understand that child and their behavior is one hundred percent, at least, impacted on some level by what the parent went through and what the grandparent goes through, let alone what other things they go through. So the thing about Hakadosh Baruch Hu's judgment is it's actually perfect. We judge ourselves very imperfectly. The nature of our judgment is I did this avera, and it's usually in a vacuum. But it doesn't necessarily take into the larger context. Like for example The Ramban.

21:08 Did the ramban have pornography issues? Do you think he had pornography challenges? The ramban did not have access the same way that we have. It wasn't anonymous the same way that we have. It wasn't free the same way that we have. The ramban was living in a time where if a woman showed her hand out of her sleeve, it was probably chopped off. So when the ramban, you're laughing. What do you mean? It's like a generation ago for you. This is not so far for you. Was the Rebbe's nesayon the same thing as our nesayon? Of course not. And when we engage in that nesayon, and let's say we fail, which is of course something we should regret and do tshuva for, but how often do we take that into context? How often do we appreciate the fact that so many of us grew up with these things and they were like apparent to us all around us? Hakadosh Baruch Hu's judgment is perfect, and actually a perfect judgment. Doesn't say that your essence is corrupted, because remember, L'kainu Shemashon, it's not to be Tahiriyi. Afal pishachato Yisraelhu.

22:05 That's for sure, Hashem's perspective. The avera itself is one hundred percent contextualized by God. And He understands it in an infinite way—a way that you couldn't possibly understand. Not only does He take into account every moment of your life, every moment of your parents' life, your grandparents' life; it's all the way back to Maseberesius. Does that make sense? What happens when Hashem, when we die, when we go? Hashem judges us, and we do. We all have. That's right And the process, just like the shirt goes through that process of purification, so to speak. There's a cleansing process for the shirt, and that's a good. That's an inherent statement of our worthiness. So too, there's a process of purification that the soul has to undergo before it returns to what's called Olam Haneshamos, in order for the soul to feel comfortable in the world of souls, which is before Chiyas Hamesim. In that world, the soul has to It has to feel like a diamond in a Tiffany's box, and right now it's a diamond that, unfortunately, on the outside has been covered by mud. There's an uncomfortable blowtorch that happens where we get off all the impurities, but of course, in its essence, it remains pure. And otherhaba, the blowtorching process, which I don't mean physically, obviously, is a statement of our worthiness. Sam, you waited patiently.

23:19 So what about those things that people say, if you do this, you lose all your oldhaba, or like someone who gets cards? So first of all, again, just a quote here from the Alter Rebbe. I didn't make any of this up. But Balatanya says that even on those things that Chazal say you can't do tshuva for, you can do tshuva for. And what he explains is there's two different types of tshuva. There's a regular tshuva, and then there's an elevated type of tshuva. And what the Gemara means, and the Alter Rebbe proves this in many ways. But what the Gemara means is that a regular tshuva would not be sufficient. But a person always has the capacity to do the higher level tshuva, which will certainly make an impact. So even on those avayers that seem to be those things for which you would be totally gone, you're not. Those are good questions. That's a particular question though, just in a general sense. And that's where we start off, right? Whenever we're learning Pickelvus, what's the first thing we say?

24:17 What's the very first thing? Kol Yisrael, Yisrael amcheilek leolam haba. Every single Jew, by definition, already has a portion. Now the question is, what you do with it. Remember that olam haba is olam hazeh. Olam haba is this world; it will one day be. We each have our space that only we can rectify, and that space is already given to us. Nothing can remove us from that. What will tachlis be is a different story. After we die If we end up being pure. We do teshuvah here so we can build that relationship to Hashem, but in the end if our aviras don't overall affect us because we'll get cleansed anyway. What's the real overall benefit of doing teshuvah now? The most important benefit is that anything in life we want to be aligned with reality. So to do a mitzvah is to align ourselves with the truth of reality. To do an avira means to take us away from the truth of reality. So it would be the equivalent of saying something like this: I'm in a marriage. I did an avera, quote unquote, in the marriage. Eventually she'll forgive me anyway. Why should I bother to ask forgiveness now?

25:28 Because you're still in the relationship. We encourage you to participate in the relationship. Every moment that you're not aligned with the truth of reality is a moment of your life that could be used. To bring the world to be a more godly place, and you're missing out on that opportunity. It's like you missed a shot in basketball. So now you're no longer going to shoot. You're just going to sit on the side. You have to rectify that thing. You understand? Nothing can ever come to be perfected in the shama. The shama is who we are by definition. Is that to say that we are always perfect? Because remember that you stand bifurcated between a nefesh lukes and a nefesh bahanis. Is that who you are in terms of who you truly are? And on your essential level, that can never be diminished. That's correct. But the essence matters, but what you do with it matters more. Matters more.

26:21 Meaning, in the sense of what you did cosmically. I'll give you an example. Because in your shemisli You're cosmic. Right. So on an But right. You might be an amazing person, but if you don't do anything amazing in your life with that, it's hard to understand the value of what being an amazing person was. It's almost to say, and this is a little bit daring, so just take it with a grain of salt. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is perfect, and in his perfection, he's the ultimate giver. But what's the value of being the ultimate giver if he never actually gives? The world is an expression. Obviously, Akol D'Shbaruk was perfect before the world, but the actualization of his perfection is manifest in the world. And without that, it's like what's the value of being a perfect giver if you never give You could say I'm a great husband, but if you beat your wife, like you perhaps have it in you to be a great husband, but right now you're abusive.

27:18 Exactly. And it was in the world of action. And that's what Chazal say: Ki Am Maisa Hu A Iker. In your essence, you're good. But the value of the good essence is that you can make the world a godly place, not so that you can just be good. Bide you. Exactly. In other words, on my essential level, I'm good. If I know that, I can go do godly things with it. If I don't know that I'm good, then every time I don't do a godly thing, I come to define myself. You missed the beginning of the share. We're jumping off of the quote of the Balshemtoh that it's not the bite of the snake that kills you; it's the venom. It's not the avera that kills you. It's the shame that makes you feel unworthy of love and connection that leads to the next avera. Steve If our essence neshama is always going to be good, then what's the difference if you're a mitzvah avera?

28:11 The opposite. It's It's this what this the same. This is the same. The same issue that keeps circling around, but it's a mistake. If you were. A great basketball player, meaning you have the capacity to step on the court and hit threes from fifty feet out regularly. And then you don't step on the court. What's the value of the fact that you have the capacity to do it? Nothing. The capacity to do it inspires us to do it. So if you know that you have the capacity to make the world a more godly place, and then you don't. It's either because you didn't know that you had the world capacity to make the world a more godly place, or you know it, but there's some other terror that's reigning inside of you. But if you have the capacity to do it, you should do it.

29:04 That's why we're always sort of astounded. When great athletes don't live up to their potential, but you're from New York, right? It's gonna happen to Phil in two weeks. It's gonna happen to Philly in two weeks. What does that mean? Where it doesn't go so magically. You're saying in the Seventy Sixers. Julius Randle, that's a great example. Contract year Julius Randle, superstar, post hundred million dollar contract, and we're all sitting there kind of wondering like you have the capacity to do this. Why would you not do it? And if you think about what makes the great players great, like what made Jordan great? What made Kobe great? What makes LeBron great? It's that they have their foot on the gas pedal. It doesn't matter how much you give them; they're doing it not from a place of money. They're doing it from a place of like this is who I am.

29:56 Mameila, I act that way. If we were as aware of the godly nature of our soul, it would be nearly impossible for us to do an avir to not actualize it. Having all this talent and doing nothing with it is killer. Excellent example. If our actions don't define us, then They do define what you do with your capacity, though. I think you guys are making you guys keep circling back. I just want to make sure you got this. Just because your actions don't define you doesn't mean they don't define what you do with your life. That you have a life that's godly is one thing. What you do with that life is something else. So it does define what you do with your life, and that's what Bill Parcells meant. You're as good as your record. You might be a great football player, but if you're not playing the game, you're not actualizing that talent. If our actions don't define us, our essence, our soul Then why is there even a machlokes as to whether or not you can do tshuva for murder?

30:51 I don't think there is a machlokes. I think you can do tshuva for every avera. I heard from somebody that you can't. I thought, isn't there a machlokes in the Gemara? As I mentioned before, the Alter Rebbe shows that you can do tshuva for any avera. So you'd have to show me specifically what you're talking about. So our essential soul because it begins like it's perfect. It ends is perfect. Our essential meaning is always perfect. Our essential souls are potential, but our actions are a result of that potential. Our essential soul is not just potential. Our essential soul is us. But what you do with that It's like I'm a great guitar player. I am. Did you know that? I am the best guitar player that ever played guitar in the history of the world. I've picked up a guitar twice in my life. Only twice. But you should have seen me when I played those two times.

31:49 Nobody ever hit that note like I did. What would you say about that? True or false? Definitely false. It could be that I'm a great guitar player, but if you wanted to see the expression of that guitarist, you'd have to actually see me play. Just me saying I am a great guitar player doesn't mean anything. The same way, getting up here and saying you are a perfect Godly soul doesn't mean anything unless you use it to do wonderful Godly things in this world. In the all I'm gonna show you understand what after we pass is there a difference between someone who's on the street and someone who has it? The I mean, you're saying ultimately at the very end. In general, once we are clean, I know you should live your life to try and find the truth and connect. That's why we do mitzvahs. But after that, the next step.

32:37 I think you're making one mistake. This is not about you. You're trying to figure out. You're going to say to me, "If there's no difference at the end, then why should I bother?" It's not about you. It's about what you were put here to do. Are you doing it or are you not doing it? You hear the difference? You're focused on what happens afterwards. I'm focused on what happens now. To me, this is the game, not later. That's the bein asmanim. This is the zman. Hachbam. Just thing you want to say, bro? What's the if? It's intrinsically true, the godliness, but it's about the expression, and we care a lot about the expression. And God cares a lot. What's the idea? The goal is not to be perfect because we already are in there. Not going to be perfect. The goal is to express perfection. And for the world to express perfection as loudly as possible.

33:26 That's correct, and the more the world expresses that perfection, if everybody in the world would express the inner perfect godliness that we have, then our world would be a more godly place, and that is the purpose ultimately of creation—to make adirat betachtonim for Hakadosh Baruch. Not well to express more the godliness, like it already is a godliness. To reveal that, to get it to the point where godliness is obvious. And so we've made certain strides in the right direction, but are we there? Of course not. I'll give you an example. Right now we're in the middle of a war with Russia over Ukraine. But you see a very interesting thing that's happening. Most of the world, Baruch Hashem, is saying like this. Most of the world is saying this is an evil thing, and we need to stamp out any notion of this evil. And we have to fight tyranny and evil with everything that we have. Most of the world is saying that because we all recognize on some level that this is antithetical to the way that God wants the world to be. In a perfectly godly world, could there be war?

34:33 In a perfectly godly world, could one person harm another person for no reason? Of course not. Let's just assume for a second that Putin's war is immoral and that it's designed just to increase the power of a dictator rather than over some legitimate political reasoning. Let's assume that for a second. What's the moral responsibility of every godly person? What would you say to stop him with how much of your being? With all of your being. Are we doing that? No. Not really. Because there are other considerations at play. Let's take the Uyghurs in China. There's a group of people that are being terror. Just a good video on Vox about this. The internment camp. They literally have like they're. It's a terrible thing. It's like a Holocaust. What's happening to them? And why is the world doing nothing about it? Because it's happening in China. And if the world would go to war with China, the entire economy of all the world would collapse. And so we are not acting in the most godly way possible because we don't really want to pay a dollar more for our whatever thing is being made in China. And so here are these people that are being destroyed, and it's an act of evil. We're not living in a godly world, so we need to continue to make the world a more godly place.

35:54 Does that make sense? Should be obvious. Who? Sam Because he was willing to split the baby. Sam goes first. I was just gonna ask that Just like any other skill, we know, right? It only gets better if we do it a lot, right? So we have this godly soul within us, but someone who's never done it before, never learned before, comes and he's not going to be able to do it. So does your godly soul just get better? Does it get more godly? So it doesn't get more godly because there's no such thing as more and less in the world of infinite. But Sam's point is fabulous and superb. Rabosi, lock in, Sam, as always, right on target. Just because I have the talent doesn't mean that I have developed the talent. Let's say, for example, Chazal say, "Anachnu maaminim b'nei maamina." We have emuna as part of our DNA. Our parents have emuna, our grandparents have emuna, all the way back. It comes from Avraham Avinu. Our essential self has emuna built into the process.

37:08 Does that mean you're a meimun? You have emuna, but to cultivate that emuna into the actualization of that talent, such that when it comes time for a person to be tested, they've been tested. That's not a simple thing, right? Do I have a natural relationship with Torah? Does a Jew have a natural relationship with Tefillah? Of course. Have we developed? Has that relationship matured? Are we good at it? Those are things that take years and years to do. So there's no doubt that just because you have the talent doesn't mean you've actualized it. You don't become more godly, but the relationship that you have with God becomes more profound. The Jew who's completely unaffiliated, who doesn't keep Shabbos, who maybe goes to shul on Yom Kippur or maybe shows up to a Pesach seder once a year. He's not less godly than you. He's not, and because he's not less godly than you, we're never going to give up on him. But whose relationship with Hashem is more actualized?

38:11 His relationship on an essential level, he's still the Ben Melech. He's still the prince. He's still the son of Hashem. But it's not the same thing as the prince who's living in the palace. The same. In a way, this is harder now by saying that your essence is perfect. Because once you know that, it means if you don't actualize it, you feel even more regret. That's so. What I would this but you can't feel shame. Because remember, what does shame mean? Shame means that I'm unworthy of love and connection. If what I am is loved and connected, then I can never lose that. Then you cannot feel shame. But knowing that you're not actualizing it Could make me feel deeply regretful. If I had ten million dollars and I was squandering it, and I had the opportunity to turn ten into a hundred and make a huge difference in the world, I would deeply regret that.

39:13 But it doesn't. Define, I'm saying it doesn't define the essence. If the essence is that you are worthy of love and connection, then you are. That cannot be undone. If you know that, but what can be is because I'm worthy of love and connection. How can I behave in a way that's not in line with the love and connection that I have? That's a huge point. Is the guy that you're talking about with Sam, who is mostly unaffiliated and goes on one date a year? Did she expect because he's just as godly as any of us? She expected to do some forms that she would then try and build a connection. Expected by who? I believe that person has a responsibility to be thoughtful. And that person has a responsibility to harmonize himself and to live in consonance with the truth of reality.

40:12 I personally could never judge his journey because I have no idea what he's been through, how he's gotten here. The point of where you're at in that playing field could be very different. If a person is living in Russia and they were never exposed, their parents and their grandparents and maybe even their great grandparents were never exposed to Judaism. Or maybe just the opposite. Maybe they became part of the Communist Party and maybe they were taught from a very young age to disdain religion, and that filtered down through the generations. Obviously, that person's nekudas habachira is going to be fundamentally different than somebody who grew up and went to DRS. So you understand what I'm saying. The natural challenge of who a person is could never be understood by us, but would of course be taken into account by Hashem. Rabbi Bosa, we're going to pick this up again tomorrow.