Kedoshim - Making Space for Another

2:24 That's why it needs to be said to the entire kahila. Most mitzvot are conditioned on this; they're conditional to this concept of kedushim to you. But what is it? Why is it? How is it so central that the mitzvot are conditional to the idea of kedushim to you? That's our first question. The second question is an even bigger one. The second question comes from a medrash. The first question is how the dependent. How is kedoshim to you that it was so important to be said to the entire parsha? So fundamental that it needs to be said to everybody. This can't be one of those things that you teach and then those teachers teach those two people. This has to be to everybody. What is so fundamental about this parsha of kedoshim to you? That's question number one. Question number two is there's a medrash. The medrash is wild. It's a one-liner, but it's so big. Kedoshim to you, you shall be holy. You might have thought, remember, why do we have to be holy? Because Hashem is holy. Guys, remember that, right? It says, Kedoshim to you, Kadosh ani. Be holy. Why? Because Hashem is holy.

3:47 Hashem says, 'You might have thought be holy like me, that we should be holy like God.' Talmud Lomar, the pasuk comes to teach you, 'Ki kadosh ani, because I am kadosh, kedushasi lemalah mikedushaschem.' My holiness is bigger than yours ever will be. Don't try to be holy like me, says Hashem. That is impossible. That is the least inspiring medish I think I've ever read in my entire life. Alternatively, maybe it's obvious. Maybe I'm never going to be as holy as God. So either way, it's uninspiring because either I for sure know I'm never going to be as holy as God, right? In which case, you don't even need to teach it to me. Or I don't know. I thought I could be holy. And God says you could be holy, just not holy like me. My kedusha is more elevated than yours. So what are we talking about over here? I would have thought that I could be holy like Hashem. You can't. That's like the opposite, right? What does every Rebbe tell their students? You could be even greater than me. Here's Hashem coming along and going, look, you could be holy. You just can't be holy like me. Holy?

5:06 God's never said anything. It's a very, very strange medrash. This madras is so strange; it demands of us to be understood on a deep level. I'm going to share with you a concept and idea that we're going to develop over the next 25 minutes. It's based on—I can't tell you—it's exactly what Rav Shimon Shkop says. I think it's what Rav Shimon Shkop says, but it's certainly, at the very least, inspired and largely based on what Rav Shimon Shkop says. And the idea is as follows. There's something that we wouldn't necessarily put together with the word kedusha, but in many ways, this is what the word kedusha actually means. The word kedusha means humble. We don't think of kedusha as humble. We think of kedusha as holy. Maybe we think of kedusha as designated, like I'm mekudosh to you. I'm designated to you. But another way of thinking about the word kedusha is humility, and I'll explain to you why. Because the word kedusha could also be understood as transparency. So let's think about it like this: Is our world a godly place? It's not such an easy thing to think about. But let's just say I'm looking at that table. Do I see godliness in that table? You could.

6:35 But I don't, and I don't readily see it. When I see a table, when I see a couch, I'm just naming things in the room, right? When I see a couch, I see a table. Good. So there are some things that are more kadosh. Their godliness is more apparent. So when you see a parutzvillin, you think that's kadosh. But when you see a table, you don't think kadosh. The reason is because when God created the world, and this is going to be the important point for tonight. So try to get this idea. The reason is that when God created the world, He created the world to say, "I exist independent from God." That's if the world could talk. I'm going to say it again. If the world could talk, this is what it would say. If that table could talk, it would say, "I exist independent from Hashem."

7:30 And that's why when you look at a table, you don't see Hashem. When you look at a table, you see a table. When you look at a couch, you see a couch. Because the couch says, 'I'm a couch.' The couch doesn't say, 'I'm Hashem's creation.' The couch says, 'I'm a couch.' In other words, when the world was created, it was the first game of hide and seek. Hashem hides Himself in the world. So when we look at a world, even though of course what's driving the world every single second is Hashem's will that the world exists, but do we see that Hashem is fueling the world? We don't see it. Hashem is hidden within the world. So the posture of the world is arrogant. And if you had to say, what's the job of a Jew? It is to confront the arrogance of the world and humble it.

8:26 So that the world can be a place of transparent godliness. What is olam haba? You ever heard this question before? By the way, let's start here. Where is olam haba? Some people say olam haba is up there, but according to the Ramchal and according to the Ramban and others, this world is olam hazeh, which means the world as it is right now. And what is olam haba? The world as it will one day be. When Mashiach comes, it will usher in the era of Olam Haba, six thousand years of creation, a thousand years of Shabbos, and then something called Olam Haba. So this world is transitioning from being a place that's opaque. You guys know what opaque means? It means you can't see through it. And every time we do a mitzvah, what are we doing? We're bringing the world to a state of transparency. So what will be Olam Haba? A place where Hashem's presence.

9:24 Is clearly manifest, just like we had a miniature version of that in the Beis Hamikdash. In Olam Habah, the entire world will be like a Beis Hamikdash. It will be a place of complete transparency. Everyone understand this idea? So Kedoshim to you means what? If you had to rethink about it, doesn't mean be holy. What does it mean now? If we're thinking about Elul, it's Create transparency through humility. I'm going to show you that this makes sense in relationships. What does humility mean in a relationship, and what does arrogance mean in a relationship? Why is arrogance such a turnoff in a relationship? You're acting like you're better. What does that mean? Why do you think you're better than me? Maybe they just think they're awesome. Okay,

10:23 Good. So you know, sometimes you'll see someone and you'd be like, they're pretty good looking, and then they'll open their mouth and you'll be like, yeah, you know what I'm talking about? They can physically even change. They could, I used to think he was, but now he's not because he's just that guy. Why is arrogance such a turn off, and vice versa? Why is humility so attractive? And when I say humility, I don't mean meek. Humility is. This is not humility. That's not. That's not humility. Humility is exceptionally strong, and it's also very attractive. And I'll tell you why. Because arrogance means I'm so present here, I'm so full. There's no space for anyone else. If I'm an arrogant person.

11:17 Who could possibly participate in a relationship with me? I haven't created space. The nature of love, what it means to love somebody is to create space for them. That's what a relationship is. A relationship is a shared space. It's called the space in between. So if you would go to a marriage therapist, a marriage therapist is treating the place called the space in between the couple. It's the relationship. It's neither the husband nor the wife. It's what they're bringing into this place called the space in between. Now I show up to that space and you show up to that space. What happens if I show up to that space and I take up all the space? Then there's no space for the other. Which is why when somebody's arrogant.

12:14 The reason we naturally pull back is because we say, that guy's so full of himself. There's no room for me. And when you said before, who do you think you are to think you're better than me? What you're really saying, if you unpack it, is where would I even be in this relationship? It doesn't even make sense for me to be here. I'm clearly not needed. I'm not even wanted. He doesn't need anyone. He doesn't want anyone. But you know what arrogance is. If somebody's arrogant in a relationship, you know what you can't see? You can't see them. Because we know what arrogance really is. What is arrogance really? Insecurity. It's covering up for their insecurity. So if somebody shows up to a relationship arrogantly and says, 'I take up all the space, you can't be here,' you know why they don't want you to be there? Because they don't want to be seen. What does the word intimacy mean?

13:08 Intimacy means oneness. The best way to think about the word intimacy is it's true. Intimacy is built on intimacy. The vulnerability of intimacy you see is I don't want you to see me because I'm terribly insecure about who I am, so I don't allow you in. Does that make sense? Arrogance doesn't allow for another in a relationship. The opposite is humility. Why is humility so attractive? Because when you meet somebody who's humble, it's not that they're weak. It's not that they're meek. They might be very strong. They show up and they say, 'Hineini, I'm here.' And they allow you to be seen. You allow them to be seen, and you know what that means? It means that there's an invitation. There's space to enter into the relationship. So when this world, when a table says, 'I'm a table.'

14:04 What's it not letting you see? What's its arrogance? It's essence. That's right. It's not letting you see its essence. And what's its essence really? Its essence is Hashem. So what do we want to use that table for? We want to align it with its essence. We want to humble the table by engaging it with the ultimate humility. What is the ultimate humility? So that's two from. You're right. But it's too frum, and I'll tell you why. We're gonna take one step back, and then your answer is gonna make much more sense. What's the ultimate act of humility? There was it happened only once in the history of the world. This is Yitzchak. It's a good call. Even before that, the ultimate act of humility is the creation of the world, because where is the world? There's something called simtsum. Do you know what simtsum means? Simtsum means to refract, to pull back. Hashem was mitzamsam himself, so to speak. It doesn't mean literally, but Hashem pulled himself back to allow for the creation of another. Isn't that the ultimate act of humility? The ultimate act of creating space. Do you realize that we live

15:28 In Hashem's love, that's not a cliche. It's not like a seminary line. It's philosophically, hashkafically true. Olam Chesed Yibane means Hashem created a world of love. What does that mean deeply? It means the creation of the world and the world that we live in is an act of love. If Hashem doesn't want the world to exist, then we're gone. We exist only because He creates space for us to exist. Does that make sense? So Hashem pulled Himself back. Hashem is everywhere. So where's the world? Hashem pulls Himself back, so to speak, to allow for the world to exist. It's the ultimate act of creating space. It's the ultimate act of humility. It's the ultimate act of love, as we'll soon see. It's the ultimate act of giving. So when I live in this world, aligned with the ultimate act of humility—that is to say, Hashem—what do I do to the table? So now let's go to what you said. So if I have a table and I could eat food on that table and I could just sit there and pound, that has nothing to do with Hashem. The table remains in its arrogant state of "I'm a table, individual, separate and other from God." But if I put a sefer on that table, or if that table becomes my Shabbos table.

16:52 And I have guests at that table. If that table becomes a desk where two people sit and talk and are friendly and they share the very Torah, what happened to the table now? The table transforms because up until now the table was a table that was hiding godliness, and now what's the table being used for? To reveal godliness. The table becomes transparent. The godliness is seen. The table becomes humble. What happens if we would do that? Everywhere in the world Then Hashem would be revealed. So when we talk about Mashiach, girls, is Mashiach something that you hope for in the sense of you sit back and wait for it? You have to do it. What does it mean to hope for Mashiach? It doesn't mean we sit back and wait. It means Mashiach makes us act in a way because I know that one day there will be a redemption. I want to participate in the redemption process. So every time I see something physical in the world that seems not to have anything to do with Hashem, assuming that it's mutter, what do I do with it? I engage it in a humble way. Now we're ready to answer our first question, but the second question is still going to be very hard. Girls, in a certain sense, is not every single mitzvah predicated on this?

18:18 I have a choice. I wake up in the morning. I could say Modaani. I could get up, wash Nagelvaser, get dressed, go daven, go learn Torah, go teach Torah. I could do that. But what do I want to do in that moment? Because the bed is so comfortable, the pillows are so plush, the cover is the perfect balance between keeping you hot and being cold. You know I'm talking about. The pillow is at that perfect temperature. It's just been flipped, so it has the perfect coolness. And it's winter in Jerusalem, and the floors are so cold. And I'm dreading putting my feet on that floor, and I'm dreading even dragging myself to class in some sort of pajamas.

19:17 And I'm gonna sit there. I'm barely awake. What do I want versus what does Hashem want? I want to stay in bed. What does Hashem want? Hashem wants me to get up and have a life. The first word that we say every day is what? Mode. The second word we say is ani. There has to be an ani, but it can't be the first word. How come we don't say ani mode? Because if the first word that comes out of your mouth is I, then you roll back over and you go to sleep. But if the first word that comes out of your mouth is Moda, humility, to humble yourself, to acknowledge that there's something greater than yourself, then you say, I have a mission. I have to wake up. I have to do things. I have to make this world into a godly place. Every single mitzvah is this. Let's before we get into mitzvahs, let's make it about relationships. It's always easier to understand.

20:14 Do you think when you're married, you're gonna want to cook dinner? There will be times where you don't want to. Do you think when your teenage daughter wants to tell you about all the narishkite going on in her life, that all you want to do after a hard day's work is sit there and empathize with her and validate her experience, especially if the thing that she's doing is going to have negative results, and you see her driving that car, so to speak, right into the wall, and you have to be there going like, I really see your experience. I'm curious to see how you're going to handle this. You're going to want to grab her by her 16-year-old shoulders and go, turn around, do something different. This isn't working. But of course, you can't do that, because if it was up to you and your arrogance, for sure you would grab her. But if you humble yourself, then you have to ask her, not what are your needs, what are her needs. In a certain sense, isn't every single mitzvah a confrontation with your own ego?

21:12 I don't want to wake up in the morning. I don't want to daven. It's Rosh Chodesh. It's a long davening. It's Pesach Shabbos. That's quite a benching. So you'll say I don't want to do that. I'm just letting you know it's Rosh Chodesh. They have another day. I'm saying there's another. We have another day of Rosh Chodesh. It's two days Rosh Chodesh. The point is this: every single mitzvah is a confrontation between your own ego and humility. What is the first Rashi telling us? The first Rashi tells us, "Kedoshim to you." This has to be said to everybody. This has to be direct. All the mitzvot are dependent on this concept. Because if you're arrogant, you won't do the mitzvot, and if you're humble, you will. That's why when kids say today, and I know this might upset some of you. If it doesn't get you upset, that's beautiful, and if it does get you upset, that's beautiful. I'm not doing this unless I understand why. It sounds good at first. If you're like 16 years old, you think like, yeah, I'm a big intellectual. But then as you get older, you realize that's exceptionally arrogant.

22:34 You're doing things on your own terms. I do things when I want to do them. So let's say, for example, I don't always know why my wife wants me to do things. In fact, if I'm being honest with you, most of the time I have no idea why she wants me to do those things. But that's not what's important. Where's the relationship? The relationship is not in the why. The relationship is in the how. Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me how you want me to do it. I'm in. That's why the first thing that we say is not nishma. It's nase. Of course, I would. I want to understand why, but not for my own arrogance, just so that I can serve you better. You understand? But now let's take it one step further. This is where the shir gets a little bit deeper, and I want you to hear this. And I want to make sure that you are getting the right information. I need to check if there are any errors or inconsistencies. Let me think about this again. Okay, I think that's all.

23:35 Is another reason why we need to tell this mitzvah to everybody together. Because if you wanted to boil down kadoshim to you to what it really is, we could talk about humility, we could talk about transparency, talk about creating space for another. But at the end of the day, kadoshim to you is an action. It's an action that lives in relationships. Are you giving or are you taking? There are only two postures in relationships: giving and taking. The humble person shows up to a relationship and says, 'What can I give for you today?' The arrogant person says, 'What am I getting out of this relationship?' Do you realize why so many relationships are falling apart today? The reason why relationships fall apart is because in relationships today we ask ourselves. I don't even know what I'm getting out of this, but it's not about what you get out of a relationship. It's about what you give to a relationship. You understand what I'm saying? I'll give you an example of this. My grandmother had an old school relationship with my grandfather. My grandfather passed away when I was five years old. I didn't know him so well, but apparently, my grandfather was like that old school toxic masculinity type of guy. Like a real man's man back in the day.

25:06 But they must have had a beautiful relationship. How is that possible? After he passed away, my grandmother said she went on like two, maybe three dates, but she said she couldn't date anybody else because she felt like she was cheating on my grandfather. And I asked her when I was young, 'Grandma, why don't you get remarried?' She said, 'I am married. I'm married to your grandfather. He's just not alive.' And she never got remarried. And the reason she couldn't get remarried is because she had participated in that relationship for so long. She gave for so long that it didn't occur to her because she was old school. It didn't occur to her to say, 'What am I getting out of this relationship?' She wasn't constantly taking the temperature of the relationship and saying, 'How am I feeling?' And I'm sure there were times where she felt good and times where she felt less good. And it doesn't mean, by the way, that if you're in a relationship that you shouldn't show up and say, 'Hey, that thing hurt.'

26:03 If somebody does something, don't hate them in your heart. You have to confront hard things. Have hard conversations. But when we show up to relationships and we go, 'What am I getting out of this?' It means you're a consumer. That's the way a consumer behaves. Do you girls realize that this is what happens? I wasn't here in the beginning of the year in Bermeriam, but I bet you that this is what sounded like in the beginning of Bermeriam when you first came here. I don't know if I'm getting what I want out of this seminary. You remember people said that? I don't know if they're giving us enough. I don't know if I feel they're making me feel comfortable. That was the way you spoke. I imagine some of you at least, and by a couple of you nodding, I'm realizing I'm right at least about thirty percent of you. And there's about fifty percent of you that aren't here, so I'm guessing that I'm right about sixty percent of you. Do you remember when it switched?

26:59 Do you remember when you stopped asking yourself, 'Is Beer Miriam giving me what I want,' versus, 'What can I do for the sem? How can I show up to make this the place that we all want it to be?' Do you remember that? It switched. I don't know when it switched, but it certainly switched, and all of a sudden you started having a deeper appreciation for the people that are here. And remember, you started talking about how much they give to you and how they're here, even though it's nine o'clock at night, and they would, I'm sure, rather be with their families. But they just seem to live and breathe you, girls. And all of a sudden, it switched, and it wasn't about what you could take from it, but it was about what you could give to it. You stopped being consumers, and you started becoming talmidot. You became real students, real citizens of Be'er Miriam. It used to be the way that people spoke. John F. Kennedy famously said when he was president.

27:48 Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. Today in American politics, what's it all about? We're going to give you this, and we're going to give you that, and everybody's promising the moon, but nobody's getting up and saying, 'Live a life of service.' Kedoshim to you, and needs to happen to everybody at once, because the only way that we can be humble is together, in relationships, in the way that we give, in the way that we love, in the way that we treat the stranger, the blind, the deaf. Those that are infirm, everything that we do has to be. If we're going to be humble, if we're going to be giving, it has to be as a community. We have to become the ultimate givers. However, we can't be. We can't be the ultimate givers, says Rav Shimon Shkop. There's one piece that we'll never have, because giving feels awesome, doesn't it? You ever have a day where you really like?

28:47 Did Chesed, not like a Chesed project, like you actually helped someone and you really dedicated. How good do you feel at the end of that day? You ever have a feeling like it's ten o'clock at night and you're exhausted, but you're like, that was an awesome day. The days that you rolled over and watched Netflix, and you binge-watched whatever, you feel at the end of the day physically gross, because that day you pursued happiness.

29:16 But the day that you were selfless, the day that you were humble, the day that you gave, you felt amazing. The secret to happiness is that if you stop pursuing it, you'll get it. The people that are pursuing happiness never get happy. That's why in America today there's so much depression. Everybody's pursuing happiness. When you pursue happiness, you'll never reach it. But if you pursue meaning, if you pursue giving, if you're a humble person, you'll be incredibly happy. But the problem is that when you're giving, there's a small part of you. Of course, why are you giving? You're giving because it's the right thing to do. You're giving because you're humble. You're giving because you're selfless. But you also know what? That you're getting. It's going to feel awesome. In this world, there's no giving without receiving a little bit. There's only one person, not even a person. There's only one time in the history of the world that somebody gave and got nothing in return, and that was Hashem.

30:10 Because Hashem is perfect, we can never give like Him. When He gives, He gets nothing in return. It's the ultimate giving. So God says, "Kiddushim to you, be kadosh." But know that in this world, as it is, your giving can only reach ninety-nine point nine percent. The only thing, and that's what we aspire to give like God, but we will never all the way reach there. It's not uninspiring. It's actually very inspiring. We can give. Because God gave, but we can never give exactly like God, because we always get something in return. This is a big question in the world today. People say, "Is there such a thing as altruism? Is there such a thing as giving just for the sake of giving?" You know what the answer is.

30:55 There's right, but even in the Chesed Shalemis that we do, even if we're burying somebody and they can never give back to us, I still feel awesome at the end of the day that I did it. So maybe even there's only a tiny twinge of a part of me that says, "I know I'm going to feel good." Right? I know. Maybe, maybe even there's a little bit of like, people know me as the person who's on the Chavurah Kedusha, right? There's a little bit of that, that little bit of that arrogance. And I'm not doing it because of that, but I am aware that it's there. So we can never be as much giving as God, but we're commanded to be giving like God. Now I have a question for you, and we'll finish with this, and then you can ask me a question after.

31:37 When Mrs. Arbach got up here and said, 'I need volunteers,' don't answer. What was your first thought? If it was me and I was sitting in your seat, my first thought would have been, 'I'm not down.' And of course, the operative word there would have been, 'I.' But if you asked yourself, not what you're going to receive, not what you're going to get, not the feeling that you're going to have, not the way that people are going to look at you. If you ask yourself, if I'm on this world to make this world a kadosh place, and to be kadosh means to give, to humble myself before the needs of everybody else, and we're here together as a community. If you understood this she'er, then I expect that in the next five minutes we'll end the she'er, and Be'er Miriam will have more volunteers than they know what to do with. And the problem is that chesed has become a dirty word today because it's all we hear: chesed.

32:35 But the truth is that Chesed really is the most important thing. If we're not giving, we're not humble. If we're not humble, we're arrogant. If we're arrogant, what are we doing here? The whole point is to make this world a godly place. You think you're just volunteering for a Shabbaton? Chas v'shoam. You're fulfilling the very purpose of creation itself. You have an opportunity right now to ask yourself: Am I a moda ani person, or an ani moda person? Am I a kedoshim to you person? Am I a person that's going to make this world into a holy place, or am I an arrogant person? Is there space for others in my world, or do I take up all the space? I'm confident and proud to say that I teach in a seminary where I know what the answer will be. Have a wonderful Shabbos, guys.