Ki Tisa - Inside and Outside Torah

2:08 And he would go hide, and nobody would look for him. It's the saddest thing in the world. That's the saddest thing in the world. So Hashem wants to hide Himself in the Briah. And he wants to be found. He doesn't want to hide himself so much that he can't be found. But on the other hand, the game of hide and go seek is not fun if you're in an obvious place. You remember when you were little and you played hide and go seek with your brothers or your sisters or your friends, and somebody hid under the dining room table, and it's like you stink at this game. It's not fun to play with someone who doesn't know how to hide. Every time Hashem Baruch Hu does a miracle It has to be perfectly calibrated. Because when God performs a miracle, everyone kind of goes, "There he is, that's God." And you want that to be some of the time because you want to keep the game going. But you don't want it to be all of the time because every time you perform a miracle, so now the balance moves in the opposite direction. So when Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes a miracle, before I get to your question real quick, when Hakadosh Baruch Hu makes a miracle And He says the luchos could be read from both sides, mibachutz from the outside or mibefnim from the inside. That's a serious miracle.

3:13 So the question is why If you see the Gemara tells you that something miraculous happened, you have to ask yourself what was the message of that miracle? Because if the miracle doesn't have a message, then it's not worth it. Like you showed yourself in the bria But it must have been for a very important reason. Like Kriyas Yamzuf, right? Huge miracle. The whole world heard about Kriyas Yamzuf. It's a big miracle in order to teach the whole world that there is a God and He's involved in nature and He cares about the Jewish people. That's an important message. This one seems a little bit like a parlor trick. Again, I'm using a word. I don't mean it like this, and I don't want Chassid Shalom anyone to think that I'm in any way denigrating the words of Chazal. You know what I'm saying? Like it just seems like a little like. That's cool.

4:03 It's a little sticky. You could read it from both sides. But why? What's the point of it if a miracle happens? There's got to be a lesson. There's got to be something that ledore doros. The way we learn the story of the luchos is fundamentally changed because we know that you could read the luchos from both sides, from the outside or from the inside. Is your question still relevant? It's just. So Brian Hashem doesn't want to do miracles because also you want to be involved with the game of hide and seek. But what about Hashgacha pratse? Isn't that in a way all the time miracles? Beautiful question. And yes and no and yes. Of course, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is invested in the world and interested in the world and is manipulating everything in the world. But it happens in such a way that we don't necessarily see it happening. Like, you always hear these Hashgacha pratse stories of I missed my bus and that bus blew up. So I one time missed a bus and I was like Chavah, that everybody on the bus has to die now, just so that I can have a Hashgacha brata story.

5:09 Obviously that's not the case. Most of the time, Hakadosh Baruch Hu is involved, but just because something happened that was Hashgacha doesn't mean that I realized that it was Hashgacha because it's hidden. It happens through nature so that I don't even realize that it's Hashem doing it behind the scenes. It's when it's like these crazy stories that people go, 'whoa, that was the hand of God.' But sometimes, like today, me and my friend were walking, and then a staff member pulled up with her car. That was such a shkocha that we didn't have to walk. I'm so glad, but I'm first of all glad you got a ride. That's great. That's like the best thing in the world to get a ride. I don't know why we get such a geshmack from getting a ride, but we do. But I'm sure there's another girl in the room right now who's going, maybe it was just a coincidence. The fact that she could even think that is because Hashem is hiding. Because we don't see Yad Hashem in an obvious way in this world. You have Baruch Hashem a very spiritually attuned soul. A car pulls up, you're like, 'There's God, there he is.'

6:01 No, but within the Haskalah process, you have to also find That's true. I'm saying, and for so she's super calibrated. She's super locked in. This happened. It's from Hashem. I know it's from Hashem. There are people like that. For me, I'm not so like that. I'm always Who knows? To say that. Again, I just want to be clear. The topic. I just make sure we don't lose ourselves. The topic of conversation tonight is not how Hashem balances Himself in the world. It's Hashem balances Himself in the world so that He's perfectly able to be found and perfectly able to be hidden. If He makes a miracle, it's got to be really important. This one doesn't seem so stand out. So let's focus on that part. Not on the balance part. Afterward, you can ask me about the balance part. I just feel like Hashem does. See, that's how I know I'm in a seminary.

6:47 Because in the guys' yeshivas they go, 'But that doesn't make sense,' and in girls' seminaries they go. I validate all your feelings. I empathize. I'd like to create space for the way that you feel. Go ahead. As long as it's big. I don't say this in a way that I ever want to shout to God for Him to take it away. Hashem, you better not take it away. But I just feel. I love. See that. Are you? Where? Where's your family from? I got your family. Pashud, of course you said that. Bukharian. What do you mean? Hashem, you better not. I'm sorry to your parents. I just feel like Hashem does a lot of miracles for me. That's awesome. I don't feel like every single one has to be so important. I don't think it's too. But if Hashem does a miracle that's national, that all of Eretz Yisrael could read the luchos from both sides, that's got to be significant to us. Le Dor Vador. I'm glad that the car pulled up for you too. You know what I'm saying? Like this huge.

7:40 The thing behind Hashkoca is that he hid it through nature, so even Hashkoca itself is a game of hide and seek. Correct. And it's possible to avoid it. So let's get into the nature of the luchos because that's where we're going. For sure, and this seems unnecessary. No animals bark. The entire world heard it. There were millions of tiny aspects of it. Hundred percent, great point. I'm with you. I agree with you, which is why you could say, and I think this is what you're saying. It's just like, okay, this is a little bit extra. Who cares? There was lightning flashing. It sounds awesome, but every single little bit matters. This has got to be perfectly calibrated. The most sensitive instrument in the world is not this sensitive, because the whole point of this entire game of creation is God says, will you bring me into this world? Will you reveal my presence in this world? So it has to be absolutely perfectly calibrated, and anything that tilts towards this side has to be for a very important reason. You're right, this whole event is massive. This part doesn't seem to be massive.

8:42 By the way, if you ask me, the lightning show was beautifully done. That's amazing fireworks. Great, cool. And I'm saying I would. By the way, I would agree with you. If we want to get into a conversation about every single little aspect of the miracle and learn the message from it Agreed, 100. That's what we have to do. So let's bring it to this one. What does it mean, mi b'chutzum, mi b'fenim? I want to share with you what the Meshech Chacham says. Again, if the Meshech Chacham doesn't say it, you'll say it's the Meshech Chacham with a twist. Meshech Chacham says this. How did Avram Avinu come to discover the Torah? I'll tell you what the Rambam says. That's discover the Torah. How did he come to discover Hashem? So this is what the Rambam says. Avram Avinu was looking at the world And he looks at the world and he sees all of the disparate forces in the world Right? And he's like This doesn't make sense to think about it as. This force versus this force, which force is stronger, the fire god or the water god? And some people are, I'm a fire god guy, because fire is really powerful, and some people, no, I'm a water god guy. I worship the water.

9:54 And what Avraham Avinu did, which is ridiculously brilliant, I don't think we think it's so brilliant because it's already thousands of years later, and we kind of just take for granted the thing that Avraham Avinu did, is he said There's got to be one thing that's behind all things. It's not a small thing to say. Do you realize that? To think already thousands of years ago, when the entire world was idolatrous, and any time anything happened in the world People would go, "That's because of that god." And Avemina's like, "No." There's no god. There's no multiple forces that are competing in this world. All there is oneness. And he started to look at creation. And he saw the oneness in everything in creation. Which, by the way, if you think about it, what science is studying right now? Science is trying to find a unified theory of everything. What's the one mathematical equation? The one scientific principle that will bring everything together?

10:53 That concept in science was born already from the time of Avraham Avinu. That's what monotheism is. Monotheism is the belief in true oneness that everything exists in perfect harmony with everything else, because there's one orchestrator of all things. This is called Torah Mibachutz. It's very important. It means that the way you arrive at the truth of Hashem is from the outside. And a lot of people think it's from the outside. It's not good. From the outside is also very important. In the world of science, when you study something, you study it from the outside. You're looking at it. What do you do when you see something? You look at that thing and you need to analyze it. You need to measure it. But it happens outside of yourself. It's a scientific inquiry. Does that make sense? Now there's something amazing about it because it involves no emotion. It's pure logic. It's pure you and that thing. You're just sitting and analyzing it.

11:58 So you have the truth of it. Facts don't care about your feelings. Right? It's just right. I don't mean to quote him. I'm just saying it's. I obviously do mean to quote him. It's. It's just like there's that thing, and I've analyzed it. So this would be like if somebody came and gave a proof of God sheer That's like Torah mibachutz. They come and they say they make an argument. I'm not going to get into it. I just want to be clear. I don't want you to ask me a question on one of these arguments. Somebody comes along and they go, in the history of the world, there's only ever been one mass revelation, and it's weird that the only one that has a mass revelation is Judaism, and that's a proof for Torah. So that's maybe a very nice proof, but what would we call that? Torah mibachutz. It's analytical, it's scientific, it's mathematical.

12:50 It's dispassionate. It's not emotional, it's pure rational logic. It is a very important place in this world for pure rational logic. There's another type of Torah, though, and this is Torah mi'befnim, and it's equally important, and we need both. And I'll explain to you the difference between Torah mi'bachutz and Torah mi'befnim. Imagine you're on a date. If you're in a Torah mi'bachutz mode So then it would be like. If somebody said, "Prove that this guy is on a date with you" " Like prove it You would go, "Well, he's here. He's sitting across from me." How do you know he's sitting across from you? So then you would say, how do we measure anything in this world with our five senses Right? So I can see him. I can measure him through touch. I can measure him through sound, right? I could well I could smell him, right? There's, I, careful."

13:54 Be nice to your community. I was saying you. You were doing this. We can measure somebody's presence. But that's sort of strange. There's something off about that. What's another way to know you're on a date? Another way you're to know you're on a date. Let's say it wasn't a first date. Let's say it's an eighth date. And let's say you're excited about the way that things are going. And let's say you choose to open up You choose to be vulnerable. You choose to actually introduce yourself to him. You start talking about your childhood. You start talking about some of the challenges that you faced in your life. You start talking to him about some of the things that you're passionate about, some of your hopes and dreams and aspirations. And then you see that the way he's reacting to you is like he's totally locked in.

14:56 He's totally focused. He's not looking around. If you're on a date sometimes with a guy and he has ADHD, and even if you're doing that hotel lobby thing, you just see him the entire time. You see that couple that just came in. I just try and get the waiter's attention. I just need to check my phone real quick. There's something very off about sitting in a date and not being present. It doesn't feel safe. It doesn't feel comfortable because we're sharing who we are with somebody. But let's say they're not like that. Let's say they're totally focused, totally locked in, and you say all these real things about you, and you see them going like this And they're quiet and they're taking it in, and then after you say something, the guy goes I really appreciate you sharing that with me. That was really real, and I want you to know I actually respect you much more for going through that.

15:43 And like even again, obviously he won't say this because he's a guy The only thing that'll come out of his mouth is "Yeah, I hear that." But let's say he was articulate and he said something like, "He said something like It actually means a lot that you shared that with me because I've gone through some similar things and I like to share that with you. So there's something being created here, which is called oneness. And if somebody then came to you in the middle of that date where you're feeling so super connected, one of those seven or eight hour dates where the time just flies and you're just like walking everywhere and you're not even tired, right? And then somebody comes and goes, prove you're on a date. You would look at them and go Prove I'm on a date. I have to prove I'm on a date. I'm on a date.

16:30 The idea of proving it is sort of weird. It's like somebody comes to you and says, prove that your mother loves you. And go well. She took care of me all those years. If your mother loves you, and somebody says prove your mother loves you, you look at them like they're from the moon. Of course, my mother loves me. I don't have to prove that my mother loves me. I experience her love from the inside every single day. There are different ways of coming to Hashem. Both are meaningful. Both are good. The first way we described is more scientific. It's an Eishat Torah discovery seminar. They come. They give you all the proofs of God. You walk away and you're blown away because you're like, this incredible. How could anyone deny the truth of this? It's very scientific, though. And then there's another way. And this was the big chiddush of what happened by Matan Torah. Up until Matan Torah, all there was Torah Mibachutz. You read the letters from the outside, like any time we would read a book. That's how you read a book from the outside.

17:29 But did you ever read a book And you actually? Like in a certain sense, lost yourself to the book. It's almost like when you get to the end and you close it. You come back to reality. Have you ever seen people coming out of a great movie? Like when the lights go on, you see them go like this. Like they snap. I'm talking about that little. They snap back into reality. You don't have to prove to me it was a great movie. I'm not proving to you it was a great movie. What you want to do? You want to attach electrodes to my brain and measure the stimulation I had in that scene. You don't need to prove that it's a great movie. It's a great movie because I'm in it. I'm living it. I'm experiencing it. What changed at Har Sinai? Up until then, Hashem was a concept.

18:22 And what changed by Har Sinai is that Hashem wasn't a concept. He was a partner with us in a relationship with us. When Hashem said the word Anochi, which was the very first word of the Aseret Hadibros He said Anochi means I, right? But what does the Gemara say? It means Ana Nafshi Ksavis Yehavis. I wrote my essence into the Torah. Which means that from now on, when you're learning Torah, that's like reading Hashem's diary. And you could lose yourself to it in the most beautiful way. You could discover the truth of it from within. So when a person is learning Torah after Har Sinai It's two totally different things. Some people are learning Torah mi b'chutz, which is very beautiful and it's good, and a person should have logical, rational proofs. But at some point in your life, you have to graduate to Torah mi b'fnim.

19:14 Torah is not an intellectual exercise anymore. I'm learning. I'm not learning like intellectually the academic nature of God. I'm learning Hashem. One way of thinking about it is like this. I'll give you an example. They say that davening is us talking to God, and learning is Hashem talking to us. Right? Because I'm learning what He wants. But do we think about it like that? Like when we're learning Torah. We could learn Torah. We could go. That was a cool Rashi. It answered that question. The text of the pasuk was a little bit funny. So Rashi brought the medrash, so now the text works better. That's a very academic way of learning a Rashi. You could learn a Ramban, and you could say, "Wow, I got a hashkafa, a worldview, a philosophy about Judaism that the way that Judaism believes the world is like this." And that might be, we'll call it a Torah mibachutz.

20:15 There are some people when they're learning. They're not learning something extrinsic to them. They're learning something intrinsic to them. It's who they are. And they become—I don't want to say again—I don't want to say obsessed. Chas v'shalom. Obsession is not a good thing. But they become so deeply attracted to it that the idea of not learning Torah becomes strange to them. If you're in a relationship with someone, you should want to hear things about them. Imagine if your husband came home. And you're talking to him, and he goes, "I hate to interrupt you." This conversation is boring. I know you're telling me about your day, and the challenges you had with your boss, and how you came home from work with the kids all over you. I just don't feel like this conversation relates to me. What? Wow. Very strange thing to say. How many of us do that though?

21:11 Hashem says, "I have a will and a wisdom for this world." I put it in the Torah. And then we go. I don't know. Is this really important for me to know? From the perspective of Torah Mibachutz, I understand the question. From Torah Mibachutz, they're going how does this advance my life in any way? From the perspective of Torah Mibefnim, someone is talking to you. Hashem is telling you about His essence, about His ambitions for this world, about what He wants for us. People who learn Torah Mibefnim. They're having a completely different experience. I'll share with you. These people are yechidah schoola. They're one in a generation. This is not a normal way of being. What I'm about to tell you But my chevrusa I'm not like this. But my chevrusa from many years ago, it's possible. And my rebbe said about him It's possible that he will be one of the next gadolay Torah. He could be the next Rav Chaim Kaniewski.

22:12 It's a very big thing to say. My rebbe wrote in the intro. This he wrote for him. And there's something called a haskama. Haskama is an approbation to a sefer. My rebbe gave him a haskama. Something my rebbe never does. And my rebbe wrote in his haskama It was worth 60 years of teaching just to teach him. My rebbe had tens of thousands of talmidim. He said, and he wasn't exaggerating. It was worth 60 years of teaching. Just to teach him, it's very possible he'll be one of the next Gedolei Torah. What made him so special is not that he's a genius. He's smart, I wouldn't say he's a genius. I'll even tell you he's above average smart, but he's not a genius. He's both of his parents are doctors, all of his siblings are doctors, but he's not like I've met smarter people than him.

22:59 I won't even tell you that he's the most creative learner I've ever met before. He's a big lamdan. He's very good in Gemara. But that's not what makes him special. What makes him special is that he has, and again, this is not normal. It's not healthy for ninety-nine percent of the people in the world. He's the exception to the rule. He loves learning in a way that I've never seen anyone else love learning. And he does it every moment he can have. And when he was in yeshiva He was learning without exaggeration. I would say on average, he learned 21 hours a day and I might be exaggerating because there might be more. And there's a person that I could call. I won't call him right now because we're in the middle of shiur. There's a person that I could call right now that will confirm every detail. When he's married now with children, he still learns probably 17 hours a day, 18 hours a day. He has to take care of kids now also. I don't know when he sleeps. I honestly don't know when he sleeps.

23:59 But when he goes away for Shabbos, which is very rare, he goes to this one guy for Shabbos because they have a yusachar zvul and deal where he supports the other one. He comes with suitcases full of svarim all night long. Friday night he's learning. He doesn't go to sleep on Shabbos. He's just learning and learning. And when I first met him, I'm going to be very honest with you. When I first met him, I thought he was unhealthy. And I used to yell at him all the time. Go to sleep. You're going to burn out. This is crazy. And somehow that burnout never came. And I started realizing I'm learning with someone who's not in a regular, normal situation And his level of dedication. I would wake up sometimes early in the morning. I'm an early riser. I would wake up back then we didn't have WhatsApp because we didn't have smartphones, and I would wake up to a text message from him at 4:30 in the morning. I found the Rivakevei Agur that argues on the Pshat you said yesterday.

24:51 And I would literally text him back. I'm like, go to sleep. When he was dating his wife, I set him up with his wife. They knew each other from high school. I was just the guy that put it together at the end. When he was dating his wife, she called me to find out if he was from enough for her. I was like, no. This is the opposite way. You gotta figure out if you're from enough for him. And legitimately, he called me up, he was like Because obviously he's a much bigger talmud chacham than I am. But at the time, he still looked up to me. Today, I don't think he looks up to me anymore. I think I look up to him much more than he looks up to me. I'll be able to say I learned with Chavruta with one of the Gedolei Adorah. It was like a cue. He passed me by a million years ago. He's an unbelievable lamdan. So he called me up at the time, and he goes, he never got his license. He never got his license because he was sitting and learning.

25:41 So he said, Mordechai, now married. She wants me to get a license, drive around the kids. But I want to learn. So I said to him, Shmuel, what do you mean? You signed the kshuvi. You have responsibilities to your wife. You got to get a license. It's like I know, but the amount of time—it's not so easy to get a license. I said, Shmuel, your husband—you got to take care of the things. So he called me back three days later. He said Hashem worked it out perfectly. I found a driver's ed instructor who was willing to talk to me the entire time while he was teaching me how to drive. So I said to him, Shmuel, wait. So I said to Shmuel, "Not so fast." Who says it's mutter? He goes, "I looked into it. There are reshonim that say that that's only if you're learning be'ian." So we agreed that we're only going to learn bekius. We're only going to learn like more surface level and not deep. But he's really like that. You know what the pshat is? You know why he's unique?

26:50 He's not learning from a place of anxiety. He's not learning from a place where he's not enough. He's really engaged with Hashem when he's learning. For him, it's like reading. Like it's like reading Harry Potter. He's obsessed with the story. It's like this amazing, Mordechai. Look at how the Torah says this, and the Chachamim darshan this, and this the. And he comes alive. He's screaming and learning. He's so excited about it. And he told me he called me once. He called me once. He said, I got a Mazel Tov. I got Smicha. I said, Yeah. He said, How'd you do that? He said, Well, I just took the test this summer. I was like, You took all the Smicha tests in one summer. So he said, Well, I learned Chulin this year. Like I'm like. That's not normally the way that works. He's like, well, once I was learning Chulin and I just did it anyway with Shulchan Aruch Hamah, Shach, Taz and Tor and everything. I was like, of course you did, of course. So he just did all of his Smicha. I once saw on the top of his Gemara that he would make notes how many times he did Chazara.

27:44 How many times he reviewed each page and he would make a check mark And I saw dozens. He would finish the Yeshiva's Masechta every single year, so many times. Again, ninety-nine percent of the people in the world, I would say, you're behaving inappropriately. It's not healthy. But for him, he was learning Torah mi'b'fnim. And if somebody would come to Shmuel, now I should call him Shmuel. Actually, I'm Rav, but I don't want to tell you his last name, so I'm going to call him Shmuel for now. But you should know, I think he's going to be one of the Gedolei Ador. Somebody comes to him and says to him, 'Prove to me that there's a God.' He would laugh. He's like, 'Can I show you a Taisus? Can I show you a Rashi? Can I show you a Rambam?' Can I show you a Rashba? It's a totally different approach. It's not proving God from the outside. It's living it from the inside. Can I ask you a question? What's more impactful? And both are meaningful. You go to the Eish HaTorah discovery seminar. It's amazing. You walk out. You're like, wow. And you need that. It's reasonable. It's important.

28:37 But did you ever go to somebody's house for Shabbos and then you didn't have any questions anymore? You sat at the Shabbos table and you see the way the husband treats the wife and you see the way the kids are sitting around the table. To me, that's at least as real as the proofs. That's Torah mi'b'fnim. I'll tell you a story. This story happened 27 or 28 years ago. 28 years ago, am I lying?26 years ago. I'm sorry.26 years ago, I was going to be in yeshivas Mir for Shabbos And there was an older guy who's now a very chashev a rebbe in Yerushalayim, and he was like my older chavrusa from when I was a kid. He invited me to come to the mirror for Shabbos. He wanted to show me the mirror. He was trying to flip me out, trying to come see the mirror. Come see what a yeshiva looks like. So my rebbe at the time said to me, if you're going to mirror for Shabbos, go, but go daven at a place called Karlin Stalin Friday night.

29:28 Karlin Stalin, they scream every word of davening. It's super intense because I just want you to see it. And I'm going to give you a piece of advice: don't eat in front of the mirror on Friday night. When you're there in Karlin Stal, you're going to see tons of people coming to you and inviting you out for Shabbos Friday night. Anyone who comes over to you, say no to them. Tell them you're waiting for the American gabai to come to you, and he's going to set you up with an American family. So I called up this older guy. I said, Do you mind if we do this? Sounds like a real chavaya. Sounds like a real experience. He goes, Yeah, great idea. Let's do it.

30:00 So Friday night comes with davening and counting. The davening is crazy, screaming every single word of davening. The only time it was quiet was Shemona Esrei and Baruch She'Nkavet Malchus Elohim V'ari after Shma Yisrael. Every other word, screaming, and exactly like my rabbi said, the entire davening. People are coming over to us and they're like, "Can we help you for a meal? Can we help you for a meal? Can we help you for a meal?" It was beautiful. I guess the same thing there. I'm waiting for the American gabbai. Finally, the American gabbai comes over. He goes, "I heard you looking for me." I said, "Rav Zucker told me that I should wait for the American gabbai." He goes, okay, I'm gonna set you with the family. Stay right here after the. I'm gonna set you with the family.

30:35 Davening ends. I'm standing right there. The gabbai comes over and he has a guy, Yerushalmi Bechash, the whole nine yards, and he says you're going with him. He introduces himself to me, beautiful, like sweetest man in the world, speaks a perfect English, and we start walking home. We're walking through the streets of Mea Shearim. You know how the streets of Mea Shearim, you travel back a hundred years every block. I'm talking about. We traveled back to the times of like Avraham Avinu. We were like in the heart, heart, heart of Mea Shearim. The streets were so narrow; a car never went into these places. It was like the original cobblestone road from like you know the times of Beis Hamikdash. And we get into the house, and the place is tiny, shabbatini, the smallest little apartment. The guys got twelve kids around the table. Him and his wife crammed into this tiny little apartment.

31:22 And we start saying Shalom Aleichem. And there's a knock on the door. The host jumps up. As Bechasha Shrimli jumps up. He goes to the door. Baruch Hashem, welcome, come in. He quickly pulls up another chair. He comes. He sits down. The guy sits down. We continue. Shalom Aleichem. Eish Shchayel. The guy pulls. He makes kiddush, and then fish comes out. By Chasidim, they have fish and soup Friday night. First thing that came out was the fish. Girls, I kid you not. This was the nastiest fish I ever ate in my entire life. They must have gotten—I'm not joking—they must have gotten the cheapest possible fish. It was hard to eat it without bones. You know what I'm talking about? Like everything, and it's like you don't want to eat it. But honestly, you could tell they don't have very much. So you're trying to eat it in a way, but it tasted disgusting. But say there—I'm not the biggest fish guy in the world. They bring out the soup, rancid.

32:13 It must have been that the chicken was spoiled or maybe they put in something else. The most disgusting soup, but I can't not eat it because clearly they don't have anything, so I'm just trying to force feed myself the soup. They brought out the main meal and they brought out the chicken. This chicken looked like it could have still been walking. Harriest chicken I've ever seen in my entire life. Nasty, like mamish inedible, but I'm forcing myself to eat it. At the end of the meal, they bring out dessert for me and the other two guys. The kids didn't get dessert. They didn't have enough dessert for everybody, but they served dessert to their guests. And beautiful, very Torah, the entire meal, and beautiful zmiros and this unbelievable chesed. I told the kids, take it. I don't need this tiny little dessert. They said, no, it's for you. It's for you. We're so excited to give it to you. It was amazing. And then we benched and we left. I was still hungry, and we walked outside, and we said to this other American guy who had joined us for the meal, we said. He said, "How do you know?" He turned to us and he said How do you know these people? We don't really know them. This was like we went to Colin Stalin and the American Gabbay set us up with them.

33:22 How do you know him? He goes, "I knocked on the wrong door." These people had so little And all they wanted to do was share it with others. The guy said, "I didn't even have the opportunity. I was knocking on the door to find out if they knew where these other people lived. Because I didn't even have an opportunity to get it out of my mouth." Because the time by the time I did that, the guy grabbed me. I'm going to try to find the other people now to apologize because they've probably been waiting for so long. To me, you should know that moment as a shana alef kid in Mevaseret in 1998. That was Torah mi'befnim. I didn't need an eshah Torah proof after that. I saw the impact of a Torah life. They had so little, but they were so happy. And whatever they had, they wanted to give it to others. Sometimes you find God in the math and in the science of the universe. Sometimes you find it at a Shabbos table with beautiful smiles and d'var Torah and the worst food in the world, but they're just so happy to have anything.

34:23 This year, you get a lot of shiurim. I'm betting the shiurim here in Berar Meriah are amazing. So many rabbis come and give these unbelievable shiurim. They're really like genius, and they make you think and stimulate your mind. But I'm gonna tell you a secret. It's important those shiurim, but in 20 years from now, you're not gonna remember them. But you know what you'll remember? The passion that they taught with Because that's Torah mi b'fnim. That's Torah from the inside. The time you went for Shabbos to their house, and you saw the way that their wives looked at them, and you saw the way they looked at their wives, and you saw the way they interacted with their kids, that's Torah mi b'fnim, and it's gonna have a long-term impact. That's what changed by Har Sinai. Hashem wasn't a concept anymore. He's alive. He's alive in Shabbos Mirus. Hashem is alive in our Devar Torah. Hashem has to be alive in the way that we learn. I said it. I'm not joking. I said when I walked into the room tonight, at first I was like a little nervous because nobody was here, and then you all came rushing in with all that Baron Miriam crazy energy.

35:20 Hashem is alive in this place. There's a lot of Lebedikait in this place. I want you to know it's very easy to come teach here. You come into the room. There's a lot of lebedikite. There's a lot of the people in this room. They're on fire. That's a very exciting thing. Because when somebody comes in on fire, you know what you have to do? All you have to do is go. Good, great fire. Let's just do it this way. Let's just channel it. Great fire, but let's take that fire and turn it into focus. Let's take that fire and turn it into passion for Hashem, for Klal Yisrael. That's what we're looking for. Torah mi b'fenim is at least as important as Torah mi b'chutz. Girls, have a wonderful Shabbos.