Lech Lecha - Be Fascinating

2:41 That's what people do when they're afraid. Like Just as a silly marshal for this When you speak to kids in high school, I'm sure you went through this And they asked you. Where are you thinking about going for seminary? So you'll say I'm between these two seminaries. Some of it comes down to where my friends go. Why is that? Because coming to Israel can be a terrifying proposition. And you'll hear this is what I've heard. Tell me if you said something similar. You'll hear people say, I don't need to come with a lot of friends, but I need to come with a core group. This is what the guys in yeshiva do. I need to come with three guys. If it's three guys, I can manage it. You're coming to a yeshiva of a hundred plus guys. Why are those three guys so important? The answer is because when you get there The first thing that you're encountering in yeshiva in seminary is vulnerability.

3:41 And so you're afraid. And when you're afraid, what do you need? You need people who you can be around, people who are like you. That's the buzzword of the first couple weeks of sem. I don't know if these are my types of girls. That very judgmental line that you put out there. What does that really mean? If you unpack it, what does it mean? I don't know if these are my types of girls. There's a sense, and it comes from a place of weakness. Often, there's a sense that if I'm around like-minded people, then I'm okay. You ever have that? But if I'm around different people, it could be terrifying. Because people have different ideas, they have different ways of seeing the world, and there's a sort of unstable ground when there's no uniformity. The generation of the flood They basically lived with the fear that the flood would happen to them again, so they said, "Let's make a project. We'll all build this project together. We'll all think the same thoughts. We'll all speak the same language." Did you know that there were police in the times of Megdal Bavel? It ensured that people would only share the same types of ideas.

4:53 Nobody was allowed to speak a different language. And we know what their punishment was? Their punishment was no. This is not good. And the reason it's not good, and this is the main point that I want to make tonight. The reason it's not good is because very often people mistake conformity for unity. There's a lot of talk right now in Klal Yisrael about achdus. The question is, what does achdos mean? You girls have this spirit, strong initiative. What's the point of this spirit, strong initiative? We want to create achdos and klaiyso. What does achdos mean? Achdos has the capacity to be exceptionally dangerous if it's done wrong. Because some people think achdos means everyone doing the same exact thing. That's what achdos. They think that's what achdos means. That's an exceptionally dangerous idea. That's a communist idea. Everyone will think the same things, and we will accomplish a tremendous amount that way. By the way, I have no doubt that that's true.

5:54 If you've ever been in a group, or started a group of people who all thought the same thing and were all in on a project together, how fast does that project get done? The answer is it gets done very fast. But once you start to have differing ideas, all of a sudden things take time. You ever notice that institutions take time to do things? I'll give you an example of this. This is a silly example. We had this morning. I was zochet to see your brother. We had this morning a An amazing, amazing, amazing day in Mevaseret. Today, Eish Gesher came to Mevaseret for the day. It was a beautiful morning. They came. First thing we did is the Rosh Hashanah spoke. We had Tehillim. Then we sang Achenu together. Then there was a Shmuz. Then there was learning in the beis medrash. Then a Shir from Berkovitz. Rosh Yeshiva of Eish Kesher, then there was a ball. It was a beautiful day.

6:50 But there were some silly things that got in the way today. Silly things, things that nobody saw behind the scenes Like for example We had three hundred people in yeshiva today between the Eish Kesher rebbeim, the Mavaserik guys, the Eish Kesher guys, and the Eish Kesher rebbeim. In our chadar ocho, we have a wall in the back of the chadar ocho that opens. I wanted the wall to be open so that there would be more space. Other people wanted the wall to be closed so that there would be less space. They didn't want to have to clean up the shul. Also, they felt like maybe it'll be better if everybody's packed in together. It'll force more guys to like schmooze with each other as opposed to just staying in their own dalaramos. Do you know that we spent time? This is going to sound ridiculous. On a day like today, we spent time talking about whether the wall of the chadarochel should be open. Does that sound ridiculous to you? It should sound ridiculous to you.

7:42 Why in the world, on a day like today, are we spending time talking about a wall? What is the answer to that question? Because once you have differing ideas, the people in leadership positions all have something unique to contribute. What does that mean? Everybody has to have a voice. I'll give you another example of this. Yeah. I'll give you another example of this. How should we serve the food in the chederocha? The kitchen staff, obviously, what do they want to do? They're serving three hundred people. What do they want? They want to come and just put all the food in the middle, and all the guys will come descending. Have you ever seen guys go to a chadarocho? I think it's amazing the system that you have here with the food on the side from Chef Rina. I want you to know about that system. You if it was yeshiva, nobody would eat because guys would come and they would just empty the entire thing onto their plate.

8:33 It's like you're just dumping it on. In yeshiva, we bring out some food. Guys take. Then we bring out the next round of food. Guys take. Then we bring out a third round of food. That's very hard to do with three hundred people. So the kitchen's like, 'Are you serious? You want me to serve every single table their own individual tray of lasagna?' But yes, it makes a difference. Whenever you want to go fast, you need conformity. But listen, if you want to go not fast But if you want to go far Then you need diversity. And the greatest expression of unity is diversity, and that's where most people make a mistake. Most people think diversity, especially today, because diversity has been used as a cudgel for certain groups of people to be able to get their agenda passed. Any time you say something, you go, "You're not being diverse." Actually, if you look at what's happening in the world today in the name of diversity, it's the greatest conformity. In fact, people have stopped learning how to use language. So what happens? You'll see that all these people In the name of diversity, all use the same. They use the same words. I'll give you an example of this.

9:42 If you've been on social media, and I hope you haven't, but if you've been on social media, or even if you've been on media, regular media You know what everyone calls Palestine? Everyone An open air prison. How did they all come up with those words? If you look at Twitter, it's just scroll. Type in the word Palestine, and just scroll. It's an open air prison. What happened to individuality of thought? All these people, in the name of individuality of thought, are just parroting what somebody else said. In the name of diversity, they say you're punching down on me. I've never heard that phrase in my life until a couple years ago, and now I can't stop hearing that phrase. The irony of what's happening in today's generation is they're pushing diversity, but they're pushing diversity so much that it's creating conformity. For example, if you have a different idea than I have, we cancel you.

10:38 That's the definition of conformity. If you think differently than me, you're canceled. We can't have reasonable debates. People can't argue anymore. Because once you say something, it becomes like this, like an echo chamber of no, you're wrong. March to the beat of our drum. Beat the verse. March to the beat of our drum. Beat the verse. Do you hear how crazy that is? In the name of unity, in the name of diversity, they've created conformity. Judaism has a radical belief And this radical belief is shayach to every single person in this room without exception. We believe that the greatest expression of unity is diversity. If God is infinite, that means He creates an infinite amount of diversity in this world. I have a question: What do you think this world would look like? What do you think this room would look like? If right now everybody in this room was radically themselves This room would be the most fascinating room to sit in, ever.

11:39 If each one of us were totally courageous, totally unafraid to be ourselves, what would we be? We would be the most fascinating room in the world. Imagine if you came in with no preconceived notions and you said, and I put a topic out there and you said, what do you think about this? Do you know the amount of amazing ideas and approaches that we would get? I had just now a shiur in Mivaseret. I'm still flying from this shiur. I'm coming off of the best forty minutes of the year. It was a forty-minute shear. I barely spoke. And it was the best forty minutes that I've had this year by far. I asked the boys in this shul to write up their own tefilos, to take the brachos of Shemona Esrei. And to write what those brachos mean to them, but to actually make a tefilla out of it.

12:27 To literally go through and take the general concepts of the tefilla, but then write their own tefilla. It was amazing. The words that came out of these young men's mouths were so inspiring because they spoke truthfully. It's a group; we only have twelve guys in this year, and whatever gets said in the room stays in the room. So they're really able and authentic because there's a tremendous amount of trust in the room. Nothing that gets said in the room leaves the room. And they were all taking basically the same tefillos. A bunch of guys spoke about Rafaenu. A bunch of guys spoke about Baruch Aleinu. A bunch of guys spoke about Hashiveinu. But the diversity of thought in the room was so impressive. Guys said real things. Guys spoke about their pain. Guys spoke about their struggles. Guys spoke about their frustrations. I wish I could tell you details. I can't because it's a private room, and nothing that goes in goes on in the room comes out of the room. But it was the most inspiring thing. These guys were writing tefillos. I was crying in the middle of the room. I'm just sitting there crying. Each guy is reading his tefillos. I'm sitting there like it was unbelievable.

13:25 I told the guys I was like, "This is the most inspiring 40 minutes of this year." I can't remember. These guys are so unbelievably deep. I can't remember a group of guys this deep in that particular year since five years ago. It's been five years since I met a group of guys that are this deep. And the only reason they were this deep—they've all been this deep all the time. But who would have the courage to get up and say real things? Who would have the courage to write a tefillah to God that includes all their pain, all their suffering, and then say it out loud in a room? Diversity requires safety. But it requires understanding what unity really is. Unity means I am unique. My wife. She had a teacher in seminary whose name was Rav Nachman Bolman Zecharzadek Lavracha. My oldest daughter, his name is Bracha Nachama, because after Rav Bolman passed away, my daughter was born. And Rav Bolman was a very special person to my wife. For those who aren't share with my wife, you can ask her about her relationship with Rav Bolman. But my wife, she has lines that she heard. She had amazing teachers. I used to when we first got married. I used to make fun of her because she would repeat the same lines because she had these amazing rebbeim.

14:40 So she always liked to have these one-liners that she heard from her rebbeim, and she wrote them down or internalized them. I would say a vending machine. If you press four, then you get to hear this line from Reb Bolman. If you press six, you get to hear this line from Reb Orlewic. She had amazing lines. Reb Bolman's line was, "Don't clip their wings." Don't clip their wings.' I heard that statement from my wife. If I've heard it once, I've heard it a thousand times. Don't clip their wings. Do you know that we do that to children? Do you know that we clip children's wings? That the second they start to fly, we as parents get afraid that maybe they're going to go somewhere that we don't want them to, so we clip their wings. The second a child starts to express something that maybe is different than everybody else, we go, wait. You're going to say something that's not going to be like everybody else. Slow down here.

15:27 But the truth of the matter is that the great thinkers are the ones that thought differently. They're not the ones that think the same. We have to allow people to be themselves. Imagine if we took away all the pressures of money in the world And you didn't have to be a therapist. A speech therapist, an occupational therapist, an art therapist, the hydrotherapist—that's just being a lifeguard, right? We told these girls you don't have to be. Imagine if we told you girls you don't have to be a therapist. You don't have to be a nursing home administrator. What would you be? If you could be anything, what would you be? Maybe, and that's beautiful. Isn't that great? There's a guy who came to me in yeshiva, and he's an amazing guy. And he said to me, I have a problem, Rabbi. I'm an artist. But it's really unsafe to be an artist because I don't know if you're able to support a family being an artist. We had this conversation about what it would look like to create safety for him to be an artist. In the conversation, I said to him, 'Can you stop being an artist?' And he said, 'No, I can't.'

16:29 I was like, well, if you can't stop being an artist, then why are we having this conversation? If you could stop being an artist, you're not an artist. Anyone here who's an artist knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you're an artist and somebody says stop being an artist, go be an accountant. That's murder. You can't be an accountant if you're an artist. You'll be sitting in your cubicle the entire time making art. Art just flows out of you. A person has to be responsible. But if you're an artist, you're an artist. You can't stop being an artist. The very first words that God says to Avram Avinu are, 'Can you stop being a product of your environment and be yourself?' That's an amazing message from a chinuch lesson. It means that every single mitzvah in the Torah is meant to be an expression of you. People say this all the time, 'I don't know, does God need my tefillah? Isn't that the same tefillah as everybody else's tefillah?' If your davening is the same as everybody else's davening, I got news for you: you're not davening.

17:28 You're not davening. I said the words. What do you mean? I shuddered like I was having a seizure. I held the sitter up to my head. I held my elbow. I shuddered real tight. You know that move? You know this one? I once dated a girl. I knew she was very frum because her sitter was covered in makeup. All the tears that rubbed off her makeup all over the sitter. I was like, wow, she must be exceptionally frum. I hold my sitter a safe distance away from my face. And my makeup doesn't rub off so easily. You're not davening because you're chuckling. You're davening because you're talking in your own words to Hashem. You'll say there's a sitter. That's an opportunity to think to yourself: What do you want to say to Hashem? You see, but I give tzedakah, and the next person gives tzedakah. Really, your tzedakah is the same.

18:16 Everyone's tzedakah is the same. You think, but I put a dollar in the pushka, and she put a dollar in the pushka. If you put a dollar in the pushka the same way she puts a dollar in the pushka, you did not put a dollar in the pushka. But I did. I did that action. Just because you did the action doesn't mean you did the mitzvah. I'm not saying you're not getting schar. Think about that. If your giving tzedakah isn't an expression of you, then what are we talking about here? Do you know that there's a halacha that if one letter is missing in a sefer Torah, it's pasul? You know why you know that halacha? Because every single shir in the world says every Jew is important. Do you ever hear that? Every Jew is important. Even if one letter in a Torah is missing, the Sefer Torah is pasul. There's another halacha: no two letters are allowed to be touching.

19:04 You know why? Because it's true that every Jew is important, but it's also true that every single Jew has to be an individual. There has to be space around you to be your own creative self. And if you're just doing it because everybody else is doing it, it's not going to last. It's not true. It's not you. There was a yeshiva back in the day. I don't want to say the name of this yeshiva, but I'm going to be very honest with you. I wanted a switch to that yeshiva. I was very jealous. I looked over at my friends that were in that yeshiva, and I saw that these guys were stigging. All of a sudden, they went from wearing this shirt to that shirt. All of a sudden, they got different haircuts and they wore different yarmulkes. I was like, those guys are really flying. And I seriously considered leaving Mevaseret where I was And I went to Shalvim for Shabbos.

19:51 And in Shalvim, because I said I need to get out of Mivaser, I need to clear my head, so I went to my friends in Shalvim for Shabbos. And it happens to be that week in Shalvim, Rav Shechter from WaYu was the Shabbos Rebbe, and so a lot of guys from a lot of different yeshivas had come to hear Shechter. And there was a group of guys from this yeshiva, this like really great place that I wanted to switch to. And I was talking to one of the Shnabek guys, and I said, "Yeah, I'm considering switching." And he said, "Why?" I said I don't know. I feel like I'm looking around in Mevaseret, and the guys aren't doing it like the guys in your yeshiva. And he said to me, "Can I give you a piece of advice?" I said, "Sure." He goes, "Don't switch." I said, 'Really? Why?' I would have thought this guy who was like one of these spitz yeshiva guys. I thought he would have been recruiting me like crazy. I was a little insulted, like you don't want me, like I'm not good enough.

20:37 He's like, "You don't understand. In our yeshiva, you know why people do this?" Because in our yeshiva, people do this. He said, "In your yeshiva, the guys that actually make it, it might not look as amazing. But what you're doing is real. You're not doing it because anybody else did it. You're doing it because you're doing it." And I was like, "That's crazy. It's such a good point." Because if I'm going to do this, I'm going to have to do it no matter where I go for the rest of my life. And I chose to stay in Mevaseret. A lot of my friends who are in that yeshiva, they might have learned more than me in their shana halif and their shana bet. But if you look at them now, a lot of those guys didn't hold on to it because if you are only doing it because it's a product of your environment, then it's not real. Being real means lech lacha me'artzicha, milad tchom be'zavicha.

21:24 Why am I doing a mitzvah? Not because I grew up Jewish. I am doing a mitzvah because I own it. A lot of people struggle with their Judaism. It's like, how am I supposed to get into this? If you are struggling with your Judaism, maybe because you never took the time to ask yourself what's your role in this thing. This is we're marching to the beat of this drum. Everybody is doing it. Everybody gets married at this age. Everybody raises their kids in this community. Everybody sends their kids to the same school. Congratulations, you've learned to march very well. But there's nothing great about marching. There's nothing great about conformity. There's something amazing about unity. There's a I don't know if you've heard of him. There's a great there was a great Rosh Yeshiva. Even though officially he wasn't a rashi shiva, and even though officially he wasn't even a rabbi But he was probably the most influential person in all of America Torah Judaism, and his name was Rav Shraga Feivel Mendelovitch. Have you girls ever heard of Rav Shraga Feivel? Rav Shraga Feivel was the founder of the first yeshiva in America. He was the founder of the Yeshiva Torah Vidas And he was very humble And he didn't even like to be called Rav Shraga Feivel because he said I never got smicha, so he would only answer to the name Mister Mendelovitch.

22:39 Even though he was very far from Mr. Mendelovitch, he was a great talmudacher. In fact, the story goes that when Ner Yisrael was founded, they were doing a big thing for the building. They were doing what's called a Chanukah sabbayos. So they invited Rosh Hashanah Fivel to Baltimore to come speak. And Rav Ruderman, who was the great Rosh Yeshiva of Ner Yisrael, he got up and he introduced Rosh Hashanah Fivel and he said. He spoke about Roshagal Feivel's role in American Judaism, and then he said, "Without further ado, Roshagal Feivel Mendelavitch." And everybody stood up, except for Roshagal Feivel, who stayed seated like this. And Rav ruderman said, "roshagal feivel" And roshagal feivel goes, "roshagal feivel" Me and move." Finally, Rav Ruderman let out an exasperated sigh, and he goes, "Mister Mendelavitch." Roshagal Feivel got up and came to speak. He was a very humble man.

23:33 I want to tell you a little bit about Roshaga Fivel Mendelovitch, who's one of my personal heroes. They had a kasha, they had a question on Roshaga Fivel. Torah Vidas had a very unique approach to chinuch. It used to be there were Litvish yeshivas and Hasidish yeshivas. In Torah Vidas, there were both. There were Litvish rabbayim and Hasidish rabbayim. And somebody came over to Roshaga Fivel and they had a complaint. They said, "You are confusing the boys." They're learning chassidus. They're learning litvish atayra. They're learning from all these different people. You're going to confuse them. So Rishaga Feivel said, "I want to share with you the following mashal." He said, "There was once a father who had two daughters" And the daughters wanted to get married. The ming in those days was something called kest. Do girls know what kest is? Kest is when you marry off your daughter, you provide food for your daughter and her son and your son-in-law.

24:23 So his oldest daughter got married, and the deal was this: son-in-law, he was like me. He only ate meat. So Rosh Hashanah Fivel said that this guy, the first son-in-law, they would come over every day and they would only have meat. But the second daughter married a guy who would only eat milchiks. So they had a situation in the house where what are they going to do? This one only eats milchiks. This one only eats fleishiks. So this man was a wealthy man, so he set up in his house three tables: the table where he and his wife would sit, the table where his daughter would sit with her husband, and they would eat fleishiks, and the other table where the daughter would eat milchiks with her husband. Unfortunately, Rishaga Feivel said the family fell on hard times, and the father said, "Listen, I can still provide food for you, but I can no longer afford to provide fleishikhs one day and milchiks another day for both of you guys. I have to be able to split it up—one day fleishikhs, one day milchiks."

25:13 So they said, "that's what you can afford." So they came, they sat down the first day, and this one sat at his table, and this one sat at his table, and the father looks at them and he goes, "What are you doing?" What are you doing? Why are you sitting at different tables? He said, "What do you mean? This is where we sit." So the father said, 'Listen, listen to the idea.' He said, 'As long as you were eating fleishikhs and you were eating milchiks, it made sense to sit at separate tables. But if we're all eating milchiks, we should sit at the same table. If we're all eating fleishikhs, we should sit at the same table.' Seder Shagafayvul. It used to be in Europe there were great gadolim. Chasidisherebba's, unbelievable tzaddikim, and there were great rashi yeshiva. But we fell on hard times after the holocaust, and we lost a tremendous amount of people. Now we're all sitting at the same table. We may as well learn the same Torah. We don't have that much Torah to go around. So Rosh Hashanah Fivel was a revolutionary because in his own yeshiva, what did he have? He had diversity. And I want to tell you where Rosh Hashanah Fivel got this idea from.

26:14 He said the Eitz Achaim is in Gan Eden. Girls, you know this. Where is the Eitz Achaim located in Gan Eden? Betol Chagan. It's not. Described as anywhere, but where in the middle. If you want Torah, you have to be able to come at Torah from all different angles. Today we have this thing: teaching someone how to learn, teaching someone how to think. How crazy is that? Do you hear those words? I am going to teach you how to think. That's a crazy thing to tell someone. You don't have a brain that you need to be taught how to think. Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky said in Slabodka, the great yeshiva. He said that the altar of Slabodka was makpid that they would have very short shiurim, only twenty minutes apiece, because he was makpid that the boys should learn how to think for themselves. And Rav Yaakov said about himself, which was of course a statement of humility. He said some people ask aizenakashas, that means like iron questions, like sharp, sharp cutting questions. He said I would ask holzene questions, wooden questions, very basic, very simple questions, not questions that cut through the suddiyah. He said but from my holzene kashas I was able to come up with some good chedushim.

27:23 But we would take a boy like that today and we would say, "Oh, you ask kolts and akashes. I'm going to teach you how to ask eyes and akashes." We would take a girl who has all these amazing ideas, and rather than putting her in front of a chumash and saying, 'What do you think pshat is here? You read the remban. What does it mean to you?' Instead of doing that, we say, "This is the hashkafa that you should follow," and we clip your wings when we do that. We're not teaching diversity; we're teaching conformity. And the Torah is the most diverse thing in the world. A Gemara is one giant argument. If you learn Gemara, you know what it is. Somebody says something, and they go, "It can't be because of this." There's no way it's that. And then there's this, and that. The whole thing is diversity. The whole thing is two people who thought differently. That's the whole Yeshayahu of all of Torah.

28:11 I want to finish with a story. It's a story that just took place. The hero of the story, his name is Yair Unzbarer. Yair Unzbarer On Simchas Torah Traveled down to the south to be able to rescue people. He's well trained in this area. Yair Unzbarer He came to a certain place without getting into the details. And he basically had to prove to the people there that he was Jewish and that they should let him in, and he did. And he got in, and he said he was sitting in this Maklatt area with all these Jews, and he was walking around hugging Jews. And he said, 'Today I can't help myself; I'm just hugging Jews.' He's been walking around the last two weeks, and everywhere he goes, he's hugging Jews. But Yair Unzvacher saw terrible things And he couldn't daven. If you see terrible things, it's hard to daven.

29:12 So he did something. He opened up the Labavitcher Rebbe's letters. Do you girls know that there is something called Igros Kodesh? The Labavitcher Rebbe wrote letters. So he decided to open up at a random page to see. Yairn'svacher told this story. He said, "I decided to open it up at a random page to see what advice I would get." And he opened up to a page where the man writing the letter was writing the letter because he was having trouble davening And the Rebbe responded to this person who had written to him. He said. Sometimes it's hard to daven when all you are is yourself. Sometimes a person has to be more than themselves. They have to be all of Klal Yisroel. Daven not for yourself, daven because you're part of Am Yisroel. You're representative of all of Am Yisroel. We are in a tremendous time of Achdus.

30:04 But I want to know what Achdus means. Does that Achdus mean? We had this question from the panel Friday night. I should have answered it better. I'm answering it better right now. How do we create actus with people that are different than us? Just the opposite. How could you create actus with people that are the same as you? It's not impressive to create actus with people that are the same as you. That's not actus. You're already the same. It's impressive to create acts with people that are different than you. How can you honor and respect and cherish and love those that have diametrically opposed views to yours? How can you create a space where everybody can live together? How can we reach out to our brothers and sisters? Everyone here, we're going to create achdus. There's going to be a shabbaton between Toma Devora and I don't know. Fill in the name of the seminary. It's important. I'm not saying it's not important, but that's not the achdus we're talking about. I'm talking about the achdus on the bus from the girl who's sitting next to you, who grew up in a way that you have no connection to whatsoever.

31:05 That you have can't fathom what it was like to live her life. If you can't appreciate that girl That's not achdus. How could you sit across the aisle from somebody who believes in a completely different vision of what it should look like here in Israel and say it doesn't matter what you believe? We can debate beliefs, but you should know kolim. Call more than anything, you're my sister. That's achdus. How could we go around hugging every single Jew and every time we daven, not just davening for ourselves, but davening? I am Klal Yisrael. That's the type of tefillah every one of us needs to have today. Are we doing amazing chesed initiatives with the spirit strong? For sure we are, and we should take advantage. It's going to be awesome. But if it stops at our seminary bubble world At our yeshiva league world, that's not the goal. The goal is to reach out to people that are fundamentally different than you.

31:56 We're a nation of unique people. Unfortunately, for some, as I see from the outside, I don't want to say not nice things. But I see from the outside some people who are very good at creating soldiers. They're very good at creating everyone to wear the same uniform, everyone to march the same way, everyone to think the same way, everyone to dive in the same way. I think we're getting better at it. But if we don't fight the tide of this type of diseased thinking Then we are living in a dar haflaga. We're commanded to leave it all behind and to be unique. Uniqueness is vulnerable. That's the name of the game. The name of the game is bravery. The name of the game is courage. The Balshamtof said that Ariv means three things. Ariv means to be a guarantor. Ariv means to mix, and Ariv means sweet.

32:51 Balshamtof said they all go together. Kol Yisrael Arivim Zelize. Every single Jew is a guarantor for every single other Jew. If you know that you're a guarantor for every single other Jew, then you know what we are. We're mixed up together. How sweet it is when Jews are mixed up together? Don't be in the echo chamber of today's social media world. You know what people do? They go on Twitter and they follow all the same people. They follow. I'm going to follow these two hundred people, and these two hundred people all say the same things. So you become programmed. I'm going to think like this. I'm going to use this language. It's going to make me seem very unique. It's not uniqueness. It's conformity. Turn off all social media and ask yourself what you think. Find out your truth for yourself. Bezor Hashem If you're willing to do that, you'll be fascinating.

33:39 You know what it's like. I know I said I was going to end, but I have to say this. You know what it's like to go out on a date with a boring guy. How could you possibly know? You've never done that before. I want to tell you what it's like. You ask a guy, "What'd you do in your life?" I went to yeshiva. What did you do in the summer? The yeshiva had a camp. What'd you do when you weren't in the yeshiva or the camp? We had a seed program. What do you do in your spare time? I like to learn. Sometimes I go on too limb. Anyone want to date that guy? It's not a fun date. You want to know what a fascinating date is? What do you do? I'm in yeshiva. What's that like? It's amazing. When I hear my rabbis Torah And I really like how he approached the sugya, and then I think about how I approach the sugya; it really makes me appreciate the depth of genius that he has in the sugya. I aspire to be able to find my own voice of genius in the sugya.

34:32 What do you do in the summer? We go up to camp together. It's a little bit of a different type of environment. We're still learning in the morning, but it's more chill. There's more time with the guys. I really like hanging out with the guys. The guys that I hang out with, we all like to fight about these ideas all the time, but we love each other very much. We would always have each other's back. A little bit more fascinating, right? What do you do? I like to go on Tu Lim. Where do you like to go? Everywhere. I just like to explore. I learn things when I explore. It's fascinating. There was a girl here in Tzomet Devora. She told us when she came for Shabbos, I take day trips and I was not a student here; she was a magidcha. I take day trips to other countries. I was like, What do you do? We'll wake up early in the morning. It's a twenty-five dollar flight, and we'll go to Vienna for the day.

35:18 And I was like So curious. The whole conversation, the whole day, was like, What do you do in Vienna? I just have these. I go everywhere. I tour. Fascinating people. Every person in this room is a fascinating person, if you'll allow yourself to be. Or, you can choose to dull yourself and say, "No, I'm typical." Typical is very safe; it'll get you exactly where you want to go. I encourage you: do not be typical. Have a good job, Miss Rose.