Lech Lecha - The Journey Of The Soul

1:56 And I had to make a decision to watch the game, to not watch the game, to prepare this year. This year was prepared while the game was going and going. And then I did not stay for the end of the game. I actually made the choice to go to sleep. I hope that it will be a schuss for the Dodgers to win the World Series. I want to share. This is my bar mitzvah parsha. Aww, happy birthday! Thank you. It's actually my birthday a while ago. My parents had to push off my bar mitzvah parsha because there were complexities in the scheduling of Young Israel Farakway and circa 19, whatever. Doesn't matter. So I kind of add that. Mrs. Moritz also helped and made a donation in the memory of Rachel. Sorry, guys. Rachel Basara Mechal. Bass Michal and Rachal Leah Bass the Yemeni mayor.

3:03 One was on the third of Cheshvan and on the seventh of Cheshvan, so it should be a noliyah for their neshama. Amen. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. That's how we don't forget. We live We bring it out into the world, which is a good segue. It's a perfect segue for us. Let's end. Brought me up. Since I was two till I was married, so a very special lady. Her love must live inside of you very deeply. That's beautiful. For sure. Then I want to share for a couple of minutes a little bit of a Torah A new way of thinking about the story of Avram Avinu. So just learn a couple of psukim together. And then we'll do some of it outside. Vayomer Hashem al Avram. These are the first words that a Kadosh Baruch Hu spoke to Avram Avinu. That are recorded in Parsha. Lech lecha, may artzcha, miladcha, beis avicha, el haaretz asher eka.

4:00 So Akol Shem Baruch Hu tells Avraham Avinu lech lecha, which every Rav throughout history has darshened as going to yourself. May artzcha, leave your land; umi miladetcha, leave your birthplace; umi beis avicha, and leave your father's house. El haaretz asher eka. We're going to go to the land that I will show you. Beautiful pasuk. And there you will become a great nation. You'll be blessed. Your name will become great in this world, and you'll be a blessing. Continue a little bit further. So now Avram Avinu has been instructed to go. Now we're introduced to another character. Avram Avinu has a nephew. The nephew's name is Lot. So now we know that Avram Avinu is leaving and he's going to Eretz Canaan. And Lot is going to go with him. And who else goes with him? Interesting that she's mentioned second. One would not have expected that the nephew would be mentioned first. Expected that the wife would be mentioned first.

5:09 Now we're introduced to his wife, Sarai, that Avram Avinu takes. And he takes load also. And he takes all of the wealth that he had amassed. And all the people that he was makarif. And he arrives in Canaan. We know the story. I'm just going to say quickly that Avram Avinu comes down to Eretz Canaan. There's a famine. He goes down to Mitzrayim. And he becomes afraid on his way down to Mitzrayim that the Egyptians, who were known as a very immoral people, are going to take Sarai. So he tells Sarai, 'Tell them you're my sister.' Eventually, Paro comes. In fact, he does find Sarai very attractive. He takes Sarai. Plagues hit his house. Ultimately, Avram Avinu leaves with Sarai and all of the gifts that Mitzrayim give to Avram Avinu. That basically encompasses the first story. In the life of a Jew The Shaila is: What does it mean to us?

6:16 What do we do with these pesukim? I want to share with you a very deep Torah. Zayar Kadosh says as follows: Zayar says Not like we would have expected. I would have expected that Avram Avinu would have represented the body and Sarai would have represented the soul. In general, women are more soulful than men. The Zayar Kadosh says that Avram Avinu represents the neshama and Sarai represents the gof. We'll see exactly what this means. But if you understand that concept, it changes the entire reading of the psukim. Let's read the psukim again. We're not going to read them inside, but let's go through the psukim again to try to understand in a deep way what exactly is the pneuma that's going on in this story. It goes like this: the neshama is coming down into this world. So if Avraham Avinu is being instructed by Hakadosh Baruch Hu lech lecha That's a very deep thing that's going on Because the neshama was so to speak shalem, perfect in Shamayim. It had no reason to leave.

7:23 There's nothing that the neshama could get from this world. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu has to tell the neshama to leave because the natural state of the neshama is that it has no desire to leave. There's nothing in this world for it. That's why the Mishnah Avot says you're born against your will. You die against your will, also, as we'll see soon. But you're born against your will. Why are you born against your will? You're born against your will because the neshama experiences the ultimate pleasure of being in self. The neshama exists in a way that's completely comfortable. And the neshama in that state, like a diamond in a Tiffany's box under the perfect light, the neshama has no reason to leave. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu's instruction to Avram Avinu lech lecha is very perplexing. Why would I tell the soul to leave? What's the value proposition there? There's nothing that the soul could possibly benefit from. The soul is experiencing the ultimate tainug. So what's this notion of lechlecha?

8:24 So lechlecha now, seen from this lens, implies that although the neshama in that state is completely at ease and it's completely perfect, there's a dimension of self that the neshama has not achieved until it comes down into this world. So the girasha that every rav gives is correct. Lechlecha does mean go to yourself. But on a much deeper level, it means go to the self that cannot otherwise become that person if you stay in your state of comfort. And this is a big thing to say because it's lechera. It's lechera illogical. If the neshama has everything it needs, if it's in a state of perfection What's becoming? What would it mean for the neshama to become? So the pasuk continues. The pasuk says, in order to understand this notion of lechlecha, that a perfect soul with nothing to gain has the opportunity to become the soul needs to leave three dimensions. We're going to explain what these three dimensions are.

9:44 And by understanding these three dimensions We're going to understand Elo ha'aretz asher eka. So the first thing is me'artzecha. All the balei chassidos say the same Torah, and I'm just going to repeat it. Me'artzecha means to leave your ratzon. That's arzecha from the lashon of ratzon. Meaning, the first thing that the neshama says to Hakadosh Baruch Hu when Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to the neshama to go The neshama's response is, 'I don't want to.' And this is a normal and healthy thing for a neshama to do. Why would the neshama want to leave? The desire is to stay in a state of—I can't say the word redemption because the neshama is not in a state of exile. But the notion of geula being a place where we're comfortable being ourselves, right? That's what geula really means. Gullus is the state where I feel a deep lack of belonging. Geula, redemption, is the state where I'm in self, where I feel totally comfortable being who I am. It is a deep sense of belonging.

10:48 Although the neshama in Shamayim has not undergone a gullus, it hasn't undergone an exile. It experiences, in a certain sense, a redemptive state where it's living in its ultimate state of completion. Just maybe a decent machel for this. I know not everybody here is. We're all young. We're all young. We're at various stages of youth. Do you remember when you went to camp? Kids today go to camp. Camp is so beautiful today. Air conditioned bunks and porches and good food and I even know of one camp that has a full time ice cream parlor that it's open. I love that you had that reaction. My reaction to a full time ice cream parlor is exactly the opposite. I want to sit under the soft serve with my mouth like you're at a very elevated state. I'm fighting not to have the latte over here. The camp was terrible. It was amazing, but it was terrible. My wife went to Sternberg. Anybody went to Sternberg?

12:06 Oh wow. I don't know what type of trauma I just triggered. It wasn't like we went to. We can unpack that later. My wife had a really good time in Sternberg, and she was in Pioneers. So you said, I. My wife loved it, but they literally paid to sleep outside in tents and used outhouses. It was a. There's a feeling I remember having when I was in camp, like the first time Where you're like, this is not this doesn't feel right? You know that when you come home and you say you like walk into your room and you close the door and you sit in your bed for the first time, that feeling of like. Like that exactly that exhale that exact exhale That's the state that the neshama lives in. The neshama lives in a constant state of that exhale of I'm home. So why would the neshama want to leave?

13:01 So Hakadosh Baruch Hu's first response is You have to develop a deeper desire than the desire that you have right now. In other words, all of us go through this. There's a surface level of desire that we have because we exist in a state of comfort. There's a deeper, more profound desire that can only be experienced in the discomfort of distance. As a, it is a very hard thing to articulate, but it goes something like this. When we were younger and were newly married, none of us ever wanted to fight with our spouse. I remember the first time that my wife was disappointed in me. I was so disappointed in myself that I got to that state. I was like, I promised myself that I was going to do it better than my parents. I remember thinking, No, I'm going to do it better than my Elise's and Sam are going to be great. But they're going to be the exception that every single person here just experienced.

14:14 And then you get older. And you're married for five years, ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, twenty-five years. And if you could go back and undo all of the distance, if you're really wise, you would never roll it back. The depth of any relationship comes from the innate and essential desire we have for each other when we're so far apart. That's the Torah of desire. Is the desire of this so comfortable, so good? I have such a deep sense of belonging, but you don't really know that you have a deep sense of belonging because do you belong even after everything has gone wrong? Can you find your way back to each other? That desire is a much more profound desire, and it's a desire that we would not know unless we experienced distance. So the first yisodeh that Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells the neshama is your desire to stay here in this world, in the Eilam Haneshamos, where everything is good.

15:14 Is actually a very surface level to our relationship. There needs to be the development of desire. So that's step one. You must leave Me'artzicha. Then the next stage Hakadosh Baruch Hu says you need to leave Moladetcha. You need to leave the natural kedusha that exists in this world of Eilam Haneshamos. Because in this world there is no struggle. That's the yisod of why it's called mimoladetcha. I'm sure you all had this experience. I know I had this experience. There is something exceptionally special about the moments after your child is born. And you'll never forget it. You never forget those moments. And I, for sure, as a father, will never forget. All the times, but specifically the first time that I ever held my daughter Bracha. I was very young and exceptionally dumb. And I was holding on to this tiny little thing, and I had this thought And probably women don't have this thought. As a man, I definitely can tell you that my half of the species has this thought. I said, oh my God, I'm responsible.

16:30 I was like the first time that it occurred to me, so I have to take care of you no matter what. And there was something exceptionally profound about that moment for me. But what we now know psychologically is there's actually something exceptionally profound about that moment for the child, because in its state of birth The lack of struggle that exists, the comfort of being held, the comfort of being in utero, the comfort of being with the mother. That's why we pass the baby to the mother as soon as possible. When my oldest grandson was born. He had meconium, yeah I get that right. Oh that's pretty cool. So he had to go to the NICU and my daughter wasn't able to hold him in the beginning. It's not a pleasant thing for the child to want to be held and it's not the same thing to be in an incubator. Even though the light is warm and it's very comfortable, the notion of being held, of there being no struggle—that's something all of us want, right? On some level, all of us want a life that's free of struggle.

17:33 That's what we fantasize about. We don't always realize that that's what we're fantasizing about, because in the world of our imagination, it's often about something else. But if you actually unpack the imagination that we have, most of us have this deep imagination that if I would only have fill in the blank, if I would only have fame, if I would only have prestige, if I would only have money, if I would only have that spouse, if I would only have that child. Underneath all of that is the desire not to struggle. Because if my kids were perfect, and my husband was perfect, and I had all the money in the world, and I had all the fame in the world, and I can get whatever I need whenever I need it, then I'd be fine. And there is something very intuitive about that. Yaakov Avinu is b'kesh leshav b'shalva. The desire of Yaakov Avinu is that he wants to live in a state of complete serenity. So there is a real madrigal like that. Of course, immediately afterwards, Hakadosh Baruch Hu said, "Well, then I'm going to send Yosef down to Mitzrayim," because the emphasis that serenity is something that's earned.

18:26 Serenity is not something that you have. Serenity has to be that with all the chaos in the world around me, I am the port in the storm. I am the eye of the storm where nothing can possibly touch me. I carry Noach Teva deep inside of me, so that no matter what waters are raging in the world, I have a deep sense of Okeness. And that's what the Neshama basically is saying to Al Kadosh Baruch Hu. Why would I ever want to leave this place? And the Oyla Man Neshamos, everything is Gavaldik. I have a state of being where there is nothing, there is no turmoil in this world. I'm reminded of when Moshe Noel Hashem Yikom Dama was killed in Gaza. So Moshe's mother Miriam Noel and my wife are very close friends. It was a devastating loss. The noel family davins in eish Kodesh in beit shemesh In Ramat Beit Shemesh Und der Eish Kodesh, der Piasetzner, der Rav von der Eish der Kehila.

19:33 He's a very special person, exceptionally special. He's the most like he goes shopping in Yesh. There's not all Rabbanim feel comfortable to go shopping. Because it's a little bit like not like maybe it's enel vichodo maybe people is maybe they're just going to be hacked when they're choosing chicken can you just pass me a quick shayla for me I don't know whatever it is but rabbanim don't generally go shopping in public But the piasasim that go shopping he like walks around in the yesh like a regular person I once in the parking lot in the merkaz and ramapetchemish I went over he was like packing his bags in the car I said can I please help the rabbi I know how to put bags in a trunk. I was like, yeah, no, but I could help. He's like, I don't particularly need help. I was like, I'm trying to be misham mishir, Rabbi. Could you please? But he's a very humble man.

20:20 Very special person Like a real tzaddik, like the kind of tzaddik that makes you believe that the stories could be true of the old tzaddikim. Just total humility, total bittul. Total, like I'm just being there for the tzeibur. He walks around in davening. He just walks around like checking on people the entire davening. He's the sweetest. He's like a malach. He's a very special person and beautiful, like just like the original Ishkodish. Very beautiful face. So. So the Reb spoke. The Reb spoke by Maishy's levaya And at some point he started screaming, which is very unusual. It doesn't fit his character. He starts screaming to Maishy. And he said, 'Don't go into Gan Eden. They're going to try to bring you into Gan Eden. Don't go, don't go. Refuse to go. Because the moment that you go into Gan Eden, everything will make sense. And if everything makes sense, then you won't be fighting for us. Because the moment that it makes sense, you'll say, "Okay, it makes sense. It has to play itself out." So please, Ma'ushi, don't go into Gan Eden. Don't go into Gan Eden. And the rivers of tears that were cried in that moment—you can't possibly imagine what it was like.'

21:31 The neshama in Oyel Manashmos has no struggle. And so when Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells the neshama lech l'chamei artzicha umi moladetcha to leave that sense of comfort that comes with being in your birthplace, I'm in my home, I'm held, I'm contained. This is like that's what every one of us wants. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu tells the neshama you have not achieved comfort. And there's a deeper comfort that exists that when everything goes wrong, I stay in that state of serenity, and I stay in that state of okayness. You need to leave this world in order to discover that there's a level of being that you have, but you have not yet achieved becoming. And so you have to leave that dimension as well. And then there's the last part, which is mi beis avicha. Mi beis avicha means as follows. There's a story with the Lubavitcher Rebbe. I love this story.

22:30 That one of the Hasidim wrote the Rebbe a letter and he said, "I really want to come to the Rebbe for Yom Kippur so that I could be close to the Rebbe." It was like one of the Rebbe's shluchim who was out in Kathmandu, one of those places that you only find out they have a Chabad if somehow your plane had to make a detour and you landed and all of a sudden Chabad's got 500 people for Shabbos, but they make it happen. So he wrote a letter. I want to be close to you. So can I? I'm going to come for you on Kippur. The Rebbe wrote him back. If you really want to be close to me, stay where you are. Because there's two definitions of closeness. There's closeness in space. And there's closeness in the relationship, and those are not the same thing. Closeness in space means that the neshama stays in Shamayim. That would be closeness in space.

23:19 But closeness in a relationship means not that I'm connected to you because I'm standing next to you. I'm connected to you no matter where I am because the keshet nafshi that we have means that you're on my mind wherever I go. Intuitively, we see this in relationships. And I'm not saying I just want to be clear because I don't want to be misunderstood. I'm not saying that it's not important to stand next to the people that you love in space. It certainly is, and when the people that we love are far away from us physically, that's certainly challenging. I'm so blessed. I want to share with you something that just happened. I think it's okay. I don't think she would be embarrassed for me to say this. I didn't ask her permission, but I think it's okay. And if I have to ask forgiveness, I will.

24:07 On the way here, my family is Baruch Hashem in Eretz Yisrael. And. And I was I you know I called my daughter like video chatting with her while I'm driving. Don't worry, wasn't like your, it was I was paying attention. It was like the you know the phone was propped up so they could see me in the car and I'm driving And I was talking to my 18 year old daughter And she said as she was telling me it's been hard not to have you around, not to schmooze with you whatever, and I said oh you love me like you really love me. She said, "Yeah, I really do." She said it's funny. Me and Shira, my younger sister, we were just talking about it. We used to love when you left. And I'm like, I'm just driving. I'm like, I'm just waiting for it. She goes, 'Yeah, because you know when you were at home, we would break curfew and we would.' And I'm like, I'm learning this for the first time, by the way. Like, 25 minutes ago. I'm like, she's like, 'Yeah,' and we would stay up all night, and if we didn't want to go to school, we wouldn't go to school. And I'm like, 'Okay. It's interesting to find out what your children were actually doing.'

25:10 Say that. She's like, yeah, and like me and Shira were talking last night, and they're like, it's just not the same with Abba around. And now that we're older, like we really miss having you around. And I was like, okay, so came back right? It finished. The story finished okay. Space is really important. But the MS is that there's a deeper dimension in a relationship which is Whether I'm next to you or not next to you, I'm close to you. And we don't understand how to achieve that level of closeness until we have distance. There's a very bad piece of advice that young women get. I hate this piece of advice, and it's given usually by well-intended people, but people who are not necessarily well-versed in relationships. If a girl is dating a boy, and she's not sure, they say break up with him or take a break. Take a break, and you'll see. If you miss him, That's not necessarily a good piece of advice because very often

26:10 Not building a relationship does not build a relationship. That's not like a good one. And what do you think the guy is going to experience when she does that? By the way, he'll be like, okay, on to the next one. It's not like he's not going to get the sophistication of that move, right? He'll be like, I guess she doesn't like me, okay. And then this guy, his friend in the dorm will go, what's, are you okay? Be like, yeah, it's fine. That's the whole conversation. I know that in the dorms and in the girls when they're dating, that's like a seven-hour conversation. But the guys, it's fine. The absence makes the heart grow fonder is a very deep tarot that needs to be deployed in a very careful way. That when two people are far apart from each other There's a sense of closeness that I only learn because I'm so deeply connected to you and your mission.

27:03 That it doesn't matter where I am in the world. That's what the Rebbe was saying. He said my mission is for us to bring Torah to the farthest flung places in the entire world. As long as you are here. You might be standing next to me, but we're not close. Because if we were really close, you'd be where I wanted you to be. That's a very deep Torah. The neshama and Shamayim feel very close in proximity, in space. It feels close. Baruch Hu. Baruch Hu says I created you for a mission. Colored that you're not achieving that mission. We're not close. That's why in relationships Your husband could be right next to you and you could feel very far from him. Your husband could be very far away from you and you could feel very close to him. I was talking by the chasna. I wouldn't say it would be appropriate to say who, but I was talking to somebody by the chasna.

27:54 And he was telling me that he lost a parent five and a half years ago. And he said, "It's the funniest thing. I feel so much closer to this parent now than I did when he was alive." And it was such a profound thing to say. I said, "Could you unpack that for me?" He goes, "Yeah. Our relationship used to be limited to the goof. He means it, by the way. He wasn't saying it like a hippy dippy thing. He was saying a real thing. He was saying, 'My relationship with my father used to be limited to him being in front of me. So that's how we related to each other.' He said, "Now He said I had to learn over these last five and a half years. How to be present in my relationship with my father when I can't see him, when I can't hear him? He goes, I can still talk to him, but he can't respond in the same way. But I know that my father now is in a certain way; he's in a state of infinity, and he's very present with me. And there's a closeness now that I feel to my father that I never felt when he was alive.

28:45 And it was such an exceptionally profound thing to say. I'm just like sitting by the shmurg. It's like some people, that's a shmorg conversation, some people are just living such a real life that it doesn't matter where they are, they could be by the shmorg but they're flying off and I love masalionim. By the way, when I saw that you dancing by the chasna, he danced in a way that very few people danced. He was dancing like with a real lebedikai and he really is alive because he's not limited to that dimension of the body. With these three things in mind, we understand a very deep Torah. The neshama has to leave Shamayim in order to adopt new levels of desire, more profound levels of desire. A new relationship with comfort, comfort within the chaos, a new relationship with this yisod Am I actually close to you, or do I come from Bivavich? I come from my father's house, but I can leave my father's house. To discover a whole new dimension to the home that we will build together, and that's the final end of the pasuk. It's El Ha'aretz Asher Areka.

29:52 Hakadosh Baruch Hu is saying, if you do this, you're going to learn a whole new dimension to our relationship, and that's why Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't say go to Canaan. He doesn't say go to Canaan. How come he doesn't say go to Canaan? Rashi brings a beautiful answer. We could share Al P'pnimias Atar, maybe also a beautiful answer, of this land is the land of discovery. If I told you what it looks like, then there would never be the becoming. The whole yisoid here is for the neshama to become. So even though the neshama is perfect, the neshama has never become anything. There has to be some mystery at the end of it. I was talking to somebody today, somebody I deeply respect. And they said "I wish I knew then what I know now." And I said, "Yeah, I've had that thought. You ever had that thought like?"

30:41 The emesis—it's a Beferisha Back to the Future. We all want to be—we all want that time machine to know exactly the scores of all the games, so that we could go twenty years earlier and bet on all those games, so that we could be exceptionally wealthy. We all want some version of that. I want to go back to when I'm 21 years old, and I want to be able to use all this psychological language. I want to say, because when I was 21, I was in there going. I don't really understand what being a social worker means. What do you do? You just tell people to be social, just go out there and be social. I really didn't know what a social worker was. I didn't, and nobody knew attachment language. Yakov Danilchevsky was still a teenager. You know what I'm saying? Nobody knew attachment, and nobody knew IFS, and nobody knew these things. And I wish I could go back to my twenty-one-year-old self and tell them it's okay for you not to be okay. I didn't know that it was okay not to be okay. None of these. We'd. I want to know all of those things, but if I did.

31:34 I would have been robbed of the opportunity of learning all of those things, and the learning in some ways is more. I hate to say because the And I think I'm speaking here. I think a lot of you feel this way too. But I hurt people along the way. And I hurt myself along the way too, and I want to go back because I don't want to hurt people. I want to go back and whisper in my 21 year old self's ear and say, dude, if you do this The people that you love most in the world are going to be hurt by the way that you are. I wish I could go back and say that, so I could spare them the pain. I wish I could go back and tell myself, now I'm a grandfather. I want to go back and tell myself, like when I was holding bracha for the first time, like this is what it's going to look like to be a parent. And then my daughter would have been perfect, and everything would be fine. And she is perfect, and everything is fine.

32:23 Not because of my parenting strategies, but because children are very resilient. I want to do that because I wouldn't have hurt people, but I also think it's important to give ourselves permission to be in the process of learning. And that's a very deep Torah that the neshama comes into this world to learn something that it otherwise couldn't have learned. And not knowing is not a failure. Guys in yeshiva, I'm sure girls do this too, but guys in yeshiva do this thing where they open the Gemara and then close it and are just like, I can't, I don't know what it said, I don't get it. I'm like, of course you don't get it. You haven't learned it yet. Do you realize that we trained our talmidim to close the book because they don't know what the book says. How could you know what it says if you haven't learned it yet? I can't learn it. Of course you can't learn it. That's why you're here to learn how to learn it. But you can learn it, right? I have this thing. I do this all the time with the guys. I'm like, it's okay to not know, and it's a beautiful gift.

33:29 Gemara is just one example of what we're really trying to communicate to them, which is it's okay to not know. I'm going to feel really stupid for a long time as I mangle this in every possible way. And it's not going to be the relationship that I want. It could be much better in the long term, but I'm going to have to hold on for dear life as we're going through it. So can we give ourselves some grace that there's this land that we're heading towards? Eloaretz asherarecha. That is the land of discovery, not the land of I already know where it is. And then from there, I'm just checking the time because I don't want to miss this flight. Because proximity in space is also important. If you're going to do that, you have to confront your loathe. Because Carl Jung said, we all have a shadow side. Loathe is like Avram's nephew, right? It's literally shadow. If you think about it, an uncle and a nephew relationship.

34:27 And Lot's everything that Avram Avinu in some ways is not He's Avram Avinu is the ultimate Chesed, and without getting into the whole story of stone right now, it's certainly worth unpacking. But Lot finds himself attracted to the most inappropriate type of Chesed. Avraham Avinu comes down into this world to build for Hashem a dwelling place in the world down below, and Lot is attracted to the materialism of stone. So there is this Lot personality that exists within this movement of I'm coming down into the world in order to become something, but in becoming something, I'm going to confront exceptional challenges not from the outside but from the inside, parts of myself that are not yet regulated. That have not yet been integrated into myself. Perhaps I will come to desire things that I don't want to desire. That would be willing to be immoral. That I'd be willing to give up my daughters to the people of Stoma to protect my guests. The deviation of what's true. Avram Avinu was the truth of Chesed, and Lot was the falsehood of Chesed.

35:32 And so in this journey Even before we meet Sarai The neshama has to recognize about itself that if I'm going to leave this land of Olam Neshamos, I'm going to travel this distance towards this mysterious place of becoming. The immediate, already in the immediate leaving, there's the confrontation with the parts of ourselves that cast a shadow upon our lives. And if we don't come to recognize that shadow, it will control our lives in every way possible. Most of us are living out our unresolved pain, and we're totally unaware of it. And we're totally unaware of it. There's a therapist in Yerushalayim whose name is David Levine. He's a brilliant therapist. He's got an eight-month waiting list. He can't get in to see him. David Levine told me that he's just sees over and again, specifically in marriages, that he has to tell the husband and the wife It's not your spouse's job to heal your childhood wounds.

36:41 And he says most of the time when he says that. The couple looks at him with a blank stare and go, 'What are you talking about? That's not what I want at all. I just want my wife to be happy, right?' Like it's no, like you're just not aware that we're carrying around this shadow that lurks inside of us, that poison box. You know that poison box where you put all of those thoughts that you don't want to pay attention to, and you bury it deep inside of you and you lock it real tight and you shove it down. I just don't want to think about that thing, right? And then the problem is that you buried that in your well that you drink from. So we're living out that unresolved pain in our lives, and it's hurting other people. And so right away, the moment that the neshama leaves Shamayim, it's already confronting this low personality of the deviant form of who I truly am. That's what happens in your state of becoming.

37:31 And then the step after that is you're going to confront your body. Which means, and again, there's a lot here to unpack, but it means that even before your neshama entered into your gof. We always blame the body for things, but the truth is, as we're going to see in a moment, the body is exceptionally precious. The body is rooted in Hashem's essence. Even before the neshama comes into the body, there's already some sort of split. We tend to think of the split in the neshama as there's a neshama and a gof. But the moment the neshama leaves Shamayim, there's already some sort of fractured, fragmented reality where the neshama, as it's entering into the gulf, is already confronting its lo. And that's why lo comes before sarai in the parsha Because even before the neshama inhabits the body, there's already a fragmented reality. And that fragmented reality is what we're here to confront in this world. Once the neshama comes into the body, especially if the body is a sarai imenu.

38:30 Once the neshama comes into the body, the beginning of integration is what's occurring. The neshama entering into the body is not the problem. That's the opportunity. It was Giuliani. Giuliani was did that guy win? He's if it hasn't happened. It hasn't happened yet. Couple. I think a week. I want you to know, I do. Even though I live in Israel, I do care about it very much. Not just as a former New Yorker. I think it's like a crazy thing in the world. I remember when Giuliani was the mayor of New York, he had a policy. His policy was you weren't allowed to say problems; you could say challenges and opportunities. Because it's a reframe, right? The moment that I say problem, it's like that's a problem; it needs to be solved. The moment I say that there's a challenge, that's what I'm here for, right?

39:15 Guys in yeshivah always say, Rabbi, the yitzhar is so strong. What does that mean? The yitzhar is so strong. If you were playing basketball and you got on the court and there was like a good defense, you wouldn't just hand the ball over and go. You guys are too good. That's why you got on the court. You got on the court to play the game. The game involves defense. It's not fun to shoot around by yourself. The challenge is only here. And if you're great at basketball, you actually want the challenge to be higher. I had Talmud many years ago. He was known as the absolute best athlete in the entire yeshiva league country. Like any even Valley Torah, His kid was an absolute superstar, and he was raised in a way that his father really gave him a lot of gifts. His father used to send him to basketball camps in the city, like the Knicks basketball camp in the summer. He was a phenomenal athlete.

40:06 And it was a known thing that his twelfth grade year they were going to win the championship. The team was excellent, and he was the best player on the team. And he didn't play. He didn't play his twelfth grade year. He didn't play, and his friends were so upset at him. And I, this when I was living in America. We were learning together at nights, in DRS. We were learning together. He wasn't in DRS. He was in a different school, but we were learning together at night in DRS. And his friends were furious, and they would come to me like, 'Could you please convince him to play for the team? Like, we might win the championship anyway, but with him, it's a lock.' And I said to him like, 'Why aren't you playing? Like, it's a strange thing because you have to understand in this community.' This what you live for, right? You live—that's—that's your whole chayas. I walk down Central Avenue, and I'm the goat. Every guy and every girl points. Maybe one day I'll be like him. That's your whole life. And this kid just says you're not playing.

40:56 And he goes, I don't play little tykes basketball. And I was like, what? What does that mean? He's like, it's not fun for me anymore. He was that good that the game wasn't fun. He's like I play like the level of ball that he was playing in the summers. He's like that's geschmack for me. Because I want to play against the best defenses. I don't want to show up to some game against some random school in Brooklyn and run up the score and beat them like 180 to two. That's not a fun game. And it's again, I thought he was a little bit of a balgaif. If I'm being honest, I was like, 'you're not that good.' And this is when I was younger, so we would go to the gym and play sometimes, and he really was phenomenal, and he had unbelievable trash talk. He was great, he was a really great player. But I admired that about him in the sense that he didn't want to do something unless it was hard.

41:46 And this is the difficulty of the body. The body is not the problem that needs to be solved. The body gives us the opportunity to express ourselves in this journey of becoming. The body is identified, even though beforehand we said in the very beginning of the sheir, it's strange to think about sari imenu as the body. There's something exceptionally feminine about the body receiving the soul and then nurturing the soul into this actualization that it couldn't have otherwise accomplished without a body. Because without a body, the neshama is just in Shamayim existing, it's being, but it has no sense of becoming. So the soul confronting its inner load then enters into a body, and there's this perfect integration. That's why the pasuk says, 'Va'yikach Avram esarai isto.' Avram, meaning the neshama, takes his wife. And then ve'es lot benachiv. And now, in that state of perfect union of Avram avinu and Sarai imenu, the state that we're all trying to achieve, we take our lot along with us. We're not leaving it behind. That's the work now. This is what we're doing.

42:51 Ve'es kol ruchuchama sherech hashu. And this everything that I have now. All of my wealth. Everything that I am in this world. That's kol ha nefesh. I share also b'charon. And everything that I accomplish, all the things that I build, all the people that I influence in my state now of this new reality where neshama and guf come together, where I confront my inner lot, I'm using all of the material resources of the world, and I'm changing people's lives. This the mission statement of Judaism. A pasuk. Where do we go now? It identifies it. By yitu aleches arza kanan. I know exactly where I'm going now. Beforehand, it was a mystery. Now I know exactly where I'm going because this is—I understand. My mission is to build for Hashem a dwelling place in the world down below. Va'avo artz Kanan, and then they arrive there. That's an unbelievable thing. Of course, we know what happens right after arrival. What happens right after arrival? There's the next step. We never truly arrive anywhere in this world.

43:51 When I say this to young men and women, they don't understand. What does that mean? You never truly arrive anywhere. We're older, so we get it. But the kids—they have no. So I said, guys, what happens when you go on vacation? You get to your hotel. Then what do you do? You unpack. Then what do you do? You go somewhere. I go exactly. Nobody ever goes and just stays anywhere. I remember many years ago My parents had the great idea to go to Ansett, Massachusetts, for the summer. I know everyone here has been to Ansett, Massachusetts. It is a lovely place to go. Right before we left, there was a woman who lived in our neighborhood who said, "Oh, I grew up in Boston. Onset is amazing. Rav Salavetchik used to vacation there. There's a shul there. It's amazing." Beautiful beach town. He said, and the woman said, "And there hasn't been a hurricane there in like 40 years."

44:39 We arrived. You can't make this stuff up. We arrived. And like we unpacked. The cops came around and said everybody needs to evacuate. Beautiful beach house. And I remember I was a little boy. I remember I was like okay, and we went to a local gym and they closed all the shades. It was very dangerous. And there was a massive hurricane, Hurricane Bob. You can go look it up. It was this enormous hurricane, and we came back. The boats that had been docked were on the houses. The water got so high that it came down on top of the houses. And all electricity was lost. We were davening by a hurricane lamp in the shul. There's a picture that my parents took that's still up in the shul today. A very chashev a rav who was there at that time davening by a hurricane lamp from the almad.

45:33 And I remember. By the way, I love my parents dearly. We went back to Cape Cod every single summer for the next 15 years. And we always like to mess around with my mother. It was really good the first time. That's why you decided to try it again and keep going. My best memories are from Cape Cod. First thing you do when you get to Cape Cod is you unpack, and then you go to the hurricane shelter. The first thing you do when you get to Cape Cod is you say, mom and dad, when are we going to the waterways? When are we going to the beach? When are we going to the fill in the blank? Nobody ever truly arrives anywhere. The moment that you get to anywhere, that's where the famine is. That's where the spiritual starvation is. I've arrived in Canaan. I'm down here in this world. I'm doing everything that I can, and now every one of us, on some level, gets to this place where we are burnt out, disinterested, totally numb.

46:23 And in that state, we begin the descent down to Mitzrayim. And in our descent down to Mitzrayim, every one of us has a conversation with our body that goes something like this: "They're going to take you." I know what happens in my state of fragmentation. You get a lot of phone calls. You're a very busy person. This is an amazing thing. I'm trying to give share, but you're running the entire world over here. This is unbelievable. True. I mean in the most positive way in the world. It's amazing. Glad we have it recorded. You could manage like you could see your hand. Like no, don't clip it and send it out. That's the viral piece. Don't take it out. Put it in. In our state of spiritual starvation, we lose our sense of control over our body. We emotionally numb out.

47:13 We behave in ways that we're not proud of. This is what the neshama is afraid of, as it's in its state of descent. Because it's like I thought it was going to be good. Everything was going great. I was fulfilling Hashem's mission. Everything was going great, and then all of a sudden, famine hits, and there's nothing left. I'm forced, because the only way to truly become is to go all the way down to the bottom. I'm forced because of that famine. To go even lower into the world, to go all the way down into Mitzrayim, and now the neshama confronts a fear—the fear of what will be with this body when this body is taken by the paros of the world. Because I see the beauty in the body, and I know what's going to happen when Paro gets a hold of the beauty of this body; it's going to use it in a distorted way. So there's this fear that's coming up, this need for protection. I'm going to put my body in a box. I'm going to hide the body. Tell them you're my sister.

48:03 But there's a deeper dimension to this also. The neshama is whispering to the body. If Paro comes to take you, know that you are my sister. The Haynu know that our relationship can never be severed because it's a familial relationship. The husband-wife relationship could be severed. There is a Torah of divorce. The brother-sister relationship can never be severed. No matter how far apart we are, you will always be my sister. So Avraham Avinu is experiencing two things that are happening at once. On the surface, it appears that Avraham Avinu is scared. Paro is going to take you. The body is beautiful. It's gishmak. And by the way, this is the first time that Avraham Avinu recognizes the beauty of his body. It's only in that state of constriction where Avraham Avinu goes into the state of fear. He goes into the state of fear because it occurs to him that now the neshama, having left Shamayim, sees the body is exceptionally beautiful.

48:57 By the way, I saw a line from Rav Lapianski. Everyone here should be learning Rav Lapianski's Torah. Everyone should listen to Rav Lapianski all the time in everything. That man is absolutely brilliant. I saw a line from him that he wrote. Pretty sure I saw it when he wrote a Hesped in Mishpacha magazine. I have to say Mishpacha magazine because in Neretz Shalts Mishpacha magazine. I feel like I'm here in LA. In Mishpacha magazine, he wrote in the Hesped for Rabbi Hower. He said, "Beauty is the soul leaving its imprint on the body." That's an unbelievable line. Now Avraham Avinu says, "I see the beauty of the body." I don't want Paro to take you. There's a fear, but there's also now the whispering of the neshama to the body. We can never be separated from each other, not truly. The body and the soul have a relationship that's so essential that nothing will ever truly diminish it.

49:50 And in fact, they do go down to Mitzrayim, and she is taken. But what happens when the body is taken by Paro? That's when the plagues start to hit Paro's house. That's when everything starts to go wrong. That's like You ever listen to your body Like when it tells you stop? So some of us have a hard time with that, if you're the guy who wants to go into the ice cream machine and just let it swirl up in your mouth. Our body is telling us all the time when it's being captured by paro And it doesn't work. That's why the addicts when you speak to the people that are really suffering from the disease of addiction The real disease there is they can't listen to their body say stop. Because the body naturally wants the body's miserable like this. If you look around in the world, there are people that have so much physicality, so much materialism, they're drowning in it.

50:48 They're drowning in the materialism. The body is begging for relief from the materialism of this world. We tend to think of it as the opposite. We tend to think, but isn't that my body craving the materialism of the world? Not at all. Your body is desperate to get out from under the weight of the materialism of the world. That's why less really is more. And we know that. What's that? That I'm not holding these things. Feng shui? I'd rather not know. But there's something about sparsity. There's something when you're designing that you can over-design something. There's something that it's too much. We look for the simplistic in physical design. We want things to be very clean. All Apple products have that. All Apple products are absolutely simple. There's beauty in simplicity. The body is begging to be released from the materialism of this world. For me, one of the most profound moments of my life.

51:43 Was when I went to Eretz Yisrael, and I was in a whatever. Don't tell the whole story, but I went deep into the heart of Geula for a Friday night meal. Every block that you walk in Geula is like traveling back 500 years in time. I traveled back to the Maisa Beresias. I remember six thousand years. These people had nothing. Their entire apartment was maybe the size of these two rooms over here. There was such Simchas Achaim in that room, and I remember. I'm a Five Towns kid. I remember thinking. There was more simchas achaim in that apartment in that tiny little havel than there was in all the mansions that I grew up in Lawrence. They were free from the constriction of materialism. We have to pay attention to the plagues that are coming upon us, and we have to recognize it's because we lost that neshama-guf relationship. The guf desires to be nourished by the neshama. The neshama desires to be nourished by the guf. It's a beautiful relationship, and that's why at the end of days, the neshama says, "I don't want to leave the body. Why would I want to go back to the Eilah Manashmos?" So you're born against your will because the neshama doesn't want to become, and you die against your will because the neshama appreciates the beauty of becoming.

52:52 This story—it's all here in Chumash. It's just the pnimius of this story. It's a beautiful, beautiful story. In the end, Paro returns the body to Avram Avinu with great wealth. Avram Avinu leaves Mitzrayim with unbelievable wealth. He's a very powerful, very wealthy man. That's why Paro gives Hagar to Avram Avinu. He says, I need to be a part of this. I need to be part of the family of Avram Avinu. I need to be part of this beautiful relationship that exists between Bari and Guf. And we know that Paro becomes who? Paro becomes the Melech of Ninve. That's why Yonah didn't want to go to Nineveh to tell them to do tshuva because he knew they would listen, and it would look bad for Klal Yisrael. Why did he know that they would listen? Because at the end of the story of Yitzchias Metzrayim, Paro does tshuva and he becomes the Melach of Nineveh. Paro himself, now the serpent himself, the mighty serpent himself, has the ability now to change just not just himself but the entire town of city of Nineveh. He can like that. Everybody's going to do tshuva because who wouldn't listen to Paro? When Paro himself stands up and says Chaver, trust me, you don't want to go down this path. I've been there. I stood at Kriyas Yamsuf and I watched everything that I had in my life be destroyed. Paro himself becomes the ultimate agent of change.

54:14 So when Avram Avinu leaves Paro, the impact is real. Paro is halishing. I just want to be a part of the life of Avram Avinu. This world is halishing. It just wants to be part of the beautiful unity that exists between body and soul. And that's the most amazing thing in the world, right? The most amazing thing that we have in this world is that when we live aligned with the truth of our existence, when we allow our body to be nourished by the soul, and when we allow our soul to nourish our body, that's when life goes great. I discover the desire of not wanting to do what I want to do. I want what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants in my world. I don't want to stay in the comfort of my birthplace. I want to leave the comfort of my own home to discover the deepest comfort, which is the notion that I am always comfortable from within myself. I am always okay.

55:03 And finally, that closeness to Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't mean staying in Shamayim. That's why the biggest risk we can commit is suicide. The suicide is the soul's desire to be back in its bais avicha. Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't want to have closeness with us in proximity. He wants closeness with us when we are aligned with his mission. He says, "Let's build a home over there. That'll be bais avicha. That'll be a beautiful home for us to build because we built it together. I'll create the world." You design it for me. That's the ultimate relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. I'm going to go catch a flight back to Israel because I like to be in the proximity of Hakadosh Baruch Hu physically too. Vada, Mashiach's going to be here any minute. I don't think there's room on this particular flight, but who knows.