Making A Lasting Commitment To Halacha

2:19 And it happens to be a very special time. Just our two families get together. We It's like an NCSY type of ebbing Purim, but it has a different connotation in our In our state on Purim. I just want to start off by thanking Rabbits and Summers for making this happen. This was the product of how many different conversations. It's going to happen. Maybe in two weeks. Maybe in a month. Maybe in six months. But relentless, and I really appreciate it. Just to remind me, today was a Yom Yon on Halacha. And what are the topics that we've covered so far? Women's mitzvos, halachos And penimias halacha. The penimias of halacha, and who gave over the penimias of halacha? R' Yonatan. What's R' Yonatan's story? Very nice. So I think that the topic that we're meant to discuss today was how to make it last. The implication of the question of how to make it last At least the way I understood it, was the challenges of leading a halachic life in a post seminary world.

3:47 It's sort of easy when we're here in Yerushalayim Yerakodesh At this stage of our lives To maintain. Not only a certain discipline, but a certain growth-oriented mentality that comes with being in this viva. That when we're in an environment of growth There's sort of, especially you see it in that shanah aleph momentum. There's like when the plane takes off, the climb to thirty thousand feet to come to Eretz Yisrael, it's the exciting climb. And then sometimes shanah bet, it feels a little static. It feels like we're just doing the same thing that we did Shnayalov. Maybe you ask yourself the question, why did I bother coming back Shnabet? Like it just feels like I'm not actually doing anything. Of course, it's not true. The plane actually covers the most distance when When it appears that nothing is happening. And if that's true of Shnabet, then it's certainly true of the rest of our lives, especially as we enter into the mundane, monotonous.

4:56 Very important, but often not inspiring section of our lives Because the nature of inspiration is education. I don't know that we give enough credit to the concept that inspiration is education. In truth, anything inspiring. That exists in this world. It's not inspirational because it went to a komsitz or because it went to a habring. That's that. Those are beautiful times of excitement. The reason why we say inspiration doesn't last is because we conflate the terms inspiring and exciting. A tish of habring and a beautiful Shabbos, a Shabbaton. These are exciting things. But inspiration is when we begin to see the world in a different way. And the truth is that inspiration is the only thing that lasts. Because once you see the world in a new way, you can't unsee it. And once you see the world in a new way, the nature of it is very lasting.

6:02 I'll share with you my first moment of inspiration that I can remember. I know it's going to sound very foolish, but believe me, it's true. When I was a very little boy I grew up in a town called Farakway. We moved to Lawrence when I was about 15 years old. At the time, that was considered a very big upgrade to move from Faracoe to Lawrence. The move came with a tremendous amount of arrogance. I now understood in a very clear way that I was better than other people, and a little bit I still understand that. I'm still working on my midos. Show hands, how many people here are from the five towns? How many people here are from Lawrence? So you know what I'm talking about. Where in Lawrence are you from? You got to give me your street name. Sutton. Sutton is a very high level of Lawrence.

6:55 I'm from Harborview, also a high level of Lawrence. We are back Lawrence adjacent. Of course, the people in back Lawrence know with clarity that they're better than us. It's just that we know we're better than Woodmere. There's a ranking system in the five towns. It's Lawrence, Cedarhurst, Woodmere, and then we don't know the other two. If you're from Hewlett or Inwood, I apologize. Where are you from? It's going to be okay. Tov l'sadik, tov l'shechina. You have a shame five towns. So when I was growing up in Far Rockaway My parents were at the time. I don't want to say we were poor. Poor as a state of mind. My parents did not yet earn enough money to sustain a certain type of lifestyle. Baruch Hashem, my father later would have become much more successful. My mother worked, and my father worked. My father was in the beginning of his career.

8:02 And I remember that my mother not only worked but also babysat. So in the afternoons, when we would come home from school, a very close friend of mine, whose name was Yitzi, who today is a very fine talmud chacham. Yitzi would come to my house after school, and his mother Judy would pick him up later that night. I think I was five years old when Judy came to the house, and I have some sort of recollection. We used to ride big wheels up and down Mihan Avenue in Farakwe. I have some sort of recollection that even when his mother would come, we would like to hang out afterwards. And it wasn't like his mother came and he had to leave right away. And then eventually, his mother would say, "It's time to go home." And I was five years old, and my mother was saying, "It's time to come inside." And Judy was saying to Yitzi, "It's time to come home."

8:57 And she said, "Yitzi, it's time to come home. You have to take a shower." And my mother embarrassed me. I remember this. My mother embarrassed me and she said to Judy He still takes baths. Now, at the time. I didn't know that baths were pathetic. I thought, which turns out later in life they're not. You get older, and it's like a full circle. Like that's the best thing in the world. But at the time I thought like Oh my God, that's what babies do And so I remember proclaiming very adamantly Nah, it's not true. I only take showers. This is a line in the sand that I needed to draw. My manhood was at stake. And from that moment on, it was like years. It was literally years before I went back to taking a bath because baths are for babies. It was an inspirational moment. I know it sounds like a trivial thing, it's an inspirational moment that happens in our lives when we realize that this thing is for babies and I'm not a baby.

10:00 And so the transformation is almost instantaneous. That's why change happens very quickly. In truth, change happens very quickly. It takes time for things to evolve, and over time, those sort of micro changes evolve into this macro change of who we are. But the moment something strikes us as deeply true and it hits us in a place where it's deeply connected to our identity, change happens very quickly. The moment you realize, for example, that a friend of yours is experiencing you in a certain type of way. You don't want to be experienced in that type of way because that's not who you are. All of a sudden, you'll stop doing that. And it's because it strikes such a deep chord within your identity. The challenge today for women. I think it's true for men also, but unfortunately, it's less true for men than it is for women. The challenge today for women is We do a pretty horrific job of continuing education for women.

11:05 You're going to leave seminary. And you'll if you're going to Stern. So then I think they're doing a phenomenal job today in Stern of doing their best to continue to present you with inspiring educational opportunities. But then at some point in your life you leave And you don't have the same infrastructure as men. And so naturally a man's inspiration is going to be. If he's davening with a minion three times a day, he's going to be in shul. Even if he's not davening with a minion three times a day, he's going to be in shul on Shabbos. The opportunity to learn dafyomi, the opportunity for fabrings and tishes—these things are sort of deeply embedded within the male infrastructure of the Jewish community. It's getting better for sure for the women, but are we there? We're not even close to there. And there's a good reason for that. It's because the natural challenge of being a Jewish woman today, raising a Jewish family, takes an inordinate amount of time.

12:07 And it's very difficult to be a supportive Jewish mother where you're trying to raise an inspired Jewish family if you yourself are not inspired. Which is why the appropriate changes are taking place. It's not fair what we do. I'm being very honest with you now. It's not fair what we do to girls today, which is we raise them. Having gone to these educational institutions that are inspiring them with a really profound Yiddishkeit, and then we sort of like, okay, now you're 19, so yeah Like that—that's not fair. We would never do that to the guys. Reasonable people could argue that maybe we made a mistake years ago by introducing this type of education to women, but once we did it, we now have to pay the consequences of that, which is exceptionally important. I can't say this strongly enough. It's important for the guys and the girls.

12:58 If your only infrastructure of inspiration is in your time in seminary, or if you're continuing on to Stern Something is deeply lacking. We have to maintain some sort of deep connection to our own educational experience to remain the inspired people that we are right now, in order to pass on the Masora of that inspiration. And I know one thing for sure. Even though our community is significantly more inspired than it was 30 years ago when I was growing up And you can ask your dad about that. Significant, we're doing a much better job. She just needed to know that I knew who she was because her father's been cheeping me. You have to make sure to embarrass her in public. Now you can tell your dad that I was yotze And he wants you to come for Shabbos, and so we'll figure that out. Even though we're doing a much better job of inspiring our community than we were 30 years ago, Baruch Hashem, we continue to raise the bar.

14:01 And I know that I'm sitting with a group of young women today that have big dreams about how you're going to raise your family, and you can probably picture in your mind that you're going to have those sons and those daughters that lead not just a halachic lifestyle, but a passionate halachic lifestyle, where Hashem is at the center of their lives. And that really is the goal. The goal is to put Hashem at the center of our lives. If you have those dreams and aspirations, I just want to share with you: the only way to communicate that in truth Is to role model that for your children. There is absolutely no substitute for inspiring a young Jewish woman, then seeing her mother benching lech on a Friday night, slowly with kavanah and davening for her children. There is absolutely no substitute for that. If you want your children to be passionate about their davening, what will they see in your davening? If you want your children not to say lashon hara, what is the conversation at your Shabbos table? If you want your children to be passionate about Shabbos, then Shabbos can't just be a cessation of work.

15:08 It sort of drives me crazy, if I'm being honest with you. It drives me really crazy when I hear about Shabbos as a break from technology. That's not what Shabbos is. Ga'ym also know how to turn off their phone. Shabbos is much more profound than a break from technology. Shabbos is the time where Hakadosh Baruch Hu stopped creation and stood back for 25 hours and admired His creation and declared that creation was good. And every single week, Hakadosh Baruch Hu recreates that moment and invites us to participate in stepping back and admiring His creation together. The halacha is a gentile is chayav misa. A gentile is not invited to participate in that unique opportunity. This is the gift of what it means to be chosen. We have a unique relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Shabbos is not about turning off your phone. Charlie Kirk also was into keeping Shabbos And the whole Jewish world went crazy. Charlie Kirk keeps Shabbos. Rav Chaim Kaniewski also kept Shabbos.

16:22 If we want our children to put Hashem at the center of their lives, then we need to put Hashem at the center of our lives. And if we want to put Hashem at the center of our lives, then we have to make a commitment today that our continued inspiration in the form of education does not cease simply because we've left the Daled Amos of Midrashat Moriah Yerushalayim Yerakodesh, wherever we find ourselves in the world. And that will mean a certain degree of sacrifice. That will mean that when you're in the car, perhaps not when your children are in the car. That's a good time for music and geshmack. But if you're in the car alone, it's putting on a sheir. Grabbing opportunities to continue to see the world in a more profound way. I'm glad to hear that the topic before this was the pneumias of halacha.

17:17 Halacha is the most unbelievable thing. God willing, in a couple of minutes, we'll start to discuss what real halacha means. But halacha is not irrational. Halacha has unbelievable depth to it. If you're not connecting deeply to the pnimius of halacha, then it starts to become going through the motions. The more we go through the motions on something, the more we lose sight of what's driving us to begin with. The less passionate we will be. And by the way, if you want to know what goes first, it's always the sensitivities that go first. It's not the pshat that people just throw away halacha. It's a much slower shift than that. It's about the small brushstrokes that make the painting perfect. Those are the first things to go. Once we lose sight of the value of the relationship So then we might still show up and perform in the relationship, but the sensitivities in the relationship are the first thing to go. It's like if a husband and wife start losing touch with each other.

18:25 It's not. It's not the shot that like Because they lost touch with each other. Now all of a sudden they're in their separate corners. It's a slow shift. It's not dramatic. The dramatic change happens at the very end. But the slow shift is like we're on our phones when we're in the same place. That I'm still showing up and doing everything. There's nothing you can look at and say I'm not a good wife or I'm not a good husband. But the sensitivities, the way that we used to speak to each other Naturally, it starts to shift. It's no longer with the same level of excitement, enthusiasm, or passion that we have in the beginning of any relationship. That's why when you go to these weddings There's always that jaded The jaded couples in their forties. Maybe I'm referring to myself that are looking at the couple under the chuppah that are looking each other with those googly eyes.

19:26 And it's very beautiful. It is, and the kallah is walking around the chasen seven times, and you have various iterations of this, right? There's like the two from for God. Chasson who can't stop for one second to make eye contact because he's chuckling like he's having a seizure, you know, like because at that moment you know it's like a it's just it's the same iteration of the guy who's standing by the mechitzas and can't pass doing the same exact thing because it's not really about Hashem it's a certain show for the world because the truth is the big tzaddikim didn't chuckle like that but then there's what's appropriate which we hope for all of you that. That you're walking down the aisle, and until then your chassan is saying Tehillim and recognizing the kedusha of this moment, but he also knows that the person he's going to spend the rest of his life with is walking down the aisle. So he knows how to stop and smile and make eye contact and invite her under the chuppah. There's that beautiful Sfardy Minagof taking a couple of steps forward and escorting your wife into the chuppah.

20:27 I read a ma'aseh that R' Shlomo Freifeld, Zeichutzadik Levrach, who was the founding Rosh Yeshiva of Shaiyoshev. That he told one of the chassanim in Shiyashiv that if you don't smile at your wife under the chuppah, I'm going to kill you. That's good chinuch. But then there's also that couple where she's walking around him and has that yoga thing where she's able to turn her neck all the way around. You know what I'm saying? Every moment they're staring at each other. They don't break eye contact for one moment. You know? And all the couples in their forties are rolling their eyes, going like, "Okay, sweetie" Talk to me in six months, right? Glad you appreciated. There's something very beautiful about our About our dating life, about our young married life Where taking out the garbage is not taking out the garbage. Taking out the garbage is an act of service.

21:40 Taking out the garbage is an act of love. And then at some point Because of the repetitive, mundane nature of reality, at some point taking out the garbage is just taking out the garbage. And then at some point, taking out the garbage is an act of resentment. And at some point, you find yourself throwing the garbage into the garbage like it's a nuclear reactor. They just have to get away from it as fast as possible. And you walk back into the house, going, "Am I always taking out the garbage?" And if you live in Eretz Israel, where taking out the garbage involves walking two blocks to the garbage Because the way that the Kibbutz built that block was In a way that's incapable of the garbage truck getting down to your block. So he pays off the mayor so that it could be called Shetach Prati, so that you have to walk two blocks to take out the garbage. Which happens to be the story of Nachal Zavitan, exactly where I live, right?

22:34 You see people loading up their cars with garbage in their trunk and on the top of their car as they're driving up, and you see these men, like garbage men, heaving the garbage in and muttering under their breath the entire time. And then they come back into the house and I take out all the garbage, and it's like the wife just in there going, I don't know what happens. I feel badly for my wife sometimes, like she has to deal with that. That's what halacha becomes for many of us. I don't want to do this anymore. I'm so tired of having a halachic relationship with Hashem without having an actual relationship with Hashem. Dr. Chaim Salavetchik, or Salavetchik's son, once wrote Having lost the feel of God's embrace, we seek solace in His yoke. Which means that there used to be a time when a simple Jew felt the love of God in a way that I don't think we experience it.

23:37 Those stories, by the way, are true. That old Jew just felt that natural connection to Hashem. He just woke up and he davened and he said his Tehillim and he was a water carrier and a wood chopper and a tailor and a shoemaker and he just naturally. Loved Hakadosh Baruch Hu, he did. They were deeply connected to Hashem's embrace. You're very young, so I don't know if you had the opportunity to meet them. I'm a little older than you. I had the opportunity in my life to meet simple Jews. In them, I found some of my most inspiring people. They could not tell you a Rashi from a Tosfos, a Rambam from a Ritva. They didn't know the difference between Shemona Prakim and Ma'or Nebuchim, and they never learned the writings of R' Zadok or the Balatanya. But they davened like Hashem was truly in front of them.

24:35 It was exceptionally inspiring. And we don't have that. So what happened was that we became good Jews. Good Jews meant that we showed up to work. So like you know that good girl that does everything right. I don't want to get into too much detail about describing her because I'm afraid I might be describing certain people in the room, but you know what I mean. She's like a good girl within our system. She dresses the part. She goes to a certain camp, but she's the girl who shomaynagia. There's a very specific version of this. We see it in the boys as well. They go to DRS, they're not from Wiligshir. They go to NCSY Kollel. They go to a certain yeshiva in Israel. They go to a certain shir in YU. You've seen this hamster wheel? There's a girl version of that, right? I'm not sure exactly what the girl version is, but I think you understand what I mean.

25:30 And I'm not saying it at all in a bad way. Maybe the parents met in Masorah. Maybe they were like that couple. Maybe the guy came home from camp and said, "I want to introduce you to this girl." He's like saying to his close friend, I'm not saying anything specific. I'm just saying, if you know what I'm saying, yeah. And there's something very beautiful about that. There's something very beautiful about showing up and putting in the reps. And yet we are the generation that rebelled against that because we were tired of it. Because I don't want to I don't want to participate in the relationship if I can't relate to the actual person or being that I'm in a relationship with. It's why we grow resentful of halacha. And as we grow resentful of halacha, because we stopped our inspirational journey Because halacha is exceptionally profound But I don't want to show up and say the words of davening.

26:28 Every kid who says that is right. Every kid who says I am tired of opening up the seder and saying words that I don't know. By the way, it's not that they don't know the words, because then some rebbe always says so say it in English. And that doesn't work. You know what I'm talking about? Like he's like. O Rock, Savior of the Lord. Cella. This is a beautiful story. That the chaver of mine was doing. He was giving bar mitzvah lessons. And the father paid him not only to do bar mitzvah lessons with this young boy, but he also wanted him to know all of the translation of the psukim that he was reading and the haftorah, which is of course very beautiful. Because how many kids are learning by memory, and they don't even know the words that they're learning. So the father said, we're going to start our mitzvah lessons from the time that this kid is a fetus. And this kid is going to know the entire parsha cold. Not only that, but I want him also to know how to daven musaf for the amud.

27:33 This is For sure, this kid went off the derech. But I don't know for sure that it happened, but I'm sure that it happened. Because what type of pressure is that for an 11 year old? And then he's gonna do Musaf, and not only that, but I want him to know all of the Karbonos of Musaf. I want him to know everything that he's saying. So his parmitzvah teacher is like this, is like a sick egg. I'm gonna get pay off the mortgage on my house from the amount of time that I'm gonna spend with this kid. So at some point they're doing Musaf, and he's translating everything, and the kid says to him sheepishly, "I know 'Amayin' means 'Kang', but what does it really mean?" For those that didn't get the joke, Kong is congregation. But it doesn't help us to know the translation of the words. Why not?

28:26 Because it's not about the translation of the words. It's about whether I can actually relate to the being that I'm davening to. As a young man said yesterday, I'm so tired of not hearing Hashem talk back. And he's right. It is very difficult to hear Hashem's voice in this world. A person has to be deeply in self to be able to hear the voice of God in this world. And we're no longer at a stage where the voice of self is prophetic. At best, it's Ruach Hakodesh. Perhaps it's hearing God in the hand of history, as we have for the last two years. But it is difficult. We don't have that same personalized relationship. Many years ago, in NCSY Kollel, they asked me to. To speak to the kollel about davening, which is of course the most daunting thing to speak about because davening is so difficult.

29:17 So I asked a kid to come up in front of everybody and I said, "Could you do me a favor?" I had printed out German poetry. First of all, one chiddush: there's such a thing called German poetry. French poetry we understand. French is like a beautiful-sounding language. German poetry sounds like 'ich bin' like it doesn't sound like a poetic language. It sounds like a. I think there's a reason that certain terrible things happened in Germany. It's part of the language. It's a cruel language. It doesn't sound very nice. I printed out German poetry and I asked this young man to come up in front of the entire kollel and to read the German poetry. And so he did. And I said, "Did you find that to be an inspiring experience?" And he said, "No." And I said, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. The only way to find inspiration in reading this German poetry is if you read it with a quorum of ten men. Can I invite nine other guys from the Kollel to come up and read the German poetry together? So nine kids get up and I have the sheets printed out and they're doing it together. They're reading the Ich bin in Berlin. Like they're doing the whole thing. And I said, did you guys find that inspirational? And they said, no. I said, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you.

30:29 In order for this to be inspirational, you have to shackle very hard while you're saying these words. So of course, there it's very sweet. These like 15 year old post 10th grade Kids getting up and they're holding their paper and they're standing in the middle of the base magician Beit Meir and they're shuffling and they're reading the Anshain. Did you find that inspirational? I said no. I'm so sorry. I forgot to tell you, it has to be a Karbach. A Karlbach reading of the German poetry. I'm thinking how these guys are gonna start singing a Karlbach song. And then one of the guys in the kollel was a rapper. So he said, it was totally unplanned. He said, Rebbe, can I lead? Can I be the chazan for the German poetry? And I said, absolutely. And so he came up and he asked the entire kollel to give him a beat. So everybody in the kollel went.

31:22 And he starts rapping the German poetry with these ten kids behind him, like shuddering, like they're having a seizure. And it was this. And I said, "Did anybody in the Kollel find that?" By the way, at this point, I had totally lost the message. Nobody learned anything that night. And I said, 'Did you find that inspiring?' And I said, 'No.' And I said, 'Okay, let's do it in English.' And we did it in English, and it still didn't matter. And the reason is because poetry is beautiful not because you know the words, but because you know who the poetry was about, and you know who you're sharing that poetry with, or you know how that poetry is speaking to you. It's very difficult to lead a halachic lifestyle if I'm not in a relationship with someone. Let's take a step back for a second and start to understand why halacha exists. I'm sure you've heard it a million times today. Halacha is from a Latinization of haleich.

32:16 It involves movement and activity. I'm going to share with you something that I don't think is profound at all. I'm sure that every single person in the room already knows this. But we have to say it so that we have these ideas concrete in our mind. Inspiration will last forever. But it needs to be accompanied by ritual. Inspiration without ritual is just ideas. When inspiration becomes a daily activity, that's when it has a transformative impact on our lives. The rebayim, the mechanchot, the rakazot, the teachers here in Midmo could give you the most unbelievable, profound shiurim. And it won't mean anything to you if it stays in the world of ideas. Ideas have to become a reality. And so halacha, the first thing that halacha does is it tells us. Turn your ideas into a lifestyle. That's a very grounded version of what halacha is. If you want these ideas to take root in your heart, you have to practice them with your hands.

33:33 I'm inspired personally by people that know how to show up to life despite the fact that it's by rote and it's not necessarily exciting. I look today, and with you, I'm much more inspired by average balabatim today. When I was a kid, I was inspired by great rabbanim. Today, I'm inspired by simple people who do simple things every single day. The people that wake up to go. We could sit here and trash the Jewish community. We would be very wrong to do it. We could trash the Jewish community for the speed of the minion. You always have that kid who comes back after shnailup and he's like. Rebbe, they daven so fast. I'm like, first of all, you just started davening six months ago, so calm down. But it's easy to show up and be like, how come shachris on a Tuesday isn't 50 minutes, or how come it's only that quick, 33 minute shachris? Or I was once in a minion, doesn't matter where But I was once in a minion. They called it the matzah minion because it was 18 minutes or less.

34:38 It's easy to get up and trash that minion. But how about let's take a second and say that there are Jews that are showing up every day to do that. That's not a simple thing, because if you actually take a look at it, it's like you live five minutes from the shul driving, right? So until you get dressed, until you get in your car, until you get to the parking lot, and you put on your talls and tzvila, and you have to run to get to work, and you have a lot of things, and you have to run to get the kids off. It's not easy to make it to Minyan every day. So maybe instead of bashing the 18-minute minion, which for sure we need to inspire people to have a longer davening. But let's at least say that there's a guy who shows up to a shachris every day, and he goes to a dafyomi every single day. And we could spend our time bashing dafyomi and saying dafyomi is not real learning. Or we could say, wow, here's a Jew that despite everything that's going on in his life, he has a ritual that he learns Torah every single day.

35:30 And that's something that he lives. It's actionable. At the end of 120 years, you're going to be able to look and say, 'This was what he put in.' It wasn't just an idea to him. It was something practical. There was a guy every day who stopped in the middle of his day to daven mincha. That's valuable. There's a person who comes home every night and he davenes meiv, and then he comes home and he spends time with his wife and he spends time with his kids. There's a lot of people that talk about being good husbands and good wives. They're very inspired. They could give all the shiurim. That's why all the marriage therapists are divorced. They know the ideas very well. They can tell you they write books. By the way, those are the best sellers. You look at every single great book that's been written on marriage. It's all from divorced people. They learned the hard way the things that don't work.

36:19 If you want to be a great wife, there are things that you need to do every single day and show up because you want to take that idea and put it into practice. It's very easy in seminary to be judgmental. You get to the other side of this and you have this idea And blessed Hashem, it'll be true for you. I'm not being mezuzal in it, but everyone like we have this vision of family dinner every night, and there's going to be the perfect food put out, and it's like Maybe Or maybe it's going to be pizza one night because you're just done. You ever hear your mom say that word done? Soon you're gonna learn what the word done means. Done is like I'm overcooked. I'm finished. I've got nothing left in the tank. And you know what? It's pizza night. And it's not because you're a bad mom, and it's not because you don't value making dinner. It's just because how in the world am I supposed to juggle everything?

37:18 And then you'll have that judgmental teenager. Same way you might have been judgmental to your mother. You have that judgmental teenager going. Really? I remember I had an idea when I was a kid. We're not going to have cleaning help. We're not going to have cleaning help. We're not like we will clean our house for Shabbos. And then the kids started coming, and I was like, No, we're going to have some cleaning help. Halacha takes the ideas and they make them real. Reality is when you look back at the end of your life and you say, Not what did I think about? What did I do? Who was I? How did I show up to this relationship? Step number one of halacha is it's a yoga practice. You have to show up every day doing the same thing over and over again if you want this to be real.

38:08 Step number two. Halacha can often feel very fragmented in our lives. It's very difficult sometimes to see how this particular thing that I'm doing is part of a larger whole. I don't know why boreh on Shabbos gets such a bad rap. That's the thing. Guys like coming to me. Rabbi I can understand God created the world and He has things that He wants us to do, but like watermelon seeds, that's what God created the world. Welcome. I understand. If it's not posted on social media, it didn't really happen. That's the world we live in today. L'chaim. It's hard to understand how bore fits into a larger part of who I am. The minusha, the details of halacha Often feel unimportant to us because we can get behind certain concepts, but it's like Really, does an infinite God care about Boer on Shabbos? And the answer is Infinitely.

39:32 An infinite God cares about the boundaries of the relationship infinitely. And I want to explain what I mean a little bit. All relationships have do's and don'ts. We are in a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Today there's a concept of I'm spiritual but I'm not religious. That's the equivalent of saying I love my wife, we just don't live in the same house. I love my wife, but when she tells me what things she wants, they are not interesting to me. So I'm going to do what I want to do. And there's something deeply human about that, which we'll get to in a moment. But if I'm in a relationship with someone and my wife tells me this is what the boundaries of a relationship look like because healthy boundaries are designed to keep people inside. Today, boundaries have become like a cudgel for pushing people away. I make strong boundaries so that people can live within your castle, so that they're invited to participate in the relationship. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says there are things that I deeply care about.

40:44 That's what halacha is. The action of participating in the relationship, I feel close to Hashem is very beautiful. I feel close to Hashem, so this is what the relationship looks like in action. That's not just beautiful; that's meaningful. I remember many years ago Saw as like you know, there's headhunters in the Jewish world. There's headhunters. There's people that go to rabbis and get them other jobs. So if you're a rebbe in the yeshiva, you might get a phone call from a headhunter. They're looking for a head of school here. Are you interested in taking the next step up? There are people that this is their job. So I got a phone call many years ago from a headhunter when I was living in Eretz Yisrael. There was a pretty large institution in America, and there was an elementary school, a middle school, a high school, and they were looking for a new head of school. And the question was, would you be interested in moving back to America? To be the head of school. This is part of their job. They have to sell you on this. The headhunter said the starting salary is X And the starting salary. I was in my early thirties when I got this phone call. The starting salary was hundreds of thousands of dollars.

41:59 And I'll be honest with you, I was I was excited that somebody had even considered me. So I came home to my wife. And I said to her. I got this phone call from this headhunter today, and it was a three hundred fifty thousand dollars starting salary to be the head of school of this elementary school, middle school, high school. It's an unbelievable opportunity to be a mashpia in the rest of Klal Yisrael without batting an eye. My wife said Don't you think you're going to be lonely Living in America without the rest of the family? And in my head, I started going. What if I started traveling back and forth? And I'm like, wait a second, what am I like? What am I thinking? If you're married, you have to live in the same daladamos as somebody. The daladamos of halacha are what we have to participate in the relationship.

42:55 It feels fragmented, and this goes back to the inspiration we were speaking about before. Especially in these moments before the times of Mashiach. Where we crave oneness Everyone in this room craves oneness in ways that we've never craved before. By the way, that's why the Torah of today's generation—if you're really paying attention—what's the inspiring Torah of today's generation? It's when you hear a she'er that connects like 40 different things. You ever hear she'erum like that, where all these different pieces come together? You start the she'er starts off with seven different questions, and then it shows how there's one thing that connects everything. You're here. The same. It's not. First of all, they're not my shirim. I didn't respectfully teravrafi because I know he was only saying it to say a nice thing. There is no such thing as his tyra. There's no such thing as people say I'm in love with this one's tyra, that one. It's Hakadosh Baruch Hu's tyra. That's it. There is no his tyra. It's not my shirim. I'm repeating what I learned from my rebbeim. I haven't had an original thought in my life. I'm being serious. Anything that I say, I'm saying over from somebody else.

44:02 It's not my ideas. I had great rebbeim who taught me things, and I'm sharing them with the rest of the people. But if you look again, I'm deeply inspired by Labavshesvarim. If you look at all the rebbe's tiras, it's all like here's six questions and then one idea, and everything comes together. The reason why we crave oneness is because that's what will exist in the times of Mashiach. Hakadosh Baruch Hu's unity will reveal itself in the entire world. So we crave a tira that shows everything, connects everything. And we feel like in halacha, if I don't see how all the pieces are coming together, it's very difficult for us. Which is why there has to be a balance between halacha and Kabbalah. Halacha, the act of living out the relationship. Kabbalah, understanding how every single piece fits together. Sometimes it's frustrating to me when I hear shiurim, and maybe you've had this experience also. You know how every yontif starts to meld together. Every yom tiff becomes like the avoda of Hanukkah is the same thing as the avoda of Sukkot, and the avoda of Sukkot is the same thing as the avoda of Yom Kippur, and Yom Kippur is the same thing as Rosh Hashanah, and Rosh Hashanah is the same thing as Elul, and Elul is the same thing as Tishah B'av, and Tishah B'av is the same thing as Shavuot and Pesach and Purim, and then right back to Hanukkah.

45:20 Every single thing is the same exact. It's not true. It's not true. If you learn the deeper svarim. Every single yontif is a tachana. Every single yontif is a stop along the way that's meant to build us throughout the entire cycle of the yearly calendar. When you see all of the different fragments of how each piece works towards getting you to the next level, and then you see it in a unified way, the yamim tovim take on a whole new dimension. When we see a piece of halacha, if we're not connecting to how that piece of halacha fits into the larger whole, it's not inspiring to us, and that's why it becomes so difficult to do. That's why there's a movement today And Baruch Hashem for this movement. There's a movement today of people who are learning, and again, when I say the deeper wisdom, I don't mean chassidus. I just want to be clear: the deeper wisdom is not chassidus. Before the Balshemtov, there was also deeper wisdom.

46:23 And even during the times of the Baal Shem Tov, the Vilna Gaon was also deeper wisdom, Maral, Ramchal, all of it. Thousands of years of people, the biggest Talmidei Chachamim and the biggest Sadekim that were plumbing the depths of every single pasuk and chumash, every single letter of every single word, searching for something deeper that would unite everything. And by the way, all you have to do is introduce this light into the system, and the changes are dramatic. Truly dramatic. I remember when Rav Weinberger first started Hes Chodesh. And it was like It was like a mapecha in Woodmere And it was like because I grew up, I visited my friends in Woodmere and I went to the Young Israel of Woodmere. And Young Israel of Woodmere was beautiful, and not saying anything chassidishal negative, and Rav Bilid is a tzaddik, and what he built in Woodmere is unbelievable. Anyone who's in Young Israel Woodmere today, Rabbi Axelrod was my high school rebbe and an unbelievable tzaddik, a wonderful, wonderful person.

47:24 And when Rav Weinberger came and introduced something new Something new, there was the mesora of Rav Saloveitchik, and he introduced the mesora of Chassidus, and all of a sudden it was like parents who were sending their kids to Haftar and Halv are walking around with shrimels and bekasheles and Woodmere. It was like there was a flip out culture for adults for a good minute. There was this. And it was like, what is going on? And the answer was very simple. He wasn't saying anything new. He was actually saying something very old. That's what the Bal Shem Tov said. He said, 'I didn't come to say anything new. I'm coming to say something old.' And what was the old thing that he was trying to say? I just want to show you how all of these things are connected to Hashem. That's the old thing. The challenge of Halacha is that it's fragmented. The challenge of Kabbalah is that it's possible for a person to learn a tremendous amount of Torah and it doesn't make any transformation in their lives whatsoever.

48:15 So we have to live with this duality of Kabbalah and Halacha. There's another Yisod here. We're running out of time. There's another Yisod here that says in Tikkunei Zohar Mizmer lasaida hariyul Hashem kol arets. Hariu L'Hashem Kol Ha'aretz is Rashi Tevoh's halacha that we shout out to Hakadosh Baruch Hu all of the earth. Halacha has an impact on reality. We don't see it, but we have deep emuna that it's happening. It's like that Japanese bamboo tree you don't see it growing. This mussel, this Japanese bamboo tree you don't see it growing for all this time, and then in a span of two weeks, it grows 150 feet in the air. Every time a Jew does a mitzvah, it has an impact on reality. It orients reality. It realigns reality with Hakadosh Baruch Hu because the nature of creation is the void of godliness. When we look at the world, we don't see Hashem. We look at a world, we see a table, we see a stender, we don't see Hakadosh Baruch Hu. In the times of Mashiach, we will. We'll see how everything that exists is all just cells in one body. The atomic structure of everything will unite the entire world in a way that its unity is obvious.

49:48 Every time we do a mitzvah, every time we don't do an avera, every time we do tshuva, anything that we're doing is aligning the world with its maker. That's what halacha is about. It's difficult for us to see that the thing we're doing is having an impact. Although in today's generation it's getting a little bit easier because In our generation, the unity of all things is becoming much more obvious. It used to be that to travel anywhere in the world took a tremendous amount of time. My grandparents, when they came to Israel in the 60s, took a boat. They took a ship to Eretz Israel. We go on planes. Communication. When I was in Eretz Israel, there were calling cards. Asimonim. Today, you're Facetiming with your parents, you're WhatsApp videoing with your parents like it's nothing. Everything in the world is shrinking. The unity of everything is becoming much more obvious and transparent in the world.

50:45 You should not think that technological revolution or the intelligence revolution that we're now living in. Because we moved from the industrial revolution to the technological revolution, and the technological revolution is shifting now to the artificial intelligence revolution, and it's happening before our eyes. How everything that Chazal said was going to come true is actually coming true. The idea that people won't need to work and that we can spend our entire lives being consumed by the knowledge of God—in a million years, we never could have understood what that reality meant. And now we're starting to understand it. We're watching people lose their jobs overnight. We're watching entire industries be washed away by artificial intelligence. Everyone's nervous now. I'm going to college. I'm spending $150,000 on an education. I don't even know if the job that I'm training for is going to be there by the end.

51:35 And there's a reason for that. It's because the world is shrinking. The unity of everything is becoming obvious. If you're not paying attention, you might think that that's because that's the nature of revolution, right? It's technological. It came from industrial, and the industrial led to the technological. The technological is leading to the artificial intelligence. It's because the spiritual world that is behind our world is elevating. It's rising. Hashem's presence is becoming more and more obvious in the world. It's the culmination of thousands of years of Haril Hashem Kol Ha'aretz that we have been charged with this mission of orienting reality towards Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Every mitzvah that we've done, it's now starting to yield those fruits that we were promised that it would yield, and it's happening. If you're paying attention, is it an accident that we're here in Eretz Yisrael, that Kibbutz Galuyos is happening before our very eyes?

52:32 Kibbutz Kolel. So we want to know. A hundred years ago, if you would have told our grandparents, I'm not saying anything political, but a hundred years ago, if you would have told our grandparents that we would be in this moment in Yerushalayim, Eretz Yisroel, learning Torah What would they have said? They would have said, "So Mashiach came, right?" The same story from the Kleisenberger Rebbe in the DP camps that we were liberated from Auschwitz and from Maidanik, and they were sitting in the DP camps, and the Kleisenberger Rebbe was walking in the DP camps, going, 'This is it.' This is it. We're not okay with this. We were promised Mashiach after everything. This is not the end. And the Chazon Ish Rebbe was right. And look what happened next. Look how history is evolving. I was just talking to a dear chaver of mine yesterday. His name is Dr. Jonathan Donath. Some of you might be familiar with him because he's the founder of Daily Giving. And we were roommates back in yeshiva 1,700 years ago.

53:29 And Dr. Donath was telling me that now they're talking about how to create daily giving Israel because half the Jewish people are in this country. That's crazy. That the next shmita might actually be a shmita de'oraisa because there will be more Jews in this country than there will be anywhere else. That's Mashiach. B'se'chazena einenu b'shuv cholotzion berachim. You have to return your eyes. Mashiach is happening all around us. It's just a question of whether we are conscious enough to see that Mashiach is in the process of coming. That he's always been in the process of coming. He's actually culminating. Every mitzvah that we did, it actually did something. It worked. The process worked. That's an unbelievable thing to know. And so yes, when I don't spit my watermelon seeds out on Shabbos, so that I'm not being over, I'm birer. That has an impact on the world. Everything has an impact on the world. Our Kol D'Shokah who gave us the spiritual DNA of the world and he said this is what you're meant to do.

54:26 I know we're out of time, but I need to say one last thing because if I don't say it, I'm very afraid that I've said something very dangerous. And I myself have to get back to yeshiva, but I think if we don't spend a couple of minutes doing this, we're going to be left off with something very dangerous. We must talk about the beauty of imperfection. The halachic system leaves us. If we're not in a healthy relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the halachic system could leave us with a deep sense of shame. That because we will not be perfect Because we won't, nobody will be perfect. So you might chas v'shalom come to think that it's a it's a waste. Everything that I did is a waste because I did that avera, and avera gorera is avera. It's once you do one avera, so then it's that slow.

55:20 That slow roll down the hill of I'm already this type of person. The things that I did in seminary are not real. I guess that was just a stage and a phase in my life. It was the seminary bubble, right? You ever see the girls who three or four years later have to because of their deep sense of shame, they have to knock the thing that they did three or four years earlier because they don't have the capacity to say yes. Seminary is a bubble. It is a very easy time in your life. It's a beautiful time in your life. Thank your parents every day for giving you this gift. I'm not joking, by the way. Thank your parents every day that they gave you this gift. It's halachic, right? You have to. Technology was only created in order for you to call your parents and say thank you every day for giving you this gift. A failure to say thank you to your parents every single day for this gift is a fundamental lack of a relationship with Hakadosh Baruch. But you will be imperfect, and imperfect doesn't mean that you have to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

56:10 Imperfect means that I'm a human being, and Hakadosh Baruch who knows that I'm a human being. And that my mistakes are not a bug; they're a feature. Tshuva is what brings Mashiach. So if you make a mistake in halacha, that's a normal human part of the process. That doesn't need to be the end. Very often, that can be the beginning. Growth-oriented people are not afraid to say that they've made a mistake. They're not afraid to say I'm sorry. They're not afraid to say I regret that. That's healthy. A good husband comes home to his wife. And he says, "I'm sorry for the way that I behaved. I regret that. I'm going to try to do better." I had that this week. I did this week. I was exhausted. There's exhaustion. There's ten levels beyond exhaustion. We know this as dads, right? And I came home and I wasn't in a good mood.

57:03 And I didn't come in with a smile on my face. And I didn't come in as a pleasant person. I wasn't doing anything chassar shalom negative. But I was like I was in a place where I wasn't the best version of myself. And I spoke to my wife the next day, and I just want to say I'm sorry for the way that I showed up last night. I had nothing left in the tank. I was done. But it wasn't okay And I'm sorry, and I regret it, and I'll do better. That's a healthy relationship. A healthy relationship contains our imperfections. There's a beautiful story with the tzaddik, Moshe Shapira, who was of course one of the great baalei ashkafa of the last generation. I'll finish with this story. That there was a baltshuva who came to Rav Moshe Shapira and he said to him, "Rav, what am I" What am I really contributing?

57:50 I'm not a big tamalchachim, I'm not a big veir, I'm not a big askan. What am I really contributing to the Jewish community? So he said, "Can you please come back for simchas beis hashoeva in my sukkah? A lot of very big people would come to his sukkah for simchas beis hashoeva. So this person came back And Rav Moshe Shapira was speaking And he said. When Mashiach comes, he's going to look at this tzaddik and he's going to say, 'Thank you for doing all of those mitzvot. Thank you for inspiring Klal Yisrael. Thank you for teaching Torah.' And then he looks at a big veer and he says, "Thank you so much for all the tzedakah that you gave." You enabled so many people to be able to live their lives with more dignity. You enabled so many people to teach Torah. And then he looked at the Askan and he said, 'Thank you so much.' For what you built, Mashiach says, 'Look what you built.'

58:44 You built task and you built high lifeline and you built Tomchay Shabbos and you built Chaverim and you built Misasim all the different Jewish organizations. Look what you built. And then he turned towards the Baltsuva and he looked at the Baltsuva and he said, 'And Mashiach will turn to the Baltsuva and he'll say, "Thank you for bringing me," because after everything, it's the imperfection that brings Mashiach.' It's our ability to look at the lowest elements of our life and introduce Hashem into the lowest elements of our life that brings Mashiach. The purpose of this world, the Medrash says, is Nesave Hakadosh Baruch Hu, Lios Lo Yisbarach, Dirah B'Tachtainim. The Kadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a dwelling place in the world down below, which means that we are obligated to look into the darkest recesses of our person, into the darkest recesses of this world, and dafka there to be able to find Hakadosh Baruch Hu. So you made a mistake. Welcome to the club.

59:42 Nobody's perfect. All the people that you look up to are putting on a show. Everyone you know is putting on a show. Because you, what do you think? You think your rabbis get up here and they're malachim? There are a couple of people that are malachim, but mostly we're just human beings. And all the wisdom that we know, we only know it because we made all the mistakes. And so we get up here and with our big beards and we get up and we say, "This is what the perfect life looks like, and I have the perfect life. Maybe if you're perfect enough." Then you too will have the perfect life. As if the people that get up here don't have problems with their children and don't have shalom bayis problems and don't have their unique challenges around shmiras halacha. None of us are perfect. Maybe we just stayed in the game a little bit longer than others. Maybe we're the people that said that we know the mistakes, so let's do our best to teach the things that we've learned in this world, but not chas v'shalom to get up and to pretend to be something that we're not.

1:00:39 I remember somebody once said that the godless of Rav Moshe Weinberger is that he never forgot what it's like to be 16 years old. And how many rabbanim have forgotten what it's like to be 16? I'm not Chassid Shalom denigrating any of your rabbanim; they're amazing people. But I knew them in high school. And they knew me. And sometimes the only reason we don't tell stories about each other is because it's mutually assured destruction. If I start telling stories about this rabbi I can't tell you how many people know my English name. I haven't gone by my English name in twenty-something years. Even now, somebody will run into an old chaver of mine and they'll be like, Matt Berg. Yeah, That's exactly who I am. That's exactly who I am. I know who I really am. I know where I really am. This is. It's not an act, Chas Sholm. It's not a show.

1:01:41 But I know that there's two versions. I know there's a Matberg and there's a Mordechai Berg. And I have not forgotten what it means to be Matberg. And I think the godless of Rv Weinberger is that he never forgot what it's like to be 16 years old. And maybe he could be inspiring in the way that he is Because he hasn't forgotten what it's like to be 16 years old. And maybe all of the Torah that's inspiring Klal Yisrael today, whether it's Or Zakatinsky, or of Kalish, or of Fisher, or of Weinberger. Maybe that's the one thing that they have in common: that they're gentle and kind and compassionate to people that are struggling without lowering the bar. And I think that's a big avoda for our generation. I think it's awesome that you had a yom yon on halacha Because halacha is the boundaries that define our relationship with Hashem. But remember, in every relationship there's shalom bias issues. Issues with relation with are in our relationship with Hakadosh Baruch Hu as well.

1:02:35 So I want to bless us all, and I hope that you'll bless me back. That we can use halacha not as a performative, ritualistic Jewish identity But rather as a way of inculcating ideas into our lives A way of living within the boundaries that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has set for us. Understanding that halacha is transformative in the world, and giving ourselves the gift of kindness and compassion, when we don't live up to our highest self, utilizing it as an opportunity to do tshuva.