Mishpatim - Living From Your Deepest Desire

1:54 You should be zaycha to sell your homes and come to Eretz Israel. Thank you so much for putting this together. It's a special privilege to be back in North Woodmere. What was the title of this year? We always make up some title, and then I end up saying whatever is in my head anyway. It was stretching. Something about pushing your limits, essence. We'll touch on those topics. We all know the Kasha from when we were growing up. How could Klal Yisrael say Nasah and Nishma? It's irresponsible. Nobody would ever sign a contract like that. Nobody would ever enter into an agreement without knowing what the agreement is. Nobody would date like that. Hasidim date like that, but none of us would date like that. Have you ever seen these bishos? Have you ever been witness to one of them? It's fascinating to watch. I saw one in the Waldorf Astoria. I was having dinner with someone in the Waldorf Astoria, and there was a Hasidish couple. This was the first and last time that they would be dating before they got engaged. It was the sweetest thing in the entire world because the boy was shaking like a leaf, and the girl was doing her best to calm him down. I was like, this poor kid, like Mamashe.

3:18 Mama is so beautiful, but for the rest of us, I imagine we dated for a couple of minutes. I know I dated my wife for a couple of minutes. Devorah, please no commentary. And who in the world would enter into an agreement like Nas and Ishma? So I actually don't want to answer that question in the way that we always heard it growing up. Rather, I want to use this question to ask a different question, and maybe a more profound question, maybe a more adult question. The question is not limited to that. This is very irresponsible. The deeper question is What part of us was capable of making that decision? In other words, there's two ways of looking at Naso v'Nishma. One way of looking at it is that it's illogical. It's irresponsible. But if we take a deeper look at Naso v'Nishma, it means there was something inside of us, some part of ourselves that was capable of doing something that's so seemingly irrational.

4:22 And for us to understand that part, that's capable of saying naseh and ishma, it's critical to understanding who we are as Jews. The truth is, it's capable. It's critical to understand how we live our lives when we make these fundamental decisions. Decisions like who we marry, what community we raise our children in, what schools we send our children to, and how we make these decisions. Is there something about naseh and nishma that gives us an insight into ourselves to teach us how we're meant to make this decision? So I'll just share with you right now. It happens to be I was just on the phone with my wife And my daughter had her interview for seminary. She's now between two seminaries. And kamuvah. Neither are great options. If you have daughters this age, I'm sure you've gone through this before. So you could weigh out all the pros and cons, but at the end of the day, you ever do this thing where you weigh out all the pros and cons, and then you're still going like, I don't know what to do. You ever have that?

5:22 I speak to the boys about dating, and they're like, I don't know, Rebbe. She's got things on this side, things on that side. That's marriage. What do you expect? How do I make this decision? The emeth is that pro and con lists I don't think are very helpful when it comes to making a decision. So maybe there's something about Nasa v'Nishma that teaches us how we can make decisions in a more authentic way, in a way that brings a little bit more nachas to the Rebbeinu Shalom. So it goes like this: In the Kabbalah, there's two levels of ratzon. It's called ratzon tachton and ratzon elyon. Ratzon tachton means that what I want is born of intellect and calculation. That, and you could already start to tell. Excuse me. You could already start to tell that in a certain way, the desire of a person is muted.

6:22 When it comes from ratzon tachton. There is a ratzon there, but the ratzon is born of the intellect. It's very logical. It's very rational. It's calculated out. And then, because everything is rational, so now I've arrived at what I want. But that type of wanting. It's much more muted. That type of wanting is much more diminished Which means that when I approach something, the first thing we do from a ratzon tahtom perspective is I have to understand what this is. I have to evaluate it. I have to look at all the pros and cons. I have to decide if it's worth it. And then, if I go through all of those things, I'll decide that I want it. The reason why this will is muted. It's because it's safe. It's safe will. It's safe. It's calculated. I know I'm going to offend somebody by what I'm about to say. This is just a picture that I have in my head.

7:25 It's not. I shouldn't do it. Like you have the like, don't do it. You have I have another one says you know do it, and I tend to listen to this one. It's like if you're an accountant. I shouldn't do it. I'm in the Five Towns. The whole place is accountants. There's a musician in that guy. There's a yearning for something great. But tuition is going to be thirty thousand dollars a year, and my mortgage is going to be thirty thousand dollars a year. Is it higher? I don't know. Listen, I'm still I'm out for a long time. Lemaissa, life is very expensive. You see these boys at eighteen years old, they're making these decisions. Especially in my yeshiva, they're making decisions about what they're going to do for the next 40 years when they're 18 years old. Which is also a tragedy. Let these kids grow up a little bit.

8:18 And there's so much fear in the system So much like does this make sense? And as a result, they say okay, well really I might want something else, but at the end of the day, I have to pay tuition. I'd like to bring my family on vacation. We have to own two cars. Gas is expensive. Nobody knows if Trump is going to co-opt the next country. For right now, we've got Venezuela. Who knows what's coming next? Greenland, and then who knows the world? Mamish, Achashverosh, Esrum Mea Medina. Like he's Mamish going after everything. So I don't know what's going to be. So I'll become an accountant because it's a very safe job. I could work for KPMG. I could make my hundred twenty-five thousand dollars coming out of college, and blessed Hashem, I'm going to make my three hundred fifty thousand dollars a year and provide a very nice life for my family. And there's something very beautiful about that. It's very safe, measured, rational, and also very muted.

9:10 It's not an exciting life. It doesn't come with all the passion, the joie de vivre, because it's born of the intellect. So there's a certain type of ratzon that's born of the intellect. This makes sense. This is safe. This is what I'm going to do. Ratzon elyon is something fundamentally different. Ratzan Elian, loosely translated, would be intuition. And there is something intuitive about it. The M. S. Says Ratzan Elian is deeper. It's not just intuition. It's the type of knowledge that your soul holds deeply. If we think about what intuition is, intuition in a certain sense Is the soul remembering what it already knows? This is the type of thing when you meet. I've been thinking about that the entire time. I was thinking, just don't spill it. Thought it was me. There's, there's. I should have. It should have been like one of those Chafetz Chaim stories where I quickly knocked over my cup.

10:19 If we think about what intuition is, L'masheh, when we're dating What is intuition? There's a sense that when you meet your husband or wife, there's a sense Chazal speak about of remembering. By the way, even in psychology, there's this concept. Harvill Hendrix, in his book, when he writes about imago therapy. Again, he comes at it from a psychological perspective. But the idea that when you meet your spouse, there's already an intuitive type of knowing, almost like a remembering. That's why people, especially even in the movies, you hear this line. People say, we've only been dating for two weeks, but I feel like I've known him my whole life. So apichazal, that makes sense because the Zayar Hakadosh writes that the soul splits before you are born. Your soul splits, and when you meet the other half of your soul, there's a certain type of remembering that comes from it. It's like we already knew each other. So that intuitive understanding of you're my person. It's even again the word intuition falls a little bit short. We'll use the word intuition, but we mean something even deeper. We mean the soul's embedded knowledge that you're remembering what's inside of you.

11:30 So it's the exact opposite of everything we've been discussing. It's not safe. It's not rational. In fact, it's often beyond rational. It might even be irrational. But there's an intuitive sense that I know this is right. It goes like this: You ever make a decision, and after you made the decision, just intuitively you say that was the wrong decision, like before you actually make it. You say, okay, I'm gonna when you were a kid, you're like, okay, fine, I'm gonna go to that camp, and as soon as the words come out of your mouth, you're like, this is so wrong. And then people try to convince you why it's right. No, all your friends are gonna be there. You see, it's gonna be amazing. But something inside of you says that you're wrong. It's not gonna be amazing. And then they push you a little bit. You're just anxious. You ever. That's like a thing that adults do to children, like we tell them what they're feeling, as opposed to allowing them to intuitively unfold on their own. And so then, being a child, you go like, I guess I'm just anxious. And then the adult thing to do would be to move past your anxiety, as opposed to listening to your intuition.

12:30 This is the worst type of advice that we give to people. Imagine somebody's dating and intuitively they know this is the wrong person, but you have these pushy shadchanim. Anyone here pushing shotgun? I just want to. I just need to know who I'm offending today. Good shot. She's not pushing. Just a good man. I try not to push this code word for. I ask clever questions that help them understand that they need to be moving a little bit faster. You'll accept that. The intuition that a person has is a gift. It's a gift of the neshama coming into the world to express itself. That's called ratzon elyon. And what we want When it's born of our intuition Is always passionate. And so this sort of gives us an insight into something that's happening today. When we speak about becoming passionate in our yiddishkeit, there are two ways of doing that.

13:35 One way of doing that is the presentation of Yiddishkeit, the show where it's very formal, it's very logical, it's very rational, it's very safe, it's very systematized. And then we wonder why it is that our kids and maybe ourselves also—it's just easier to talk about our kids so we don't feel bad—it's because our Yiddishkeit is not intuitive. If you're sitting in a classroom and somebody's rationally explaining to you what Judaism is, or you're staying within the orthobox because that's the safest thing you can do, and it makes sense. It's very measurable. It's very easy. I get why I'm doing this. So then we turn around and we go, how come the kids are not excited about their yiddishkeit? Why would they be? Where's that sense of discovery? Where's the majesty that comes from listening to their own neshama call to them and say to them there's something more in this world.

14:34 That's why. Even on a low level, Chazal say b'makom shabali tshuva oimdim ein sadikim gemurim oimdim. Why exactly is that? The simple explanation is because the snapback from being a b'al tshuva to being from where I was to where I am now is very inspiring. But it's much deeper than that. Because when I'm in a state in the absence of yiddishkeit and the absence of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in my life, and I hear that calling that leads me to be something more than I am, there's a ratzon, there's a chuka, there's a passion that comes from that that's significantly higher than the rational ratzon. Have a very dear chaver of mine told me that when he was in college, he wasn't born to an Orthodox family, so something called out to him that he should become frum. But he didn't know what that meant, so he went on Yom Kippur in his university. They had a yoga Yom Kippur minion.

15:35 It's like yoga, like everything today is in that world. Everything is yoga and mindfulness and Pilates and stretching. He said it was even he knew he was born with almost no Jewish education. He said this cannot possibly be what Yom Kippur is about. He's meditating in the middle of the quad in University of whatever. I don't want to give away any details. And he said something about this feels off, but something pulled him. In fact, he told me that at all the frat parties. So I've never I've never been to a frat party. There are things in my life I haven't done. I went to Lander College for Men. There weren't that many frat parties in Lander College for Men. La Fuke women, like it wasn't exactly a happening place. He told me in all the frat parties, so like there's different like sections of the house. So like there's the chevr that are drinking and there's the chevr that are dancing. He said in the back of the house, there's always like a quiet area where people like just sit around and talk, and they're like. It's your college years. It's like you're 20, 21 years old, and you're figuring out the deep philosophical questions of the universe.

16:36 He said inevitably in every conversation, he would always go, "Anyone here Jewish?" And everybody would raise their hand. Every single person in the frat at the party who's sitting in the back having a philosophical conversation is a yid. Of course, because there's something very Jewish about that. There's something almost organic that, in the absence of the system, where a person has no choice but to listen to their Ratzon Elyon, there's something unbelievably passionate that comes out from that. We see this when people dare to live courageously and they live beyond the restrictions of the system. I have a Talmud. I probably could give you the details. I don't know if I should. I have a Talmud who was in YU. And he's taking the regular size sims like what you do type of thing to make a parnasa. This guy is unbelievably passionate about music and ridiculously talented. He's a music producer.

17:38 And he produced a couple of Mordechai Shapiro songs even when he was in college. So in his senior year of college, thank you Hashem, they offered to hire him for a significant salary to come work for them and do all their music production. So he wanted to drop out of college and take the job. And his parents That was not going to happen, especially if you've already dropped, two thirds of the education has been paid for, it's not like they're going to be cool with just wasting all that money. So he called me up and we were talking about what to do, and he said, Reb, you have to understand, this is what I'm passionate about. So I said, Enichnami. You're very passionate about it, but also like your parents just dropped a hundred thousand dollars, and that's not a small thing. That's not a loan. That's a gift, right? So you can't just avoid doing it. You can't avoid finishing college. For an entire year, this guy had every single minion and every single seder, and I think he was even a shir assistant. He was very serious about his learning, and not only was he in college, but he was also doing music production.

18:45 And he held on to that job for an entire year. Now his full-time job is doing music production for Thank You Hashem. When I talk to him, he's a Lebedik person. I meet so many young men in their mid 20s, early 30s, and they're dying. They're crushed under the weight of these choices that they made that they're not passionate about. I was just in Los Angeles and I was shmuizing with a talmid. He said, Rebbe, I was not born to be an insurance salesman. So I was, and he's making money off this. I wasn't born to be an insurance salesman, and I don't know what to tell him. Because the real, if you think life in the Five Towns is expensive, you should move out to L. A. L. A. Makes the Five Towns look like I don't want to say the next community. Somewhere in Eretz Yisrael that's very cheap. Like L. A. Is very, very, very expensive. So I can't tell him that he should dump his job and just chase his dreams, but a little bit. I wish that when he was 18 years old, I would have been able to say to him like: Is this what you want to be? Like, is this who you really are? What's your ratzon elyon? What would you be if you could actually listen to the deep knowledge that your soul has about what it's meant to be in this world?

19:54 What does it mean to stretch? When we speak about stretching, these words are very psychological words. I get very nervous today that Torah is being used as a way of articulating concepts that modern psychology is articulating. You've heard these shirim before. Where it's the Rav or the rabbis, and that speaking is figuring out how to express something that Carl Rogers said, but through the lens of Torah. Torah comes way before, even though psychology is known as the Jewish science. Psychology only gives us language to articulate certain concepts in the Torah. What is the Torah's vision of stretching? Not just stretching, doing that which is uncomfortable. What does stretching really mean? Stretching means allowing the Ratzon Elyon to pull yourself beyond the borders that your intellect drew. I'll say it again: stretching means allowing your Ratzon Elyon to pull yourself beyond the borders that your intellect drew. We all, at a certain tufa in our lives, drew like a border around our lives and said, 'This is safe. This is regulated. This is normal.' To stretch means to listen to that deep intuition of the neshama and allow it to pull you beyond those borders. It's courageous. It takes a tremendous amount of self worth to be able to know that you're going to come out on the other side of this and still be okay.

21:27 It's I don't know how this is going to unfold, but I do know who I need to be. And I'm refusing to allow myself to just be the same old person that I always was. There's a level of reinvention that comes from this. I don't know what it's going to look like. It scares me, but I have to follow my deepest truth. And I can't live within the comfort of the borders that my intellect drew. That's what it means for a yid to stretch. It's not simply like I'm doing an uncomfortable thing. It's not just like you know like. Remember, in seminary or in camps, I see this in yeshiva where guys have to do the awkward, go over and introduce themselves. So parents say you have to stretch yourself, especially those kids that are shy in yeshiva. You always get My mother said I had to come into your office because I'm having trouble making friends. It's like you're 18, man. You don't have to come to my office because your mother told you to. You could just come because you want to, or you don't have to come at all. But there's something beautiful about that, but that's not what we mean by stretching. That's a very low level of stretching. Meaningful, for sure.

22:32 But it's very low level. To stretch means to step into a much deeper identity of who I am. How does this work then? What level does the Ratzon Tachton play? What level does the intellect play here? It goes as follows: the Ratzon Elyon has to be. This is what says in Kabbalah. The Ratzon Elyon has to be the compass. The rotsan tahton has to be the architect Which means first a person needs to decide deeply what they're passionate about. What who am I really, and what are the passions that flow from that? And then the rotsan tahton, the intellect, comes to make that a viable lived experience. I'll share with you. I don't know if some of you have probably heard this before from me My plan in life. The plan that I grew up in, I love my parents very much. They're amazing people.

23:27 I grew up in Faracoa, and then later on, when I was a teenager, we moved to Lawrence. And for those of you that are from the Five Towns, if you were here from back in the '80s, you know what that means. It means that we went from not being successful to being quite successful. The tax bracket changes. All of a sudden, the garbage men come to the backyard to take the garbage. You don't have to bring the garbage out to the front. I remember when we moved to Lawrence. We took our garbage out to the front, like we did for the garbage men, and our across-the-street neighbor gave mussar to my father. He said, "Don't put your garbage where I can see it." So my father's "How do the garbage men get the garbage then?" And guy's like, "They come to your backyard." And my father was like, "We are not living in the same place." All of a sudden, we had to buy new cars and dress in new clothing. It was a whole evolution.

24:20 My father's plan in life for me was not to be overweight with a beard, giving shiurim around the world. I promise you, this is not what he wanted. My father, Baruch Hashem, was a very successful businessman. I give my father a lot of credit. I had a secret dream when I was a kid. If you're a kid, you'd never want to say this dream out loud because you'll get beat up in school. Especially in the 90s. We didn't know about bullying or psychological health or really anything. It's kind of amazing that any of us survived through it, right? I had a dream that I wanted to be a teacher. It's not the type of thing you say if you're a sixteen-year-old boy growing up in the Five Towns. What do you want to be? I want to be a teacher. Are you serious? You okay? Maybe you do need mental health professionals. It's not like it's not a thing you say out loud. So come move on. If anybody would ask me what I wanted to do, I would say I'll be like my dad. I want to go into advertising. I want to be in business. He was doing well for himself. My brothers have since taken that path. They've done well for themselves.

25:14 But really, I had a dream. I wasn't the frumest kid growing up. I wasn't a frommish kid growing up, and I thought I'd be a good English teacher. I know it sounds funny. Even now I'm a little embarrassed to say it. I feel that 16-year-old inside me saying, 'Dude, stop talking.' But I had a really good English teacher. I really liked him. I actually had a really good history teacher as well. I thought maybe I could be a good history teacher or a good English teacher. One of those teachers that the kids all like. That would have been cool. And have real conversations with the kids, and maybe make a little bit of an impact. But obviously, you're not going to do that. You're certainly not going to say it out loud. And so now I'm 18 years old, and I'm in Mivaseret, and I'm getting off from. Part of my journey was like, okay, you have to be more authentic. And so I was like, I'm finally going to admit that I want to be a teacher. And this is like a nerve-wracking point. I remember it was January of my Shana Aleph, and I'm like I think I'm going to tell people that I'm going to be a teacher. And then I was like, wait a second, do I really want to be a teacher?

26:15 And then I had this epiphany that actually I wanted to be a rebbe, and that was even harder, believe it or not. I was like, "To be a rebbe" Hate my erbeim. I don't want to be that guy. I don't want to be the get back to class minahel. I'm talking about like the person whose job it is—is a tough job, just to roam the halls and tell 15-year-old kids get back to class. It's like I don't want to do that. But then I thought to myself, maybe I could actually be like an inspiring rebbe. Maybe there'll be kids that would like me. And then I literally said to myself, "I'll never get a job in Eretz Yisrael. I'll never get a job working in a yeshiva because look at my rebbeim—they're amazing. Look at me—I can never be that." So I got a master's degree in special ed. This is a hundred percent true. I have a master's degree in special ed because I did not believe in myself that anybody would actually hire me as a rebbe. Ironically, today I'm the menahel of the yeshiva that I grew up in, but I guess it worked out.

27:05 But it was a very courageous moment for me when I said, "I'm going to be a rebbe." And I remember calling my dad and saying to my dad, "I think I want to be in Chinuch." I remember there was a long pause on the phone. By the way, what a gift it was that we didn't have WhatsApp video or FaceTime. You had these awkward conversations with your parents and you just imagined what they were looking like on the other end. I remember I went somewhere for Shabbos. And my parents are not black hat people. And I was originally enrolled in Haftor when I was a kid. Eventually, I made my way around the neighborhood. I was in a couple of the schools here, but I was originally enrolled in Haftor. And I went to my mother's best friend for Shabbos quite often. Her husband was a big prankster. He would always love pranking my mother. So when she would call the house, if he saw that it was her calling, he would often answer in Hebrew as if he was the pizza store and she had dialed the wrong number. So Chaim was a big prankster, and I came for Shabbos. Chaim was actually staying at my parents' house the next week. So he said to me, 'How funny would it be if I told your mother that you got a black hat?' I was like, 'Yeah, that's such a good idea.'

28:17 Tell my mother that I got a black hat. Also, don't do that. But I went with that one. So fine. I didn't think much of it. And a week went by, and he was at my parents' house for Shabbos. And then a week later, I called my mother about Shabbos, like I always did. And my mother goes, "Oh, look who finally called!" "What? Like, what I do now? I was just calling to wish you a good Shabbos." She said, "I know what you did." I said, "What did I do?" Chaim told us that you brought a hat box for Shabbos, but then you didn't wear the hat over Shabbos. Now you have to understand that was actually much more plausible. It's one thing if I put on a black hat. But coming with a hat box and my mother probably would have said no, he didn't. But because he told her this whole maysa that I came with a hat box, and she's like I can't believe this. You know this is going to cause shalom bayis issues between me and your father. I'm like mom, I did not buy a black hat. He's just pranking you.

29:20 She's like stop lying to me. It's just like high school all over again. I'm like, Mom, I promise I'm not lying to you. I've got quite a bit track record on this. I'm like 20 minutes on the phone, and finally she goes If you are going to get a black hat, now's the time to do it, because your father and I already had the fight. So I called my dad. I told him I wanted to be in Chinuch, and I'll never forget his response. It was like a long pause, and my dad goes "Well, you know our policy. When you're married, you're on your own. We're not going to be financially supporting you. But if this is your dream, figure out how to make it happen." And I'm really grateful. And by the way, he did do that. He's like, you're married, you're on your own, man. I didn't get a check from mommy and daddy.

30:04 Although my mother was very supportive, she always figured out how to invite my wife shopping with her. And then she magically picked up the bill, or they had a Costco closet in their basement. We used to go shopping in their basement. I remember one time my parents went away for vacation. And we had two daughters under the age of two. When my parents pulled back, I was holding a cardboard sign outside of their house with my two daughters and my wife, going, "Please reopen the Kolo store. We're starving." They didn't think that was as funny as I did. But I'm tremendously grateful for my father for not saying to me, "You're ridiculous." And maybe that's because my dad is a ba'al tshuva himself. Maybe he, in a certain way, maybe my father is living out his ratzon elyon. And even though my ratzon elyon was different than his ratzon elyon, he said to me, "Now you're going to have to use your ratzon ta'achdon. You're going to have to use your intellect in order to make this dream a reality. There's nothing wrong with having the dream, but the dream has to be regulated by the intellect. The dream can't begin with the intellect. It has to finish with the intellect. The intellect is the architect of the direction that we want to take in our lives."

31:17 And we know this because practically, would any of us have gotten married if we knew then what we know now? You're Shadrach, you know that older single problem, right? They're too smart to get married. They've seen too much already. They've spoken to their friends and they go, I don't want to do this. So then they date with like a machete. You've seen this, like it's like they're trying to cut away through everything so they can make sure that it's the absolute perfect shidduch. In the meantime, every shadchan and every adult is rolling their eyes, going, 'You're not going to figure this out any better than any of us. We all jumped in this irrational, illogical way, and then we spend our lives trying to make this irrational shidduch work.' And that's a good thing. It means that there's something deeply intuitive that we said. This marriage—that's what I want. Now I have to figure out how to make it work. Same thing when it goes to our children. My wife taught me this. My wife taught me everything. But this in particular, my wife is very into And she actually lives it. It's not just something she says.

32:21 She's very anti-parenting classes. She's very anti-parenting classes. In fact, there was in one of the. Rema Pichamish is like just like neighborhoods next to each other. It's Alef Bey Z Gimel Dalad Hey Vav Zayin Ches Tesio. You've heard these stories before. And then there's like Dalad Shalosh Dalad Arba. Everything has their own neighborhoods. So my wife was actually given the opportunity to give a parenting class in one of these neighborhoods, and she said no. She said I don't believe in this. I'm not going to do it. Could definitely use the money. We're marrying off children in Eretz Israel. We're expected to get them a dira, like. Could definitely maybe, and she's like, "No, I have my integrity." "You live with your integrity. I'll go put food on the table." The notion of a parenting class in a certain way could be positive, but could be very negative. Why? Because you see these kids that take these parenting classes, and what they're doing is they're basically being taught the moves that they're supposed to make with their children. And so, they end up just doing tremendous consulting. These rabbis have a great racket. I definitely have to get in on this racket. They give the parenting class, and then they charge for the parenting class.

33:30 And then they charge for the coaching of how to employ the thing they taught in their parenting class. They make it seem like every single thing that your child does wrong is the end of the world. So now you're living with the anxiety that you have to spend the money to get them. This is a brilliant marketing move in the Jewish world. And if they're really smart, then they go write ads in Mishpacha magazine about taking this class and writing articles about how everything is terrible with all of our children, and if you see your child even do one thing wrong, you should know that's the slippery slope that's going to take them off the derech. This is an amazing system that we built over here. I have a bone to pick, by the way, in case you didn't know. This is like a thing for me. It's a little bit of trauma. We know exactly what our children need. You don't need anyone to tell you what your children need. How many of the three classes? You should combat it with three classes. I have a different problem with that. I have to marry off children. I have to buy the medira.

34:19 But there's a there if your child is behaving in a way that's maladaptive You don't need anyone to tell you how to parent that child. You just have to listen long enough to yourself to ask yourself what this child needs. That's why if you're speaking to intelligent people when you're coming to them and you have a child like what do I do in this marriage or what do I do with these children? The real thing you need to do is just to be quiet long enough to allow your ratzon elyon to point you in the direction that intuitively you know you need to go, and the moment that you make that decision, you're already like I knew that I knew that, and it's like a new way of being, and things start to click into place. I had this summer. I had one of my kids going through something, and intuitively I just knew that this child needed something from me, very different than what we were doing, and it changed our entire relationship. I'm very proud of her. She's amazing. And she was very honest with me. Again, it took a lot of work. There were apologies that I needed to make to her. I wasn't always the parent that I am now to her, and I'm still in process.

35:23 And she said to me, 'Abba, I want to tell you something. It used to be when you called, I would always freak out, like I'm in trouble for something.' She said, 'Today, when you call, my friends were just making fun of me.' She said, 'Oh, my Abba's calling.' And they said, 'What? You like your father now?' And it's like, right, because I was listening to other voices. I had betrayed, in a certain sense. I knew exactly what this child needed, and I knew it for years. But I betrayed my own voice, listening to other people's voice to parent her when I shouldn't have been doing that at all. I should have been listening to my Ratzon Elyon. This is what this child needs, and then intellectually trying to figure out how to make that work. Why does it hurt? Why is stretching so painful? Why isn't it easy and obvious for everyone of us to do?

36:10 So there's a couple of things that come up. I'll share them with you. You'll see if any of them resonate. First of all, the most painful thing in the world is to let your old self die. I heard this once from Rabbi Shays Taub. I think it's brilliant. I think it's Chazal really before Shays said it, but he said it very well. You could tell him that I quoted him. I think he probably abhors the fact that he's become a quote, but he's definitely a quote. You could tell him that I said that too. He said, "Real change." It is so difficult because change requires letting your old self die. I think that's what Chazal mean when they say "Ein li matyra el mishamem esatz marlof." There's no learning unless you're willing to let something die. It's very comfortable to be who you are because that's who you've always been.

37:00 And I don't just mean it's risky. I mean there's a certain sense of discomfort with, am I really going to let this thing die? Am I really going to go for it? Am I going to throw out the old paradigm? And that's a deeply uncomfortable thing to do, and sometimes there's a lot of loss in that process. We watch people take sometimes three or four or five steps back before they take ten steps forward. We have to give ourselves a tremendous amount of patience, and especially if we're doing it with our children, we have to give them a lot of patience as they go through this process. I have a Talmud who's going through this now. And he really threw out the playbook to his credit. There's something that's deeply true for him, and he's in pursuit of it. A lot of rebbeim are very nervous for him right now. I'm not even nervous a little bit.

37:46 It looks like on the outside he's taking steps back from certain ways of being that he had. He's wearing different clothing today, and he's perhaps not davening in the way that he always did, and he's not learning Torah in the way that he always did. It's apparent to me he's been doing this now. I want to say, what are we holding in February? About six months. About six months he's been going through this process. It's clear to me. I meet with him once, sometimes twice a week. It's clear to me that he's light years ahead of where he was. Even though on the outside he's definitely regressed, on the inside, he's much more developed. I'm confident and deeply hopeful. That in the long term, five years out, ten years out. He's going to be a significantly better person for it. He's doing a lot of very courageous things right now. He's having a lot of very real conversations with himself, with people around him. He's letting go of certain friendships that are no longer serving him in the way that they always did, and he's developing new friendships that are, frankly, much more healthy, much more organic. But that's a very real thing to do: to let your old self die. And by the way, there's a lot of people talking trash about this kid.

39:00 There's a lot of friends that are coming to me and going. He's going through this. How do we help him? I'm like, he doesn't need your help. He's not interested in your help. In fact, the fact that you want to help him is exactly the problem. He doesn't need your help. He's fine. He's listening to his own inner voice. It's a beautiful thing to go to. There's a big fear of disappointing people. That's going to be a big part of this. If you actually learn to listen to your Razanalion, watching your children, watching your spouses. Not understand what you're going through when you've always showed up in certain ways, and now all of a sudden you're going to start to live life very differently. The system will naturally try to keep you within the system. That's the nature of the system. So there's a big fear that we have: What happens if I start to live from my ratzon elyon? How will people relate to me? There will be people that will not know how to relate to you, and they'll be very angry, very upset, very frustrated, and even very hurt. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong just because somebody else is feeling that way. But the system will naturally try to keep you within the lanes that it built for you.

40:00 And then there's obviously the loneliness that you're going to go through because as you let things die, for a moment, and the Alter Rebbe describes this in Tanya, that Shaviv pol HaTzaddik v'kam is like there's a moment where you're nowhere. As you're in the process of falling and then renewing yourself, there's a moment where you're nowhere. There's a moment where you have a deep sense of loneliness as you go through this, and you belong to nowhere. You belong to nothing except for yourself. And that takes some time to get used to, and eventually you do, and it's a gift because you get to live with authenticity and integrity. But there's a real moment where you're nowhere, and that's a horrifying moment. I have a friend who went through this. He was living in the Charedi community of Ramat Echamesh. It was no longer true for him.

40:47 And I respect that. I respect that it was no longer true for him. But for about a year, he had no friends. I thought I was still his friend, but I'm not sure he felt the same way about me as he was going through this. And I actually respect him tremendously. He found a new community, but until he found a new community, he was mamish nowhere, and it was a holocaust of loneliness. And that is a very profound thing to say, to really be like I can't talk to my friends about this. They don't understand what I'm going through. This process of reinventing myself. My wife doesn't know what I'm going through. My kids don't know what I'm going through. My friends don't know what I'm going through. I'm on this very unique journey, and there's really no one that could relate to it. That's a very lonely place to be. It's a tragedy, though To live your life from the perspective of the Ratzon Tachton. It's a tragedy to play life safe.

41:38 Because intellect can only choose. From the options that it already recognizes There's no creativity to it, and I want to be very clear. If we grew up, and I imagine that all of us grew up in similar types of ways, we grew up and we were conditioned to think that there are certain things that we have to do, and so intellectually we chose from one of the lanes that was provided for us. I make fun of it. I shouldn't make fun of it, but I do. Because of that thing, with these 18-year-old girls, how they have a couple of options that they're allowed to choose from. I'm talking about there's a couple of things they're allowed to be. So it's any one of the therapies. They could be a speech therapist, or a physical therapist, or an occupational therapist, or an art therapist, or a water therapist, or that's just being a lifeguard. It's not like that's not a real thing.

42:36 A play therapist, right? It's not. Being a lifeguard is a real thing. I'm glad that kids get to play in the water. When I was a kid growing up, we just called that camp. That wasn't like a therapy, but like, right? If we could charge the government for it, why not? It's the new scam. Jews have entered into a new field. It was nursing homes. Now it's homeless shelters. I just learned this that Yidden are buying homeless shelters because Mamzer Dani is the new mayor and he's throwing money at every homeless shelter. So now Yidden are building homeless shelters. Baruch Hashem, we found another way to monetize those that are whatever. I don't want to do that either. Social worker can't become a doctor, but maybe you could become a PA. So it's not nice. It's not nice. These are the options you get to choose from, and then what do we do? We or you go ABA therapy. What whatever it is. You're within these options, and then basically that's what you're limited to. You're limited to these options.

43:39 So the intellect chooses from options that it already recognizes. But what would happen? And I know this is a terrifying prospect. What would happen if we allowed our imagination to begin to make the choices for us? Again, I'm not saying that a person should be irresponsible. We'll get to that in a second. But what would happen if we allowed our imagination to be the foundation from which we made our choices? The mila of this you get to explore the options that are not immediately available to you intellectually. So what would happen if we allowed these young men and women to actually say I think I want to be X Or 'I think I want to be Y,' right? And actually, then we would say to them as parents, 'Okay, well, let's talk about practically how you would bring that into the world,' right? There's a tragedy when the intellect chooses options that it recognizes, but it's actually not who I want to be, and I'm getting these phone calls now all the time. I'm going to choose a specific thing, not because I'm picking on this community at all. I love this community, but I just want to call it out for what it is. We've created a beautiful system where, if Aaron Cutler's vision of Kylo has become the standard two-three year honeymoon that these children get, which is kollel is owed to them, right? Isn't that great? Two-three years of living on parn

44:59 Where somebody else is paying for your life—that's a great gift to get. These boys don't want to be learning in kollel. It's not what they want. They're sitting there in a system doing something that they don't find particularly meaningful. And the guys are calling me up and they're saying, 'I'm choking to death on it.' And their wives are calling me up and they're saying, 'I'm miserable with this. I didn't. First of all, they don't need it.' And they're not interested in having a husband who's like schlepping and this. They want to see their husbands be alive. There's nothing wrong with it. Kabbalah is amazing. Kabbalah is beautiful. I'm not taking anything away from it. I was zaychah to learn in Kabbalah for six years. Best six years of my life. Absolutely the best six years. It's amazing. But it was amazing because it's what we wanted. When we're putting these kids in this box and we're saying, so now you have to go to this yeshiva and then you have to come back to Shaiyashiv for a six-month stint, maybe nine months if things don't go well. And you're gonna marry some girl from the neighborhood who's gonna like, and then we ship them off to Iran for two, three years before they come back.

45:54 They, what if it's not what they want? So now, what do we do? We make them second-class citizens. We say, so you're not so Stark. Maybe they are. Maybe they're good guys. Because at the end of the day, they all end up in Ellie Stefanski's dafyomi anyway. So why do they have to have it? At some point, the guys just go. It's a two- or three-year honeymoon. So till they show up to seder, until they come home, and then they get till they go to afternoon seder, and they because do they really know what they want? Because they're not being given the freedom to imagine what they want. That's the tragedy. The tragedy is not the nature of the system. I think this is very different than it was in Europe, because the system was much more broad in Europe because people couldn't afford to be in that box. People had to be shoemakers from the time that they were a fetus. Otherwise, everyone starved to death.

46:39 So they weren't the guys who went to yeshiva. They owned it. That was their life. There's a reason that we built Gedaliah Torah that way. If you look at all the Gedaliah Torah in the previous generation, they were in systems that were very broad. Take for example Slabodka. Slabodka had some of the greatest Gedolim of the generation. The Rashi Yeshiva in Slabodka, the Alter of the Vilna Gaon, and the Alter of Slabodka, who was in charge of everything, did not allow the Maggid to give him any more time. You contrast that with today, where Rebbeim are giving shir for like two hours. He did not allow them to give shir for more than 25 minutes because he said, "I want them to develop their own creativity and learning." There's a reason that Rav Aaron Cutler and Rav Ruderman and Rav Yaakov Kamenetsky and Rav Victor Miller and the entire Mir, Rav Lazar Yudel Finkel. There's a reason why it was born out of Slabodka. There was a sense of who are you?

47:30 Bring yourself to the world. It's one of my favorite stories ever. A bachur came over at a wedding. Riviyakov Kamenetsky and Rivarren Kotler, who were friends and children together in Slabodka. They were very young. They were sixteen years old when they went to Slabodka together. So a bachur at a wedding saw Riviyakov and Rivarren, and he went over to them and he said, 'How come the Alter of Slabodka never wrote a sefer? He never wrote a sefer.' So they started laughing and they told this boy the Alter of Slabodka didn't want anyone to know that he existed. He didn't want anyone to know that he existed, meaning his whole chayus as a rebbe was to pull himself back to give creativity to those talmidim to become who they became. Rav Huttner was arguably one of the greatest baalei hashkafa of the last generation. His writings are brilliant. They're deep. They're poetic. They're stunning. Do you think that we're creating Rav Huttner's today? Do you think we're creating that type of poetry, that type of creative thought? We're not. The reason we're not is not because our kids are not talented enough to do it. They're exceptionally talented. They have much greater access to everything Talmudic than ever before.

48:33 It's because we're training them how to think, not encouraging them to think for themselves. The godless of my Rebbe, I was zaychah to be my Rebbe for a very long time. My Rebbe Kenai Nahar is ninety-seven years old. He should be zaychah to Rav Sholima. My Rebbe used to tell us, "All right, let me see..." He said, "You can leave She'er after you ask a hundred percent of the same questions that I asked before, but now I'm going to do something different. You have to learn how to ask a good kasha. But after that, the teretz has to be yours. That's why my rabbis talmidim became some of the greatest loamdim because they were encouraged to think for themselves. Imagination is beautiful, and in Kabbalah, I once saw a very chashav arav wrote something that can negate imagination. I was like, that's such a cruel thing to steal a child's imagination. It's like the cruelest thing you could do. You ever see your kids talk to themselves?

49:25 I'm talking about a very beautiful thing. If you happen to walk into a room and quickly pull back, the kid is just in there going There's something very beautiful about that. What's so stunning about that? Because they're unencumbered by that rots and tachton. They're just allowing their true self to well up from within. At some point, we kill that. And that's a tragedy because our lives. What creates enthusiasm for life? It comes from the passion of imagination. So there's three stages. The first is the initial whisper that tells you want something more. Then there's the natural resistance, and then stage three, which is again not everybody gets to this, but stage three is when your rotsan elyon becomes your new normal. When now it's settled in six months, a year later, and people know there's a new way of being, and you yourself know there's a new way of being, and that's when you settle into your rotsan elyon.

50:20 Now, I know that there are people right now who are very nervous about what I'm saying. I know there are people right now saying, "You're teaching our children. You're teaching us that we should live in a world of fantasy." This is ridiculous. At the end of the day, the bills are coming. They're coming faster than we could possibly manage them. And if you're encouraging people to go for their ratzon elyon, you're going to have people drown. What's the difference? How do I know what's fantasy and what's reality? So first of all, I just want to remind everybody in this room gently that we are all here living in this community because somebody dreamed this community into being. And you should know that what people back then said is absolute fantasy and it'll never work. There were people that didn't listen, and those people built the institutions that we're all living in today.

51:12 Every single person in this house right now is living a is again we're living on the shoulders of giants who came to the shores of this country post Holocaust when everybody said it's ridiculous to try to build Yiddishkeit These people said America's nishtaendish. The Friedecker Rebbe showed up in the spring of 1940 and he said Dabral bnei Yisrael vayisau we're going to build America and they did. Do you know that the Friede Kereba on the first day that he landed in America, the Friede Kereba started a yeshiva? On day one, he started a yeshiva. Ten boys enrolled in the yeshiva on day one. I was in Darche before it was an airport. I was in Darche when Darche was trailers. Before Everett Oliva Shalom. Those of you that know Everett Everett was my good friend. Even years later, many years later, when I would come back to visit Rabbi Bender, I would walk in.

52:07 And I don't know how long it had been since Everett and I hung out every summer. I would still walk in and go, Matthew Berg. He knew everything. I remember Everett when he first came to Darche, and he used to tell me to go to Mincha, constantly sending me to Mincha. That guy. I have maybe I'm from because of Everett. Who knows? It's hard to know exactly who inspired me. You should want to hear a beautiful story about Everett. The last time he was in Darche, Baruch Rothman drove him home. And Everett asked Baruch, he said, "Do you think they're going to let me in? Do you think I'm going to let me into heaven?" And Baruch said to him, 'He goes, Everett. I'm not a rabbi, but one thing for sure: even if they don't let you in, you'll be the security guard.' That's a beautiful thing to say.

53:02 Do you think when Rabbi Bender was twenty-seven years old, he moved to Far Rockaway from Brooklyn, he thought that those trailers would one day become the airport that it is today? I remember that I walked into school. Haftor was very different than Darche. Haftor was like very professional. Darche, we walked in the morning. I remember clear as day, sixth grade. He's going yes Our school got broken into and all our books got stolen. We can't learn today. It's like this is an awesome school. You were excited for snow day. We were excited for theft day. We couldn't learn because we had no more books. That's why they hired Everett. It's easy to say it's just fantasy. It's much more difficult to allow yourself to actually dream. When I was a kid growing up The modern Orthodox community used to lecture the yeshivish community. If you don't send your kids to college, how are they going to make a parnasa?

53:59 Today the Yeshivish community is lecturing the modern Orthodox community. If you keep sending your kids to college, when will they ever build wealth? I go to Lakewood. Lakewood makes the five towns look like again. Oh fuck him! Lakewood is crazy. The gourmet glot there is like you have to get your steps in gourmet glot in the lake. It's ten thousand steps, and it's beautiful. It's like a rainforest. I'm used to Yesh and Eretz Yisrael. Here where you pick out your fruits and vegetables, there's like a mist on your hand afterwards. There's like music, like birds chirping, and you're walking through the wild, picking apples off a vine. In Yesh and Bechemesh, I'm looking, did the pigeons not poop on that? It's easy to say you're setting people up for failure because you're teaching them to dream. But also, let's recognize. There are parts of this that are challenging, parts of this that are scary.

54:57 But how many shuls in the neighborhood do we have now? This is North Woodmere. I still think it's Valley Stream. It's like Farakway saying we're East Lawrence. Y'all Limbrook. You know what I'm saying? He's no, no, no. We're North Woodmere. You're not part of the Five Towns. Stop it. You're West Hempstead Light. You're Five Towns Mederabanan. Like the—I don't know why the. If you listen to your intuition, yes, it might at first glance appear fantastical. But then if you listen a little bit deeply, you'll start to remember. The Malach taught me everything. The Malach taught me everything when I was in my mother's neshama. The Malach taught me everything. So this type of knowledge, yes, I want to do this with my life. It's something that I know I'm supposed to marry this guy. I'm supposed to have these children. I'm supposed to spend my life doing this job. I'm supposed to live in this incredible way.

55:56 It becomes less scary when you start not to think of it rationally, but to remember it deeply. And so, even though you might say it's irresponsible, I think in the long term it's not. I think in the long term, if you're thoughtful and careful about how you implement it, I think what appears to be fantasy in the beginning is ultimately going to become a reality. That's the famous line from the Panavicharov. When he was building Panovitch, when he was building people, they only talk about Panovitch that the Panovitcherov built, right? But he also built orphanages. Imagine post Holocaust, all these kids were coming to Eretz Yisrael; they had nowhere to live. The Panovitcherov was building institutions. And they famously said, 'Rebbe, you're dreaming.' He said, 'I am, but I'm wide awake.' It's a very powerful line. Would Bene Brak look the way it does today without the Panovitcherov?

56:43 Would how many people told Rav Cutler that he was being irrational by starting Lakewood? Imagine what the world would look like without the Lubavitcher Rebbe sending these children out all over the world. Last night I was flying back from Chicago, and the Kina Shluchos is today. So there's all these Lubavitcher women in the airport. You go? No. That was a quick no. Oh my God! I'm gonna tell your husband that you said no. Listen, it's a kin luchos. You don't want him to go. I do want to go. So I was with these Lubavitcher women in the airport. We all got on standby for an earlier flight, and Kamovan there, ended up playing Jewish geography. What? And I said to these women, I said they asked me if I'm Chabad Which I don't know. I'm not sure what made them ask that, but I said no, but then I said, aren't we all?

57:45 And like that, got them very excited because they're So I said, it's easy to make fun of Chabad until your plane lands in Billings, Montana. And then you're stuck without any food. The plane landed, an LAL plane had engine failure, so they were forced to land in Billings, Montana, but they were stuck because they couldn't get off the plane because it's not an international airport. So they couldn't immigrate into the country. On the other hand, they couldn't stay on the plane because FAA regulations don't allow you to stay on the plane for more than three hours. So they cordoned off an area in the airport for them to go, and they were standing under armed guard to make sure they wouldn't leave. Who's leaving an L. L. Plane from Billings, Montana? Who was like, "Yes, I got in to Billings, Montana. The Chabad Shliach heard about it, so he went, and he had a couple of chavra. They went and bought every single kosher item from the grocery store. He showed up with a safer tyre. The marriage made like a Fabergé in the airport in Billings, Montana.

58:46 And then I bet you on that plane there were certain mishnagdim. And then afterwards they went, but chabat's good. They really take care of every Jew. What would the world look like without these dreamers? What would the world look like without Ruvkuk? What would the world look like without Rusalovich? All of these people dreamed and they created these exceptional systems that now, unfortunately, we're not creating the next realm of dreamers. And we do it. It's interesting. We do it in certain areas. We do it in Chesed. In Chesed, we still allow our children to dream. It's like this kid on the Shabbaton. Where was he from? He's from someplace funny, but he's in Rockland Community College now. Somehow he ended up on the outskirts of Muncie. So he's not an Orthodox kid. I asked him what it's like to be in Rockland Community College. He said, 'Rabbi. An interesting thing. Nobody has triple A.'

59:36 So I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "Cause you call this thing friends." I'm like, "Chabadim." He's like, "He's like, yeah." He's like, "Did you know that all the volunteer firefighters are all Chassidish?" And I'm like, "Yeah. I know that, man. And he was so proud. He's like, "You can just call any Jew." I'm like, "Welcome to the community. It's unbelievable what we have in Chesed here. And like every day, there's new Chesed organizations. We have Chesed organizations to give Chesed organizations. My roommate when I was growing up was Doctor Jonathan Donath. Who's the founder of Daily Giving, over twenty million dollars given away to tzedakah. In chesed, the imagination is wild. How come we don't allow our children to do it in other areas? Something to think about. How do we do it? I think it's sorry. Please. I think pushing our kids to go beyond the system is just so terrifying. I think that's what you're saying.

1:00:34 As the kids get bigger, to go beyond, to go outside of the system, is just too terrifying and it's so frowned upon. Not to bring up shidduchim. But that's. By the way, that's. You're exactly right. Starts with us. You have to be not afraid to go. But she what she's saying though, I think what she's saying is 100 true. And I was going to give that answer a second ago, and I'm glad I didn't. Not because it's not true, but because the second thing that she said, do you see how it works? Do you see how it works? That there's something inside of you that says, there's like an amnesia that we have. We've caused ourselves a certain amnesia not to remember who we truly are. And then from that place of amnesia, we remember. We hear that whisper of Ratzon Alyon, and then the system keeps you in place by saying But Shaduchem. But it's not. It's not only that. It's not. I don't even. I'm saying. I just feel like it's too scary. How do you give the kids the confidence, even if you feel it or want it or speak about it? Like how do you give the confidence, the kids, the confidence to say, I'm gonna do something completely different than everybody I know?

1:01:33 Like how do you do that? That's a great question. And if I answer that question, I'm afraid I'd be giving you a little bit too much ratzon tachton. But I mean that sincerely, because every child is unique, and I'm not sure that there's a one size fits all answer to that question. And again, I'm very lucky because my parents were balei chuba, so they didn't know the system well enough to keep me in it. That was I'm very blessed. But I can tell you with my own children, because it's definitely living in Eretz Yisrael. There's hardcore systems there, and allowing those children that really are different. My daughter, my oldest daughter. My third daughter makes fun of my oldest daughter. She says Bracha is the definition of typical. You know what I'm saying? You have those typical kids that fit the system perfectly. My wife had this daughter.

1:02:22 I know my genes are in there, but I'm not sure where. She's just very typical. With those kids, it's very easy. But what happens with the kids that they know that they're not typical? Those kids are being crushed by the system. So I don't know if I know a specific answer that would be a one-size-fits-all rule of how to give permission for children to go out of their comfort zone and do something unique. I don't know if I have that answer. I think every child is different. But I think you're hitting the nail on the head. It's very scary. I don't want to do things differently than my friends. That's how the whole seminary system continues. It's like I have to go to this seminary because this seminary means exalt me, and if I don't get into that seminary, now what's going to be? All my friends are going here, and I didn't get in there. It's a very complex thing. This is how the system keeps you in place. And so yes, we need to be raising courageous children.

1:03:14 I'll be honest with you. I sometimes hear the things. And not to step in it, which I'm for sure about to do. But I sometimes hear certain rabbanim say things, and I'm like, it's awesome that they said it. And then I see the comments section on Yeshiva World News, and I'm like, I could never be that guy. When Rabbi Bender decides to open his mouth and go toa meha, it's like toa meha. I don't think he said such a radical thing. I thought he was just like, maybe we shouldn't drink on erev Shabbos into a stupor. And the comment, who are you to tell me? Come on, man. I don't know how he does it. He must have exceptionally thick skin. If I was in the comments section of Yeshiva World News, nobody would ever hear from me again. I would absolutely shrink. I don't want people to talk about me without me knowing it. I don't want to read about it. We're conditioned for fear. It takes a tremendous amount of courage. I think maybe the only thing I would add on, because I think you're making a very real point.

1:04:15 I think that the neshama already knows about itself that it wants to do this. It wants to be living this way. So I don't think the avoda is to give power to the neshama. I think the neshama already has all that power. It's just a question of creating enough space to listen deeply enough to it to allow our kids to unfold. Again, this part of what drives me crazy because I'm going to be with him in a couple weeks for Shabbos. Everyone's like, Daniel Kaelish. He's awesome. But he's not saying anything new. He's just saying things that we used to say. He's just saying you have a kid, maybe listen, maybe let this kid develop. This is not radical. People go, he's a revolutionary. What's the revolution? Most of us didn't grow up with that kind of space. I know. But I did, and I want you to know, in this community where I grew up, we had that type of space. We did.

1:05:07 Kids were messing around, and their rebbeim were sophisticated. I know it sounds funny. The rebbeim I grew up with. I did not appreciate at the time they were very sophisticated people. It happens to be one of my favorite stories. Is the anniversary of the story today? And again, I know that he doesn't like when I tell the story, but I'm gonna tell it anyway because I think it's the best story. My family was a television family. My father was in advertising. We had a big fat television. Growing up in Darchei, Rabbi Bender used to give anti-television shmuism. So it was confusing as an 11, 12, or 13 year old boy. Which one is true? They're giving shmuhs. Don't have a television on your wall. What type of filth are you bringing into your house? And in my house, the living room had a television. That was like the centerpiece of our home. We were gonna have a Super Bowl party.

1:05:54 Come on, who doesn't have a Super Bowl party? It's like Super Bowl parties are like toa mehaz on steroids. It used to be that the Super Bowl party just meant chips. So I had a couple of friends of mine over Friday. Rabbi Bender gave the biggest anti-Super Bowl shmuhs you could ever imagine. I came home. I told my parents. I said, "We're going to get in big trouble for having this party." My father was so makir tov to Rabbi Bender for taking me into Darche when Haftor expelled me. It's a notch on my belt. How many people have been thrown out of Haftor and accepted into Darche? Thank God it was the eighties. My father said, "We're not going to do anything against Rabbi Bender." So he signed an Korah by Bender, and if he says not to have it, then we're not going to have it. So he called Rabbi Bender, and he came back to me. He said, Rabbi Bender said you could have the party. I said, great.

1:06:43 Sunday afternoon, we're all sitting in my house, seven oh seven on Apple Street in Far Rockaway, New York, and it's like ten fifteen minutes before the Super Bowl, and we're all sitting there, eating our chips, pregame show. There's a knock on the door, and who walks in? Richie Altobian, Rabbi Bender. And me and my friends are like Is this really happening? You know that awkward thing where everyone's having a good time, and then your rabbi walks in, and then everyone gets quiet. We were all like, this can't possibly be happening. It's one thing that Richie was there, but Rabbi Bender doesn't make any sense to us. And they sat down, and so we started. Eventually, we started talking, just almost ignoring the fact that they were there because it was super awkward. And then right before kickoff, Rabbi Bender gets up. I'll never forget this. He looks at us and he goes, "Boys, enjoy the game" And he left.

1:07:31 And years later, when I was living in Darche, when I was learning in Koyal, I used to wait from my window. And I used to wait. Rabbi Bender was walking to shul, so I would wait to walk with him. Now he always had his entourage. He comes with a lot of benders. So one time I saw him. He was walking by himself. I was great. I'm going to get some time with Rabbi by myself. So I walked out. I met him. And I brought up this story. So I said, Can it's been years? Can I just ask you why? Why did you come? So rather than answering the question, this was a major chinuch moment for me. Rabbi Bender asked me, Why do you think I came? I had never actually asked myself that question before. I thought it was just my dad pranking us, because that's like classic my father. Rabbi Bender was having a Super Bowl party. Is it okay? Rabbi Bender goes yes. He goes, could you come? That's what I thought happened, and I think that's true.

1:08:20 But I asked him, why'd you say yes? So he said, why do you think? I stopped and thought about it, and I said I think Rabbi was trying to tell us that he had his Ashkafa, but he also knew where we were, and that was also okay. And he goes, exactly. That was the type of chinuch that I grew up with. I grew up in Yeshivah Rakhwe. In eighth grade we had to go learn in Yeshivah Rakhwe at night. Who was learning in Yeshivah Rakhwe at night? Who were the first year, second year, third year basic medrash guys? It was Rav Daniel Kalish. It was Rav Dovi Kielson. It was Rav Avi Brezler. It was Rav Moshe Dan Kesterman. It was Rav Avi Razner. Vehul. This community produced unbelievable machanchem because we did have that level of complexity. I think fear drove us away from that. Again, I'm speaking very real. Maybe I'm going to get in trouble. Maybe I'll be in the comment section. But as such, I'm not.

1:09:06 But I think I'm saying something. I don't think it's so crazy what I'm saying. And I think your point is a very important point. Let's go back. Nasev Nishma. Nasev Nishma. It is a crazy thing to say. It is. The godless of Nasev Nishma is. We didn't say yes to Hakadosh Baruch Hu because it rationally made sense. We said yes to Hakadosh Baruch Hu because intuitively we knew that our authenticity demanded that this is the mission for which we were created. There's a shlichus that we all have. The Ratzon Elion knows there's a shlichus that you were born for. You were born to be mekabel the Torah. Where did we make that decision from? Not from our minds, even though Yiddishkeit is the most intellectual religion. A bacher spends his life learning Gemara and figuring out every Svar Every Rambam, every Rashi, every Ritva. It's unbelievable to use your mind.

1:09:59 But we didn't use our minds first. We used our minds second, from the deepest place of self, from the Yichidus of a nefesh, from the part of us that always intuitively knew that we were not meant to be slaves in Mitzrayim. That there was a calling of Naseh and Nishma. That's where I think we should focus. That's where we chose how to be mekabel the Torah. And I think that if we go back to that, I think we're going to do a lot better. I think if we train our kids nasa v'nishma, a little less intellectual, a little more imaginative, a little bit more curiosity, a little bit more courage, a little bit less safety, a little bit more exposure. But it's risky. A little bit less fear about shaduchim, a little bit less fear about fitting in. We might actually create the children that we hoped that we would become, and blessed Hashem that we will. Amen. Thank you for lunch. Thank you.