Naso - Isha Sotah: the Feminine Discovery of Hashem in this world

2:38 When you're a little kid, you made the macaroni menorahs. You know what I'm talking about. So even though we do see that was kosher, ideally you'll see that people buy very beautiful menorahs. Zakeili v'ameu. We should try to have a beautiful menorah. And in contrast to the water of the mezota, the Chanukah neros are made of the most pristine oils. And so it seems to be almost like diametrically opposed to one another. So on the one hand we have Hanukkah where we light these very beautiful oils and very beautiful menorahs, and when it comes to the Mezouta we have water in an earthenware vessel. What's the difference between Hanukkah and the Mezouta? I know it sounds like a strange comparison. Most people don't put them together, but as we'll see in a moment, they actually have a lot to do with each other. Masculine and feminine are sometimes described.

3:37 As spirit and matter Where masculinity tends towards the spiritual And femininity tends towards the physical, towards the material. And if that doesn't at first resonate with you, give it a minute. Blessed Hashem, we'll see that it makes a bit of sense. Masculinity tends towards the spirit; femininity tends towards matter, towards the physical. The Yom Tov of Chanukah is a very spiritual time. It's a very spiritual time. Did I say it backwards? Yeah. Did you? I'm not sure I did, but I'll say it again just to make sure we're on the same page. Masculinity tends towards the spirit. Femininity tends towards the matter. The Yom Tov of Hanukkah is a very spiritual, masculine time. And so we light oil. Oil rises to the top. The Hanukkah flames tend towards a sense of elevation—that's the nature of what Hanukkah is—and the Hanukkah lights are specifically not placed in an earthenware vessel. There's something about them that's meant to be almost distinct from the physical world. That's a very masculine energy.

4:52 There's a feminine energy. Again, we'll begin to describe this a little bit now. Hopefully, we'll get into it deeper in a couple of minutes from now. There's a feminine energy that's necessary in this world. Called grounding. You'll notice, for example, that in great organizations there might be a man who's the CEO But usually in great organizations there's a woman that's actually running the show. You ever see these things? Like, for example, in the yeshiva that I grew up in Darchei, Rabbi Ben is obviously the Rosh Yeshiva. He's not the CEO, but it's this empire of a school, 2,800 kids, several kollel, it's a very big deal. But everybody who's ever been in Darchei knows that Mrs. Gordon is running the show. Mrs. Gordon is who actually keeps Rabbi Bender running on his day-to-day schedule. I'll tell you, as a kid, I was terrified of Mrs. Gordon. I was much more afraid of Mrs. Gordon than I was of Rabbi Bender. If I got called into Rabbi Bender's office, I knew it would be okay. But the wrath that I had to suffer waiting for Mrs. Gordon was always much scarier than what I would have with Rabbi Bender. Even now, I'm 45 years old and I'm a grandfather. When I go back to visit my Rebbe, I'm still a little afraid to see Mrs. Gordon. She's not a scary person at all. Just I have that like 10-year-old trauma living inside of me.

6:09 What was that? Respect. It's a very deep respect for sure, but also terror. And there's a certain sense of when I go and I say Mrs. Gordon, it's good to see you. She looks at me and she goes, "You have 60 seconds." Like she's the one who keeps Rebbe Ben. They're very grounded, and that's a very important aspect of running something. The nature of masculinity is a little bit to be like pie in the sky. Like you ever speak to these guys? I'm sure not you, but maybe like siblings or brothers. But you ever speak to these guys and they have these like huge ideas that are not grounded in any sense of reality at all. You ever see they get very excited, right? They like tell you how they're going to change the world, right? And there's always like a girl sitting there going like. Let's just deal with a practical thing. You have no startup money. You have no office. You have no technical training. You have no connections. But sure, by all means, go ahead.

7:04 That's not necessarily a woman shooting down a man's dreams, though it feels like that to men. It's called being grounded. It's called understanding that material matters. Bringing something into the world and actually nurturing it into existence is a fundamental part of creating something real. Masculine energy has a place. There's a place for spirit, yearning to leave the body, for the neshama yearning to leave this world to connect to Hashem. There's a space for that, but ultimately, it is not the desired goal of Judaism. The desired goal of Judaism is dira betachtonim. Hakadosh Baruch Hu desires to have a dwelling place in the material world. And so the nature of the feminine is more deeply connected to the ultimate mission of Hashem. There needs to be a harmony, but ultimately that harmony needs to be feminine harmony. There needs to be a harmony between masculinity and femininity. There needs to be a harmony between spirit and matter, but ultimately matter plays the greater role. For example, a husband might say to his wife, "I don't understand. I love you so much."

8:21 What is your problem? And the wife might say, "I appreciate that you feel a certain way about me. I need you to take out the garbage. You understand?" In other words, there's a certain element of like the. In order for this to become real, in order for it to manifest, in order for it to be locked and loaded, it needs to take place in the physical world. A husband who says, "I love you," but I'm going to live six thousand miles away, that's not a very good relationship. It's nice that you love her, but you don't live in the same planet as her. So there's masculinity and there's femininity. There needs to be a harmony of both, but ultimately femininity needs to play the greater role over masculinity. And this is why the Navi tells us, the Navi Yirmiyahu tells us that in the times of Mashiach, it says 'Nekeva Tsovev Gaver.' 'Nekeva Tsovev Gaver' means that in the times of Mashiach, the woman surrounds the man.

9:20 This is why, by your chuppas, by Hashem, you will walk around your husband seven times. The marriage of a husband and a wife has a little bit of a messianic quality. It's a little bit of a Mashiach quality to it that the woman walks around the husband seven times. What's the pshat that a woman walks around the husband seven times? There's a certain dominance that a woman displays, even though the man puts the ring on the woman's finger. She walks around him seven times. She's the one that's making the home. So to speak. That's why she walks around him seven times. It's like she's building kaviyachol, the home around the husband. What's the pshat in the dominance of the femininity? Apichasodas it goes as follows, and we see this today in today's world. And by the way, it's not going to be shocking to you when I say it. In fact, it'll be so obvious to you that you'll almost wonder if I'm saying anything at all. But try to roll it back in your head. Fifty, sixty years ago, remember that the words coming out of my mouth did not exist in the world of the masculine at all.

10:24 And today, these words are almost like everybody says them. What is the difference between masculinity and femininity? We spoke a little bit about feminine being matter Being physical. We'll say it a little deeper now. A man is a human doing. A woman is a human being. You hear the difference? A man is a human doing. A woman is a human being. Men talk about their accomplishments. Women speak about who they are. A woman, the way that a man changes something is he's very frontal. He like almost like I hesitate to use this word because it's the wrong word, but he almost like attacks something. He's molding it from the outside. The way that a woman changes something, it's very subtle. The shifts are very small. It happens very slowly, but she nurtures something into being. That's why it's very interesting. Sometimes you see these men, and they're very masculine.

11:19 They're very frontal. They're very forward. They're very out there doing things. And over time, just being married to a woman, you see that the man changes very much. How does he change? Just being in her presence changes him now. It's fascinating. We know that we're in the final moments before Mashiach. That's not shocking to any of us. Sadikim, the Gedolim have been saying it for years. But I want to point out to you something that's deeply messianic that people don't pay attention to. If you had to look in the world of psychology today The big buzzwords are all feminine words. It's all like mindfulness and presence. And being right, that men talk today in a way that 50 years ago, if you would have told my grandfather If you would have told my grandfather, maybe he would have been a little bit more mindful. I didn't know my grandfather very well. He passed away when I was five years old. From what I understand from the stories that I'm told from my mother and father about my grandfather, he was what you would probably call today toxic masculinity.

12:26 He was like a real man's man. There's a famous story in my family that my grandfather was sitting in his barcl lounger, and he had a snack table in front of him, and he would sit and watch television. And he would call out from the living room. My grandmother was in the kitchen. He would call out, Sarah, make me a sandwich. The first time my father was ever at the house, my grandmother came running in with a sandwich five minutes later. My father had never seen anything like that before. He was like, that's awesome. So he called out. He said, Sarah, make me a sandwich too. And my grandfather looked at him and he went, Hey, kid, don't ruin a good thing. It was a certain. Again, my grandmother loved my grandfather very much. It was a very old school marriage. Again, I'm not saying it was appropriate. It was probably abusive. But I wouldn't want that for any of you or for my daughters either. My grandmother did love my grandfather very much in a way that I don't understand.

13:22 There. If you would have told my grandfather that I would be sitting up here talking about mindfulness and presence and being, he would look at me like I was from the moon. Like what words? We didn't know those words. We knew those words forty years ago. I don't think we knew these words. It's a fascinating thing that in these final moments before Mashiach comes That the psychology language became more feminine. Isn't that a very interesting thing? And it's been predicted by Chazal. We knew that this was going to happen. Someone once said to me, and I think there's a lot of truth to this, that what did the Balshemtov actually innovate when it came to Hasidic theology? Everything that he says is rooted in sources in Chazal and Zohar and Medrash and Gemaras. What did the Balshemtov act? What was he actually mechadish? I heard a very beautiful tich of the Balshemtov's chadish.

14:14 He gave psychological language to Kabbalah. Before the Balshemtov. Kabbalistic language, when you learn it, is very difficult to know what to do with it. Chassidus gave this psychological language to Kabbalah, and it's fascinating that the language, the feminine language, and the psychological terms that the Malshemta was speaking about generations ago, is now the way that everybody's talking. That being is superior to doing. The abstract is not nearly as meaningful as what physically matters in this world. That's very new to the world. Nurturing might be a more impactful way of changing the world than actually attacking it. In fact, I don't know if you've ever seen Simon Sinek. Have you ever seen Simon Sinek online? He's like a business guru, and he speaks a lot about changing the culture in business. And business was classically very masculine. Changing the culture in business to be a place where people actually feel nurtured and feel a sense of belonging. This was not the way it always was. The way it was is you got the job done, or you got fired. They didn't have HR to talk to you and provide psychological counseling if you're not doing well in your sales job. It's very interesting to see that this is the way the world is shifting.

15:33 Why is the world shifting this way? So I want to say to you tonight. I think it's our last year tonight. I want to say to you tonight a very deep tirah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a physical world. Because the greatest expression of His infinity is not found in the spiritual; it's found in the material. I'll say it again: Hakadosh Baruch Hu created a physical world because the greatest expression of Hashem's infinity is not found in spiritual worlds. It's not found in the worlds of the Malachim. If you want to know how far Hashem's reach is He can be found, even in the most low, dark, physical, coarse, material world. I could try. I could try. If you want to know how great Hashem's infinity is, how far-reaching, when we say Hashem is infinite When you look up at the spiritual worlds That's not an impressive expression of Hashem's infinity.

16:37 If you want to know how far-reaching Hashem's infinity is, find Hashem in a coarse, material, physical, low world. I'll give you an example of this practically. If you want to know how much your husband loves you, it won't be in the good times. In the good times, the love is obvious. If you want to know how much your husband loves you, it's how loyal he is to you when you're distant from each other. That's when you can see how far-reaching his love is. His love is so far-reaching that even when it's not apparent at all, it's still there. Hashem is present infinitely, not only in revealed places, but even in places where His presence is totally not expected. You would not expect to find Hashem in a coarse, low, material, physical world. What does Nekeva Tsoivev Gaver mean? What does it mean, feminine energy? Some of you might have been a little upset, maybe frustrated, maybe it rubbed you the wrong way when I said men are naturally more spiritual, women are naturally more physical. You said, 'What does that mean?' I always learn the opposite—that women are more spiritual and men are more physical. What it means is as follows: A man is more likely to find spirituality by running off to Tibet and sitting on some mountain top and meditating.

17:59 A woman is more likely to find godliness in the material world. That's the nature of her spirituality. She knows that to run away from this world is to run away from Hashem. That where you think you're climbing up the spiritual ladder, you're actually getting farther from Hashem. Because if you want to find Hashem's infinity, find it in the material world. That's why the nature of this world in the final moments before Mashiach is a very feminine world, which is not always the best thing. Secular feminism, for example, was a deviation from Torah feminism. Torah feminism is to find Hashem in hidden places. I can nurture, so to speak, Hashem's reality from a place where you wouldn't expect to find that at all. So the idea is this: this is a super important idea. What's a greater teacher of Hashem The godly soul Or your material body?

18:59 We would naturally, before tonight's shir, every one of us would have said. The godly soul has more to teach us about Hashem than the physical body, because the godly soul is a chelak elokamimal. It's an expression of Hashem. But the pasuk says that Mashiach is ani v'roichev al hachamor. He's impoverished and he's riding upon the donkey. That's different than Moshe Rabbeinu and it's different than Avraham Avinu. What did Avraham Avinu do to his donkey? He saddled his donkey. So what was Avraham Avinu's relationship to the physical world? He conquered it. He vanquished it. He saddled it. Moshe Rabbeinu got a little bit closer to the donkey. He put his wife and his kids on the donkey, but he himself didn't go on the donkey. Mashiach rides on the donkey, and he's described as the Ani Which means God bless you. Thank you. You're welcome. For those of you who know what I'm talking about. The Mashiach's relationship with the physical world is that he's the Ani. He's the student. He's the impoverished one, and the donkey is teaching him. What does the material world teach us about God that the godly soul doesn't know?

20:06 The answer is the godly soul knows that God is real in the spiritual worlds. The body knows that the godly, that Hashem is real in the material worlds. It's another interesting shift in psychology today. A lot in psychology is talking about how the body keeps the score. Trauma is held in the body and we need to have body work somatic therapy. It's a very interesting thing that as Mashiach is getting closer and closer, the entire world is moving into this feminine energy of finding the truth in the physical world, finding the truth in the material world. That's fascinating and totally unexpected. Water is different than oil; it rises to the top and separates itself from everything else. That's very masculine. The Alter Rebbe in Tanya says, "What's water?" And we've heard this mashal a million times, but I want you to hear it fresh tonight again. He says, "Water goes from on high" And it travels all the way down low. That's what water does. Water begins like a waterfall; it starts on high, and then it goes all the way down, down low. The Torah is compared to mayim. Why? Because Torah begins at the highest place. It's Hashem's will and His wisdom. And where does it come down to? All the way down into our low physical world. If you put water and oil together, oil will separate itself from water.

21:27 But water Listen to the imagery now. We're going to go back to the Ishasota. Water goes where? Into an earthenware vessel. Something from very high comes into the world very low. How low does it go? Now it's held by an earthenware vessel, and now the Rebbe tells us an unbelievable thing. We've all learned the story of the Ishasota before. We're going to get a new level of inspiration from this story. The story of the Ishasota is the story of a godly soul that comes down into this world and feels disconnected from Hashem, blaming the material world for their state of disconnection. And that is to say that every one of us is, on some level, the isha sota. We all feel a sense of disconnection from Hashem. Anybody who doesn't feel a sense of disconnection from Hashem is not human. What do we blame it on? We blame it on the material world.

22:24 And by the way, that's why you hear all these shmuzen, and rightfully so. We're obsessed with materialism in today's world, and as we build bigger houses and have fancier cars and nicer restaurants, it becomes so much more difficult to be so spiritual. Everybody's blaming the physicality of this world on their state of disconnection. I want to share with you something very powerful and very deep. The isha sota The tikkun for the isha sota is recognizing the body is not the inhibitor. Water comes down into the material world and is caught in it. Why? The body is not getting in the way of you connecting to Hashem. The body is the ultimate expression of you getting in connection with Hashem. If you're not in touch with your body, you're not in touch with Hashem. This is a big Torah today. That's why there's a lot. Again, and I'm not necessarily into these things, but there's a lot of Jewish things going around, like these breathing exercises. You ever seen these people doing? What do they call that? It's a word. It's not meditation. There's a breath work.

23:28 There's a lot of this type of breath work. Ground yourself. Be very physical. There's something to that. Again, it could become very misguided. You have to be careful. But there's something to that. There's something to learning the wisdom of the body and finding Hashem within the material world. I want to say this in a very plain way because I think it's a very important message and I don't want it to get obscured by the fancy philosophical and Kabbalistic terminology here. It is much, much, much more spiritual to take a dollar out of your pocket and give it to an ani than to go run off to the mountaintops. It is much, much more spiritual to be able to sit with someone who's struggling and listen to them and be present with them in the physical, material challenges that they're having in their lives. Then running out of this world and leaving this world, and I'm going to use my language very carefully here. Obviously, learning Torah is the most amazing thing in the world. But if learning Torah takes you away from the world, if learning Torah takes you away from people, if learning Torah doesn't make you more sensitive to other people, if it doesn't bring you into the material world.

24:40 If learning Torah doesn't teach you how to engage the physical world in a way that you can see the spirituality of the world, then there's something very wrong with the Torah that's being learned. Because that's not the nature of Torah. The nature of Torah is it begins on high and it comes all the way down into the material world. It gets caught in the material world for a reason. That's not a bug. That's a feature. We're meant to learn here, down here in this physical world. If Hakadosh Baruch Hu didn't want us to have a Torah down here in the physical world, He could have kept the Torah with the Malachim. The Gemara in Shabbos Bechassam Beis tells us that originally the Torah was held by the Malachim. And Moshe Rabbeinu came and he brought the Torah down into our world. The Malachim were not happy about it because the Malachim said, 'What do you mean? Isn't Torah spiritual?' And what's the answer to that question? It's spiritual. So where does it belong?

25:32 Down in the course. Material world. I'm saying all of this, and I've chosen this as the last year for the year because there's a tendency to think I came to seminary for the year that was real And now I'm leaving seminary, and somehow it's like that's fake. And that's the opposite of true. That's the opposite of true. When a person leaves seminary, you came in a certain way this year. We'll call it a Chanukah type of experience. A person comes, they leave the world behind. They have no responsibilities for a year. You'll only really appreciate what you had in ten, fifteen, twenty years from now when your life is so overwhelmed by responsibility that you're going to be able to go like. That was crazy. I had a year or two of my life where I was able to just say I have no responsibilities and just work on myself as a person.

26:35 It's a very special gift that you got. I'm so glad that all of you had it. It was a Hanukkah type of year. It's an oil type of year. It's separating yourself from the world for a year or two to really focus on becoming yourself. That's huge. That's important. It's amazing. But I want to share with you that if you think this is real and what you're about to do is not, then you missed the point of the Torah we've been trying to teach you. The Torah we've been trying to teach you was built yourself into the person that you are, so that when you leave and you go back and engage the material nature of this world, whatever that is, whether it's college, whether it's business, whether it's dating or marriage or building a family or building your career, whatever it is that you're doing. Know that your greatest form of godliness is not going to be expressed here in Torah and Vora.

27:24 This is not where it's going to be expressed. This is an angelic type of lifestyle, which is awesome and amazing. It's for malachim. I'm so glad that you had it. But the point of Torah is that it's like mayim. It starts at the top and it goes all the way down to the bottom. It's not held in a golden menorah. It's held in an earthenware vessel. And it drives me personally a little bit crazy. I probably shouldn't speak this way, but it drives me a little bit crazy because it's one thing when the guys say to me, 'Rebbe, how am I going to stay doing what I'm doing?' Of course, that's what they say because they're naturally more oil-oriented. They want to stay in the base majors. They want to stay learning. They want to stay davening. They're not necessarily looking to go out and bring their talents into the world naturally. It drives me a little bit crazy that attitude has come into the seminaries as well. It's not what we believe in.

28:14 We believe that you're meant to engage the physical world. That's nakeva tosovei gaver. That's your responsibility that you have to bring into the world now. That we're meant to engage the world. We're meant to influence the world. You're meant to bring something down into this world and reveal its truest nature. Chazal say that the door of Mashiach is the reincarnation of the souls that were in Mitzrayim. The Arizal says that in Shal Galgulim that our neshamas were the same exact neshamas. That were the neshamas in Mitzrayim, and the Gemara in Sota, eleven b Tells us, "B'skhus nashim to kanius nigalu mi Mitzrayim." We went out of Mitzrayim in the merit of righteous women, and we know that the way that Mashiach comes will parallel the way that Moshe Rabbeinu took Klal Yisrael out of Mitzrayim, as it says, "Ki meitzet zchomai eretz Mitzrayim." The same way that we came out of eretz Mitzrayim is the way that we'll greet Mashiach. What does it mean, "B'skhus nashim to kanius"? What does it mean? Righteous women took us out. There weren't righteous men. They didn't have su'chios. It doesn't mean male over female. It means feminine or female over male.

29:17 It means feminine over masculine. Of course, there were righteous men. Moshe Rabbeinu, Aaron, a Cohen. There were many righteous men that left in the times of Mitzrayim. Kalev, Yehoshua. So many righteous men. What it means, the deeper wisdom of what it means, is we left Mitzrayim because women found God in Mitzrayim. That's impressive. To go to the lowest place on earth, to go to the most depraved society in the history of societies, and that a woman was able to go there and to find Hashem there, that's when we were able to leave. And the same thing is happening now, but it's happening in a very twisted way. We once again are at a crossroads, and once again we have the opportunity to leave the world and hide in a corner and be totally spiritual, or we can engage the world. And we need to empower women today to change the world.

30:09 Nurturing the world into being that we should not be afraid of the world. I don't like this thing. I get hired to speak at these end of the year events about how do you stay strong after seminary? I hate those things. I haven't done any of them this year. I turned them all down. I hate them. The reason I hate them is because it's such an attack on the tire that you've been learning all year. The Torah that you've been learning all year is a Torah of how to take it with you. So now at the end, they're like, 'Okay, and here's how to take it with you.' That makes no sense. The whole Torah that you've been learning all year was how to take it with you, how to take Torah out into the world. You spent a year here in your Shalayim Erakodesh. You had that elevated experience, not because you're meant to stay here, because you're meant to bring it down. You're meant to go down into the world. People say, 'How do I stay strong around friends?' What do you mean?

31:00 What do you mean? They're your friends. They're your friends, but we don't share the same values anymore. You can't find godliness in people that don't share the same values as you anymore. That's ridiculous. That's absurd. Of course you can. People say, but what's it going to be like with my parents? They're your parents. You have a mitzvah of kibbutz avaim. What are you talking about? What are you talking about? You're going to go back and start giving musar to your parents? That's crazy. Don't give musar to your parents. You go back. You express appreciation. You brought me into this world. You're the greatest living examples that I have of Hakadosh Baruch Hu in this world. You go back to your communities. There are things in my community that weren't the same as when I was in Yerushalayim. So when you go back into those communities, be a person who affects change in the community, not by being frontal and vocal and a kanay and saying you're doing everything wrong. Simply by being the light in the darkness. The darkness is dispelled.

31:48 Find the beauty in places. Find the godliness. In places where the godliness is not at first apparent, that's what you've been training for the entire year. We shouldn't have to give you a she'er at the end of the year. How to take it with you? That's what we've been doing the entire time. So it drives me a little bit crazy. In order to bring Mashiach in these final moments, everything is prepared. Everything is done. There's nothing left to do. All we need to do now is let the process that we've started play itself out. Nekeva to savev gaver beskos nashim tzidkanios. I heard many years ago from Rav Noach Orloewik. My wife quotes Rav Orloewik that Rav Orloewik used to say when he was teaching in Darkei Bina. He could teach the future mothers and grandmothers of Klal Yisrael. I like that line. I also don't know if I could teach 18, 19 year old girls. I'll modify it a little bit. But I can definitely try to help the people that are going to be the ones who bring Mashiach.

32:52 I think we have a tremendous responsibility today to tell women: it's awesome that men are learning Torah in the Beit Midrash. That's amazing. You have to ground it. You have to bring it into reality. You have to make it real. That's the yisod of what it means to be a woman today: to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu into the world in a tangible way. And I think I can say with a tremendous amount of confidence that this has been a group all year long. That I think took their year seriously. It's a tremendous privilege to teach here. For that, I owe you a tremendous debt of akharasatov. A rebbe without students is not a rebbe. Anyone can get up and teach, but if nobody shows up, then you're not a rebbe. I owe you a tremendous debt of akharasatov on a personal level because you allowed me to be a rebbe this year. But even more than that, I want to say that.

33:44 I think that showing up here was a growth-oriented thing. That we sat with growth-oriented people. That the people here came to do something real with their lives. They came to grow. They came to leave Torma Devora and to say, "I'm ready to make an impact in the world." And I feel very confident. And I don't think it's arrogance. I feel very confident to be able to say that somebody who came to Torma Devora and really took advantage of everything that Torma Devora has to offer, I think this is a place where we can say. Girls from Tomer Dvor will end up changing the world, because you had a real education here. You had a real education from real people who live real lives who have real conversations with you. And I hope that be'ez Hashem you'll be zeicher to take that and put into practice and put into reality. And be'ez Hashem in the shchus of all of the girls and all the Torah that you learned here this year. We'll be zeicher to greet Mashiach together. B'meirabim. Amen. Thank you. Thank you.