Nitzavim - Achieving the Impossible

2:18 We have to try to be masver. We have to try to understand this machlokus in a deep way. What is Rashi saying? What is the Remban saying? What are the similarities and what are the differences? But there's perhaps a deeper question, one that I think for us right now in this moment could be a more profound question to try to understand this sugya. We don't pay attention to foolish things. It's a rule in the Torah. We don't pay attention to nonsense. If something is nonsense, if something appears to be out of nowhere, if the Torah says somebody would have thought the Torah is in Shamayim. This is not something the Torah needs to tell us. This is not something the Torah needs to tell us. Nobody here thinks that the Torah is on Saturn and that our responsibility as Jews is to go to Saturn. It's very strange for the Torah to tell us, "Don't worry, this thing is not in Shamayim." And it's not across the ocean, of course not.

3:21 We're sitting here and learning, Taira. So what in the world are the psukim talking about? Either it's very easy to do, and then we don't need to talk about how difficult it is, or it's nearly impossible to do, and then we shouldn't be talking about how easy it is. But it's a strange thing. I'll put it in words that you can imagine. A girl comes to seminary. Now I'm sure you had this. For some reason, there's this thing that people do And it's well intentioned, but it's not always so nice. They warn you before you come. Did you have those conversations? You're not going to stop crying for the first four months. Did anybody come back and tell you that? It's almost like they feel the need to prepare you for the inevitable trauma. You're not going to be okay. So we're just going to tell you now how not okay you're going to be then. This way, you could be not okay now and not okay then. Does that make sense?

4:18 Some people come and have no problem adjusting. There are some girls that come and they're down right away. They have friends. They fit in socially. They like the classes. So for those girls it was very easy, and the whole trauma that you gave to them for the three months before they came to seminary was unnecessary. Or the opposite. There are some girls that people say you'll be fine. Don't worry about it. Everybody adjusts. All the seminaries say the same exact thing. All the seminaries say the same exact thing. It's so warm. It's such a family environment. Everybody gets individual attention. Do you remember when you were hearing all the seminaries coming to you, presenting your high schools? At what point did it become like each seminary was basically saying more or less the same thing? It happens usually two or three presentations in. And for that girl who's told it's going to be okay, she comes and it's ala panim terrible. It's like I can't handle this.

5:17 So which one is it? Don't worry, the Torah is saying it's not far from you. I feel like it's insanely far from me, and I have no idea what you're talking about. And the truth is, I think for most of us it's that way. If somebody comes to you and they say, I want you to build a relationship with Hashem. That sounds very difficult. Especially the lashon of the pasuk, "Kikarov eilecha hadaver maod." To build a relationship with Hashem is so easy; it's in your mouth and it's in your heart to do. How many days do we wake up? The answer is everybody. How many days do we wake up? And maybe we're not interested in davening. I'm not interested in davening, and certainly to say that I'm going to have a passionate davening. That every day I'm going to wake up and it's going to be like Yom Kippur Nilo, that it's going to be in my heart to serve Hashem.

6:11 That sounds very strange. I don't know how many people here. Maybe there's a couple of Yichidei School of girls that Pashut were born from a very holy place, but I think for most of us, probably we wake up in the morning, we open up the seder, and we're like Here we go again. I'm going to say the same words that I always said. How many of us feel like I just want to close the seder? You see these girls come into seminary. I don't know when it happens. At some point, there's a thing with diving that they get really into it. I never had that experience. I don't dive in like a girl. I hold my sitter like this. I don't I don't understand this move. I don't understand the elbow move. I don't really like that yoga move. It doesn't really appeal to me.

6:58 I don't understand the boys either. I don't really understand the workout shuttle move. It's like by the time they're done davening, they're sweating. They go take a shower. It's done. They're done with the gym. Personally I don't know. I'm saying a real thing. Davening could be hard. Davening could be hard. I like that you like my sense of humor. It validates me as a person. I appreciate it. The Torah is saying a very strange thing. Don't think it's far from you. It's very close to you. Personally, it's not my experience at all. It sometimes feels impossibly hard. It sometimes feels to me like Can't we do things because we're part of the Jewish community? I do things because I know it's right.

7:52 If we asked an honest question, and maybe we shouldn't ask this question out loud because we're afraid to get the answer, but if this wasn't part of your education, if this wasn't 13th grade, if you weren't indoctrinated from the time that you were little to come to seminary and you shall I am, after you were done with high school, how many of you would really choose to be here? If you really stopped in high school and you said to yourself, "Not, " of course, there's going to be a lot of people that say yes, but I imagine that there would be some percentage in this room that if you said to them Are you down to go away from your comfort zone, from your family To live with roommates is not easy. Every roommate has a different temperament. It's not such a simple thing to do. How many of you really would have signed up? I want to learn Kodesh all day long. How many of us would have signed up for it?

8:43 Probably, if we're being honest, sometimes we're doing things because we're just doing things by rote. How many of us can honestly say, "I'm here because I deeply desire to be connected to Hashem, because that's what I'm burning for all of my life." Some people are like that. The truth is, I'll be very honest with you. I have the privilege. It's probably my favorite part of the year. In the summer, I work for NCSY. So I go around to all the different NCSY programs. I'm with various NCSY programs for Shabbos. My favorite thing to do the entire year is spend my summer with public school kids. I love it. Because they actually want to be here. Because when they come to Israel for the summer and you get up and you teach them Torah, they're not a bunch of kids that were spoiled by having a Jewish education for the last ten years of their life. So when they're 15, 16 years old and they're coming to Israel, they're excited to come this year. Their every single word is like they're hanging on to it. You could spend five hours with them after shiur, having them ask questions, because for them it actually does have this experience of kikar velecha adaver mode. It feels very real to them, and it doesn't always feel. With you, I'm jealous. I look at some of these 15

9:55 16 year old kids, and I say to myself, I wish I was on your level. I'm not anywhere close to your level. As a young man, he's actually learning an orsamach this year, one of my favorite guys that I ever had in NCSY. An unbelievable kid. He asked me the following question. This is a couple summers ago. It's a very profound question. And how many of us would ask this question? How many of us are even paying attention right now enough to ask this question in our lives, let alone right here in this moment? He said, "Rabbi, I have the opportunity to leave my high school" To go get a yeshiva education. He was in a Catholic academy. He said, 'I have the opportunity to go get a yeshiva education in Florida.' Said, and I would love to go, and my parents would support me. I would love to go, but I can't.

10:41 Because I run the JSU club. I am Jewish student life here in my neighborhood, and in my Catholic academy, there's a ton of Jewish kids, and I'm the one being the center for Jewish life for them. How many of us at 15 years old would ask that question? We grew up on top of the mountain. For most of us, we grew up with Judaism being spoon fed to us, and so because it was spoon fed to us. Maybe we don't have the same passion as those people who have a little bit of distance from it And that's like I read this pasuk and I say to Hashem, I wish I had the kikaro velecha hadavar maod of those kids. Both of my parents are balechuvah. My mother is on fire for her Judaism. On fire for her Judaism. And me growing up, I always felt stupid that I didn't feel the same way. My mother's like she didn't get a yeshiva education. Her first yeshiva education was when she went to Stern College. It was the first time she ever actually sat in a formal Jewish education.

11:39 My mother learns more than anybody I know. If there's a shiur going on, it doesn't matter who an apikares could be giving the shiur. As long as there's a shiur going on, my mother is going to the shiur. On my parents' wall in their house, there's an invitation. An invitation with a check. I will attend or I won't attend. And as a joke, my father wrote on it. My mother writes, 'I will attend. My husband will not be attending.' My father is very antisocial, and she and my mother want to know if there's a she'er at the wedding. She is so on fire for her Yiddishkeit. How many of us are like that? How many of us say, 'I'm not interested in davening. I'm not interested in learning. I really just want to do what I want to do.' I totally hear that. And it's very difficult to hear this pasuk. Kikar belecha adaver maod. How many of us really feel that? Rashi says another thing. Let's ask another question. Rashi says, 'Lo baShamayim. What does it mean that the Torah is not in Shamayim? I would have had to go up to Shamayim to learn it. What does that mean? I would have had to go up to Shamayim to learn Torah. What does that mean?'

12:36 Like Moshe Rabbeinu in the Gemara on Shabbos and Pechas on the base, the Gemara on Shabbos describes Moshe Rabbeinu actually went to Shamayim to get the Torah. I would have had to do that. I'll be honest. I don't know how to do that. Does anybody here know how to do that? I assume nobody here knows. How to ascend to Shamayim? They tell stories of the Baal Shem Tov that the Baal Shem Tov went up to Shamayim to different heichalos. What does it mean that I would have had to go up to Shamayim? I want to share with you an unbelievable idea that I heard last year from Rav Moshe Weinberger Shlita Shlit"a, the Rav of Eish Kodesh in Woodmere. Anybody here from Woodmere? We have a handful of people from Woodmere. I want to share with you an idea that I heard from my Rabbi. You're also from Woodmere. Anyone here from Lawrence? So me and you. I'm from Lawrence too. Where did you go to high school?

13:22 Very nice. I got expelled from Haftirah. So did my father. Some of the greatest people in the world. It's not true. I didn't get expelled from Haftirah in high school. I got expelled from Haftirah in elementary school. What did you do? Not your business. I want to share with you an idea that I heard from my Rebbe Rav Weinberger. It's an amazing idea. It's an unbelievable idea. I think this idea is everything. I'm excited to teach you this idea tonight because I think this idea is everything. Rav Weinberger quotes from Rav Leib Chasman. Rav Leib Chasman was one of the great Baalei Mussar, and he said as follows. But I'm saying it in the way that Rav Weinberger said it, because I'm not sure if the way that Rav Weinberger said it exactly is exactly the way that Rav Leib Chasman said it. But I think it's we'll say it's Rav Leib Chasman al pi Rav Weinberger. But I think which is al pi Berg. But I think it's pretty good.

14:16 I think it goes like this. Everyone here is two people. We're bodies and we're souls And we make a mistake and we think to ourselves "No! I'm a soul in a body." But it's not true. We have two personalities. We have a body personality and we have a soul personality. Let's talk about the body personality for a second, because every one of us has this. This is the body personality. The body personality is, "I am a body." And my body, the moment you were born, I know this is going to sound very uncomfortable, but it's true. The moment you were born, you started to die. Life is about, from the body's perspective, life is about decay. That's what happens. Eventually, everybody here dies. People say life is short. Life is literally the longest thing you'll ever do, but we don't often get enough of it.

15:10 From the perspective of the body, all of us are going to die, and therefore we feel like life is very limited, and we feel like we're very often incapable of rising to the occasion. By the way, this is why all the people that bash your generation, which isn't nice and it's not even true, but all the people that bash your generation and say, "Oh, kids these days, they have no resilience and they have no grit." First of all, it's not true. Kids these days have a tremendous amount of resilience and a tremendous amount of grit. And if my generation grew up in your generation, we'd be doing a lot worse. But if it's true that people today say that kids today have no resilience, you know why they have no resilience? Because you taught them that they are bodies. You took God out of the world. That's what happened in the world today.

16:00 There's more atheists than ever before in America. The atheist community is climbing. And what's the negative impact of that? The negative impact is you're walking around thinking that. What I am is a body, and eventually my body is going to die. So when somebody says, "Are you capable?", the answer to that is, "I'm not going to risk it." That's why people are terrified of vulnerability. I'm not going to risk it because what happens if I fail? I just did a class. A lot of them were alumni from Talmud Torah. I do a class on Zoom online in America. It was a dating class. How many girls? Would be capable if they were in a real serious relationship. How many girls would be capable of having the very vulnerable, very real conversation I'm really excited about this relationship, and I'm ready to get married. Zero girls on the call raised their hand and said, "I think I'd be capable of doing that." Why not? What's going to happen? What happens if you get shot down?

17:06 What happens if you're not willing to risk in your life telling the people that you love that you actually love them and want to be in a committed relationship? If you don't take that risk in life, you end up what? You end up alone. But people would rather end up alone than take the risk of actually being shot down. Which is so sad. I'll give you a bad example. I don't like this example. I'll give you a bad example of this. I'm sure none of you have ever had this before. I grew up in a K-8 elementary school. There's a thing that we do in K-8 elementary schools. It's you like a girl, but you're not going to tell the girl that you like the girl because you don't want to get shot down. So what do you do? You ask your friend. I'm sure none of this has ever happened to you. Certainly not in elementary school. For sure not in high school. But just in case, if you know what I'm saying, I'm just saying. If you know what I'm saying, yeah. Just in case. I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about somebody, but somebody, but she happens to be here, but not here, yeah.

18:02 Let's say you pass a note. You say to your friend, 'Could you find out from your girlfriend who you actually had the courage to ask out if this girl is interested in me?' And let's say she says, 'Yes, I am interested in you.' So now that guy walks across the classroom. But there's no slow motion, there's no music playing because when he's walking across the class, you know what he already knows the answer to the question. There's no vulnerability in that, and because there's no vulnerability in that, there's no greatness in that. You're leading a very limited life. By the way, nobody here wants to marry that guy. If that happens in your life, if you're 21 years old And if somebody, like a friend of yours, comes over and he says he likes you, but he doesn't want to ask you, and it's not for tznius reasons because he wants to be in the shiduch system, but because he doesn't have enough self-esteem to potentially take a loss, don't marry that guy. Don't even date him.

18:57 Because what's going to happen when he goes for a job? He's going to show up quaking in his boots because he can't handle the vulnerability of maybe things won't work out the way I want them to. That's a tragedy that we've raised a generation of people that don't know how to walk across a room and go over to somebody. "Hey, you want to get a cup of coffee?" There's greatness in that. There's greatness in getting shot down. There's greatness in missing. There's a kid in yeshiva this year. And he was one of the best basketball players in Yeshiva League last year. He's an unbelievable basketball player. It happens to be that one of the shiurim that I teach, he's in that shiur, and I was schmoozing with him. And he said an unbelievable thing. We were talking about the vulnerability of taking that big shot in the big game, and he's a kid who played in championship games. How do you do it? Because I don't mind missing.

19:52 I was like right. And that's why I was never great, because every time the ball missed, in my head I was in there playing it out, like how many people on the sideline are actually looking at me and going, okay, Berg missed another shot, and Berg missed another shot. That's the perspective of the body. I'm just taking losses, and I play the game of life very protected. And just in case you don't think it's about you, everyone in this room does that. When you were sitting on the plane It's not nice what I'm about to say. I'm warning you. When you were sitting on the plane and you were here going on the group flight and you were judging every other girl on the group flight That was super uncomfortable. And you were sitting and saying the following words, even without saying them out loud. I don't know if I made a mistake.

20:41 I don't know if there are nasty words today. Girls use nasty words. I don't know if they're my type. That's a nasty word. What does that mean? I don't know if they're my type. We sit there in our judgmental posture. Why do we do that? Why don't we come in and just come in with open arms and go? Let me see what happens here. Let me put myself out there and see if I can make amazing relationships with people that I never expected that I'd be friends with. My friends from 1998, when I went to Yeshiva, the guys that I'm still in touch with. Half of those guys, I never would have been friends with in high school. And you know what? The best thing that ever happened to me was that I got out of my yeshiva league box of being trying to be too cool so that I could pretend to be somebody that I'm not in order to be acceptable for other people. Baruch Hashem, when I got out of that tiny little square that we build, I was like, 'Oh, there's awesome people out there.'

21:34 But why? Why was I in that judgmental perspective? Because I was afraid. Because I was afraid. What happens if I take losses? How many of us And I'm sure nobody here, but how many of us have had great girls in front of us that we were like not down to be their really close friend because socially it would have meant something. How many girls get ostracized in classrooms not because they're annoying, not because they have social difficulties, but just because they're not cool, so they get put in a corner with their like group. Again, I don't like to say these words, but like the nerdy girls go over there, and never the Twain shall meet. We'll have nothing to do with them. You realize in that scenario, the cool girls are the losers, right? They're the ones that needed to prop themselves up on the false idols of "look at me." That's a tragedy.

22:25 The ironic thing is, those kids have the lowest self-esteem. It's not the girls in the corner who are being ostracized by everybody else. Those girls had to learn how to be okay with themselves for a long time. It's the girls in the other corner looking down at those girls who are all just playing this game of terror. I'm a terrified person. That's the perspective of the body, and every one of us, on some level, has something inside of us that's like that. Even if it's totally uncomfortable for you to admit, every one of us has done it. There's another perspective. This is the perspective of the soul. The soul is infinite. The soul is a chelak elokamimav. The soul is not limited by a body. And so you know what the soul says: the impossible is achievable. The impossible is achievable, and I'm not sitting here worried about what anybody else thinks about me or what I can't accomplish.

23:16 There's another vulnerability in the room right now. I'll highlight it. I'll call it out. Agree or disagree? It's here. Every one of you who came to this sem got interviewed. You went through a process and ended up here. And on some level, you have a desire that at the end of this year I'll have accomplished something. I don't know what it is, and everybody has their own thing that they want to be. But ask the Shonabat girls at the end of the year. There's going to be two types of people: those that lived out their dream and those that didn't. And the difference will not be because of capability. I've been doing this yeshiva in Israel, seminary in Israel thing. This is my 18th year. I want to tell you, I've seen in yeshiva every single year the guys that make it and have the most growth-oriented years. They all had one thing in common: nobody ever told them that they couldn't.

24:13 That's what made their impossible dreams achievable. There's a boy this year. It was one of the most powerful moments that I've seen in my entire chinuch career to start the year this way. His rebbe in Mevaseret, his name is Rav Hershel. Rav Hershel is an amazing rebbe. He has an unbelievable amount of dedication and love for his talmidim. It doesn't matter who's sitting in front of him. He's like, I'm gonna just love this kid until this kid mamish loves Hashem. He's an incredible, incredible rebbe. And he got up this year to speak at the first Shabbos of the year at Shalosh Shudis. That's a big thing in yeshiva. Mevaseret is a yeshiva. Baruch Hashem, today is like 250 guys. Imagine 250 guys packed into a cheder rochel, the zemiros are beautiful. Rav Hershel gets up to speak in front of everybody, and he starts talking about a specific kid. The kid's name is Mo.

25:00 And I'm watching Mo the entire time that Rav Hershel is speaking. Everybody's watching Rav Hershel because Rav Hershel is this exceptionally charismatic and dynamic Rebbe. I'm watching Mo, the kid that he's speaking about. And he's talking about how Mo came into yeshiva and he said it's so hard for me to learn Gemara, but I'm just going to do it anyway. And he spoke about how Mo just killed himself day after day, and how Reuven Hershel said, 'And I just sat with him, and he can manage to read a Gemara now.' And I'm going to tell you something. I'm watching Mo's face. I've never seen a kid actually glow. I saw his face, the Hadrus Panem of his face. He was shining, and then I watched him. They went. We went to Myrev right afterwards, and I watched him during Shemona Esrei. I watched him during Shemona Esrei because this Shemona Esrei took like 30 minutes. I was done with Shemona Esrei. I'm just watching Mo Davin, tears streaming down his face. And I went over to Mo after Myrev, and I said to him, Mo There's no amount of money you could have paid for the experience you just had, getting called out in front of 250 guys. Your rebbe spoke about how much he believed in you and how much you've accomplished. He said, 'I have no words of gratitude to say how incredible rehearsal is. I can't possibly express it.'

26:18 You know what's crazy? The crazy part is There's no way Alpiteva naturally Mo should not be able to accomplish what he accomplished. If Mo was in a classroom and he was in some Ivy League classroom and they were writing down his scores and talking about what his IQ was, there's no way Mo would have actually accomplished as much as he accomplished. Mo accomplished as much as he accomplished because he had a rebbe that believed in him to do the impossible, and he believed in himself to do the impossible. He never knew it was impossible, so he did. I can tell you right now, with 100% certainty, which girls will make it this year and which girls won't. It's one very simple equation. If you approach this year. From the perspective of the body I just don't know. I'm so limited. How can I? And I have this standing in front of me, and that standing in front of me, and this barrier, and that barrier. Everybody has their own barriers. For some people, it's things in their family. For some people, it's belief systems they have about themselves. For some people, it's belief systems they have about the seminary or the girls in their room. Everybody will have barriers and boundaries this year that will for sure keep you in the perspective of if you believe I can't overcome these barriers, then you won't.

27:32 You just won't. It's a 100% certainty. The moment you buy That the barrier is bigger than you, the show is already over. The girls that will be successful with 100% certainty It's because nobody ever told them that they couldn't jump those barriers. And since they believe they can, they actually do. The great people in the world are not the most talented ones. It's the ones that believe that they can. There's a story told about Thomas Edison, and it's not a true story. It's a made-up story. It's an apocryphal story. But the lesson is a good lesson. They say that Edison brought a letter home from his teacher and he gave it to his mother, and his mother started crying. Edison said, "Mom, what does it say in the letter?" It's not a true story. She said, "It says Thomas Edison is too smart, and he can't be in the school anymore because we don't have a class that could fill his needs. He's just too smart for the rest of the class." And so he ended up being homeschooled. Then in the end, he became Thomas Edison. It's not a true story.

28:33 It's not a true story. The true story is that Edison found out years later that there was a note from a teacher that the teacher said that he was addled, meaning that he wasn't so smart. And he said, "Thank God, my mother never believed those teachers." What an unbelievable gift it is to have a parent who has irrational levels of confidence in you. If you have irrational levels of confidence brought into your bones, you'll do unbelievable things. Sadly, not all of us have that perspective. The pasuk says, "Lo bashamayim." It's not in Shamayim. The pasuk comes and says, "But if it was in Shamayim, you'd have to go get it. How could I possibly go get it? That's a body question. How could I possibly achieve it? It's in Shamayim. I'm down here." That's because you don't believe yourself capable of being the Moshe Rabbeinu that goes up to Shamayim to receive the Torah.

29:30 You know why Moshe Rabbeinu received the Torah? Because nobody ever told him that he couldn't. That's what happens if you grow up in the house of a king. If you grow up in the house of a king and you're a prince, even in the house of Paro, you believe. You walk around. You go, I'm a prince. All you got to do is point that kid in the right direction, and off he goes. It's an unbelievable thing. He could become the next Moshe Rabbeinu. I used to enjoy when I would come back. I went back to America after two years in Israel. But I would come back for winter break because I wanted to learn in my yeshiva. I would go to visit my friends in the Mir and walk around the Mir. And the Mir is a pretty packed place. There's a lot of yeshiva guys there, but I would walk around in the Mir and I would smile. This kid was the captain of Haftar hockey. This kid was the captain of TABC. This kid was the captain of MTA basketball.

30:16 What's the pshat that all these guys became such real bnei Torah? It's a funny thing. If you walk through Ramada School today, just a stone's throw from here, you won't notice because now they look like these yeshivish older, pot-bellied, bearded guys. I want you to know those guys were cool once upon a time. Those guys, some of those guys were like the best basketball players. I'm sitting there. I go to visit my brother-in-law from Ramada School. I'm like, what happened to you, man? You were like a cool hafter kid, and now you're just like, no. But you know the pshat is. The same mida that he was a cool after kid is the same mida that when he believed in himself to be the guy to go on that court to score that goal or to be in that moment to take that last shot, it's the same mida that took him to the mirror Because nobody ever told him that he can't take that last shot. Nobody ever told him that he can't become a talmud hakham. It's a tragedy that we raise our children not that way.

31:08 It's an amazing line. I like this line. I don't always like everything that Jordan Peterson says, but this line I really like. He says, "Don't tell your kids when you see kids. You ever see kids skateboarding and they like jump on the handrail, like in the middle, and they like go down?" Those kids always look like they're close to being in a fail video, right? And it happens to be I wasn't always like this, but I learned this from my wife. I love fail videos now. I have like a thing. I just think it's amazing. You see these kids and they're like. The worst things happen to them, and I mean, you see these kids, and like, so the adults in the room are always doing what? The adults in the room are always going like Don't do that. You're going to hurt yourself. And Jordan Peterson says a great line. He goes, "Don't teach kids not to skateboard like that." You know why? Because if they learn to skateboard like that, they learn that they're capable of doing hard things.

32:00 It's an amazing thing because it requires vulnerability on the part of the parents to know that your kid is going to try and it's going to fail and it's not going to be easy. I'm so thankful to my father. My father was my little league coach when I was growing up. And I came to my dad and I said, "Dad, I want to pitch." Now I don't know if I was the best pitcher on the team. I probably wasn't, and probably my father could have said to himself I don't know, maybe you should be a shortstop or a third baseman or a second baseman. But being the pitcher is a really vulnerable position because you could fail. My father never said that. My father said, "so go learn how to pitch, and then I'll make you a pitcher." That's an awesome dad because he teaches you you're capable of doing hard things. That's the perspective of the soul. The Torah is in Shamayim.

32:50 The pesach in this pasuk is takah. Very difficult to feel close to Hashem, and anybody who hears. If you're gonna do the seminary thing, I beg you, please don't do the seminary. If you're gonna walk around this year and just say kitschy things like "This year I fell in love with Hashem," please don't be that person. There's a whole group of guys, thousands of Yeshiva B'khorim in Yerushalayim, all over this country, making fun of girls like that. I'm begging you. Guys ask me all the time, "Are girls really like that?" I say they're not really like that. So please be on my team. Don't be that girl. Don't be that girl. That's something you have to earn. To say that I'm really falling in love with Yiddishkeit, that's not something you just say. I had a friend many years ago. I don't know if this is funny for girls, but the guys think it's hysterical. I had a friend many years ago who went to the kotel and he was getting in a cab and a girl asked him if she could split the cab with him, a seminary girl. She was coming back from the kotel and she gets on the phone in the cab. My friend is sitting in the front and the girl gets on the phone with her friend. She's like Sarla.

33:56 I just have to tell you, I'm coming from the Kotel. I have three words for you: Kedusha. My friend bursts out laughing and starts calling every guy from his yeshiva. I am in a cab with the girl from this seminary. It's a real thing to open up the sitar and daven. It's hard. And the Torah says it's hard. The Torah says you might think it's Me'ever layam. You might think it's in Shamayim. Sometimes that's really the way we feel. That's from the perspective of the body. It's too much. It's too hard. I'm going to sit there in class and take notes and take tests and have all this pressure on me. I didn't want to have pressure this year. That's the whole reason I came. I imagine some of you have already had this conversation. It feels very hard. It's true. The Torah is recognizing you have a body. It's very hard, and yet you know what the Torah says? It's so close to you. Comes from the perspective of the infinite. You're capable of doing anything. So you could focus on either half of the pasuk. Some people in this room are. It's meevr layam. It's bashamayim. I'm not going to be able to do it. There are people that they live from the perspective of the impoverished mentality that I can't. And then there's girls that have enough self-esteem to be able to say

35:17 Who says it's impossible? Maybe it's just impossible up until now, but maybe I'm going to do it now. Maybe this is the year where my entire life is going to change. And the Ramban adds something unbelievable, and we'll finish with this. It's true about Torah, the Ramban says. The Ramban doesn't disagree with Rashi. But he says it's even harder when it comes to tshuva. Because how many of us have bought into our averus? How many of us are walking around with a deep sense of shame over your lowest moment? Do you know how many guys over the years have told me, Rebbe, you don't understand. There's an avera that I did that I can't tell you, but it was the defining moment of my life. Who says that was the defining moment of your life? Who says it was a boy many years ago in yeshiva? I love this boy today. He's in Kiruv. He's an amazing, amazing guy. I'll never forget this story. We took a walk. We were walking around the campus of yeshiva, and he burst out crying. And he wasn't the type of kid to cry. He wasn't like a soft kid. He burst out crying. I said, "What's going on? Why are you crying?" He said, "I have to admit something to you."

36:20 He said, "It's very embarrassing." I really had dreams of becoming a rebbe. I said, "You're right. That is very embarrassing. Don't ever admit that out loud to anybody." He said, "No, rebbe. That's not the hard part." He said, "I won't be able to be a rebbe." I'm thinking in my head about all the classic reasons. There's no money. It's not so easy to get a job. I'm thinking about all the classic things. But I was quiet and I listened to him. And he said, because he said my rebbeim in high school, and it's true, his rebbeim in high school were amazing people. He said my rebbeim in high school were incredible rebbeim, and I did an avera that I know my rebbeim never would have done. My rebbeim never would have done this avera, and I know now I can't be a rebbe. So what's the big average? He said, I ate Burger King.

37:10 It's not a good one. He had a taiva. He was in a place. A ruach sh'tus came into his head. He ordered it. He hesitated for a minute. He ate the Burger King, and then once he did it, he felt like garbage. But in that moment, he knew that the secret dream that he had to become a rabbi was over. How tragic is that? That one hamburger was going to stop him from leading his entire life in a certain direction. And you know the irony? I know his rebbeim from high school. And I'm not going to tell him this, but I knew some of them in high school. And some of those guys in high school, maybe they didn't have Burger King, but I promise you, they had a different version of Burger King. At least two of the rebbeim in his high school had a different version of Burger King.

38:00 At least two of the rabbans from his high school. I was with them when they had their version of Birken. How crazy is that? We buy into our lowest moments and we think I am this avera Not I've done this avera. I am this avera. Says the rabban, there are people walking around and this pre-aseres you made chuba. This is the time to listen to this. There are some people walking around going, I did a terrible thing. I went to a funny place. I was with a funny person. I drank a magic potion. Whatever it is that you did. I went to a place where they sell fruits and vegetables in the morning, and then at night I don't know what was going on over there. I went to buy an avocado. In the end, it was something completely different. And now my seminary year is over because I made a mistake.

38:51 And you're laughing. You're laughing because it's true. You're laughing because every one of us knows that we've always remembered that thing in eighth grade when you said I'll never cross this line. Remember in the summer after tenth grade when you crossed it? It's always the summer after tenth grade. All the NCSY programs that exist just exist to stop you from having a summer after tenth grade. I'm convinced. The only reason it's true. Summer after tenth grade. That's the beginning of the Especially for boys, because ninth grade is like a tragedy. Look back on ninth grade boys. I believe that Hashem is kind, except for ninth grade boys. That's a really hard thing. All of a sudden, you like girls, and then your face becomes a pizza pie, and your voice starts to crack. You're like, 'Hey, you want to get a cup of coffee?' By summer after tenth grade, they've recovered a little bit.

39:56 Everyone had the line that they promised themselves they would never cross, and then they spent the rest of their lives. For some people, it's the rest of their lives. It's like I can't do tshuva enough for this. Of course you can. Of course you can. As Chazal say, when Yom Kippur is over, Hashem forgave you. Move on. You're holding on to the avera, says the Ramban. For some people, they think that tshuva is bashamayim. I'm never going to be able to achieve it. For some people, they think it's the farthest. I could never recover from this other. It's not true. It's not true. Kikar ve'lecha hadavar maod. The thing you think you can't beat It's so close to you. Just got to turn around. Just this much of a little bit of a difference, and your life takes a different trajectory. My blessing for all of us. I'm so sorry it took me so long to get here. We basically didn't have a Thursday night so far, and we're basically not going to have a Thursday night for the rest of the year. I'll see you after Sukkot. But my bracha for all of us, and especially for this Asaros Yomay Tshuva season. Is that we have the irrational confidence in ourselves to actually say the words. Girls have a wonderful Shabbos. See you soon. Live in a good condition.