Parshas Beshalach - Singing Yiddishkeit Back to Life

2:47 We can't imagine what that was like to be a yid to sing Shir in that moment. So let's take a look at a couple of the deeper messages that are in Az Yashir for us today How we can serve Hashem in a more beautiful In a more holy, in a more profound In a more musical way. So four questions just to begin. Chazal say that we sing Shirah in the S'chus of the Amunah that we had when we were in Mitzrayim. So on a simple level, it means that we had emuna that we would leave Mitzrayim, and now the emuna came true. We left. That's the simple understanding. But is there perhaps a deeper message? Is there some sort of inner connection between emuna and the notion of singing? That's our first question for tonight. Gemara in Sanhedrin, second question tells us that as Yashir. Is the source for tchias amesim and atayra?

4:00 Very dear Talmud, a very yeshiva. Brothers I don't know if you heard it. The message came to America. There was a terrible car accident in Shalaim. Was the sister of two very close talmidim of mine. I was sitting with a boy this week in Chicago. He lost his mother. He's the brother of a mivaser boy. So I didn't really give him a father. Just wasn't the right feeling to give him a father. And anyway, I know him a little bit. He's a brother. So I asked him, "How are you doing?" He's holding back tears because he's a strong boy, but you could see that they were there. He just can't wait for tchias ameisim. It breaks your heart to hear such a thing. This is the source for Tchias Amesim and Atayra. Because it says Az Yasher that Moshe Rabbeinu will sing. This means Az Yasher, Az Shar. Moshe Rabbeinu is singing right now.

5:03 So the Gemara says Az Yasher. This is the source for the future that will happen. Tchias Amesim. So what's the connection between Shir and Tchias Amesim? That's our second question for tonight. Third question is: We say Az Yasher every single day in Davening. At the end of Psuke de Zimra, we say Az Yasher. But the reason we say Psuke de Zimra is before we can ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu for our needs. So we have to know who Hakadosh Baruch Hu is. So all the Kepitelch Tilling that we say in Psuke de Zimra are all about knowing who Hakadosh Baruch Hu is. A person when they come to Kriyas Shma should have a sense of emotion. A person should be excited to come to Hakadosh Baruch Hu and to be Ma'achid with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's the whole yisoid of shmaya Yisrael, Hashem alkinu, Hashem echad And then to have the transcendence of Shmaya Yisrael. The whole notion of Psukei D'Zimra is to prepare us for this.

5:58 Az Yashir doesn't really seem to have a place in Psukei D'Zimra; it doesn't really belong there. It's almost like uncomfortable the way it is. Psukei D'Zimra should have naturally gone into Berachas Kriyashma, but Chazal saw fit to put Az Yashir there. So why do we say Az Yashir every morning at the end of Psukei D'Zimra? And finally, if you take a look, the fourth question for the night. If you take a look in the Gemara Megillah, it says that the way that Az Yashir is written in the Torah, if you ever look inside of a Torah, the way that Az Yashir is written in the Torah It's Ariach Agabi Levena. It's written in a bricklaying pattern. So that you have a word, then a space, then a word, then a space, and then underneath it, where there was a space, there's a word. It looks like bricks.

6:46 And Rashi says a very interesting thing over there. Rashi says there's more empty space than there are words in the Shirah. Which means on a deep level that there's something about the empty space of a song that's more profound, more powerful than the words of the song itself. So why was it written like that? Why was it written in such a way that it was like a bricklaying pattern where there's more empty space than words? So to answer this question, I want to share with you a beautiful pshat. I'll read it inside Gemara Shabbos. Everybody here knows this Gemara. You grew up with this Gemara. Every one of us. But to understand this Gemara in a deeper way The Gemara says shuv meisa begoy echad shabolof neishamai. There was a guy who came to beishamai. Amar lo gaireni al menasha talamdei nikolat harikula keshani omer al regalachas.

7:44 He said, "Be megayer me" But be megayer me only on condition that you teach me kolat arakula or regalachas. So the Gemara says, "Da'chavu ba'amas habinyan shabi'ado." Shammai refuses to answer and pushes him away with a measuring stick. Shammai was, of course, a builder. We all know that Shammai was a builder. Of course, aside from being a tremendous talmudachem, he was a builder. And the implication of the Gemara is that he hit him with his measuring stick and pushed them away. Balif Nehiel He came to Hilo, Gairei. Beis Hilo converted him. Hilo converted him. Amar Lo, and he says to him The olach snei lachaver, lo tavid That which you hate, don't do to your friend. Zui Kola Taira Kula. This is the entire Taira. Ve'idach Perushu, and everything else is just an explanation of this. Zil Gmar. Go and learn it. If you look carefully at the Gemara, there are so many beautiful hidden messages in this Gemara. We'll just pull out a few.

8:50 A guy comes to Shamay and he says, "Be megayer me on condition that I should That you should teach me." Call a Torah kula regalachas. What does this mean? So I want to share with you what I think this guy was saying. To be a ger Is to be from the holiest souls that exist in this world. The Torah says that Mashiach will not come until all of the gerim are rounded up from all of history and brought back to Klal Yisrael. In fact, many years ago when I was in Talmud Ivora, I once gave this year, not on this particular piece, but I spoke about the notion of gerus. And the Chazal don't call it goishin es ger, but gerishin es ger. That the soul of a ger is already a Jew It's just that it's somehow in a gayish body, and that when that ger reveals itself, that's the highest level of bringing a kadosh baruch hu into dira betachtonim. When the soul of a ger reveals itself to be a Jew, that's the highest possible thing. And unbeknownst to me, there was a mother in the audience. I saw her in the back, and she was sitting and crying.

10:03 I had no idea why she was crying. And afterwards, she came over to me and she said, "I want you to know that I'm a giyiris." And I've told my daughter my entire life. You have to understand. I knew that I was a yid. But I never thought my daughter would believe me. And you have no idea what it meant to hear this tonight. That it happens to be that punked the night that I'm here. That you said this tirah to be a ger. We cannot possibly imagine the gevura that it takes for that type of soul to reveal itself in the world. But we say to a ger that if you want to become part of klal yisrael. So you have to be all in. You have to be mekabel al machus shamayim. So this ger, this guy That comes to Shamay, he's concerned. It's a concern that every one of us has.

10:51 How can I tell you that I'm mekabel al machus shamayim? How can I tell you that I'm tachas kanfei hashchina when I feel like I'm alregalachas? When I feel like my yiddishkeit is shaky Like I don't want to, I don't always want to do everything And I don't always feel connected. And I don't always feel passionate. And other rabbis, sometimes I do the wrong thing. Sometimes I say things that I shouldn't say. I think things that I shouldn't think. I do things that I'm not proud of. I feel like my life is an alregalacha's type of life. I don't feel planted. I don't feel grounded. I don't feel like I have two feet on the ground that keep me stable. I'm sitting in America right now. I'm doing fahers all day long. I'm doing fahers for the boys. Running around this week, I was in Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland.

11:37 Today back in New York So I talk to the boys. What are you looking for when you come to Yeshiva? What are we looking for? The boys all say the same thing. I'm so sick of feeling disconnected. I'm so sick of not knowing what I'm doing when I open up a seder. I'm so sick of opening up a blockamara and not feeling connected to the blockamara. And I don't see Hakadosh Baruch Hu in these things. And I want to feel connected. I feel shaky. I feel like so many taivas, so many things in this world. We all know what we're talking about. We don't have to say it out loud. Every one of us, as we're all coming from the same place of struggle, we're all friends here. We could talk about it. We should talk about it. At least here, we could talk about it a little bit with each other. That we wake up in the middle of davening and wonder how we got here. That half the time, it's more appropriate for us to make a tefillah saderich in the middle of Shemini Atseret because we've traveled thousands of miles in the span of just a couple of minutes.

12:30 The Rav of Meishul is very fond of saying that when does a person have kavanah in davening? When he has to say the shir shel yom, because he has to think about what day it is today. Because who amongst us, when we're davening, literally we even call it that. We davened it up. We don't even like who could have kavanah in davening? And to do that every day To show up to daven every single day. I was on the phone with a young woman this week. She's in the parsha and she's dating one of the boys. And he's a boy who's also doing his best. He's struggling with his Yiddishkeit. He's a good boy. He's struggling. Not everybody is a kopi. Should enjoy But you should know, this girl she's like. I don't understand. What does it mean? Minion, not minion. I said I just want you to understand what it means. The commitment for a person to go to minion.

13:23 I know I'm speaking to a group of women, but I want you to know what your husbands or your future husbands are going to struggle with. To wake up in the morning to go to shul, to drive to shul to go to daven, to put in half an hour or forty five minutes every single day into shachris in the middle of your day to stop and go to mincha and at night to have myrav and to learn a daf yomi. It's heroic what these boys are doing. It's heroic. It's an unbelievable thing that a person is putting two and a half hours into their day. And on top of that, to feel like, but how can I be passionate about it and how many girls, years later, come to me after seminary and say When I was in Yeshalayim And I felt it, and it was alive, and it was vibrant. How long since I felt it? To get caught up in the mundane aspects of life—for those of you that are with me, we all know what I'm talking about.

14:18 It's not an easy thing when we're caught up with all of the responsibilities of the home. To remain committed, to remain passionate, and to feel connected, we're al regalachas type of Jews. This guy is speaking for every one of us. How can I say that I'm tachaskan fi aschino? How can I say that I'm matabel omach shamayim if I feel like I'm al regalachas? And Shamay gave him an answer. Shamay, of course, did not hit him with a stick. That's not the way of gadolim. I had the privilege of knowing several gadolim in my life. To think that a gadol b'tayra would hit a Jew with a stick and push him away is not shaych. There's no way that's the pshat in the gemara. I remember once we had a boy in yeshiva who went to Rvchaim Kaniewski. It's a chetzadik kol shevracha And Rvchaim had a wonderful sense of humor. For those of you who heard the stories of Rvchaim's sense of humor, and the boy he had longer hair. You know this boy. Remember him? Was it a year dafka right?

15:17 And he had longer hair. And Rav Chaim looks at his gabay with a big smile on his face. He wanted to tell the boy it was not so appropriate to have such long hair. So he looks at his gabay and with a smile and a beautiful—if you knew Rav Chaim—he had a beautiful smile. He looks at me and says, "Zeish oisha." He had a sweet sense of humor. I had the opportunity once to have a yechidus with Avraham Leib Steinman, the sweetest sense of humor, the most normal, down to earth person. How could it be that Shmaya took a stick and hit another Jew? It can't be that that's the pshat in the gemara. So Shammai was clearly giving this Gair an answer. He was saying to him, There's something measurable about yiddishkeit. There's something measurable about yiddishkeit. It's called halacha. Halacha is measurable. You daven in this time. You wait this amount of time between meat and milk.

16:10 These are the halachas. That's the measurable aspects of yiddishkeit. And the Gemara here is clearly being critical on some level of Shammai of that answer. To come to a yid and say this is what we do. It pushes people away. When they're in a state of alregalachas to give that answer to somebody, it's a feeling of pushing them away. Somebody comes to us and they say, "I feel like I'm shaky in my yiddishkeit." The response to them is not, "This is what you have to do." Of course, they know what they have to do. That's not the answer. So this guy continues on, but listen carefully to the words of the Gemara. Look what it says: Bal ifnei Hilla, he came to Hilla Gaire And Hilla converted him. Where's the question? This guy never comes to Hilla and says, 'Convert me, Almanas, that you're going to teach me Kol Torah Kula or Regal Achas.' What happened to that question? How come he doesn't ask Hilla that question? Hilla just converts him.

17:07 And then Hilla comes to him and he says to him. Everything in the Torah is don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself. What is Hillel talking about here? So I'll tell you the secret. The secret is that there are people in our lives that are Hillel types of people That they are shining lights And when you come to their presence, you'd no longer feel like it's not okay to be yourself. There's a sense of belonging that you have when you come to these tzaddikim. That even if you feel al regalachas, it's not the pshat that you feel like when I am in the presence of this tzaddik, I am no longer al regalachas. You also feel al regalachas, but you feel like it's okay. It's fine to be al regalachas. I'll be okay even if I fall. That was the avirah, that was the aura that Hillel had. So when this guy showed up at the house of Hillel, all he said, he never said the words 'teach me kol Torah kula al regalachas.' He never said those words because they were no longer relevant to him. He just said, 'Be magayir me,' and Hilla was magayir.

18:08 And then, because Hilla was a perceptive Rebbe Hilla looked at him and he said to him, "I see you." I see you. So I am going to teach you the secret. This is the secret of Kula Taira Kula. But it's not a secret that I can tell you, and then you are just going to know it. It's a secret that I am going to tell you, and then you have to go learn it for yourself. It's not enough for me to teach you this." Taira Hilla says, "You have to listen to this Taira, and then you have to go find it. The secret of everything in Yiddishkeit is love." Everyone, love everything. That's the secret. That's all of Torah. This is what makes no sense to the guyim of the world. A guy could maybe get his head wrapped around the fact that there's a God, that there's a prime mover. That there's something that begat all of this, that there's something instead of nothing, that something did this. Makes sense.

18:57 But to think that being created out of love. Oylem Chesed Yibane, that's something that's for Yidden. That's what we brought to the world. That's what Avraham Avinu brought to the world. That we're not here just to stand because Hakadosh Baruch Hu had a desire for there to be something. He didn't just snap his fingers and say, 'Let's see what happens.' But that the entire Torah, the entire world is a hava. I'll share with you something. It's still wild that I'm going to share this story. My Rebbe shlita should be zeicher rofur shalema. Much, much later on in his life, much, much later on in his life, he started to learn chesedus. My rebbe was the ultimate Litvak. Is the ultimate Litvak? I shouldn't say was. Ninety-four years old, Shvi Zaycher Rufur Shleima. He's he's the ultimate Litvak A brisker through and through. At the end of my rebbe's time, when he was still able to open up a sefer He started learning chesedus.

19:58 And this was a shock to all of the talmidim, to all of us who grew up knowing my rebbe, and I had the privilege of spending eight years by my rebbe. The fact that my rebbe would open up Sifrei Chasidus didn't make any sense. So I asked my rebbe if the rumors were true, and he said, "Yes, I've been learning certain Sifrei Chasidus. I won't tell you which ones; it doesn't matter." But the ones that you are thinking of—that's the ones he was learning. We don't say it out loud. So I asked him, 'Rebbe, what's the pshat you are learning, Sifrei Chasidus?' He said, 'Mordechai, I'm afraid of my yom hadin.' So I was. If Rebbe is afraid of his yom hadin, after fifty years of teaching Torah, of tens of thousands of talmidim, I said, 'Rebbe, we have none of us have any shot if you're afraid of your yom hadin.' My Rebbe said, 'Mordechai, you don't know what goes on inside of a person.' He gave me some sort of answer and he pushed me away. But I'm persistent. I said, 'Really, Rebbe, what's going on?' He said, 'Mordechai, I'm afraid of my yom hadin' And Chassidus teaches us that din is really a hava.

20:55 That Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not looking to punish us. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not looking to push us away. That there's a notion of accountability in this world, not because Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't care about us, but Ad Rava, because in real relationships there's a notion of accountability because of the love that we have for each other. And before my yom haMizra, I want to have in my heart. This is what my Rebbe said. I want to have in my heart that Hakadosh Baruch Hu loves me. This is what Hillel was teaching him. He said, "You feel like you're aregalachas. It's okay to feel aregalachas." But you should know that there's not only the body of Torah. There's the soul of Torah. There's not only the halacha that's measurable. There's the part that's immeasurable. I heard many years ago from Rav Moshe Weinberger a ma'isa. And he said that this ma'isa is not just a specific ma'isa. He said this ma'isa happens all the time.

21:46 He said a couple comes to him A husband and a wife. And they're having shalom bayis issues and they come to Rav Weinberger to discuss the shalom bayis issues that they're having. And so Rav Weinberger says, "who wants to go first?" And the husband says, "I'll go first." So he says, "what's going on?" So the husband says to Rav Weinberger, 'Rebbe, no matter what I do, it's not enough.' It's not enough. You familiar with this tanya from your husband's? You ever have this? First of all, to the married women in the audience who just betrayed themselves. I just want to say thank you very much. I appreciate knowing that I'm not the only one. Every married couple has this. The wife, he says, Rabbi, I feel like I'm not enough. I don't understand. I don't understand what I'm doing. That's so wrong. I'm, I'm, I'm. I work hard. I'm the little league coach. I change a light bulb. I take out the garbage. And the entire time that he's speaking The wife is sitting there with her arms crossed and she's shaking her head. He says, 'You see, Rabbi, even now, it's not enough. Nothing's ever going to be enough for her.'

22:51 So Weinberger turns to the wife and he says to the wife He says I don't know. Seems like a good guy. What's going on? So she says to him, 'Rebbe, do you think I married him to take out the garbage?' You think I married him to change the light bulb? You think I married him to make a good parnasa? It's nice that we have a good parnasa, but I didn't marry him for these things. I married him because of the way that he looked at me under the chuppah. When's the last time that he looked at me that way? And she's right. The husband is talking about that which is measurable, the shamai, that which you could say the halacha. He's saying, "I did good" I did good, right? You're gonna come, you say, "Look, I come home, I do good, I treat you nice, I do good, right? But there's a soul of a relationship. There's a hava.

23:37 There has to be a love that's inside That's inside of the halacha. It's not enough, and we know it's not enough. That's why it bothers us so much. It bothers us so much that we're showing up to our yiddishkeit and we're doing exactly what we need to be doing. But the kids who are rebelling today are not rebelling because they're bad. They'll literally say these words out loud. "I don't understand what you want me to do. You really just want me to say these words, really? That's what you want me to do? I don't understand why you want me to say these words." And they're right. A kid said to me today, "I struggle with davening because I don't know what the words mean." So I pushed back. I said, "You struggle with davening because you don't know what the words mean. If you knew what the words meant," Would you like it? He goes, no, probably not. I said exactly. I've read the English. You've read the English. First of all, who knows what the word "sela" means? Nobody knows what the word "sela" means. That's not like there's a maysa. I don't want to say the rebbe's name, but there was a rebbe in Florida who was teaching a boy bar mitzvah lessons and he had the kid who had a really good father.

24:34 And the father said to the son, "I want you to learn how to daven musaf" Not just to pray, but also to daven musaf. And not only do I want you to learn to daven musaf for the yomim, I want you to know the niggun. The father said, 'I want you to know all the words.' He was a really good father, and he heard this complaint from his older children. I don't know what the words meant, so he hired this rebbe not only to teach Kriyas HaTayra. He hired the rebbe that he should be able to what's that? He should be able to teach the boy Musaf and what all the words mean. So they're going through the words, and the boy is sitting and learning. And the boy, sheepishly, a twelve-year-old boy, looks at this rebbe. He was a dear friend of mine, and he says to the rebbe, 'Can I ask you a question?' I know that Amein means Kong, but what does it really mean? And most of us grow up that way with our davening.

25:21 What does the word Hallelujah mean? You look at the English. There's never been a good translation of the sitter. There's translations that tell you what the words say, but a sitter that inspires the soul. Davening is not about saying the words. It's never been about saying the words, and we know it. The words were always a vehicle for having a deeper conversation. It's not about waiting between meat and milk. It's the notion that if Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants something from me, then my everything belongs to him. The way that I eat, the way that I drink, the way that I come out of the bathroom, the way that I put my shoes on in the morning—all of this is an act of love. But who feels it? Who feels it? Zilgomer—that's our job. It's not enough. It's not enough to know it. It's not enough to hear a shir. Hillel had it.

26:15 So anyone that was in the presence of Hillel, they felt not the body of Yiddishkeit, they felt the soul of Yiddishkeit. That's what made this guy feel comfortable. But it's something Hillel says to him: "You have to discover this on your own." You have to bring it out into your Yiddishkeit. Girls come to seminary and they taste it, but it's a tamchinam as we say in Eretz Israel. It's a free taste. To come to your shalayim and to taste it when you have no other responsibilities and you're totally focused—that's the easy stuff. But to find that afterwards when you're busy When you have children, when your teenage daughters are driving you crazy When you're in the middle of shalom bias issues and davening to Hakadosh Baruch Hu feels like you're the last person I want to speak to. That's when Yiddishkeit becomes real. That's what makes Yiddishkeit beautiful.

27:11 That's what it means to have more blank spaces than writing. In a song It's not only the notes that are played; it's the notes that are not played. The pauses in the song, in a certain way, are more beautiful than the song itself. What does that mean? There's a difference between music and sounds. Sounds are measurable; music is not measurable. Art is not color. Color is measurable. But you can't measure art. It's like many years ago I was giving a shiur in Nitzias Yekholo And I said to a boy, "Is love just chemicals?" It was a sixteen-year-old boy So he said yes. So I said, "Yeah, like it's just oxytocin to you. That's all it is. It's just serotonin." So it's a sixteen-year-old, so now he's dug in deep. He goes, "Exactly. All it is chemicals." I said, "Tell me, you're going to get married." He goes, "Yeah, hopefully." I was like, in the back of my head, "Good luck with that." But I don't want to say that out loud. You don't want to make anybody feel bad. So I said to him, "So you're going to get down on one knee" And you're going to look up at your Kala. I'm sure this is not the way you got engaged. And you're going to look up at her in the beautiful forests of Muncie, and you're going to look up and say, 'Marry me.' Nobody makes me secrete serotonin like you.

28:33 So he goes, "Yeah." So I was like, "Say it." Love is not chemicals. Chemicals are that which is measurable. The love is the immeasurable part. Poetry is not words. It's the immeasurable part of poetry that makes it beautiful. It's the blank spaces. It's the immeasurable part of music that makes it more special than the words. That's why some of the best nigunim have no words. It's like sometimes when you are listening. I remember many years ago I had the privilege of When I was in seventh grade, I had Rabbi Mordechai Finkelman as a rebbe. Mordechai Finkelman today is the Mashgiach of Aruchayim. He's a tzaddik yisoid elam And to see him daven was to know what it meant to actually daven. And I remember he gave a shmooz. We were in seventh grade. We didn't know much, but Finkelman gave a shmooz, and he said, "Boys I'm very careful about the music that I listen to. So please don't be offended if I walk out when they start playing the song 'Mashiach' by Mordechai Ben David. Because to me, that's not Jewish music. It's not soulful music. It's too much rock.

29:41 And I wonder. I haven't spoken to Rabbi Finkelman in a very long time. But I wonder what he would say about our music today. Is this music that stirs the soul? Music has the capacity to make people feel incredible things. Because it's life itself. It's not the measurable part. It was a boy, a couple years younger than me. Unfortunately, he passed away. He was very close friends with my little brother. I remember when his mother passed away, and he was a boy who suffered tremendously in his life and was no longer observant. He had very long dreadlocks. And his mother, right before she passed away, she asked him, "Before I die, I'd like you to cut your hair. I just want to see my baby one more time before" And before I go, I'd like to see you the way that you were. And he was a respectful young man.

30:29 He had a lot of challenges in his life, but he shaved his dreadlocks. And I came to pay a shivakol And he was sitting there with this shaved head And I hadn't seen him with a shaved head in a very long time. Sitting shmosing with him, And he said to me, "halacha is a very appropriate thing." So I didn't know what he was saying. If just be quiet a lot of times, especially at a shivakol Because people say awful things at a shivakol. So I was listening And he goes Not listening to music is exactly what I need right now. So I said, 'What do you mean? In what way?' He said, 'If I listened to music, it would make me feel better, and I don't want to feel better right now.' That music has the capacity to uplift our soul in such an unbelievably holy way because it's not measurable. There are songs that when you listen to them, they're so exceptionally powerful.

31:23 It's why we're making to listen to music that was written by holy people That the negunim of tzaddikim have a way of just. Of changing a person I remember I was once in a yeshiva many, many years ago. And it wasn't a yeshiva that I was happy to be in. Friday night, the rasha shiva got up and said, "New boys, let's sing some z'miros." And so it was a yeshiva with boys that didn't know z'miros. It was a yeshiva of boys that didn't know what it meant to sing Shabbos z'miros. There was—a gayish band that had just come out at the time. I shouldn't say their name. It means I'm going to say their name. I'm probably going to end up saying their name. That's what I do. There's a band called Green Day that had just come out. Some of you have not heard of this band. Probably nobody heard of this band. So there was a very trashy band that had come out at the time, and the boys started singing Zmirus from the new album.

32:20 And it was Friday night, and I had known because I had gone to Darche for a couple of years, so I knew what Shabbos Zmirus meant. I was sitting there going. That's what we're doing right now. And even though I wasn't the most observant kid, I knew that was wrong. I knew you don't sing gaishes zmiros at a Shabbos table. But to sing karibon To sing over and over again, to have a home of zmiros. To have a home where I remember I once heard from Rezucker. I was talking to Rezucker and I said, Rebbe, what does a What does a Shabbos table look like? So he said, good food. Say some devar Torah, and then you know maybe an hour and a half, two hours of sing. And Ruzoker is a real tzaddik, and I was like, did Rebbe just say an hour and a half, two hours of sing? So he goes, yeah. Where else are you going to go? So I was like, I was growing up in a different world.

33:14 To sleep. I'm used to Shabbos is the more you sleep on Shabbos, the better it is. And it was the first time in my life that anybody had told me that there was a notion of singing Shabbos miros over and over again. That you see these boys who are coming from homes where they didn't necessarily have zmiros, and that you put them at a tish, and all of a sudden they're on fire, and they're closing their eyes, and it moves you in a certain way, even physically. Music has the capacity to do that. The blank spaces of the music have the capacity to lift you up. And perhaps this is what it means that in Mitzrayim we had emuna. What does it mean to have emuna in galus? The amuna of galus is that there's a physical aspect to galus. There's I work for paru I have no das for myself.

34:08 But that's only the measurable part of galus. Klal Yisrael has always believed that there was something deeper than that which is measurable. The immeasurable part of galus is the idea that all of galus exists. To be mevi a geula, a person cannot have redemption without having gullus in their life. That yidden in Mitzrayim the entire time that they were there, like yidden in the Holocaust. So many yidden in the Holocaust had this, and we hear these crazy meisim. That yidden in the Holocaust who were in the Holocaust, who crazy terrible things were happening to them But the idea that they were there for no reason was foreign to them. That there was a notion that all of this is coming for a particular redemption. That's the That's the blank spaces of gulas. The blank spaces of gulas are the redemption that exists within the gulas. And so, Klal Yisrael that had that type of emuna They were zeichet to sing.

35:07 Music is always born from a place of pain. Some of the most beautiful music that was ever written was written from the most tragic of circumstances. Klal Yisrael didn't sing by Kriyas Yamsuf because it was the first song. Klal Yisrael was singing by Kriyas Yamsuf because they sang for two hundred and ten years. That when they were sitting and doing that backbreaking labor, and when their children were being murdered in front of them, and all the horrific things that the Medrashim Chazal They were singing the entire time. That a yid never loses faith. I remember I asked my grandmother once. She became a balash chuvat seventy years old. It's an unusual thing to become a balash chuvat seventy. Her two daughters had become from my grandmother mamish She was the most special person in the entire world. And I asked her, Grandma, why'd you become a balash chuvat seventy?

36:06 And she started dressing sneis, and she was keeping Shabbos, and she was matbed on kosher, and she didn't even go out to eat anymore. When everybody else was going out, she wouldn't go with them. And she didn't go to any Eishat Torah discovery seminar. She didn't like. There was no cataclysmic event in her life. One day, she was observant and judgmental of all my cousins that weren't observant. She managed to become a fully Orthodox lady. So she said, "Well, I knew it was right, " and that was the whole thing. It was just, I knew it was right. My grandmother didn't know how to read Hebrew. She didn't know anything. She never had a basic education. She was a She was a woman who grew up in the times of the depression. She didn't know anything. All she had was the emuna pshuta of a year to know there's an eibister and this is the right thing to do And eventually she said it's the right thing to do.

37:05 And my aunt Ruthy Who was my grandmother's older sister, who turned a hundred years old this year? By my grandmother's ninetieth birthday party On the video My great aunt Ruthy. And she's not an observant lady, Ruthie. But she starts talking, and she says, "Sarah" You have no idea how proud our parents are of you in Shamayim that you keep Shabbos, that you keep kosher, and that you're tzeis and you're doing it right. And in my heart, I was like listening to my aunt Ruthie You know it's right. I didn't always know that my aunt Ruthie knew it was right. I thought. Say they like maybe thought my like my side of the family. I thought maybe they thought we were crazy. That's the side of the family. Growing up in my family, I was the black sheep of the family. I remember when my parents had already made aliya, so I was the family representative.

38:01 So we got an invitation to a bar mitzvah from one of my cousins in a club in the city. And it said on the invitation, club attire requested. So I didn't know what club attire was. It had been a very long time since I had even thought about what club attire was. So I thought it would be very funny to go in a bekasha, on a matzah Shabbos to the city, to some fancy club where they're having the bar mitzvah. I walked in and I forgot what I looked like, because in my mind the bekasha is still a normal thing to wear. I walked in wearing a bekasha, but I looked like one of these thugs with a long leather coat. So I walked in and my cousins came running over to me and they're like What are you wearing? So I looked at them totally deadpan. I said, "Club attire." So they're like, that's not club attire. I'm like, this is what Orthodox Jews wear to the club, and they're like, they had no idea.

38:52 That's what Orthodox Jews. I thought there were so many tach. They thought we were nuts. It's not true. It's not true. My aunt Ruthie, she had this. She has this incredible emuna pshuta, and she has so much nachas from her son who became from. As Yosher is the song that every Jew has to start their day with. You can't start your day without knowing that there's something deeper that you're doing. That there's a life that's inside of existence. That it's not just packing up lunch for your kids. But it's the smile that you send your kids off with. That it's waking up early in the morning to play backgammon with my six-year-old son. And that just now I got on the phone with him. I miss them very much. Being in America, I just now got on the phone with my six-year-old son, and he said, "but when are you coming back?" So I said, "Bez Hashem, I'm coming back Sunday night." He goes, "Will you be up to play backgammon?

39:53 " And like, Like that's with you, that's all I really want to do. I just really want to play backgammon with him. And it's not because I want him to win. I just want to spend time with him. And I just want to hang out with them. That's what we want. We just want to hang out with our children. My daughter is getting married a week from Sunday. And that's why I have to go back. My wife told me I have to come back for the chasna. And I just I just want to chop these last minutes with her. It's it's not. I don't know if I could remember the physical words of the conversations we've had over the last twenty years. But I know the feeling I know the life that was inside of it. I want that for my yidishkeit. I don't want to just say the words of davening anymore. I want to feel. I want to feel like it's lebedik. I want to feel like it's alive.

40:44 I want to feel like I'm playing backgammon with that kaddish baruch hu. I want to feel like I'm just having a conversation, like I'm talking to somebody that I love and that I treasure. That's the way Yid starts our day. It's a tchiyas amesim. The body dies, but the soul doesn't die. The soul is life itself. The soul can't possibly die. So the physical body has died, but the life is not gone. The life is still there, and it can rejuvenate and rebuild. And we all want to be able to greet the people we love. I'm looking forward to giving my grandmother a hug again. But a tchias amesim I need for myself. I'm not just waiting for a tchias amesim in the future. I need a tchias amesim in my yiddishkeit. I need to feel alive again in my yiddishkeit. So I'll share with you one final story.

41:35 It's the most beautiful ma'aseh. Story of the Belzer Rebbe. The Belzer Rebbe lost everything in the Holocaust. He was a very high profile person. And they murdered his wife, and they murdered all of his children, and they murdered all of his grandchildren. And ach zisimach shemam. And in an amazing way The Belzer Rebbe's brother, his half brother, and he all escaped into Eretz Yisrael in February 1944. And the Belzer Rebbe remarried, but he didn't have any children. But his half brother of Mordechai, he also remarried, and he had a child. And in a very short while later, Mordechai died. And the little baby Yisachar Dov, who's currently the Belzer Rebbe, was raised by the Belzer Rebbe. He was raised and groomed to become the Belzer Rebbe. And the Belzer Rebbe said he told his Chassidim not to say Kaddish or not to say Yizker for any of the Kadoshim that were murdered in the Holocaust. He felt that even to say kaddish, even to say yizkor, would Would be a tragedy for them. Those words don't apply to those kedusha.

42:41 And as a ma'aseh, that the first Shabbos in 1944, in February of 1944 When the Belzer Rebbe was in parshas bashalach, and he was in Haifa for Shabbos And he decided to have a tish. So whatever Hasidim were in Eretz Yisrael, whatever Belzer Hasidim were in Eretz Yisrael, they came to the tish. And there were Holocaust survivors that were present at the Tish in 1944. There were people that had managed to escape but they lost everything. And the Rebbe decided that rather than have a regular Tish, he was going to speak And he was going to address those Hasidim that were there And he was going to try to say something to them. So the Belzer Rebbe asked Arkasha. He said, "What's the connection between Tchias Amesim and Kriyas Yamzuf?" Listen to the words of the Belzirab. He said, "You know what it must have been like to be there at Kriyas Yamsuf" When so many Yidden had died in Makkas Chayshch When only twenty percent of Klal Yisrael came out alive.

43:46 How did they sing Shirah? How did they sing Shirah when their brothers and their sisters and their mothers and their fathers and their grandparents didn't make it out? So he said, "Oz Yashir." We can sing because we know what's happening. We can sing because we know there's a geula, because one day these people will sing with us. And it's true that we lost our families and we lost all the people that we love. But the story is not yet over. That was the Belzer Rebbe's chizuk, especially for somebody like himself who had lost so much. That was the chizuk that he had given to all those yidden that night. The story is not over. That gulas is a Temporary predicament. It's just a gateway to Gula. And especially now As Hashem, we should continue to be safe in all the lands throughout the entire world.

44:42 But it's also clear the last year was a tremendous rise in anti-Semitism in America. And it's also true that in Eretz Yisrael we just had that horrific terror attack that claimed the lives of those kadoshim that were standing outside of Shul on a Friday night. And we're in gullets everywhere we go, and the pain that Klal Yisrael experiences is something that knows no bounds. I remember the day we got the phone call that Ary Fold was murdered. Ary Fold was a cousin. My family, my wife's family. That didn't keep getting these phone calls. All over the world, I keep getting these phone calls. Not just from terror attacks, not just from terrible things that have happened, but the lack of connection that so many of us are feeling—it's a function of galus. And so many of us can't take it anymore, and we're trying so hard to end this galus. And the only way that we're going to be able to end the galus is if we have emuna. Emuna that all of this is happening just to bring about the ultimate redemption. That this is kulo ahava. And as Hashem, we should be zeicher to sing the song of Mashiach Zaken. May it be aminu amin.