Parshas Bo - Destroying The Arrogance of Pharoah

1:59 All of this world, all of humanity, everything boils down to Gaiva versus God, arrogance and ego versus godliness, and the question is: in this war of selfhood versus godliness, who will win? That is the entirety of the Torah in one line, and I'll show you what I mean. This world, when you look at it, it does not project a creator. Despite everything you've heard in all of your Eishat Torah Shirim, it doesn't project a creator. If you look at this table, the table by itself does not proclaim that there is a God. In fact, quite the opposite. Everything about this world points to the fact that it exists. We have no clue when we look at the table.

2:58 That the existence is fueled by something other than the table. In Judaism, we call that thing God. So it goes as follows: When you look at a table, there are two ways of looking at the table. If you just look at the table and say, 'I exist,' not because of anything else, simply because I exist. That's the entirety of the table. Judaism comes along like every religion and says something beyond that. It says, 'You exist' because there's a godly will for you to exist, or to put it differently, the table is arrogant. If the table could speak, what would be the arrogance of the table? 'I exist, and I'm not dependent on anything else.' What would a Jew say when it sees a table? What would a Jew say, girls? The only reason that you have any existence is because God wills for you to exist.

3:55 And it's arrogant for you to proclaim that you exist on your own. Now it's difficult for us to think about this when it's a table, so let's just move it to ourselves for a second. Who does our life belong to? A couple years ago, I gave this year in Mivaseret, and there were boys that were deeply offended by this concept. I said, 'Who does your life belong to?' They said, 'It belongs to me,' and I have free choice. I said, 'No.' It belongs to God, and you have free choice. What do you mean? My life doesn't belong to me. It's not mine. I said exactly. Then who does it belong to? It belongs to God. Then why did He give it to me? He lent it to you. He lent it to you. He gave you free choice to do with it what you want. But it's not your life. In fact, walking around saying this is my life and I could do with it what I want is exceptionally arrogant. And I'll give you the proof that it's not your life.

4:52 You were born against your will, and you will die against your will. If it was yours, you wouldn't be born because the soul would have no desire to come into this world, and you certainly wouldn't die, because every one of us wants to remain alive. Fair? I'm coming from a levaya. A very close friend of mine lost his mother, a very beautiful levaya. Why? Because they were talking about not what she took, but what she gave, and isn't that what every funeral is about? It's about the impact you make on something else. Because it would be exceptionally wrong to get up at a levaya and say, 'This person believed that life belonged to herself, and this is what she took from life.' That would be the least inspiring funeral of all time. We would feel awkward at such a funeral. What do we hear when we go to a funeral?

5:49 By the way, funerals. I know some people, including myself, find funerals exceptionally inspiring, because you think about like, okay, when you're summing up your life at the end of your life, what are they talking about? And so this levaya that I just came from, exceptionally inspirational. What did she give to the world? Her home was a place where everybody felt comfortable. She was just so interested in peace. She was ove shalom, vero de shalom, ove misabriosum, mekarvel la torah. I know people that became from in this woman's home. So if you think about it's my life, then you're going to be a taker. But if you think about that it's God's life, then you're going to be a giver. Does this make sense so far? Now the question is, and this is a big question. Now we're doing a lot of hashkafot. The question is, why is it that if I think life belongs to me, if I'm arrogant, if I believe that myself exists independently of God?

6:46 Why am I naturally a taker? So far, you got the question. Say one more time. Make sure you have the question. If you believe that life belongs to you, that your existence is independent and separate from God, you will be a taker. The question is why. Got it. In order to understand this, we need to go back. Did I ever tell you girls the story of Davy, the learning disabled kid in JoKul? So that same principle. Can life die? What would you say? Can life die? No. Life cannot die, any more than salt can go bad. If salt goes bad, what do you know about it, girls? It's not salt. Because what's the nature of salt?

7:41 It doesn't go bad. It's a preservative. That's what it does. So if salt would go bad, the first thing you would say is that must not be salt. If life can die, what should your first response be? That's not life. So there's two conditions. One is called life, and the other is called alive. And we conflate these terms, and we shouldn't because they're very different. Life is the soul. Can the soul die? The soul cannot die any more than salt can go bad, because the soul is life itself. Does that make sense? Alive is the condition where the body borrows life from the soul. So that's what animates our body. Alive can stop. Life cannot die. Everyone understand the difference? Girls, when I ask if everyone can understand the difference, you need to at least do this so I can know that you're conscious.

8:39 Welcome back. Alive can die because alive is just a condition. It's a condition where the body borrows life from the soul. So one day you're alive, the next day you're not. But life cannot die. Life is assured. Life is guaranteed because life, by its nature, is eternal. God is life. Truly life. That's why God can't die. It wouldn't even make sense for him to die, and the soul is a piece of God. It's an expression of godliness in this world. The soul also can't die, but if you knew that you could die, if you're worried about being alive, which everybody in this room is, and rightfully so, then the feeling you would have in this world is desperation, because every moment that goes by is another moment that you're closer to death. So what do they say? The moment you're born, you begin to die. Why? Because from the consciousness of alive, that's true. A baby is a beautiful baby, and you look at that baby and you hope for eighty, ninety, a hundred twenty good years in this world. That's what we're all hoping, but we never know. There's all sorts of illness and terrible accidents that could happen. You never really know what's going to happen. Alive lives with desperation, knowing that one day it will end.

10:09 And if you lead a life of desperation, here's what you're going to do. Anyone here a lifeguard? You're a lifeguard. Where are you a lifeguard? Camp Simcha. And when you're a lifeguard, what's the first thing that they teach you? If a person is drowning, do you jump in to save them right away? You first assess the situation. Assess the situation.

10:39 Blow your whistle, right? Why do lifeguards do that? Lifeguards love blowing your whistle will save nobody. It's like the person is drowning, but I'm blowing my whistle. I didn't understand what happened. Every lifeguard loves when kids are running on the deck, blowing their whistle. Slow down. That's what all the lifeguards do. There's like two saves an entire summer, and they're off for nine days, and they get paid a fortune. Every lifeguard's like, but I had a whistle the whole time. We saved it. I have a little pent up resentment from when I was a kid against the lifeguards. When I was a kid growing up, and I took that ridiculous lifeguarding course. They told me, reach or throw, but don't go. Your first thing is if you have one of those like rubber, you know those rubber, those long rubber thingies, and they have the string on it. The first thing you do is you throw it to the person. They grab onto that, and then you pull them in. Why? Why was that the first move? Do they not teach that anymore? They do. They really should. I think they should. I think they do. Why is that the first rule? Anybody who knows anything about someone drowning knows.

11:37 That if you get even near them, what are they going to do? They're going to try to push you down so that they can breathe. Is that logical? That's not logical. That's a ridiculous thing to do. You're coming to save me. What am I going to do? I'm going to push you down. So I was taught. Reach or throw, but don't go. But if you have to go, the first thing you have to do while you're coming is you say, "I'm coming to save you." Just put your hands in the air, right? Because they will try to push you down. Let's say somebody you're trying to save, somebody, and they're pushing you down. What do they teach you? At least this is what they taught me back in 1996. What do they teach you? You knock them out. Punch them in the face, and you knock them out, and then you drag them back to shore.

12:16 They do. Maybe not in camp Simpa, but in Simpa day camp, that's how they taught us. They did tell us that. It makes perfect sense because that person is going to kill you while you're trying to save them. Because the consciousness of the body is, I'm going to die, and when the body is threatened and death is present for the body, what starts to happen? The body will get crazy. And it will do absolutely irrational things. It will even kill someone else by pushing them down and drowning them underwater, just to get a breath of fresh air themselves. What would the godly soul say in that moment? The godly soul that's eternal, that knows that it's going to live forever because it is life itself. Would the godly soul say, "Take another life to save your own"? No. No way. The godly soul would never say that.

13:11 So the godly soul's consciousness is, I am life. I don't live with this impoverished desperation that I have to grab every single minute. What does alive say? Alive lives with fear and anxiety. Alive is terrified that it might end. But isn't your like, I understand the distinction, but doesn't what you do in this world totally affect your eternal life? So you would be like, move, because you want to do the right thing, so you can get more love out. Let's think about that for a second. Does the godly soul have a place in the world to come? I think so. I would think so. Does the godly soul need to earn that place? Yes and no. On the one hand, you're right that we have a mission to perform in this world. On the other hand, you have to be really careful. Because if the godly soul is a piece of God, it already has a relationship with God. Does it need to earn that relationship? Did you earn your relationship with your parents? Your parents brought you into this world, and they would like you to participate in their home. That's let's say your mission. But at the same time, you're not doing it to earn their love. Your love is assured. One would hope.

14:40 Does that make sense? So the godly soul only wants to do what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants it to do, meaning it's not living from a place of fear. The godly soul doesn't have anxiety. Only the human soul has anxiety. There's two souls. And that is exactly what I wanted to get to. So thank you for bringing me right there. We have not one but two souls, and we often think of ourselves as one soul with two inclinations. I'm one soul with a Yetzer Har and a Yetzer Tov. And that's why we get so messed up, because we think to ourselves, "I'm like one person, and I don't even know who I am," because sometimes I have an inclination for this, and sometimes I have an inclination for that. What does it look like? Imagine you just heard an amazing shear. I'm not saying which shear, but let's say you just heard an amazing shear, and you resolved after this incredible shear. I'm not saying which one. I'm just saying this amazingly inspiring shear. You resolved. I'm now going to be more careful about.

15:38 And maybe you took it upon yourself to be careful when it comes to the realm of shomer negia. I'm just picking something out of a hat, right? And you're gonna be a little bit more careful when it comes to sneezes. I'm not saying it's just one thing. And then that night you happen to find yourself in a situation where somebody invites you to go to town, and so you're thinking, should I go? Should I not go? But it's like a free meal, and that's what we live for in seminary, right? And so I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I start to think about it like I just resolve to myself that I'm not going to town anymore. I'm going to really take a break from it. But now I'm making the decision that I'm going to go. So I go, but I see that guy that I like, just last week I saw and it was awkward because last week we were doing something that wasn't halachic and now we see him tonight and he comes out, he's like 'hey,' and you're like 'hey, you know, like what do you do?' So in that moment you feel totally disingenuous. You feel totally dishonest. You feel like a fraud. You feel like a faker and you say to yourself.

16:34 I don't even know who I am. An hour ago, I was Dustin Shear, and it was amazing, and it was mind blowing, and everything was crystal clear to me. And now, an hour later, I'm just about like maybe I should, because I don't want to make him feel bad. All the amazing lies that go through our head, because we can't be honest with another person that we're actually keeping halacha, so we have to say something. I don't know. I'm like not feeling well. I don't know what we do. Today, I remember like I was too afraid to tell people I was shomer negida, so I started dressing for him. That was the only I like. All my titties were out. I was like, I'm walking safer Torah. You're showing me the guillotine? I am. That's the best way I could avoid it, because I didn't have enough courage to actually say what I believed in. So we feel like such fraudulent people. If you know that you're two souls, then you know you're not a fraud. What are you? You were designed with confusion, so sometimes you feel one way and sometimes you feel another. You're not one soul. You're two. Your godly soul is infinite and eternal, and it's fine.

17:29 Your godly soul, when it comes to a test, you know what your godly soul says? It'll be fine. I'll be fine, but maybe I'm gonna fail. Maybe I'm gonna get a fifty, and if I get a fifty, I'm never gonna get into college. If I don't get into college, maybe I'm never gonna get a job. If I don't get a job, who's gonna wanna marry me? I can't support a husband, and he can't support me. I'm never gonna have children, and I'm gonna be fifty years old with cats. And it's like, chill out. It's eleventh grade chemistry. You're probably not going to need this ever, right? I'm saying. And if you do need it, by the way, you're probably fine on the eleventh grade chemistry test, right? Does that make sense? The animal soul, the human soul, is freaking out, because it leads a life of desperation, and it's terribly afraid because it knows that one day it's going to die. Nothing in its life is assured. The godly soul comes to a test and says, if I honestly feel and authentically feel that I tried my hardest, then no matter what happens, I'll be fine.

18:23 If it doesn't go well, I'm sure there'll be choices to make after that, and if it does go well, great. The godly soul doesn't get too high either when it does well on the test because it's just like, okay, great. You understand? It's not like going crazy because the reason you go crazy when you got a good mark on a test is because maybe I was gonna fail it, so I was like, woo, dodged another one, right? I remember I failed the math three regions twice. Twice, I thought you cared less in high school. I remember the least inspiring words my principal ever said to me. He called me in, and he goes, "Matt, my English name is Matt. That's how I grew up, Matt Berg." He goes, "Matt, I think we're beating a dead horse here." I was like, "Thanks a lot, jerk." Like we're beating a dead horse. You're like, "I'm incapable of doing the math. The numbers don't make any sense." You know, like you can't be like a normal functioning person in school after that.

19:13 I'm gonna try my hardest because you really believe in me. I'm the dead horse. I wish that was an exaggeration. That's literally what he said to me. And I'm sure he meant it quite innocently. I'm sure he meant that, maybe this is not what you're good at. You think so? Like a little gentle. But the godly soul doesn't get too high either because godly soul didn't just avoid death. It's like people who like roller coasters. Y'all who like roller coasters and skydiving and bungee jumping, those that like it, you're a little nuts. You're a little crazy because if you would think about that activity objectively, you would realize how ridiculously dumb that is. So I'm gonna tie my feet to a cord and jump off a bridge. It'll probably be fine. Most people are fine, right? Why would you do that? It's amazing. What's amazing about it? Because I could have died, right? Isn't that crazy? I could have died, but I didn't. Now I feel alive, right?

20:11 Makes no sense to me. I remember the first time I ever went on a roller coaster. My friend Chaim peer pressured me into going on a roller coaster. It was the great American scream machine back in 1994 in Great Adventure. And I remember being on the roller coaster, being on one of those loopsy loops. And I remember saying to him, "If we live through this, I'm gonna kill you." Like that's because it's so ridiculous to me that if you can't feel life until you're close to death, something is off. Does that make sense? Why are you close to death on a roller coaster? Because you might die. Because right now I'm not fifty feet up in the air, upside down, strapped in by a harness. Right now I seem to be okay. And of course you're not going to die. Of course you're not going to die, except for those that do. That's why when I was a kid, I used to take the kids. When I was a division head in camp, we used to take the kids to a place called Rye Playland. Oh yeah. Rye Playland had one death at least every summer.

21:07 I remember taking kids from Simchah Day Camp to ride playland. Let's see what happens. Two weeks ago, a kid died here. I tell the kids, I was like, 'Strap in tight.' You know, 'Oh, you gonna come with us?' Nope. I'm married with children. I have what to live for. Like, I'm not doing that. That's nuts. Until you're close to death, it's hard for some people to feel their life. What's another way of saying this? Another way of saying this is like this. What God wants more than anything in the world is to be in a relationship with us. That's really the whole point of everything, right? There's only one thing God can't do. God is perfect, so He can do everything. But there's one thing that a perfect being can't do. Only you can do this. A perfect being cannot choose themselves. Because if they choose themselves, then the other person didn't make the choice, right? Can you say that again?

22:05 It's okay. Think about it. It's a new concept. What God wants more than anything in the world is to be in a relationship with us. That's why He created us. All of this is to be in a relationship with us. So He creates us. If God gives us no free choice, and then makes us choose Him, is that meaningful? That's not a relationship. So God says to us, "Here, you're created. Go. You're real." Now, what's the only thing that God wants that He can't do? He can't choose himself. He needs us to choose him. It's a function of his perfection. People go, doesn't it make God imperfect? Because he's perfect. He can do everything. And if he forces us to choose him, then he's not really in a relationship. Does that make sense? Get it now? What's the barrier to entry in every relationship? Vulnerability is the birthplace of connection. We'll get to that in a moment.

23:03 The barrier to entry is arrogance, because what a relationship is a shared space. That's what a relationship is. So I'm me, and you are you, and each of us live within our own circle, right? And then we come together with great vulnerability and courage, and we open ourselves up, and we say, "Want to make a circle together?" And I'm gonna put down my arrogance, my needs, the things that I want, and you're gonna put down your needs, the things that you want, and together we're going to create this brand new thing called a relationship. Now it's very scary. Why is it very scary? Because every time you enter into a relationship, your human soul is terrified. Why is it terrified? Because maybe it's going to lose, maybe it's going to lose something. So what's it going to lose? We'll play it out, right? You start dating someone. You really like him. You start to open up to him. He starts to open up to you. But your human soul is thinking the entire time. What's it thinking?

24:02 Because maybe if I mess it up, he's going to break up with me, and then what happens? The human soul starts to go into that spiral, and if he breaks up with me, then I'm going to become an old man. I'm going to be the cat lady that's living by myself at 60 years old, and nobody's going to be with me. I'm going to die alone. Because he broke up with you. What's the fear? The fear is built on, I am only alive for a short amount of time, and so the beginning of every relationship is humility. There is nothing that can start without humility. So you enter into a relationship with an arrogant guy, run. Because he's never going to make space for you, because he's too afraid to make space for you. He's never going to really let you in and show you his world, because if he shows you his world, then he'll be vulnerable. If he's vulnerable, he could be hurt, and so you'll never really be in a relationship with him. You'll be in a relationship with a version of him, and while he's walking around out there in the world saying, "I'm the man," you're going to know that really he's a terrified little boy.

25:00 Nothing can go against what he wants, because if something goes against what he wants, he loses this light of life of desperation where he's going to push that kid under the pool just because he can get some fresh air. He's going to stand on other people to make himself feel tall. People do this all the time. They do it to their own children. People will verbally, emotionally, and even physically, if they're really sick, they'll abuse their own children to make themselves feel powerful. They can't let their kids win. You know where you see this a lot? Obviously, this is a much smaller example. The most heroic thing in the world, not the most heroic thing in the world, a very heroic thing is a mother who walks down the cookie aisle with her three-year-old child. That's true. What happens? You're sitting there in the cart. You got the little kid in the cart, and he's kicking his legs, short little stubby hands. And you're walking into the cookie aisle. See, we don't have cookie aisles in Israel. We just have like it's yesh, so like, what is there?

25:57 Those thin wafers. You don't really have much. But if you're in gourmet galore and you walk into the cookie aisle. The child looks around and he looks at you and he goes, "Look what we've discovered! It's every cookie in the world." And you see the look in your kid's face, and what do you say? Run. You say now. You say you had a cookie in the car, and if you're good on the way out, we'll give you a cookie. And the kid looks at you and he goes, "Really? You want to do this here?" Because children are exceptionally powerful, nothing to break their will. So what does the child start to do? The child starts to kick and scream and throw a temper tantrum. Next thing you know, the child is on the floor kicking and screaming, and everybody, because it's Thursday afternoon, when else are you going to do your shopping. It's Thursday afternoon, and every mother is there, and your child is kicking and screaming like a maniac, and they're looking at you and judging.

26:48 And you know they're judging. You see their eyes bearing into you, like if only that mother could get her stuff together and parent her child, like my angel child in the pasta aisle. In that moment, your ego takes over because your ego is like, it's so embarrassing. So what do you do? You yank that child up and you say, "Stop it!" You sit down. And the kid is not going to stop crying, and you're walking through an hour. I loved shopping in Brachzul of Ashkelon in the Five Towns. Because in Brachz they had a policy that if you came with a kid and you went to the bakery, they gave the kid a free cookie. That was my favorite thing. I would go right to the cookie thing. I would say, "We're getting you a cookie." And I hoped that the kid would eat that cookie slow enough that I could do the really quick shopping. Because if God forbid that cookie finished, then the kid goes, "I want another one now."

27:40 You had one when we came into the store, and if you're good, nope, this already battle's over, right? You lose that battle right away. But really, really, girls, what would you want if nobody was in the store? How would you want to parent that child? I guarantee you, you would not want to yank the kid up and shake the kid and put the kid real close to you and go, stop it! I guarantee you wouldn't want to do that. Maybe you would want to let the kid play it out until they realize it's not going to happen. Maybe the kid's going to learn a valuable lesson that way. Maybe when I get down on the floor and you want to sit there right next to the kid and say, I see that you're really sad. And validate the kid's feelings and let them know that it's okay to be uncomfortable, right? There's a lot of things you would do if your ego wasn't in the way. And even though that's a child, don't we do the same thing as adults? Every single time we meet someone, don't we show them a version of ourselves because we're afraid to tell them who we really are? Because if we tell them who we really are, we might be rejected. Didn't you do that when you first came to seminary? You're meeting all these new people, and you're like.

28:37 This is me. Two weeks later, they said, "No, it's not. We learned you already." Humility is the entrance fee that we pay to every relationship. If you want to be vulnerable, you need to take down your arrogance. If you want to create a space for another, you have to be willing to put yourself to the side. So God says, "Bo El Paro." Why? Come with me to Paro. What does God have to do with this, and why is God so obsessed with showing these signs? Isn't it true, girls, that God could have stopped after the first couple of makos? He could have stopped. What does He do? He hardens Paro's heart. Why? Because He wants Paro to get to a stage where the ego, because that's what Paro is, is obliterated. Had Hashem Baruch Hu taken us out after three or four makos, we could have gone out. Perhaps we could have even taken all the gold and silver of Mitzrayim out with us, but the ego would still be intact. We needed to get Mitzrayim to a stage where, as Chazal say, at the very end, Paro himself did tshuva, and Paro himself recognizes God. That's the reason why God does. He says, "I want this to be an oath. I want this to be a sign for the entire world." What does God say? And goes, "I'm real. This is not so real."

30:04 This whole thing, all this selfhood, all the arrogance of this world—that's exactly what, as a Jew, you have to see through. If you don't see through that, you're missing the entire point. That's the whole reason you went down to Eretz Yisrael to begin with. The reason you went down to Eretz Yisrael was to be able to say, 'This world is being fueled by God. I see beyond the mask. I see the person that's behind it.' Can Moshe Rabbeinu do that alone? He cannot. Because if Moshe could do it alone, it would be a testament to arrogance. So Moshe Rabenu needs to hesitate. Bo el Paro, and Hakadosh Baruch Hu says, 'You're coming with me.' So what's the genius of Moshe Rabenu? The genius of Moshe Rabenu is that he says the only way to defeat Paro is not by my will alone; it's through God's will. That's what they say in Alcoholics Anonymous: I can't do this alone. I need a higher power to do it for me.

31:00 If I could have broken out of jail, if I could have beaten my addiction, I would have done it already. But I can't do it alone. I can only do it with God. I'm sure that some of you have heard, and I'm sure that probably most of you don't care. But this past week, you're gonna say Kobe. I am. Kobe. You from Los Angeles? No. Okay. You just really like him. I'm a fan. You're a fan. So the Super Bowl is happening next Sunday. Seriously? Yeah. The Super Bowl. It's okay. The Super Bowl is a football game. Football. Yeah. Not with it. Not soccer. It's like rugby, but it's not rugby. It's a little bit more civilized. American football. It's American football. Okay. And it's the biggest sporting event in America. And right now, you wouldn't even know it's happening because it's twenty-four-seven Kobe. It's twenty four seven. That's what everybody's talking about, and I actually can appreciate that the world is talking about it because the man was a tremendous athlete and he was an artist. What he did, it's really hard to do that, and he was the best at what he did. He was certainly the best in his generation and arguably one of the best of all time. I can respect a culture that looks at someone like Kobe Bryant and says I want to pay tribute to his athletic talent. I can respect that. My problem is this.

32:28 If you knew Kobe, if you really read about him, and I'm not here to say ill of the dead, the man was exceptionally narcissistic. And I'll tell you a true story. The Olympic, the American Olympic dream team had won bronze, which, as Americans, we don't do. We don't win bronze medals. We win gold medals, especially in basketball. Now the Olympics are coming up, and they put together what's called the Redeem Team. Because the basketball team for American athletes is called the Dream Team. So this was called the Redeem Team. We're going to redeem USA basketball, and they got all the greats: LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Melo, Chris Paul, Jason Kidd. Everybody who was great was on that team, and of course, Kobe Bryant was on that team. And the first practice was called for twelve thirty in the afternoon.

33:22 So LeBron James says, "I'm going to lead this team, and I'm going to show you the work ethic that's necessary to leading this team. So I'm going to be at the gym at 9:30 in the morning, and when people come at 12:30, I'm already going to have been working out and shooting around and doing my drills for three hours to set the pace. We're here to win." LeBron shows up at 9:30, and he walks in, and Kobe is in the third hour of his workout. And Kobe looks at LeBron, and he goes, "Did you really think I was going to let you leave this team?" From the moment that he stepped on the basketball court, he said about himself, "I am the man," and he was ready, willing, and able to step on anybody in order to achieve his goals. In fact, they asked him, "Do you have any friends?" and he goes, "Not true friends," because the thing I care about most is the craft, and everything else. I don't have time for deep relationships.

34:16 You see this when it comes to great athletes. Exceptional arrogance. They might have to be, by the way. Could you imagine the pressure of getting up in front of all those people and performing at that level and not caring what anybody thinks? If you miss the big shot, that's what it takes to be the greatest. You have to be psychotic. Kobe would call his trainers. He had trainers that were on call at 3:30 in the morning. If he wakes up and he wants to go down to the gym, they had to go down to the gym with him. And you see people like this. Michael Jordan was like this. Michael Jordan used to race the people that would fly with him on his plane. He used to get into a car and race them. Because the second he gets on the plane, the car leaves, and he would leave the plane. He would leave people behind. When Michael Jordan was on a plane, the movie was on. Let's say everyone's watching the movie in the front of the plane. Back in the day, that's the way it used to go. And when Michael Jordan wanted to go to sleep, the movie was turned off, even if it was in the middle, even if everybody else was watching. You know what Michael Jordan's call name is? You know what his security detail calls him? I can't say the name because we're not allowed to in Halacha. Yudkevovke. That's his name. You understand the level of arrogance that it takes?

35:16 To be the greatest, and everybody's talking about how great Kobe was, and there's no doubt that he was great. There's no doubt that he was exceptionally talented, and the loss of his life and all the other people that died on that helicopter is beyond tragic. And I myself, I want you to know, when I found out, I was shook, because I grew up watching Kobe. I was really shook. I was like, Kobe, he's forty-one. You don't die at forty-one in a helicopter crash. Guy just won. He just won an Oscar. Dude, that's not. That's not the way it's supposed to go. That's not the script, right? But you're listening, and you're listening to all the eulogies. Girls, he was a deeply flawed person. In Yiddishkeit, that's not what we say is great. I'd rather have, for you girls, a husband who's not the CEO of the company, and maybe he's not the millionaire, but he's humble. He works hard.

36:15 He has space in his life for his children. He has space in his life for you. He's honest. He has integrity. He doesn't claw his way to the top because it's beneath his dignity. He gets what he earned. Girls, if you had to sign up for a husband, who would you want to be married to? You definitely would not want to be married to that arrogant player, because there's going to be no space for you. In Yiddishkeit, our leaders are humble. That's what makes them great. And when they display any arrogance, we blow that up, and we say, "Look, there was a bit of arrogance—the tiniest little bit of arrogance—and there it was." Moshe Rabbeinu says, "I can't defeat Paro by myself." Ba'al Paro, Kol D'varuchu says, "You come with me." God is leading the way. That's what it means to create a rectified world. You can't create a rectified world when your heroes are arrogant. It's not possible.