Parshas Lech Lecha - Inspired by Agriculture

3:07 Especially if you go with Yeshiva guys, that's the best. Because Yeshiva guys pick oranges, and what do they do? They pelt them. You see, the guys are throwing oranges at each other. I agree. It's a waste of food. Shouldn't do that. It's not nice. Since when is Avraham Avinu inspired by agriculture? Sees people pruning and plowing, and he says, "Please let this be the place that I'm going to raise a family. That this is going to be my land." That's question number one. Question number two. It seems that there's some essential connection between Judaism and farming. For example, what do we call sukkahs in the Torah? S'chaga asif. After everything has been gathered in We're a very strong agricultural nation. So the second question is, what's the connection between agriculture, farming, and Judaism? Question number three: Of all of the things that we do when it comes to farming.

4:24 Why pruning and plowing? Why specifically those two things? And question number four What's the order one prunes and plows? Which comes first? What does plowing mean, girls? Plowing first means I'm plowing the land. After something grows, what do you do? You prune away the weeds. And yet the madrasa says that the pruning comes before the plowing. So four questions. Let's just sum up real quickly. Number one, we don't generally find agriculture inspiring. Number two, there seems to be some inner connection between agriculture and Judaism. Number three Why specifically pruning and plowing? And number four, it's out of order. Those are the four questions. Clear? Got it? I want to take a step back for a second and describe to you the human condition. How many people here in this room have ever felt like two people? Let me be clear what I mean when I say that.

5:30 How many people here have ever had the following internal conversation with themselves? You heard an inspiring shiur. When you were sitting in the shiur at the end of the shiur, you said to yourself, "That's it. I'm not doing this thing anymore." And for about a day, maybe two. It lasts. Chazak. I'm gonna do it. Let's say you say to yourself, from now on, I'm getting up and I'm davening. Not just I'm davening with kavana. I'm just gonna get up and daven. Kavana, not kavana. That's not where I'm holding. So for the next day, you wake up in the morning. You set your alarm, and you're like, that's it. I'm waking up. Stark. Chazak. You get up like a lion. Roar in the morning. You go. You daven. Beautiful. Next day Alarm goes off and you're like. I don't really want to do this, but okay. I remember the imprint, the roshaim of that shear is still there. Happened today to you? Good. So we're holding, right? And then it's like, okay, but I'll do it. Day three. Have you ever had the following internal dialogue with yourself? This is how it sounds. Ready?

6:39 I really, really, really don't want to get up. But if I don't get up, then I know I'm gonna get off that streak. How many people have ever done that? You're on a streak of doing the right thing. Be like, I just don't want to do it. That's what's called being two people. Being two people means that in one moment you find yourself in a totally bifurcated reality. You feeling two extreme, opposite, bifurcated means to separate. Two totally different realities at once. There's a real part of you that wants to get up and do the right thing, and then there's a real part of you that says your bed is so comfortable. And then, especially as it gets to be winter here in Yerushalayim, these beautiful floors are going to start to become cold. And you don't want to get up in the morning and put your feet on the cold floor, and your bed is so warm.

7:33 And all of a sudden you have these two voices in your head. There are two ways of looking at these two voices. One way is to say it's two inclinations. Another way is to say it's two totally different souls. And I'll explain to you the difference. If you have two inclinations, then what you are is schizophrenic. I'm one person But I have two totally different inclinations. One moment I feel like this, one moment I feel like that, and that's why girls say all the time. I've heard this a million times before, Rabbi. I don't even know who I am. You ever feel that way? You ever feel like at the like. I don't even know who I am. Like some days I want this, and some days I want that. Some hours I want this, some hours I want that. Some minutes I want this, some minutes I want that. You can literally go minute to minute and feel like your momish bouncing around in a pinball machine.

8:31 That's one way of describing it. Another way of describing it: you're not schizophrenic. You're not one person who has multiple personalities. You're actually two different personalities. Which is why some days your personality is one way, and some days your personality is a different way. Which one is true? You grew up your whole life knowing that you have a yechzur hara and you have a yechzur tov. What does the word yechzur mean? Inclination. Which one of these things is right? What would you have said? I'm really one person. I have an inclination like this, and I have an inclination like that. Comes along the outer Ebbah. The first Lubavitcher Rebbe The founder of Chabad Chassidus, the Balatanya, and he says, "No" You are not just one person with two inclinations. You are two totally separate realities. And I'm going to explain to you what these realities are.

9:34 One is called the Nefesh Habahamis And the other is called the Nefesh Elokes. We'll explain what that means. How many people here have ever heard of these terms before? So I see we have a couple of bavachers in the room. You're a Bavacher. You grew up Chabad, so you're familiar with the concept of nefesh abahamis and nefesh luchas. Here's how it goes: the nefesh abahamis literally means your animal soul, but we're gonna call it your human soul. Your human soul means this is what animates your body. Hey, how we doing? We're all good. I totally hear that. That's why we shouldn't have these phone boxes. Nefesh of Hamus means your animal soul. We're going to call it your human soul. And this is the soul that animates your body. So all the things I'm doing right now—walking, talking—all the looking that you're doing in me—that's all your animal soul.

10:47 Here's the thing about your animal soul, your human soul. Your human soul has one goal, only one goal. It's a very simple goal. It's called survival. Why does your animal soul need to survive? Because the way your animal soul thinks, the way your human soul thinks, is if I was born What's going to happen to me one day? One day I'm gonna die And the human soul is terrified of death because once death comes, the human soul ceases to exist. It doesn't have any reality. So imagine living under the constant fear of death. How ridiculous a struggle would that be? I want to share with you that last night One of my talmidim Old talmud already for a long time Who's now a rebbe in our yeshiva. Was in the middle of giving shir Last night, night's later. Somebody ran into the shir and they said, "You need to come out right now."

11:47 And he went out, and his wife was standing there, and she says to him I don't know how to tell you this But your father just passed away. Totally sudden Totally sudden. Happens to be Wednesday night, is my late night in Mivaseret. So they sent for me. I came running to his apartment. I didn't even know what it was. They told me there's an emergency. He says My father had a heart attack. And he just died. I like my heart broke for him. You see, when you live with the consciousness of death It's terrifying. And so what you're going to do is struggle to survive. So I want to tell you what the struggle to survive looks like, and it comes up in a million different areas. The struggle to survive means that if I don't feel alive I'm feeling like I'm dead. So maybe For some people, it means thrill seeking.

12:44 Anyone here ever go skydiving? Did you go skydiving? I've never been skydiving in my life, and frankly, I'm terrified of heights. I'm terrified of heights. I'll never forget. There's something called Machteh Shkatan, which is like a crater down south. And there's an area where you're walking in the middle of two cliffs, and it's a decent size. It's not the size of this room. It's smaller than that. I was down on all fours crawling because I was so terrified of the heights. And there were Mavasara guys that were sitting on the side, dangling their legs off the side of the crater. And I'm like crawling. I'm mamish crawling, even though a lot of people are just walking through. I'm mamish crawling. Guys, please move. Now I ask a question. Where are you from? Dallas, Texas. Is that where you went skydiving? So you went up in how big a plane? It was pretty small plane.

13:38 And just because I'm so curious about this, and Dallas, Texas. Do you know the Shafrans? I do. How do you know the Shafrans? It's my family. The we'll talk about it later. We'll play a little Jewish geography later. So you go up, how high did you go up? Fourteen thousand. Fourteen thousand feet. Fourteen thousand feet is high. And did you have someone strapped to your back? Yeah. So you get up there, and they open up the back of the plane? The front. The front of the plane. It was like on the side. It was like a door. One second. They did not open up the front of the plane. I know a little bit about aerodynamics. If you open up the front, the plane goes down. You mean on the side of the plane towards the front? So they open up the door. They open it inwards. I assume because they open it outwards, it would fly off. They open it inwards, and there you are standing at the precipice, about to jump.

14:27 How'd you feel in that moment? I made a mistake. I made a terrible mistake. I made a terrible mistake. Did you have the opportunity to back out? They would push you either way. You're once you're up, the only way down is out. And then you jumped. We flipped. What was the feeling you had as you're tumbling through the air, fourteen thousand feet up? Honestly, I couldn't think. Your heart's racing. And then they pull the chute. I pull the chute. You pull the chute. And then it comes out, and then you're just gliding down to earth. But I imagine it's still pretty scary. You're still thousands of feet up in the air. I like heights. You like heights. You are exactly who I'm talking about. Did you want to go for a long time? You finally got the courage to do it, or you finally got the permission to do it?

15:21 Permission. Permission. What was that? I turned 18, so it wasn't a question of permission. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission, anyway. So you get up there, you're tumbling down. You feel alive, right? When you landed, were your legs shaky? Oh. Oh right? That's an extreme case. Let's do roller coasters for a second. How many girls here love roller coasters? I hate roller coasters. I hate roller coasters. I wish. I wish I was like you. I used to pretend to like them so that I wouldn't seem weird. But then I just didn't want to go. I see it's a I see it's a sharpman's moment. We need to now discuss how we feel about roller coasters. I'm with you. So you said you're bored by roller coasters. They get up there and I'm like, you're bored of them. You've just been there your whole life. I hate roller coasters.

16:22 You go up. Turns you upside down. You're coming down so fast. I'm not down for roller coasters. But some people, when they come off of them, especially if it's the craziest, scariest, newest roller coaster that comes out and had amazing flips and loop-de-loops, and it was dark in the whole nine yards. You went through water and had every single possible thing. The feeling is they come off and they say, "I feel so alive" But really, what are they saying? I feel alive when I get to the verge of death. And I don't die. Isn't that true? I feel alive because my life was in jeopardy. You see, when something is in jeopardy, and you strip away everything, what you're left with is the thing itself. So it's like this, even though you know it's safe to go on a roller coaster. And by the way, you know it's safe to go skydiving. The chances of you dying are—I mean, fourteen thousand feet. But the chances—I mean, if it goes wrong, you're going to die. But other than that, you're going to be fine. I'm alive. You're alive.

17:30 But when you get to the verge of death Life becomes like boom. That's amazing. You see, some people Some people, right? One person. Some people When they feel. Like death is their consciousness. Life, the feeling of life, starts to diminish. Because they're living in survival mode, they constantly have to cling to life. It's like people that don't know how to be alive. They need to do things to make them feel alive. For some people, it's drugs. For some people, it's drinking. For some people, it's food. For some people, it's inappropriate relationships. For some people, it's jumping out of planes. Everyone has something. It's not just you. Everyone has something that they do. That makes them feel alive because their consciousness is a consciousness of death. I'll give you a more practical example. Imagine you were in a relationship that's an unhealthy relationship You really know it's an unhealthy relationship But you feel You feel like I can't get out of it I don't know. I've just been dating this guy for so long.

18:43 What would even happen if I left? Do you see how that's a little bit of a mentality of death? It's like this is what it is, and I can't think of it being bigger than that. Once it comes to the end, that's the end. Siyam du gamarnu. It's over. That's the nefesh abrahamis. The nefesh abrahamis lives to survive. The nefesh abrahamis has an inclination. This is very important. It has an inclination called the yitzharah. Do bad things because it makes you feel alive, makes you feel like you're in control, makes you feel powerful. But really, the Alter Rebbe says you got to step back. You got to go to the nefesh. You got to go to the source, which is the nefesh of Ahaz. That's one consciousness. Let's do another consciousness. This consciousness is not called the human soul. It's called the godly soul, the nefesh Elokes.

19:34 And it goes as follows. The nefesh Elokes says. You have an infinite soul inside of you. It's a spark of God. What does that mean? It's a spark of God. Think of the sun. Think of the rays of the sun. The rays of the sun come from the sun. The ray of the sun feels like I am a piece of the sun. The godly soul says, "I am a piece of God." Girls, can a piece of God die? Because God is life. Life cannot die. I know that sounds strange, but think about it for a second. Life cannot die because if life could die Then it wouldn't be life. So you'll say, but didn't you just tell a story about a guy who was 67 years old and he just dropped dead of a heart attack? Life cannot die. Alive is the process where the body borrows life from the soul.

20:33 So alive can end. That's called death. But the infinite godly soul lives on. In fact, the infinite godly soul—the way that it looks at this life in the body—is kind of restricting. It's kind of like, how could you limit my infinite brilliance into this tiny little world? So the infinite soul, the godly soul, is not worried about death. It doesn't even care about death. What does it care about? If the animal soul, the human soul is in a struggle for survival. Then the godly soul—and this is the key word—is in a struggle for transcendence. What is transcendence? Transcendence means as follows. How many of you girls are into sports, specifically basketball? How many people? I don't even know if you need to—you don't need to follow the NBA. But how many people here like the sport of basketball? To play, to watch anything. Not bad.

21:42 I love basketball. If you cut me open, I'm a New Yorker. If you cut me open White, orange, and blue—the Knicks' colors—they bleed from my arms. Patrick Ewing, Charles Oakley, Anthony Mason—these guys are in my bones. They're in my blood. I grew up with them. I had a rebbe in high school. Who I did not like. I don't know if you've ever had that. I had a rebbe in high school who I did not like. And this rebbe used to give me such a hard time because I was a Knicks fan And he would always make fun of me because every day I'd read the article about the Knicks last night, and I would follow the box scores when we had fantasy sports, and he would get crazy with us. "What are you guys doing? Spending your time on this?" And then one day he gave the following mussel. I hate this mussel. He said If I hung two toilet bowls ten feet up in the air.

22:36 And I got ten people dressed in pajamas to throw rocks into that toilet bowl. Would you watch them? And I said, I looked at him in wonderment. I was sixteen years old. I looked at him in wonderment. Of course I would watch them. Not only would I watch them, I'm betting that millions of people just like me would watch these pajama-clad rock toilet-throwing people. And if they were really good, I bet you we would make a league out of them. And if they were really, really good, we might televis it. We might spend millions of dollars advertising, and this league might make billions of dollars and be a global brand. We might even make fantasy sports about these people throwing rocks into toilets. And this guy, this rabbi, he looks at me and he's like You're an idiot Because all they're doing is throwing rocks into toilets.

23:29 And I said back to him respectfully. I'm not going to say the rest of it. I'll put it this way: No, I'm not Right? I'm not Because you don't look at something and describe it by its physical behavior. That's not how you ascribe meaning to something. You always ascribe meaning not by the thing, but by what's bigger than the thing, what the thing means. So I'll give you an example. Many years ago I went to a Knicks game. The Knicks were playing the Miami Heat. The Miami Heat were on a big winning streak at the time. LeBron James, Dwayne Wade, and Chris Bosh were playing for the Miami Heat. Carmelo Anthony, Amari Stoudemire, Jr. Smith were playing for the Knicks, and the Knicks were down. I forget if it was four points or six points, and it was the last minute and a half of the game. The Heat were on this unbelievable winning streak. It ended up being the second longest winning streak in the history of sports.

24:24 And the Knicks had an opportunity to break the streak if they would hit this shot coming down the floor right now. They would have closed the gap to within two or four points. It would have been a very close game, and all the Knicks fans are like, "Here we go!" Unfortunately for us, as Knicks fans, there was a player on the team whose name is J. R. Smith, and J. R. Smith unfortunately does not have the requisite brain power to make intelligent decisions on the basketball court. Everybody in the world knows this about J. R. Smith, and he's dribbling the ball up the floor. In my head, I'm already thinking, "This is not going to end well," and J. R. Smith. He takes this. He takes his foot, takes his hand. He goes like this. And LeBron James, who has unbelievable court vision, takes off, and because he's so big, he's like a monster, like six eight, two thirty. It's unbelievable. He's huge.

25:10 Without even thinking, he intercepts the pass. He's so quick. And less than three seconds later, he's down the court and he does one of those monster LeBron dunks. The Knicks have lost the game. Everybody knows it's out of reach now. And the craziest thing happened. We're watching this, sitting next to my brother. Everybody in Madison Square Garden stood up. We all stood up. LeBron stole the ball and everyone went "We all stood up." I thought to myself, "I was like Why did we just stand up? I could have seen fine. Why did we stand up? Same scenario, baseball. Bases loaded, bottom of the ninth. Three men on. You're down three runs, and your best player is up, and they pitch it in, and the guy cracks it. What does the whole stadium do? Everyone stands up. Maybe they're even standing up beforehand. Why do we stand up in these moments? That rabbi was officially right. It's just a ball going into a hole. It's just a rock going into a toilet. They're just wearing pajamas. The answer is they're not wearing pajamas, and it's not a round object going into a hole.

26:15 There's meaning. There's teams. And the meaning is what grabs people. That's what's called transcendent. It's what makes the thing valuable. There's an amazing story about Rosh Hashanah Shadran. Have you girls ever heard of Rosh Hashanah Shadran? He was the Maggid of Yerushalayim. He was an amazing tzaddik. He had a yeshiva, and in the yeshiva there was a boy who was, in general, a very diligent boy. And the boy missed a week of night seder. Rosh Hashanah Shadran went to his house. He knocks on the door. The boy opens the door. He says, "Rebbe, what are you doing here?" He said, "I came to see if you're okay. You missed a week of night seder." The boy said, "Rebbe, I'm fine. Don't worry. I'll be back next week." Don't worry. I'll be back next week.' Shlom Sharans said to him, 'What happened?' He goes, 'Rebbe, I'm too embarrassed to tell you.' He goes, 'You could tell me anything. Don't worry. I won't make fun of you.' He goes, 'Rebbe, I can't tell you. Just tell me.' Back forth, finally, the Talmud says, 'Okay, Rebbe, I'm going to admit it.'

27:08 It's the soccer playoffs. It's a huge week. I'm watching these games. They're unbelievable. Rishon Shlomo looks at him and he goes What's soccer? Rabbi, you don't know what soccer is. He goes, "I don't know what soccer is. Tell me what soccer is." Because it's a game. There's like these goals, and you have to kick the ball into the goal. And Rishon looks at him and he goes, "That's fun." And he goes, "Yeah, it's really, really fun." So he goes, "So let's go do it now. We'll kick the ball into the goal." He goes, "No, Rabbi, you don't understand. There's a goalie, and the goalie's job is to try to stop you from getting the ball into the goal. Is the goalie there right now? He goes, "No, Rabbi. It's ten o'clock at night. The goalie's not there right now." He goes, "Come on, let's go quick. We can kick the ball into the hole. It'll be so much fun." He goes, "No, Rabbi. You understand. You only have a certain amount of time to play the game in. There's people on this side of the field, people on that side of the field, and everyone's trying to stop each other. If it's not within that time, it's not meaningful."

28:01 Rashalom looks at him and says, "Exactly." We all have a certain amount of time in this world. We all have forces that are opposing us. What makes it great is when we transcend those forces and we actually do it. You see, the same thing that makes sports great The transcendence is what makes Judaism great, because you have something going against you and the opportunity to succeed. That's what's amazing. I give you another example. In a relationship, it's always two types of relationships. There's a superficial relationship that's built on survival. Why are we together? We need each other. We're just trying to survive together. But then there's something transcendent. Transcendent means I'm not just interested in things about you. I'm interested in you. It's an amazing thing when you touch transcendence in a relationship. Your godly soul comes alive because it's not worried about survival anymore.

28:53 So this is what you're caught between. You're caught between two worlds. It's not just one day I want to wake up for shacharis. The next day I don't. We're two people. One person is the nefesh of Hashem. The animal soul; it has an inclination to do bad things. Why? Because it's so worried about death. The other soul is the nefesh elokis, and the nefesh elokis is not worried about death because it knows it's infinite. What does it want? It wants transcendence. It wants to find meaning in this world. Why is that important? Which one would you rather be? If you could choose to be only one of them. Which one would you rather be? I'm going to make it extreme. On the one hand You could choose nefesh abahamis. You could part of your brains out. Do whatever you want, totally unleashed. No restrictions, no constrictions. Whatever you want to do in your life, go ahead, have at it, because it'll make you feel alive.

29:54 But here's the deal: if you go with the nefesh abahamis, that means no transcendence. For the next fifty, sixty years of your life You're just going to be involved in partying. I'm sure there's people in the room right now that go, "That doesn't sound so bad." But no family No family No husband No intimacy in your relationships Just hookups, just parties. One drug to the next, one drink to the next, one concert to the next One experience to the next, just 'cause I got to keep myself alive. You could do it, but here's the thing: if you choose it, you don't choose it for a year. You don't get to say, "No, I'm just going to do it till I'm 25." If you choose that lifestyle now at 18, that's the way it goes until you're dead. That's one side of the equation. The other side of the equation sounds like this: there's going to be restrictions Massive restrictions.

30:48 But here's why: because if you seek transcendence Requires focus. So you could be sloppy about love, and you could love a lot of people. Or you could be intimate. But if you're intimate, intimacy requires exclusivity. Get to you in a second. Intimacy requires exclusivity, which means massive restrictions. You're choosing one person and only that person for the rest of your life. You have those two choices in front of you. One way you get to do whatever you want. This way you don't get to do whatever you want, but you get transcendence. Those are the choices that are in front of you. Every single day of your life, which person do you want to be? Now think carefully for a second. You're not going to have kids if you go the nefesh abahametz l'ruach, because why would you ever have kids? I have a friend of mine who says this. I have a friend of mine who does not believe in God.

31:41 He lives in the Czech Republic. He's one of my closest friends in the world. I love him dearly. He eats pork on Yom Kippur. When I say he's off the derech, I mean he's one thousand percent off the derech. I asked him, "Would you ever have kids?" He said, "What are you nuts?" Why would I ever have kids? You know how much money kids cost. You don't realize how much money your parents have spent on you. They say the average child about three hundred fifty to four hundred thousand dollars that we spend on each child. That's a lot of money. If you don't have kids, I have six. I'm so blessed. I have six kids. Do you know how much money that is? The truth is, it's less for me because I don't have to spend money on tuition. I send my kids to public school because I live here in Israel, basically public school. Yeah, but But I still have to clothe them. I still have to house them. I still have to feed them, right?

32:31 Teenage girls. That's not so bad. It's a lot of money. If I could imagine what I could do? I have six jobs. You know that I hold six. I have six jobs. I'm the Menahem of Aser. I teach once a week in Torah Devora, once a week in Sharfman's. I run social media for United with Israel, which is a Hasbara organization. I have an organization called Nitotos, and I work for NCSY. I have six jobs. And I'm in the middle of publishing a safer Six jobs. If I didn't have six kids, I don't think I need six jobs. Maybe I need one. Maybe I need half a job. There's a guy on my block. He's an amazing person. Unfortunately, he and his wife—it seems that they have not been able to have children, and it doesn't seem like they're going to be able to have children. His wife is a ganenet. My son is in gan, in this gan.

33:22 These are their children. The husband doesn't really work. They have a small house. The downstairs is a gun. The husband hangs out with his wife all day. If you think about it, if you don't have any kids, what are your expenses already? The gun pays their mortgage. How much food could two people eat already? So they don't really need much. He doesn't even have a job. She has a job. He hangs out with her half the time. I come to pick up Mikey from gun, and he's there. And he's the nicest, sweetest, warmest guy. If you go Nefesh Abahamis route, you'll never have kids because that's going against the grain. I don't want to survive, or worse. Here's the worst case: you do have kids, but the only reason you have kids is because they're going to be your legacy. Now that's sick. Because what happens if your kid is not your legacy? Could you imagine growing up with a parent that says, 'You know why I had you? To carry on our family name.' That means you didn't want me; you wanted our family name.

34:19 So even if you do have children, it's only because you're trying to survive. Show a hand. Think carefully. Show a hands. How many of you would choose to have a life, not for a year, not for two years, but a life with no meaning Just a struggle to survive? Not one. How many people, if you could snap your fingers and imagine it, would be easy? It's not hard. Let's say it's easy. How many people of you would want the life where you have. Meaning you have a real relationship with your children, not that you're using them for something. You have a real relationship with your husband, not that you're using him just to survive. It's exclusive. There are restrictions. You can't be with everybody. But you have meaning in your life. How many people would choose the second one? All of you. Now that's an amazing thing, because if you think about it, just this morning you were struggling with waking up for davening.

35:05 Just this morning. That choice to wake up for davening is not fundamentally different than the choice. Cause it's hard. It's a restriction. I can't stay in bed. I have to get up and do something. It's not fundamentally different than these two choices. All it is a microcosm of a much larger issue. The choice to wake up for davening is the choice for transcendence. It's the choice for meaning. It's a choice to say when I wake up in the morning. My life is going to be geared towards leading a godly life. And if I stay in bed, it's because it's so warm and I feel more comfortable when I don't have to get out of bed. You understand? See, if you would take it to its logical extreme, there's not one of you that raised your hand and said, "That's the life I would want." " So what do you do?

35:53 Because every single day we have that desire. It's not just an inclination, but it's a fundamental desire. I want to stay in bed. And the answer to this is called pruning. Pruning. What is pruning? Pruning is when you have roses and you have to prune away the weeds in order to allow the rose to grow. So you are two people. You're your nefesh Shelo Kis and your nefesh Shavahamis, and you're bifurcated. You have two totally different realities. You don't know which one you are, but you know you want to be the nefesh Shelo Kis. You want to be infinite. You're sick of struggling to survive. You want to be more. But the problem is you have those weeds of the nefesh Shavahamis that hold you back. And this is the art of pruning. Pruning means, and this is the hardest thing you're going to be asked to do in your life.

36:40 Can you cut away? The things that are holding you back And right now, without having to tell you what those things are, every one of you just knew. Those of you that are actually here, every one of you just knew. I know exactly the thing that he's talking about within me. I don't want to admit it because I don't want to get rid of that weed. I love that weed. It makes me feel alive. But I know I know. I just heard that. You know what? I don't take it back. I think it's true. I love that vine. I love that weed. It makes me feel alive. I don't want to cut it away. I don't want to cut it away. But what's the price you pay? It depends how big it is. It's a dime bag or nick bag. Depends. Maybe we're in L.A. Maybe it's medicinal. My joints ache. I hope nobody listens to this recording.

38:08 If it was easy, we would all cut it off. But it's not easy. Because the truth of the matter is We're afraid to jump out of that plane. Because we don't know what happens if we cut away that thing that's holding us back. I'll tell you a true story. I was seventeen years old, and it was the summer before I went to Israel. Everybody knows the summer before you go to Israel is lawless. There's nothing your high school can do to you, and your yeshiva or your seminary in Israel is six thousand miles away. You could do whatever you want. My mom was a good mom. She was one of those moms that were on top of me. She didn't like to let me do things. The problem is that I learned my mom is a very trustworthy person, and if I told her something, she believed me, even though I lied to her many times before, and she caught me. Somehow, she still believed me.

39:04 So it's the beginning of the summer. And I told my mom I'm going to New Jersey for Shabbos. I lived in New York. I'm going to New Jersey for Shabbos. Going to a friend's. A lot of guys are going. My mom said, "Great, enjoy." The truth is, I was going five blocks away to an open house for Shabbos. It's the move, because she thinks I'm in New Jersey. I'm five blocks away. I just parked in this person's garage. Comes Shabbos I think I remember that there was a girl that actually lit Shabbos candles that was there in that open house for Shabbos. Looking back on it, even that was pretty crazy. That she lit Shabbos candles. There was no semblance of Shabbos. There was no semblance of Shabbos. It was a bad Friday night. The next morning I woke up. Next morning I woke up.

39:53 And without getting into it, doesn't matter. One of these guys who was there was very angry. He was very upset at me because of something that happened the night before. And he looks at me. I'll never forget the look that he had. And he looks at me and he goes, "What are you doing?" And he just walked out of the room. For some reason I heard him say it. I was like What am I doing? Like, how did I get here? Because I had done something that he was very displeased about the night before. Doesn't matter what But I heard it different than he meant it. He meant to say I can't believe you did that to me. "And what I heard was, 'What are you doing with your life?'" I sat on that couch for the entire day. About four or five o'clock in the afternoon, I'm just sitting there comatose. All my friends are coming over to me like, "You okay? You okay?" I'm like, "Honestly, I just need some space. Just leave me alone." I'm just sitting there thinking and thinking, and then I made a decision.

40:53 I got up and walked out of the house. I walked out of the house and went down the block to a shul in the five towns called Shari Tefila. And I went for mincha. It had been a long time since I had done something like that. And I walked in and I actually died. And then I had a choice: go back to the house Or go home. Remember Deny till you die. This is not going to be a problem. Here's what I did: I walked home. I walked into the house. My mother sees me. She goes. What are you doing here? But I wasn't yet ready to be perfectly honest with her So I said to her, "Mom, I'm going with you. I lied to you." I told you I was going to New Jersey for Shabbos. The truth is, I was only going five blocks away.

41:48 I knew there was an open house. I was invited to the open house. I knew you wouldn't want me to go. So I didn't tell you the truth. But here's the lie. You ready for it? It's going to be a great one. There were things going on There were things going on that I was uncomfortable with. So I left. See how proud my mom is of me. Because I'm sure she went to her friends and said, 'It's true, he didn't tell me the truth.' But I see he's got a strong moral compass. That's what I love about my mom. She's so cute. She's always believing in me. I feel so bad, even now. Have you told her the truth? Oh wait, when I told her the truth, I told her two years ago. It was a disaster. Two years ago, I'm married with six children. I'm still like opening up a little bit. You know that time. Like you have to let it out in doses.

42:38 Matze Shabbos, I'm sitting in my house. The phone rings in my bedroom. We didn't have cell phones back then. It's my boys from the Shabbos. Where did you go? I said, honestly, I'm just not down for that scene right now. I just need some space. One of my close friends says, 'You want me to drive your car home?' I said, 'Yeah, just bring it home, man.' He comes. He drops the car out Sunday. Guys call me up. You want to go to the movies? I'm like, no, I'm not down to go to the movies. I made a call. I called Eli Aloni. If you ever go to Malayadumim and you run into a guy whose name is Eli Aloni, that's the Eli Aloni I'm talking about. Eli Aloni was a guy that had just gotten back from his second year in Israel. I looked up to Eli Aloni. This guy is amazing. He was cool. He was sick at basketball. I really looked up to Eli Aloni. I called Eli Aloni on Sunday afternoon. I said, dude, we got to talk tomorrow. We got to talk. I'm at a crossroads. I don't know what to do.

43:26 He said, "Listen, I have a chavruta tomorrow morning. I'm going to cancel the chavruta. We had two hours of learning before camp officially started. He goes, 'It's all yours for two hours.' I sat with Eli and I just told him everything that was going on." In the end of the two hours, Eli says to me, 'I want you to come to my house for Shabbos next week. We're having an open house. My mom's not going to be home.' He said, 'It's called Buserfest.' I said, 'What is Buserfest? That sounds awesome.' He goes, 'The rule of Buserfest is you have to bring enough meat for you and five people.' So if you're bringing steak, you only have to bring five steaks. If you're bringing burgers, you got to bring ten burgers. If you're bringing hot dogs, you got to bring twenty hot dogs. Like a whole rule. If you're bringing wings, you got to bring X amount of packages. Ten was that ten, twelve guys coming for Shabbos. We filled up two full huge turkey bins full of meat. I went to my mother that Monday. I came home from camp. I said to my mom, "Mom, I'm gonna go to Ellie's for Shabbos," and she said to me, "She's so cute."

44:19 I used to be Matt Berg. She said, "Matt, are you sure you want to go for Shabbos? Remember what happened last week?" I'm like, "No, mom. These guys are post Israel. This totally chill. This is where you want me to be." She's like, "Okay, fine." I go Friday night. I'm so excited. We show up every Shabbos. Like all these older guys that got back from Israel. These guys I looked up to. I remember them when they were in high school, and they weren't exactly know what I'm saying. And now all of a sudden they were exactly know what I'm saying. So I'm like, "Okay, this awesome. Like these guys are awesome. I'm part of it. Like 17 years old. I'm cool now." Comes Friday night and we're dancing in the house, a couple of Shabbos, and they were really into it. I was like, this pretty cool. And then comes out Kiddush, right? This like a little bit of wine, and then came out the expanded version, and I was like, it's a lot like last week. I got it last week. I could do it again. But the difference was that all of a sudden these guys weren't getting plastered, making a lechem or two, saying Devar Torah, singing And then as it got more intense, these guys were crying. There were three guys who were post Shana, pre Shana Aleph there.

45:17 And they were just telling us, guys, grab every minute, because when it's over, you don't get it back. I wish I could go back. And I was like, wow These guys. There's something about them. They're on fire. Shabbos morning, we woke up, we went to shul. Afterwards, I was like, long Shabbos afternoon. What do you guys do on a Shabbos afternoon? And Ellie comes to me and he hands me a little safer. It's called Strive for Truth, Volume One, and he says, listen, read this. On Shabbos afternoon, we rest and we learn. I started reading the book. Whoa, mind blowing. There were so many deep concepts in there. Mitzvah Shabbos. I went home. I was faced with a choice. Because there's Mitzvah Shabbos and there's Saturday night. And Mitzvah Shabbos and Saturday night are not the same thing. But I knew that if I went and had Saturday night Then everything that I just did over Shabbos was gone.

46:07 If I had Mitzvah Shabbos I could keep going. See, a lot of people ask me when I got to Israel. What was like? We knew you a couple months ago, and we know you now. What changed? The biggest thing that changed was that I decided to leave those things behind. Now I was still friends with my friends But I wasn't going to go to the places they wanted to go anymore. You can't be two people. You have to prune. The amazing thing that Avraham Avinu saw, that which was inspiring, is that he saw a group of people, a culture that was growth oriented. They were willing to tear away the weeds to allow the rose to grow. It's what we believe in Judaism. It's why we're an agricultural nation. And the pruning has to come before the plowing. Because if you want to plant your next round, the first thing you have to do is cut away those things that are holding you back.

46:59 And that's really, really hard to do sometimes. But we prune and then we plow. We do it all over again, always doing it over and over again to become the people we want to become. The last 60 seconds that we have left, I want to tell you something very scary. Right now, it's November. It's early. But I want you to think about how long this year is. November, December, January, February March is already Purim. Pesach. You're going to have seven weeks after Pesach. Everyone talks about the year in Israel. There is no year in Israel. There is no year in Israel. This is maximally six and a half month year. You're going to be here, and you can ask the Shana Bet girls. You're going to be here at the end of the year. You're going to be here at the end of the year, and you're going to go.

47:52 Where did it go? And at the end of the year, there's going to be two girls. Those girls that said, "I did something with my year." I made real significant improvements in my life. I let go of some things so that I could get bigger things. It's hard to do that, with an impoverished mentality, with a scarcity mentality, with a death mentality. It's really hard to do that, and those girls are going to feel very foolish. They're going to feel like I had my opportunity, and I let it slip through my fingers. And then there's another group of girls, and you're going to be sitting here at the end of the year going, I did it. I really did it. I never thought I could do as much as I did, and it's amazing what I did. I feel so proud of myself. I feel like I'm proud to go back and tell people yeah, I went to Sharfman's and it was awesome.

48:38 And I really feel like I was one of those girls when I started the year. I said I'll never be that girl, and you know what? I am now. It was a scary journey, but it was so worth it. Because ask yourself the following question: not about the end of this year and not about the end of next year, but ask yourself what you want to look like in ten years. Ask yourself what you want to look like in twenty years. Ask yourself who's the guy you want to marry. And what type of girl is that guy looking for? Because that guy is out there. He's waiting for you. The problem is, if you never become that version of yourself. When you finally do get out there and you're like, "Here I am," that guy's gonna look at you and go, "It's not the thing I'm looking for." But you'll say, "Yeah," but believe me, who that's who I am, really inside of me, that's who I am. That's awesome. It's awesome that you're in touch with that part of yourself that knows what you want inside.

49:26 But at some point, the potential has to become actualized. Don't ask yourself, "What do you want to say at the end of this year?" It's for sure true that at the end of this year, you want to be able to say, "I accomplished." Ask yourself what you want your children to look at when they see you as a mom. Because if you don't start doing it now You're going to lose out on those precious opportunities. Avraham Avinu walked through the lands of people that were eating, drinking, and partying, and he said, 'Dear God, let this not be the land that I'm surrounded by.' When he came to the northernmost tip of Eretz Yisrael He saw growth-oriented people. That's the goal. Surround yourself with growth-oriented chavra. And beis r'ashem. That's who you'll become. Have a wonderful Shabbos, girls.