Chapters
Transcript
Automatic transcript; may contain mistakes, especially in Hebrew.
We're not gonna pull a secret Mary Burke. It's fantastic, but we've had a long night, so I don't want to be a comedy. It's always fun. Try to make a light. We're gonna get it right. Me and who we have in the front? She's on. Perfect. It is somewhere. It is a pleasure to introduce Mary Burke, Mary Mordecai Burke. Who's here tonight? The speaker doesn't ever get to manahal of the vastara, and really goes around to NCSY summer program, speaking, teaching, etc. He also teaches the Talmud Torah and sharpen. And we're really excited to have him here tonight. His girls are incredible. They've been in the sun the entire day. And look at this full base bedresh, ready to learn. Kol hakavoti, guys. Really. It's always what you want to hear before you start speaking. The girls have been in the sun all day. Nobody's going to fall asleep.
I see we have a lot of very firm girls writing notes already. This is tremendous. I like that in seminaries. Whenever I teach in certain seminaries, if you cough, you see they write he coughed at this point. I just want you to know I appreciate it. Every word that comes out of my mouth is clearly meant to be written down. Mrs. Eudon skipped my greatest accolade. I'm married to Mrs. Berg, who teaches here during the day. Some of you have my wife as a teacher. That's the smartest thing I ever did. He's such a good guy. I like you girls here. The parsha begins. You need me to have the mic? Do you want to speak louder? Would you rather me have the mic? Thank you so much. That wasn't awkward at all. I'm like a Michael Scott of rabbians. I don't care how awkward it is.
Read the full transcript
The parasha begins. The journeys of the children of Israel who went forth from the land of Egypt according to their legions under the hands of Moses and Aaron. Moshe, of their going forth according to their journeys at the bidding of Hashem, and these were their journeys. So the Torah recounts. The Torah recounts the journeys that we went through in Eretz Yisrael. Take a look at Rashi And Rashi, quoting the Medrash, brings a mashal, a beautiful mashal. He says, "To what can this be compared?" Why are we listing all of the places we've been right before we go into Eretz Yisrael? He says it can be compared to a king whose son became sick. And he took him to a faraway place to have him healed. And on the way back, after the son was healed The father went through all the stages of their journey.
And he said, "This is where we sat, and here we were cold, and here you had a headache." And Hashem said to Moshe, 'Go to all the places, tell Cholly Yisrael all the different places that we've been, and all the different places that you angered me.' That's what Rashi says. Very strange. Imagine you're at the end of your vacation. Imagine it's the end of mechalal. When did you girls get here? A few weeks ago. When are you leaving? Three weeks. So soon. Three weeks from now, you have a banquet at the end. Do a thing. Three weeks from now, imagine Davidson Yudin gets up. What a great summer. This girl violated the rules by doing this. This girl snuck off on a tiou. This girl broke curfew. Just as we're winding down a great summer, I want to remind you of the worst moments we had throughout the entire summer.
Strano, no? That would be the least. That would be a bad banquet. That's a bad way to end the summer. And here we are, Moshe Rabbeinu, on the precipice of coming into Eretz Yisrael And he says, "Let's talk about all the bad times." Why does he do that? Very strange. That's our question for tonight. I want to share with you. I'm going to change it a little bit. But I want to share with you a muscle from the Maggid of Mezrich. Very important, very beautiful, very profound muscle. The Maggid of Mezrich says that there was a king, and the king was a very generous king. The king was a benevolent king, a merciful king. The king lived in a land where he was known throughout the land as a wonderful king. And a group of marauders came, and they overtook the palace. And they drove the king out of the land.
What does the king do? He gets together all of his troops. He combines all of his power. He goes to all the necessary people and says, 'Help me take back my land.' He builds a huge army. Baruch Hashem, he's successful. He takes back the castle and he chases away the marauders. But when he goes into the treasury of the palace, he finds that so much of the royal treasury has been stolen. The king has a very specific type of coin. It's the coin in his kingdom, and it has his face on the coin. And so the king says, "Without the royal treasury" What's the king worth? What makes the king powerful is that he's got money. So he doesn't know what to do. But the king has a very wise daughter. So he says to the daughter, "What should we do? We need to regain our fortune."
So the princess says, "I have an amazing idea." Let's train a group of pigeons. Let's train a group of pigeons to recognize these coins, these special coins that were only in your treasury, and these pigeons will fly around. Nobody suspects a pigeon. And when they fly around, they're going to see. They're going to look inside of homes, and they're going to see your treasury. They're going to see those coins. They're going to go get the coins. They're going to bring them back. King says that's a brilliant idea. So they go. He sends out these pigeons, and one by one, the pigeons start coming back. One coin, then another. Within a couple of months, the treasury is half full. It's amazing. But after a while, the pigeons aren't coming back with any coins, because what's happened is that these marauders used these coins and they bought stuff, and those people that got the coins bought stuff, and now the coins are traveling to the farthest ends of the world.
So the king goes back to his daughter and he says, "What do we do now?" We're stuck. We're only halfway full. "So the princess says, 'I have an idea.'" Let's train a group of soldiers. These are going to be the elite soldiers, the Sayyareh Barkal, Seal Team Six. These are going to be the best soldiers, and we're going to train them to go undercover in faraway lands. When they get to these lands, they're going to find these coins and get the coins back for you. The king says, "That's a great idea." And so they train these soldiers. These are the best of the best soldiers, and they go to these lands and find some of the coins and bring the coins back. But after a while. They're not bringing back any coins, and the treasury is only three quarters full. And the king is disappointed. He says, "We need to get back to where we were. If we're going to be powerful, we need to get back all those coins."
The princess says, "I have an idea, but you're not going to like it." The king says, "We need to. The king, the kingdom can't be successful without the royal treasury." So the princess says, "Do you know why these soldiers are only willing to go so far?" They're not willing to go all the way to the ends of the earth. Why are they only willing to go so far? Says, "No, why?" Says, "Because when they go too far away, they miss their home" And they come back home because they want to be back in the kingdom. They want to see you. They want to be in your presence. So they're not willing to go to Australia and New Zealand. They're not willing to go to Siberia and China because they don't want to stray too far from home. If you want to get back all of your coins. You have to destroy the palace.
So the king is stuck. On the one hand, I know that my kingdom is worthless unless we get the treasury back to 100%. But on the other hand, am I really going to burn down the palace in order to get what I want? Ultimately, the king comes to the conclusion that his daughter is right. He destroys the palace. And now you have these elite-level soldiers, and there's no way for them to come back. So they've been charged with this mission. That's all they know. Go find these coins. So they say that's it. We're going to Siberia. We're going to China. We're going to Australia. We're going to New Zealand. We're going to Canada—the farthest places in the world. For Canada, it's like for Americans, nobody goes to Canada because. Why would anyone ever go to Canada? There's nothing. Is anyone here from Canada? Who am I offending? Just want to know. So for those that are raising your hand, I want you to know I'm speaking about you. These people. I don't want you to offend. I'm not speaking about you. I'm speaking about you. Where are you from?
Toronto, with no T. Toronto. That's the only. Who goes to Toronto? We go to Niagara Falls for a minute. New Yorkers go for a minute. We come back. We see. We come. It's very clean. It's very nice. You have your Mounties. Nobody's afraid. NYPD, we know they're going to kill you. The mounties are going to come over and go. Could we please have our stuff back? No. Fine. We're moving on. Canada. Nobody ever goes to Canada. So we're going to go to the farthest from places in the world because we know that until we get back every coin, we can't go back to the palace. And this is what happens. And only when they find every single coin is the king willing to rebuild his palace. What is this a martial story? I call this baruch who destroys the Beit Hamikdash. Why? Why do I call this Baruch who destroy the Beit Hamikdash? That's his home. You don't torture your own home.
If you have something you care about, you don't break your own home. But Hashem understands that the mission of this world is to transform darkness into light. The sparks, the godly sparks that are in this world, we need to collect every single one of them. When creation occurred, godly sparks went all over the world. And so when we had the Beit Hamikdash, we were willing to go a little bit far, but not very far. And then I told this rabbi who said, 'You have to go further to collect these godly sparks.' We said, 'We're willing to go a little bit further, but who doesn't want to be by the Beit Hamikdash?' I'll share with you a story this week, this Shabbos. One of the most inspiring shabbatot of my life. I was with TJJ. One of the TJJ programs. I won't tell you which program. I was with a couple And I was with one of the guys. I walked in. He says, "Are you the rabbi who's speaking here today?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "Shalom aleichem." I don't believe in God. Nice to meet you too. Like that's the greeting I get from some people. I said, "Okay, let's sit down, let's talk."
So he tells me, 'This is amazing.' He tells me. I don't believe in God. But this is my second time here in Israel, and I got to tell you something different on this trip occurred, and it's bothering me. I said, 'What happened?' He goes, 'When I was bar mitzvah, I came here. I came to Israel. It was not my first time here.' " I said, "Okay. He goes, "Well, when we came here, we also went to Italy, and when we came here, we also went to Spain. So coming to Israel was just another tourist destination, and it didn't mean anything to me." But now I'm here on TJJ, And I got to tell you, Rabbi, I'm seeing the land not as a tourist. I'm seeing the land as a destination. I'm seeing the land that is my heritage, this my legacy. And it's bothering me because I'm feeling it. And I don't believe in God, but this is my home, and it's starting to become meaningful to me. And I don't know what that means.
That's the power of being here in Israel. For so many of us who grew up coming here, we take Israel for granted. How many of you came for your bat mitzvah? How many came for your brother's bat mitzvah? How many of you is this your first time here this summer? Hey, nice. We have a handful But most of you were here before. I grew up coming to Israel. It's like for me, it was like you go to Disney and you go to Israel, and there's not much of a difference. You go to Cinderella's castle. You go to the hotel. You go to the teacups. You go to Keverocho. You go on Space Mountain. You go to Chevron. It's all the same. I realize just now how that probably sounded. I didn't mean it like that. Chevron's a very colorful place. You just got that? I always get my own jokes a little too late.
But for this guy He saw something. He felt something here in this land. But we're desensitized to it because we grow up here, so to speak. And thank God, he had that, his chachos, he had that newness that reminded me of how important this land is, and that's an amazing thing. A kodesh bar who destroys the base on Megdash because he says you have to get the goblin sparks in China, you have to get this goblin sparks in Siberia You have to get the goblin sparks in the Caribbean. You never know where you are going to find something unbelievable. A couple weeks ago, I went to Florida for a wedding. A wedding of a young man who went on TJJ And after TJJ, this is one hundred percent a true story, he came back and told his father, "I am going to yeshiva." I can't not go to yeshiva. I am going to yeshiva. And his father, who had been a biltuva, who had gone off the derech?
His father said to him, "I will be a janitor in a high school, but you're going to yeshiva. I'm going to make sure my son gets a Jewish education." And then the following summer he came back on NCSY polo, and then he came back another summer on NCSY polo, and then he was the president of all of NCSY, and then he went to the Basera for two years, and at the end of the second year he wrote a sefer. Literally, he wrote a sefer, and then he continued on to a yeshiva called Naryozarol in Baltimore. And then he married the girl he had hung out with on TJJ all those years earlier. Ah That's why I love teaching girls. When you tell that story to guys, you know what they go. Cool. I have feelings about that. I need to unpack that. This safe space, everyone can do their so nice.
I have five daughters. I live with them all day long. You understand? I have one son; he's five years old. We're hoping he's being raised by a lot of sisters. You never know. Such an amazing kashla! Such an amazing kashla! The frying waxman was the Masada kaddushan at the wedding. Unbelievable! And Avi Warman Who's the head of T. J. J. Seven? Abby Warman. They made the chasma the last possible day, right before TJJ left. And the night before Abby leaves to go to TJJ, he's at this wedding. His NCS wife, and he's sitting there and he's bawling like a baby. And he said, "This is exactly the inspiration that I needed to have the summer that I know I'm going to have." Need to remember that spark, that kid that was out there, that NCS wire. Who's the regular kid who happened to find his way onto a T. J. J. That kid in China or Siberia or Russia or Canada?
That kid is waiting to be brought in. He's waiting to be brought in, and you never know what that kid could become. And he's not a success because he had a frying waffle at his wedding, or because he published a paper, or because he went to Mary Esther, or because he went to Enzo Speggolo. He's a success because a Jewish kid made a decision to do Jewish things, and where did it begin? Began right here in Eretz Israel because there's something special about this land. But in order to appreciate the land, you need to be kicked out. In order to appreciate the kedusha of the aretz, now you'll start writing again. You don't write the stories. In order to appreciate the kedusha, you need to go down. And that's what I'm here to speak to about tonight. What does it look like for us to have a uretha in our lives? What does it look like for us to hit rock bottom? For us to go to the places we never thought we'd go? There's a rebbe in our yeshiva in the Basarit. He has an amazing line. Guys say to him, 'I would never do this.' You know, like I would do what? I would never do this. This rebbe always looks. He has the same line. He goes, 'Don't tell me what you'll never do.'
There's what you've done and what you haven't done yet. Everyone always crosses the line. We always remember that line that you drew for yourself. Maybe you were in seventh or eighth grade and you said, "I'll never go past that line." Remember when you went past it for the first time? Looking around to see how many people actually know what I'm talking about. Thank you for those slight nodding heads that let me know that I'm not alone in this room. I appreciate your vulnerability. This is a safe space. Thank you. What happens when we go to that place? What happens when everything falls apart? There's three stages of transformation. If you want to transform the darkness into light, there's three stages of transformation. Stage number one: everything looks good. We'll call this stage Gan Eden before the sin. If you went to Gan Eden before Adam and Chava sinned, it looked really good. The entire world was in perfect balance, in perfect harmony.
But there was something missing about the world in Gan Eden before Adam and Chava sinned. What was missing? This could be compared to a young seventh-grade girl who follows the rules because she's told to. Those girls? Those girls who never make a mistake. You know what I'm talking about. You're nodding. I appreciate it. What's your name? Lena. Dove sei nata, Lena? Okay Philadelphia. Where in Philly? Lower merion. Kobe bryant, dolby shuffle, right there. So you know that girl. Where do you go to school? KTA. So you know that girl that always follows the rules. She's a good girl. Do you hate that girl? It's okay for you to tell us. Are you that girl? Sorry, a little too personal. Is she that girl? She might be that girl. Always works out that way. Is that girl the girl? She always follows the rules, and then there are girls that don't follow the rules. How does she always follow the rules?
She's not following the rules because she deeply believes them. You know why she's following the rules? People like you. Doesn't the generic you? Trying to work my way out of this one. Can you help me out? She's following the rules because she's terrified of what it would look like to not follow rules. On the outside, it looks really good; they're doing the right thing. But on the inside, it's not really because they believe that. It's because they're terrified of anything else. So teenagers need to go through some type of rebellious stage. This is stage number two. They have to throw off the rules because they have to learn. Are these rules really me? And we in the child of world make a terrible mistake because when we see these guys and girls and they're testing the limits and they're trying things out That's healthy. It's not always pretty. It's often a mess.
But it makes sense because people need to determine. I don't know if this is really me. Remember that stage. If you're going through it right now, or if you've already gone through it, if you're thinking about going through it. For guys, it's always the summer after tenth grade. That one hit very close to home. It's like older ones are like, no, go to ASIS by Cole. It's going to be really good for you. Keep them out of that scene. They come back and they're like completely different people. Like, what happened in those eight weeks? Something very healthy happened in those eight weeks. They're trying something out. They're trying something new. You ever eavesdrop on your parents? You don't have the answer to this one. I know the answer is yes All the time. This is being recorded. Where from? Chicago. That makes sense. I love Chicago.
Romania. I remember eavesdropping on my parents. Today I don't have much hair on top. The yarmulke is getting bigger over the course of the years to cover up and make me feel like I still have something up here. It used to be that these were the remnants of a once great nation of hair that I used to have. I remember that it was like a very cool thing to have your hair grow really long and part it in the middle and then pull the top back under your yarmulke. It was a terrible look. It was terrible. Looking back on it, I see pictures of myself. I'm like, what was wrong with me? I thought that was a normal way of having your hair. Remember a couple years ago when guys did that thing where they messed up their hair so that it looked like they just woke up, and then they said, "No, I just woke up that way." I said, "I've been waking up for 42 years. I've never woken up that way. It's not a good look." And so I had the same long pulled back hair, split in the side with my Yarmulke.
I had a cool yarmulke. I made my yarmulke look like a target, and I told people, "Why do you have a target for your yarmulke?" I'm like, "That's how the birds see the world, like everything is a target for someone." So I thought it was very cool. I remember that my mother hated my haircut. They say in psychology, if it's not one thing, it's your mother. So my mother hated my haircut, and I was eavesdropping on a conversation between my mom and my dad. And my dad goes Don't say anything to him. And my mother's, 'He looks like an idiot.' And my father's like, I know, but if you say it, he's gonna continue to look like an idiot. It's gonna get even worse. It's the last thing you want to do is an entrenched teenager. Like now, it's not about my hair; it's about the principle, right? You want me to cut my hair?
I'm gonna die on this hill. I don't care if you feed me and give me a car and clothe me and provide me with an education and send me to Israel and bring me on awesome vacations. I will not cut my hair. You could throw me out of this house, but I'm growing this thing to like Rip Van Winkle style. My mother said, 'But it looks like an idiot.' And my father said, 'Don't say anything.' And my father was right. And not that long afterwards, I was like, "This looks really stupid, right?" And then I feel like you cut it off, and then you tell people like you do that line, you go like, "I don't know, I just got bored with it, right?" No, you just came to the conclusion that was a terrible look. But you have to try it first. That's the way it goes, and it's a good thing. It's a healthy thing. Kids have to try to test the boundaries to discover if it's really them. So step number one, we'll call that Gan Eden before the sin.
You followed the rules, but not because it was you, but because you were afraid. Step number two, everything needs to break down. That's the way it goes. There is no step. There's no way of getting to the finish line without having some sort of breaking. The oak tree can't grow unless the acorn breaks. It has to be that way. And then, in the final process, you discover I want to follow these rules. I want to do this because it's right, because it feels good, because it makes sense, because it's natural, because it's organic. But you have to be willing to break the castle in order to get those soldiers out to the farthest corners of the universe. Because only then do you discover the deepest truth. And so here's the deepest truth. The king was only a king over his land, but he wasn't a king over the world.
If you want the king to become the king over the world, you need for his soldiers to go everywhere. You need for them to be in the towns and the villages, and you need for them to be sneaking around and asking people, "Have you seen these coins?" And they say, 'Why are you looking for these coins?' And they say, 'One of the great kings of this world who lives in this land. These are his coins. They're really important.' And in that way, the name of the king spreads throughout the entire world. We are here to make this world into a godly place. That's what we're here to do. In order for there to be a growth of Hashem's name in the entire world, there needs to be a breaking. The world needs to discover that the only way for it to be the best version of the world is to try out all the things that aren't going to work. And then come to the conclusion: the only thing that's going to work is God. It's happening. You look around in the world today. We're trying everything. We've tried communism. We tried Bolshevism. We're trying capitalism. Every sort of ism. We're trying psychology. Anything to replace God.
And in the end, we know that all of these things bring you back to one place. It brings you back to our Father's Parable. It's necessary for the world to go through this process. The light is no longer being imposed from the outside. The world is starting to come to this conclusion. I'll give you an example of this. Addiction. Addiction is an amazing example of this. How we treat addiction today? Going to rehab. We know it's not enough. We know that addiction is a spiritual disease. Everyone's studied it. Carl Jung, who was one of the great psychologists of this world, said, "Spiritual and spiritless." You want to treat addiction? You've got to give a person purpose. You have to help bring them in touch with their godly spirit. That's inside of them.
The world is coming back after thousands of years. Here we are on the precipice of Mashiach. I was walking through Eshelayim this Shabbos and I'm thinking, we are really on the precipice of Mashiach. I saw little beautiful children running the streets of Eshelayim and playing tag in the streets on Shabbos, and I was thinking, what would our grandparents have thought? And then I was sitting with these CJA kids and they're crying. One of them is saying, 'I don't know how I'm going to deal with the anti-Semitism when I go back. I face anti-Semitism on the daily.' One of the girls said to me, 'Please give me a heather to drive on Shabbos.' The shul that's near my house is under construction, and they closed it. I can't not go to shul on Shabbos. Rabbi, please give me a heather. Another girl said to me, "I can't keep Shabbos in my house. My parents are divorced. I can't keep Shabbos. My father won't let me."
And my mother moved away. What can I do to keep Shabbos? I am talking to her. I said, "Well, can you go to an NCSY advisor?" And she said, 'Yes, I can go away for Shabbos.' I said, 'How often do you think you can go away for Shabbos?' She said, 'Maybe twice a month.' I said, 'Let's do once a month.' Which NCSY advisor here will have you for Shabbos? All the NCSY advisors raised their hands. I said, 'Okay, so once a month you are going to go away for Shabbos. How many hours do you think you could keep Shabbos by yourself in your father's house?' She said a couple hours every Shabbos. I said, "Great, we're going to have designated hours every Shabbos." I said, "Can you learn?" She said, "I would love to learn." I said, "Every Thursday night, will you learn?" She said, "Absolutely." I said, "Who volunteers to learn with her every Thursday night?" NCSY advises everyone of me. I'm going to learn with her every Thursday night. And then I said to her
"Can you light Shabbos candles?" She said, "Absolutely, I can light Shabbos candles. I and my dad will." I said, "What would it be like if you were here next year on TJJ?" What would it be like if you could say I kept twelve Shabbatot every month? I kept a full Shabbos. I learned every Thursday night. I kept a couple of hours of Shabbos every other time, and I lit Shabbos candles every week. Would you be proud of yourself? She's tears streaming down her face. I'm so proud of myself, and she's in there crying, and all these girls are like around her and crying with her, and I'm thinking Mosheh's got to be here, right? Like How could it? How can Mosheh not come? This girl is literally begging to keep Shabbos. I went back to NCSY hall the next night. Some night I walked into my shir. Guys like Rabbi Houser Shabbos. I said, 'Boys, get prepared for some mussar.' You guys have parents that want you to keep Shabbos. You have everything set up.
This girl would kill to be in one of our families. We have to be so sensitive to this, but we're right there on the precipice. People are coming back left and right. " I asked the Rabbi Derek Norman, who runs the entire Like California, NCSY, like you know, there's no other than that. I said, "How many Jewish kids are there in public school and high school in California?" He said, "Fifteen thousand." He said, "Fifteen thousand. That's an unbelievable number." He said, "I could reach them if I just had the money. I could get to them." " I said, "Wow. It's unbelievable. Like people are ready to come back. We just have to have enough money and enough manpower to get to them. But the people are right here. The infrastructure is in place." There was a lot of breaking, but it's being rebuilt, and we're the generation that's watching it be rebuilt, which is unbelievable.
I remember that I was on the roof of Yeshiva Hakota one time with Rav Moshe Weinberger. We were fabraging on the roof of Hakota. There was no means to fabrag, to sit and to sing and to tell stories, and Rav Weinberger is looking at the view from Yeshiva Hakota. It was amazing. It's like the view from the top of Beis Shlora. And I'm looking at the view, and I'm like, "Wow, this is incredible!" And Weinberger started to cry. "Look at the mosque that's on the Mohammed image." And if Weinberger had that sensitivity that I was missing, because I'm focusing on rebuilding, but Weinberger's like, "We're still not there. We can't be satisfied with the table scraps. Destruction is rebuilding. That's what it's all about, fundamentally. There's no such thing really as descent. All there is us. All there is going up. It just feels to us that way sometimes.
I'll share with you a muscle that I just heard, but it's a gorgeous one. It's super deep, so you have to pay attention. A man is sitting on the ground and he's searching for something. And two people walk by. And as they walk by, they see this guy searching. One of them stops and says, "Hey, brother, what are you looking for?" He goes, "I'm looking for my wallet." So he goes. I'll help you look for your wallet. Where did you lose your wallet? He points in the distance. I lost my wallet. Says, so why are we looking for your wallet over here if you lost it over there? He goes, it's too dark over there. I can't see anything. That's the whole motion. It's too dark over there. I can't see anything. It doesn't help you to look in your wallet in the place where it's light.
If it was light and your wallet was there, you'd have found it already. If you want to transform the darkness, you have to be willing to confront the darkness. You have to give yourself permission to go to the darkest places in your life. And you have to have the courage to stand in front of that place and let it hit you like a truck. That's the hardest thing to do. I was talking to a young woman today. She has a place in her life inside of herself that she doesn't want to go And I said, What would happen if you went there? She said, "I'm afraid I would lose myself. If I went to that darkness, I'm afraid I would lose myself. How do I know that I'd come out at the end? How do I know that it would be okay? What if that thought that I have is real? What if that feeling that I have is real? What's going to be the negative impact?" So I said, let's evaluate our options here. What are the choices?
Choice number one is we could search in the light, avoid the darkness, and lie to ourselves. But you know that it's there inside of you. Choice number two is you could believe in yourself. That it's okay for you to feel whatever feelings you have And it's okay for you to think whatever thoughts you have, because they're just thoughts. And for you to be able to say "I can go there, and maybe it'll break me a little bit, but that's also a place that I'm going to grow." If you want to find your wallet, you have to look in the place where your wallet is. Somebody told me a beautiful tefillah A tefillah that they made up. I think they made it up. They died. May the flowers always remind me that the rain is necessary. Not a beautiful line. Some people are sitting there in the rain. There's always two types of people in the rain. I'm the first type.
Especially if it's cold and I'm in America, and you know, like the cold rain in February where it's like in your bones. You're walking in the rain and hunched over as if it's going to stop you from feeling any of it. You're all bundled up real tight. And then there are people. That they walk in the rain and they're totally relaxed because I'm going to get hit by the rain anyway, so it's fine. I may as well enjoy walking in the rain. Some people enjoy walking in the rain because they're not afraid to get wet, and some people are terrified of it. You're going to get wet either way. The question is, do you recognize that you needed to go through that pain in order to get to where you are? It's got to be part of the process. When you're in it, it stinks. When you're in the middle of that pain and everything is falling apart, you look at yourself and you're like, Oh man, this is just terrible! All this breaking is so painful.
But if you hold on tight If you remember that all of this breaking is necessary So then it's beautiful; it's exquisite. I wouldn't do anything else but go through this. You have to learn a lot of those lessons the hard way, right? Listen to this idea from the Bacha Churek. He says so beautifully. Here we are, Klal Yisrael is on the precipice of going into Eretz Yisrael. And he instructs Moshe Rabbeinu to go through all the places that you journeyed, but highlight the ones that were bad. Go to the places that were the darkest places. Go to the places where there was so much breaking. And remind them this is where everything went wrong. This is where you angered God. This is where you guys were complaining about this and complaining about that, and everything was falling apart, and everyone was dying. Remember all those places?
We're about to go into Eretz Yisroel. Shouldn't God give us the ultimate chizuk speech? I'm sure that Mrs. Yudin, at the end of the summer, is going to say something like, 'Look how you girls grew this summer, and you can take it with you, and it's going to be amazing. And in six months from now, we're going to have a reunion, and you're going to be able to see how much you've grown and the growth that you did in mechelah that you have to take with you.' But that's exactly the opposite of what Hashem does. Hashem comes and says, 'Let's look at all the bad stuff.' Why? Because at the end of your journey, you're able to look back and say, 'Now I understand.' I couldn't understand while I was going through it, but now I understand. I had to go through that to get here. There is no descent. Everyone talks about you read the Litzorah Chalilah. You have to go down in order to go up.
Wrong. There is no descent. It only feels that way, and the feeling is true and real. But there is no descent. It's only ascent. You would never look at the acorn and say to the acorn, 'You're breaking, chavaf.' No, you're growing. It's awesome. I made a mistake last week. Can I share my mistake with you? I gave this martial to a group of women who are mothers. You'll understand the mistake in a moment. I said, "When you're having a child." You're not suffering, and they're looking at me. They're very polite. They're very kind. They're like, "Where are you going with this? This is not going to end well for you." I was like, "No" You're in pain, but you're not suffering. And one of the women said, 'I don't think you should keep going with this motion.' I understand. I don't know. You're right. I don't know.
So the difference between pain and suffering, and this why I was saying, even though obviously it was the wrong thing to say, but the difference between pain and suffering is this happening and I have no idea why. Pain is something I can handle because I understand why it's happening. So if you're in the middle of childbirth, the pain is huge. But it's worth it, and you know it's going to be worth it because you know that soon, God willing, sooner rather than later, you're going to be holding your child for the first time. And you know that moment is going to be unparalleled. Someone that I know, a dear friend A tremendous tragedy. His wife The baby died in utero. It wasn't a miscarriage. The baby actually died. And he told me, this is an unbelievable tragedy. It was the worst childbirth in the world because my wife had to go through all of the pain but didn't get to hold the baby.
So we can go through a tremendous amount of pain as long as we know what it's going to look like at the end. At the end, we get to reframe and we get to say, "I know why that happened." That's why at the end of the seder we sing Chag Gadol. Everyone here sing Chag Gadol at the end of the seder. At the end of the seder, when you've gone through the process, you see it's matzah and then you get to go. This led to this. This is how everything happened. I can see all the different pieces of the puzzle. The problem is that we're sitting there at the middle, and so we're saying, "I don't understand this. I'm suffering because I don't understand what the end looks like." But if you'd be at the end, you would understand why every single step was absolutely necessary. I remember I was sitting with my rebbe. Shmuzaychatur of Four Shalim. He's ninety-four years old. Claimed that he should live to one hundred and twenty, but unfortunately, it's not so glowing.
I was sitting with my rebbe, and he was in his. I want to say his low eighties. I was in his kitchen. He lives in Borough Park, a small kitchen in Borough Park. And I was sitting. It was me, my rebbe, and Rebbetzin sitting in their tiny kitchen in Borough Park. And I looked over on the fridge, and I saw on the fridge a picture of my rebbe's family. Now my rebbe had eight children. And all of those eight children had eight children, and all of those eight children had eight children, and all of those eight children had eight children. You understand what I'm saying? The picture by the wedding was like one of those fish lens. Like, can we capture all of these people into one thing? You know why you have to wait two hours after they go to the yichud room? It's for pictures like that. It's to make sure that everybody can get it. So I said to my rabbi, "It looks more like a tribe than a family."
Which probably wasn't the nicest thing to say. I said, 'It looks more like a tribe than a family.' My rabbi said something to him. He's like, 'Yeah, Baruch Hashem.' And the rabbi's son looked at him. It was the most uncomfortable moment of my life. The rabbi's son looked at my rabbi, and she looked at him right in the eyes. Remember, they're both in their low 80s. And all from a couple of kids that had no idea what they were doing. They're staring at each other for three seconds. And for me, I was like, this is the most uncomfortable moment of my life. I need to run. I can't be here. There's so much love in this room. I should not be seeing this. It was so uncomfortable, and it's my rabbi. But there was something amazing about that line. At some point, he's my rabbi. He's 94 years old, and he's a world class talmud hakham. He taught tens of thousands of talmidim.
But at some point in his life, he was a young guy in his 20s, and she was a young girl in their 20s, and they had no idea what they were doing, and they were fumbling and bumbling, just like all of us are fumbling and bumbling. And they were also making their way through life, and they were also just saying, I don't know what I'm doing and making mistakes. And at the end, you get to look back and go That's how we got here. It's like that couple that has to go through so much pain and suffering until they finally figure out how to love each other so beautifully, and then their love is exquisite. I had a friend. It's actually a roommate, an amazing guy. And this guy was the nicest. You know, like, there are some people who are just the nicest in the world. You know those guys? Yeah, you do. How is food? You know that guy, right? This guy was like the sweetest girl in the world. He was like the nicest, adol male. Just like nothing you could say would ever bother him
And he'd be the guy that would come in at night. He'd say, "Did you eat yet? Can I make you something to eat?" I'd say, "Just stop being nice. I'm not a nice person." He'd say, "No, really? Can I help you?" He was that gentle guy, and he married a girl who's also very sweet and loving. And we drove out to Baltimore for their wedding. She was from Baltimore, so we drove out from Baltimore. The rabbi who was Masada kedusha was on the manah And I was one of the aiden under the chuppah. The manah of the yeshiva looks at me under the chuppah. And right before he starts making the brachos and right before giving the ring and reading the ketuba, he looks at me, and the mic is on so everyone can hear what he's saying, but he is not paying attention. He goes, "How much does it bother you that you know that this couple is never going to fight?" I was like.
Maybe we shouldn't be having this conversation right now. The entire place is listening. Most couples fight. Most couples have to go through some really hard things. That's right? Because the breaking is part of the building. And at the end, you get to look back and go Needed to go through all that stuff. So I'll finish with this. There was a great sabbat whose name was Mayor of Premishlin. And Rav Mayer of Premishlin used to go to Mikveh at least in the day, and would go in these very icy waters at the bottom of a very steep hill. And all the townspeople would wonder and they would say, "How does Rav Mayer of Premishlin, who's such an old man and he's such a great tzaddik, walk down this mountain without falling?" And so a couple of the youth in the village said, 'It's not a big deal. Anyone could walk down that now.' So they tried it one morning and they went tumbling down the mountain and broke their legs.
And they came to Rav Mayer, and they said, "Rav How do you hold on? How do you walk down that mountain every single day without losing your footing? And he said "If you are holding on up above, you don't fall down below. If you remember that there is a God If you remember that there is the Nevi'im Shamayim And that all of the 'quote unquote' descents in our life are for a purpose, if they're for a reason. Then you understand. I am good, no matter what I am going through. I am good. It's okay. I can give myself permission to be human. I can give myself permission to be broken. I can give myself permission to go through whatever it is that I'm going through, because I'm going through it anyway. I can feel all of the feelings All the anger, all the sadness, all the loneliness, all the jealousy. I can feel all of it.
Because if I pick up one end of the stick, I get to pick up the other. I get to feel joy. I get to feel gratitude. I get to feel love. Only through going through the darkness do you get to feel the light. Girls have an amazing rest of your week. Thank you so much for inviting me to the club.
Is this shiur filed in the wrong place? Let us know.