Parshas Nitzavim - Growing Up, Choosing Hashem

2:21 Religion is not a set of laws. But religion is a relationship, and relationships have rules. For example I'm married. Some of you might know my wife. She teaches here. And in our relationship, there are rules. There are boundaries. The boundaries are designed to create the relationship. And some of those boundaries might be silly. They might appear to be arbitrary. But of course, they're not arbitrary. It's what gives the relationship its flavor. For example. If my wife asks me to take out the garbage Is that a rule? Is that like a Is that an obligation? Is that the way you would describe it? Marrying Eliza meant taking out the garbage, and in my neighborhood, because I live in Ramat Pechemesh, and because the person that built my neighborhood paid off the government, because he built my neighborhood so poorly that garbage trucks cannot come to my house because there's a ramp and the ramp is too low. So we paid off the government. Rather than redoing the ramp, I have to take my garbage a block away to take out the trash. That's what it's like sometimes to live in Israel. That's the price I pay for living in this holy land. I walk for an entire block with my garbage.

3:39 Which means that nobody in my family ever wants to take out the garbage. The garbage in my house accumulates, and you could have five or six garbage bags, and then finally we tell the kids to take out the garbage, or my wife will say to me, 'Would you mind taking out the garbage?' When I drive up the ramp, I put the garbage in the trunk of my car because who wants to schlepp the garbage a block away? Imagine if I turned to my wife and I said to her If I don't take out the garbage, will you punish me? Is that a normal thing for a husband to say to the wife? What's the punishment? What's the reward, Rabbi? I'm doing this for the reward, right? I've been told there's a place called Olam Haba, and I want to get my reward in Olam Haba. What's the reward? The only reason you can ask that question is because, for some reason, at some point along the way, somebody taught you, and this is incorrect, that Judaism is a set of do's and don'ts.

4:35 And you would never say that about a relationship. You would say that about a business. For example, if we were in business together, and I said to you, "I'll provide you this product. How much are you willing to pay for it?" That makes sense. Because we're in a business partnership. We're not in a relationship. Today, it's very in vogue when you're running a business to say we're a family here. You're not. And I'll give you the proof that you're not a family. If you stop paying me, I'm leaving. We're not in a business together. This is a job. And it's nice to have a nice environment in your job, but it's not a family, and it shouldn't be a family. You come for a particular reason. The problem with Yiddishkeit today is that so many of us were brought up in a system where we believe that we're in a transactional relationship with Hashem. It's a professional relationship, and I'll give you proof. One of the things that people say all the time is that they say, Rabbi, I'll tell you, I don't like davening because a lot of times I daven for things, and I don't get the things I'm davening for.

5:37 But think about how sad that is. It's like treating Hashem like a vending machine. I put in my dollar fifty. I pressed a six. How come I didn't get my bag of chips, Rabbi? I was shuffling like I was having a seizure right there on the mechitzah of Camp Ask, so that the boys should see that I'm very from. I was doing the whole thing. I don't understand the problem. And I really meant every word. And I promise you, I held my sitter. I don't know why girls do this. But boys don't do this. But I enjoy this so much. I don't understand this move. I don't understand the holding of the elbow. Face plant into the sitter move. I don't understand. I don't get it. I've never seen a boy do that, by the way. I'm not saying it doesn't make sense. I get the elbow part, but what's with the face plant? I saw a girl once who pulled out a sitter. Her sitter had so many colors in it because all her makeup was all over the inside pages of the sitter.

6:32 It's like in the old days. They would talk about the sitter was stained with the tears of the person who was davening. And in two thousand twenty-two, the sitter is stained with mascara and blush and lipstick. Baruch Hashem It's good to be back. I like being back here too. I tell you, these jokes are for me. They're not for you. I'm just entertaining myself. Rabbi, I daven. How come I didn't get what I wanted? It's like Santa Claus. I was a good boy this year. I don't understand how come I didn't get it. We have a seat right here. Come join us, please. It's a family here. Now move back. Good for you that you're not embarrassed. I'm being serious. Tairahe, the lomarani tzarach. It's a beautiful thing. We would never say that about our parents. We would never say You owe me. It's about being in a relationship.

7:45 Relationships have rules, but the rules don't define the relationship in the sense that they're transactional. It's what allows us to participate in the relationship. If I don't know what's important to my wife, how can I possibly be in a relationship with her? Does that make sense? This is a transformative idea when you understand this Because it leads to questions that are important questions. Questions like, if I'm in a relationship, how come I don't hear from Hashem? I want to be able to talk to the person that I'm in a relationship with. That's a good question. What is Olam Habah? What does Schar mean? What does it mean to be rewarded? Of course, it doesn't mean what we grew up thinking it means. I know Rosh Hashanah is coming up, but there are no scales. I know that you grew up and you thought there was a scale in Shamayim. I'm sorry, I'm breaking the bubble. And I know you think there are mitzvos on one side and averos on the other, and you have more averos than mitzvos. But Baruch Hashem, in the times of the Balshamtof, there was one time a wagon that got stuck in the mud, and you helped the wagon get unstuck from the mud. So now the wagon jumps onto the mitzvah side, and now it's all balanced out the other way. And Baruch Hashem, you go straight to Olam Habah. Girls, there's no scale.

8:54 There's no scale. There's no scale. That's not the way it works. There is a way it works, and the way that it works is actually very beautiful. The Gemara says, 'Schar mitzvah.' The reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah itself. Meaning, if I ask my wife, "Elisa, I'm going to take out the garbage." What's my reward? She would say to me: Being here. Being here is a reward. Being a part of this relationship is a reward. That's what makes it exciting. At some point. When you ask the question why You run out of runway. And it's important to know because the question why is a really good question. But at some point, the question doesn't make sense anymore. I'll give you an example. If somebody said to me, let's say I had a job in advertising, if somebody said, why do you have a job in advertising? I would say to make money, and they would say, and why do you want money? And I would say, well, I want money because I want to live in a house. They say, why do you want to live in a house? I would say because I want my family to have shelter.

9:54 And then, if they asked me why I want a family, what could I possibly answer? So people give answers, and by the way, every answer that's given is sick and distorted. If you actually think about it, they're awful answers. People say things like, "I have children so that I'll have a legacy." That's a terrible pressure to put on a child. What happens if your child doesn't accord with your legacy? How would you treat that child? If you have a child to have a legacy, then that child is misbehaving. You're going to be an abusive parent to that child. The only reason to love a child is because they are And that's the truth. That's the way it should be. I remember when my oldest daughter was born. My oldest daughter now is nineteen years old. She's in seminary herself.

10:41 I remember when she was born. I'm not okay with the fact that she's in seminary. I share my stuff in public, by the way. This is like my. You guys are my therapy session right now. I'm not okay. I told her from the time she was little, don't grow up too fast. And she didn't listen. She didn't listen to the rules of the relationship. Now she's in seminary, and my kids know for the two or three weeks right before seminary starts, I'm a wreck. Every time they talk about going off, I'm like, I can't handle this. I start crying. I'm a giant baby. It's okay. I have five daughters. They taught me how to be emotional, and now I can't stop. It's a mess. If I would have had sons, I'd be a regular person. But my daughters rubbed off on me. I remember when my daughter was born. My oldest daughter. I remember we were in my Montes Hospital in Brooklyn, and I remember they handed me this tiny little thing And I'm twenty-two.

11:30 Twenty-two. Twenty-one, twenty-two And I'm holding this thing. And I had the most irrational levels of love For this tiny little bit of protoplasm that had never done anything for me in my entire life. All she was, this messy little baby, and you're just holding her and going, 'I would die for you.' That's and I'm not joking. That's the way you actually feel. And if somebody asked me why, what could I possibly say? Because she'll be my legacy? Of course not. And then there's the people, the biologists. They'll tell you, "Well, it's evolutionary." This is how you continue the species. " I mean, think about how distorted that is. It's like you're sitting there holding your child, and a scientist is looking at you, going. It's interesting how the species will continue to love each other so they can continue to exist. It's not really a question of morality, it's more about the mechanics of survival. It's just that I think we're trying to make sense of something that is inherently nonsensical. It's like the universe is playing a joke on us. And soon there'll be new cells. That's it's of course a terrible. It's like getting down on one knee and asking your wife to marry you because nobody makes me secrete serotonin like you.

12:37 Every time we're together, the oxytocin that I secrete is magical. Who would say yes to such a proposal? I hope nobody. I imagine we wouldn't, Because when you start limiting things to their biology, biology is of course true. It's of course true that I'm secreting serotonin and oxytocin and all these amazing hormones when we're with the people that we love. But it's the love that creates the hormones, not the hormones that create the love. That's obvious. And if somebody would say to you I just feel great when I'm around you, run. Run. What does that mean? The reason you're marrying me is because you feel great. What happens when you don't? And by the way, that happens. There are lulls in relationships. There are times of strife, just like in our Judaism. There are times where we're not into it. The value of the relationship is I am here. This is where I am. There's a sense of loyalty and obligation, and it should be that way. That's the most beautiful expression of love.

13:43 So when we say a bris When we say that we're entering into a bris with Hashem, what we're saying is this is not a contract. There's no business relationship here. This is a relationship that's built on a foundation of love and trust and respect and obligation and duty and loyalty and all the words that are not in vogue today. All the words that we don't grow up with. You should constantly feel good about yourself, and if it's not working for you, maybe you shouldn't be doing it. There's certainly truth to that, but what about the other side of the equation? What would happen to people who grew up and they expect everything to always be good all the time? How will that play out long term in your life? Will that work very well? Of course not. So it's incumbent upon us to talk about real things. What does it look like to be in a relationship with Hashem?

14:39 And what does it mean now that we know that we are in a relationship with Hashem, and that's what religion really means, and that's what a bris really means? It's incumbent upon us to spend some time thinking about because we're intelligent people. And when we see the world in a wise way, we're going to have a wise life. So it's incumbent upon us to start to think, what does it mean that Moshe Rabenu renewed the bris with Hashem? I want to share with you an answer. And I think this answer will frame for us not only Bez Hashem Rosh Hashanah, but I'm hopeful that it will frame your entire year for you. There were three brisses in the Torah up until this one. The first is the bris of Noach after the flood. Hashem Baruch Hu makes a covenant with Noach, and He gives him Sheva Mitzvos Bene Noach. Two things are fascinating about this.

15:27 Number one, Hashem comes to Noach. Number two, Hashem expects no response from Noach, and indeed Noach gives no response. There's seven mitzvos. Noach says, "Okay." There's seven mitzvos. That's it. It's a reality. The second bris is the bris b'nei Basarim. This is when we become uniquely engaged with Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Now we've begun a nation called Judaism. Again, Hashem comes to Avram Avinu, but now He demands a response, and the response is a bris mila, and that's why we have bris mila. Even though today again they're coming after Bris Mila in the secular world, and they're saying that we're doing a terrible thing to our children, but for us this is an expression of a relationship that we have with Hashem. And the final Bris was the most unique Bris, happened by Arsenei, and here our Kadosh Baruch Hu came to Klal Yisrael and He said, 'Before I give you the Aseret Hadibros, before I give you the Ten Commandments' I need to know if you're willing to be in a Bris with me. Our Kadosh Baruch Hu is not just telling us what's happening and we have to agree. He's asking us. This is the proposal, so to speak. If you follow this, it sounds something like this: Noah gets treated kind of like this reality. Deal with it.

16:45 You live in the world. There are seven mitzvot b'nei Noah. When it comes to Avram, it's something a little bit more specific. You belong to me, like a parent to a child. But when it comes to Moshe Rabbeinu by Klal Yisrael by our Sinai Now something is shifted. It's like Hakadosh Baruch Hu is proposing. Hakadosh Baruch Hu is coming and saying, 'I'm asking for your hand in marriage. I'm asking to participate in this relationship. Do you want to participate in this relationship?' I would have thought that would have been enough. I would have thought that would have been enough. The first stage is man treated like a thing. The second stage is the second stage, the second stage. You belong to me like a parent and a child. The third stage is we're married. Is there any need for anything more? And the answer is there is And this is the part that I think is super relevant to you.

17:39 At some point, children grow up. And it happens this year. You cannot possibly imagine. Ask the Shana Beck girls because they didn't imagine it earlier in the beginning of their year. But you cannot possibly imagine what you're going to look like in nine months from now. If you put in work for nine months into really becoming the person you want to become You cannot possibly imagine how far that will take you. It won't just last for a year. It could last for ten years, for twenty years, for thirty years, for forty years. And it's not the pshat that you won't have ups and downs. You certainly will. But what you're doing right now is you're orienting your life in a particular direction. You're saying to yourself: Who do I want to be in twenty years from now? What type of family do I want to have? And here's the amazing thing: you will make small choices that are just fractionally different than your friends.

18:36 But in the long term, those small choices will have major impacts. I remember I was sitting with my roommate at the end of Mayshana Aleph, a guy that I had gone to elementary school with until I was expelled. Then we went to high school together. And then we went to yeshiva together. I was in a yeshiva called Mevaseret when I grew up, and that's the yeshiva I'm in now that I work in. And at the end of my shana aleph, we were talking, and I was making the decision to come back shanabet, and he was making the decision to start college. And I asked him the following question. I said, "Tell me" Torah mathehe alecha. What's going to be with your learning Torah when you go back to America? You're going to Queens College. What's going to be with your learning? So he said to me, "I'm going to have a chavruta." I said that's awesome. What are you going to be learning? He said we're going to be learning mishnayos.

19:23 I said that's great, that's great. But girls, just the reality sometimes, if you're not in a structured environment, it never really happens. You ever have this where you say I'm going to do it, over the summer we're for sure going to do this, but because it doesn't have any actual structure to it, by the end of the summer you remember all those plans that you had. So we started off. Our parents were friends. We went to elementary school, high school, and yeshiva together. We were exactly the same. I ended up going to yeshiva for a while. He ended up going into business. Baruch Hashem, very mazliach, great guy. He was living in America. I had made aliyah. It was important to me to live here in Eretz Yisrael, and Eretz Yisrael was a value to him. But it wasn't a lived value because he never invested in it. It was those small things. A couple years ago, he came to Eretz Yisrael. We sat down together. I'll never forget this.

20:15 He said to me, "How did we end up so different? Not better or worse, just different. Because we definitely don't want to have the same lives. He doesn't want my life, and I don't want his. But we're still very close friends." He said, "How did we end up so different? We literally grew up exactly the same." I said to him, "You know when we started the difference?" He said, "When?" I said, "When I chose to come back and you chose to go to college. That was a very small decision that we made." That just began this path of going in very different directions, and you want to hear something amazing from that conversation to this guy's credit. He started asking himself So do I have the life that I actually want to have? And the answer to that question was he didn't. So he brought his entire business over to Israel and he made aliyah, and now he's raising his family here because the guy's an honest guy. He's an honest searcher, and he was asking himself, "How come I don't have the life that I planned for myself?" Isn't that an amazing growth-oriented thing to do? To really get honest with yourself and to say, "Who do I want to be?" I was so impressed by that.

21:18 It's time to grow up. It's time to take ownership over our Judaism. And what I mean to say is as follows. Up until now, you've been in the system. Everything about this system is designed to keep you in the system. Have you realized that? Everything that you've gone through, every teacher that you've had, every class that you've had, every event that you went to, is to say, be here and be awesome here. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with us saying to our children that we have a unique mission. It's God's mission. We want you to participate. But there's a tragedy that can happen. There's a tragedy that some people will never choose to participate in Yiddishkeit. It will just be something that they do because their parents do it, because their siblings do it, because their friends do it, because they're too afraid to leave, because it's convenient. Why should I leave?

22:15 Why should I leave? It's fine. By the way, it's better than fine. I have a Talmud who's a social worker now And he told me that he's specifically going to work in the Gentile world. And I said that's fine. I'm just curious, why specifically though? He goes because the Gentiles don't have the systems that the Jews have, and I'd like to be able to build something for them too. I said, "What do you mean they don't have the systems?" He goes, "Well, think about it. If you get cancer, who do you call? It's a high lifeline." He goes, "Right." He goes, "And if you have a special needs child, where do they go in the summer?" I said, "They go to Hask." I said, "If they need it," he said, "If they need an adult home when they get older, where do they go?" He goes, "Oh," I said, "Oh well.

22:55 He goes, "Right." And if you don't have money to pay for food for Shabbos, who do you call? I said, "Tomchesh Shabbos." I said, if you're looking for a chavrusa, who do you call? Partners in Torah, right? And he started going through all the systems. He goes, when's the last time you called an ambulance? You call Hatzalah, right? Right. And if your car breaks down on the side of the road, you call Triple A. You call Chavayim, right? Like, and that's the proper way for it to be pronounced. It's not Chavayim. Chavayim. You got to be a Tuna Bagel to work for those places. We have un we have an unbelievable community. We really do We really do. And by the way, if you want to choose from the range of amazing yeshivas and seminaries that we have, you're going to find everything you're looking for. You want a place that's going to have serious secular studies and serious Jewish education? You're going to find that. You want a place with secular amazing secular studies and a terrible religious education? You're going to find that. You want a place that has no secular studies and an amazing religious education and is going to be featured on the cover of the New York Times? Believe me, we have that too. It's like hundreds of thousands of people apparently, right? We have

24:01 We have literally. You want to choose? We have an amazing community. So if I was a person growing up today in twenty twenty two, and somebody said you want to be a Jew, I would go, yeah, not bad. Why not? It's expensive. That's the only thing. I'm a little cheap. It's expensive. If you want to be part of our community, it's expensive because you have to live where we live. So if you live in any combination of Florida, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, New Jersey, Muncie is its own thing. It's not part of New York. All these things. If you want to be part of that world, it's expensive, and yeshiva tuition is expensive, and food is expensive. But it's worth it to pay the extra money. Because then you get to be part of this awesome community. Just on a practical level, my brother told me. My brother Baruch Hashem is very matzliach in business. If you can't get a job coming out of the Jewish community, something has gone very wrong.

24:49 I said, what went wrong? He said, you grew up in shuls schools. Camps, you went to yeshivas and seminaries for Israel. Is that accountants? If you can't, if you're a Jew and you can't get a job as an accountant You're like you must be off. Everybody is an accountant, everybody's a cardiologist, everybody's a lawyer, everybody's in hard money lending or doing Amazon or real estate or diamonds. Everyone knows somebody. It's an amazing community. But just because it's an amazing community, doesn't mean that you chose to participate in the relationship with Hashem. You want to know what real inspiration looks like? Real inspiration. I hate to break it to you this year. Real inspiration will never come from any of the shiroom that you get. You'll hear amazing ideas, and no doubt the ideas will be inspiring, but they will not inspire you long term. They'll excite your mind. You'll start to think, but long term the effects will always wear off because inspiration doesn't last. Not because the ideas aren't inspiring, but because to live that inspiration is a really difficult thing to do.

25:53 What makes real inspiration? One choice. It's one choice that you have to make over and over again to orient your life, and it's a question of who do I want to be? That's the only question, and now you get to ask yourself that question. Do I want to show up? Which is, by the way, no small thing. I don't. I don't mean to be mezozal in it. Do I want to show up to my Judaism and just be a Jew who comes to daven and says the words, or do I want to be a Jew who actually engages in a conversation with Hashem? Do I want a role model for my children because I want them to fit in the community, or am I communicating dignity? And dignity has nothing to do with ankles and elbows. Do I want to be a person of dignity, not only the way I dress, the way I speak, the way I think, the way I engage the world?

26:42 It's so much bigger than just following the rules, and the problem is that we were taught the rules over and over again. It's like, just because you've shown me the menu doesn't mean that the food is delicious. I can study the menu from today till tomorrow, but when am I going to get to taste it? It's like imagine if somebody came to you and taught you all of Hilchah Shabbos, and you took a test and you got a hundred and ten, because they always give you extra credit. You got a hundred and ten on your Hilchah Shabbos class. It doesn't matter if you hate Shabbos, you know all the rules. But maybe Shabbos stinks. Maybe you feel like Shabbos is I can't go on my phone. Shabbos is I can't do things with my friends because they're too far away. But there are people that choose Shabbos, and those people are deeply inspired. I'll share with you an amazing story that happened this summer. In the summer, I want you to know I love my summers because I work for NCSY.

27:35 And working for NCSY means I get to work with public school kids. Kids who have come to Israel for the summer. And for many of them, it's their first, and hopefully not last, but sometimes their only Jewish experience. So I'll tell you a story. This summer, I called up David Cutler, and I said he's the head of all of NCSY summer, and I said, David, I'd like to be on the Yerushalayim Shabbaton. All of the NCSY programs are in Yerushalayim for one Shabbos. I'd like to be there for Shabbos. I was asked to come by two of the TJJ groups. So David said to me, Mordechai, I would love to have you for Shabbos. The problem is. I can't put your entire family up in a hotel; it's just too expensive. I said, David, I'm willing to come for Shabbos by myself. I just want to be with these public school kids. And he said, All right, look, if you're willing to come by yourself, I'm happy to do it.

28:23 Shabbos morning I'm speaking to anyone here from Florida. Anyone here know Avi Warman? I'm speaking to Avi Warman's TJJ Lions, and it's the last Shabbos of the summer. And I said to Avi, "What are we doing Shabbos morning?" And Avi says to me, "We're doing a question and answer, and the questions will be about how do we keep our Judaism strong after we leave NCSY summer and we're going back to our homes where our parents are not religious." And I said, "awesome." So I sit down. It's a room like this And guys and girls are sitting there. I said, "Who's going to start us off?" One girl asks a question. She raises her hand. She says, "Rabbi." I need permission to drive to shul on Shabbos. How do you answer that? I do not know what to say. What do you mean? She said, "Well, the shul that was closest to me is under renovation, and the next shul is an hour walk away."

29:26 And I don't realistically see myself walking to shul, but I cannot go back to America and not go to shul. I've davened for the past month here in Israel. And I've fallen in love with davening. How could I not go to shul on Shabbos? What do you answer to that girl? Of course, you can't give her rishos to drive on Shabbos. But I'm sitting there thinking, do I love davening as much as this girl loves davening? That she's like, please Rabbi, please do something that I should be able to walk to that I should be able to get to shul on Shabbos. I said whatever I said. I didn't give a good answer. There was no good answer to that question. I turned to the next person. They said after this summer. I feel like it's time for me to stand up to the daily anti-Semitism that I face in my public school. How can I get the courage to face that anti-Semitism?

30:19 I'm supposed to be good at this. They pay me to do this. What do you say? What do you answer? Is there a good answer that you're going to give? I had no good answer. I'll share with you a story. In NCSY summer a couple years ago, in NCSY Kollel, they have a Mechena program. It's the most amazing program in the world. They have public school kids that are coming to NCSY Kollel to learn all summer, right next to kids that are in yeshiva all year long. And they decided one summer that they're going to have a panel And on one side of the table will be the public school kids, and on the other side of the table will be the yeshiva day school kids. The kids will be able to ask questions to each other. So one of the kids, one of the yeshiva day school kids, asked one of the public school kids. He said, "What's the hardest part about being in NCSY Kollel?" So the public school kid said, "the hardest part is the yarmulkes." So the kid was like, 'Really, it's so hard to wear a yarmulke.'

31:06 The public school kid looked at me, started shaking his head. He said, 'No, I wear a yarmulke all year long. Of course it's not hard. I get bullied. I get called anti-Semitic slurs all of the time because of the yarmulke that I wear.' When we're playing basketball and I see the yeshiva day school kids and their yarmulkes falling off their heads, and they have a choice to catch the ball or to hold their yarmulke on their head, they take the yarmulke and quickly throw it to the side of the court so they can catch the ball. It's hard for me to watch because of how much I've sacrificed for my yarmulke. And the kids who were in the audience that day, every one of them walked out of there and they came to me like unmasked, like Rabbi, I'm the worst Jew in the world. I'm like, you're not the worst Jew in the world. Jesus was the worst Jew in the world. You're fine. The difference is these kids are choosing their Judaism.

32:02 That's why it's so powerful for them. The last question was the hardest one. This girl said to me, Rabbi, my parents have divorced. My mom would be more accepting of me keeping Shabbos, but my dad isn't. He won't let me keep Shabbos. I can go. I can maybe go away a couple of times, but I can't go away every Shabbos, and I can't sit in my room. All my friends are Gentiles, and I can't be in my room for twenty-five hours straight. And she's crying. And there's a whole group of girls sitting with her crying because they're all going through the same thing. And I asked her, "Would your father let you light Shabbos candles?" She said, "Yeah, he would let me light Shabbos candles." I said, "How often do you think you could go away" For Shabbos? She said, 'Like once a month.' I said, 'Once a month is awesome.' Which NCSY advisors here are going to have her for Shabbos? Every hand shot up. Everyone said, 'We're going to have you for Shabbos.'

32:56 I said, "Do you think you could make time during the week to learn?" She said, "For sure. I would love that." I said, "Which NCSY advisors are going to learn with her during the week?" Every hand shot up. Make a chavruta right now. I said, "How many hours a week do you think you could keep Shabbos in your father's house, just staying off your phone? What's reasonable?" She said, "I don't know." I said, "Do you think you could do three hours of keeping Shabbos?" She said, "I think I could do three hours of keeping Shabbos." I said, "How would you feel in a year from now if you came back here and you were able to say every single Shabbos I lit candles, I kept Shabbos for a couple of hours, I learned every week, and once a month I went to an advisor's house for Shabbos?" And she said, "I would feel awesome." I said, "All right, let's go for it." She has more passion in her Judaism than I do. And she won't be keeping Shabbos, and I will be keeping Shabbos. But of the two of us, I have no idea who's closer to Hashem. I know very much who's closer to Hashem. It's definitely her.

33:48 And the reason is because she chose it. The only thing that's going to be inspiring truly for you this year is the question of asking yourself, "Is this who I want to be?" And then owning that choice over and over again. A TD alumnae reached out to me, not moments ago, before I came to the Sheer. Not moments ago A girl who came to TD Shana Aleph Shana Bet and did awesome here. And as time has gone on, she's I'll call it. Gently slipped in her observance, and she's doing things she knows herself she's not proud of. She says to me, "What do I do?"

34:28 And I said, 'You know, I think you're fine. I really do. I think she's fine.' She's like, 'But I'm doing these things that I'm not so proud of.' I'm like, 'Yeah, but you're still asking the question. It still bothers you. You're still orienting your life in this direction, even if perhaps your observance has slipped.' You're still asking the question, like how do I do this and that's what's important because we're not in this for short term gains. We're in this for long term gains. It's what's it going to look like in ten years from now, in twenty years from now. Don't blink, girls. You're going to blink. This year is going to be over. You're going to blink the year is going to be over. I promise you. Ask the Shana Beck girls. You just came in just a couple of minutes. We're going to be sitting here talking about like okay the rabbis are starting to give the shirum of how we take it with us. To the Shana Bet girls, January will be here not even in a blink.

35:18 And then we're gonna have to watch which Shana Olaf girls come to the front and which Shana Olaf girls stay in the back. You remember that little dance? I blinked and I'm forty-two. I'm sitting there with these Mivaser guys. I think I'm one of them. They don't think that, but I do. They think it's weird that I think that. I'm like, no, I'm eighteen. I'm still in Mivaser. I'm with you guys. I'm Shana Olaf. They're like, can you give Shira Rebbe? You blink, and life goes by. I know I sound like an old man because I am an old man now. I'm getting there. But it's true. You know why Moshe Rabbeinu renewed the covenant with Hashem? You know why he renewed the bris? Because Klal Yisrael As we enter Eretz Yisrael

36:04 He says to Klal Yisrael, now it's time for you to own the relationship. Up until now, it's been all Hashem, Hashem coming to Noah, Hashem coming to Avram, Hashem proposing to Klal Yisrael. When you're a child and you grow up, you're always going to be a child. But the relationship that you have with your parents when you get older changes, and all of a sudden your parents start treating you like an adult. When you have kids of your own, it doesn't happen automatically. I remember my daughter was 10 years old, and my mother was giving me mussar for something, and I said, Mom, I'm an adult with children of my own. She's like, You're still my kid. Now it's less. Baruch Hashem. I imagine by the time I'm in my 60s, she's going to say it's okay. She's still my mother. She's like, text me when you land. Mom. If the plane crashes, you're gonna hear about it.

36:55 Drive safely. No Hundred and eighty kilometers an hour with my kids in the back. It's Israel, baby. That's a funny thing about Israel. It's not an arcade game, but the drivers here act like it is. When we grow up and take ownership over our Judaism, that's when we get excited about it because it belongs to us now. It was time for us to come to Hashem and say, "Will you be in a relationship with us?" Your husband may propose to you, but at some point you're going to have to propose back to him. He may get down on one knee, maybe. But at some point in the relationship, you have to turn around and say Thank you for asking me, but now I'm asking you And there's something really beautiful about that. Finish with this idea Because I think this is what Rosh Hashanah is about.

37:57 We're being mamlech Hashem. We're saying, Hashem, you are our king. We choose that. Pesach says, "Zekeliv anvehu elokei aviv aromimenu." This is my God, and I will glorify Him. The God of my fathers, and I will exalt Him. Mefarshim say the Balik Chassidus explain, 'Zekele v'Anvehu.' This is my God. What does 'Anvehu' mean? 'And I will glorify Him.' 'Anvehu' is from a lashon of 'Ani v'hu.' It's me and you. It's me and God. When He's your God, there's a personal relationship. When it's 'Elokei Avi,' when it's the God of my fathers,' V'arom Menu, then He's exalted. God is up in Shamayim. He's big. But if you want to bring God down into your life, if you want it to be anivu, hu it has to be keli. It has to be your God. You have to choose it. Choosing it doesn't mean once. Choosing it means over and over again. And that's what we're deciding on Rosh Hashanah. We're deciding to make this a year where we choose Hashem. You are our Melech. I want to wish everybody here k'siv v'chassimatayva gutke ben shiur. It should be an amazing year of growth for all of us.