Parshas Noach - Fear and Individuality

2:53 So we think of these stories and we don't actually think about them. And if we take a second to think about them, we realize these stories make very little sense. What was their attempt? First of all, what was their fear? What does the Torah say? Being dispersed. It doesn't say that. It doesn't say another marvel. It says they were afraid of being dispersed. So what are they going to do? Build a city. Build a tower. This way, we're not going to be dispersed. Does that make any sense? What does that mean? Build a city, build a tower. This way, God won't disperse us. What is their attempt? You have to ask yourself this question because otherwise, it's just a story that makes no sense. That's question number one. Question number two. Why was God so upset at them for doing this? Imagine if somebody comes to you and says, "I'm really afraid that I'm going to be kicked out of my house. So I'm building myself my own house."

3:49 God comes down and he goes nope And he spreads them out across the entire world. That's question number two. Question number three: Why does the way that God spreads them out across the entire world by babbling their language? Why is that? Why can't God just go boom poof? You're all in different sections of the world. What is it about language that's so critical here? So far we have three questions. You got them all. You got them all. What are the three questions we have so far? First, why were they? Good. Second Why was the Shem so upset at them for doing this? Why does the Shem spite them for babbling? Language is so important. As part of the first question, how does the city and the tower stop them from being dispersed? The third question was Why does God disperse them all over the world by babbling their language? Why can't God just disperse them all over the world? Snap his fingers, and everyone will end up in a different section of the earth.

4:48 There's one more thing here that's very strange. What do they say? Everyone says to his friend, "Let's go make bricks and burn them in fire." Why? Then NASA launched them. This way, we'll make a name for ourselves. Why was making bricks a name for themselves? What's one got to do with the other? Sometimes the words of the psukim don't even make sense. Hear the question? Okay. If I'm say I want to make for myself a name, right? I want to go to Broadway, and everyone's gonna know me. They're gonna say, "Berg." That's making for myself a name. Why is making bricks making for themselves a name? What's bricks got to do with making a name? I want to ask you girls a question. You don't have to raise your hand. How many of you have been bullied yourself, Or? How many of you know somebody who's been bullied?

5:53 Should be everybody. There should be nobody in this room that doesn't know anybody that was bullied. If you were bullied yourself, don't answer it out loud. Just ask yourself for a second. Now you're 18 years old. Can you truly say you're over the pain of being bullied? Do you remember what it was like? Maybe you were in second grade. Maybe you were in third grade. Maybe you didn't have as much money as the other kids. Maybe you weren't as well dressed. Maybe you weren't as cool. Maybe you weren't part of that chavra because you were from a different neighborhood. Maybe girls made fun of you. Maybe teachers didn't like you as much because you weren't as smart, or because you were too smart, or because you couldn't sit still. You know what it's like for those people? They walk around their entire life. With a question about themselves, this is the danger of bullying.

6:47 The question is Am I okay? It's a question that we know takes years to answer and sometimes never gets answered. You can talk to someone in their 30s, their 40s, their 50s, even their 60s and 70s, and they can still remember the pain of being bullied. Why? When you talk to that bullied person. And let's say they're now thirty-five years old, and they're still like, 'I remember the pain in those first years. I was in that school, and everyone bullied me, and I ended up switching schools, and it was much better.' But for those first three years that I was in that school, it was so painful. Great, I'm with you. It was painful, right? But now you're thirty-five years old. You're married with kids. Why are you thinking about what happened to you when you were seven? Why are you thinking about what happened to you by another seven-year-old? Is that logical?

7:40 But PTSD is just letters. It's just we can today we can throw. But what does that mean? Not every event is traumatic. We take things in, and that's what makes it traumatic. There's no objective trauma. It's what we decide is traumatic. Why is that so much more traumatic than so many other things? It's. But a seven-year-old put me down. If I'm walking down my street, I've got a lot of seven-year-olds on my street. Now I've got my seven-year-olds. You are a seven-year-old then too. So but now I'm 35. So objectively, I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, okay, I'm 35 years old. I'm not. I'm older than that. But let's say, yeah. Let's say I was 35 many years ago. I was 35 years old. And now I'm thinking about it. I'm like, a seven-year-old said something to me. It's like if a dog barks, I don't bark back. So a seven-year-old used to make fun of me. A seven-year-old used to go, "You're a loser."

8:31 You're a dork. " Oh my God! Like, shut up. Go away, right? A seven-year-old said that. Was a seven-year-old. Let's make it a little bit worse. Imagine you were rejected, not in a real way But a little bit By your parents. Imagine knowing the following. Imagine you did something wrong and got in trouble. But in the course of getting in trouble, through no fault of your own Your parents were having a bad day. You didn't do that. But now, on top of their bad day, your dad had a bad meeting. Your mom was caught up in a million things, and now they get a phone call from the school. That you got caught doing something you shouldn't have done And they've had it up to here. Maybe they're even having issues with each other, showing bias issues. None of that was your fault. But in the course of disciplining you They weren't talking to you anymore.

9:28 And they lost it, and they started saying terrible things. They said, "You always do this." First of all, the kid doesn't always do it. Maybe the kid often does it. Maybe the kid sometimes does it. But always isn't true. And they start calling you names. You're a liar. You're this. You're that. And all of a sudden, instead of being told about how your action was wrong Their frustration is being taken out on you, and you're being told who you are. Can you feel it? Take a second. Can you feel the pain inside your body? Somebody once described it to me like this when I was talking to them about it. They said I know my heart is here, but I could feel it sinking. I could feel my heart sinking, remembering how traumatizing it was. Not because it wasn't just a seven-year-old. Because that's traumatizing enough. We'll discuss why that is in a moment. But because my own parents told me 'This is who I am, not what I did, but it's who I am.' I felt rejected and I felt alone.

10:29 Can you feel that? Can you feel the pain of that girl? She's little. She's ten years old. Maybe she's a teenager. Maybe she's sixteen years old. I know we think sixteen-year-olds are full of free choice, but the truth of the matter is, most sixteen-year-olds are just trying to get by. It's really hard to be a sixteen-year-old kid. Let's make it a little bit worse As if it's not bad enough already. Not the most inspiring shirt tonight, right? Let's say it's somebody you really love Not because they're your parents But because you chose to love them. And you have all these inner negative beliefs about yourself. Everybody in this room, including myself, we all have inner negative beliefs about ourselves. Things that we don't really want to let anyone know, but things that our heart of hearts, we're wondering Maybe everyone really thinks that about me. But I don't want to pay attention to it because it'd be like the worst thing in the world. Imagine for a second you wondered, am I actually smart? Am I smart?

11:26 And now here's this person that you love. And you're not sure if you're smart or not. You act as if you think you're smart, but the truth of the matter is you wonder, am I kind of ditzy sometimes? And now here's this person that you love And accidentally you opened up their phone. Accidentally And you saw that they sent a message about you. Person that you've chosen to dedicate your life to And you saw this person was having a conversation with their friend. This guy that you've chosen to love is having a conversation with his closest friend and he's sharing with his closest friend. Honestly, sometimes it's just so hard for me to talk to her because I don't even think she knows what I'm talking about. She's not exactly the smartest girl. How would you feel if you read that? You'd feel devastated. It wouldn't just be devastated. What would it be? It'd be more than that. It would be like Can I ever connect to that person again?

12:18 Why? Because they said that thing about me. Not I'm not upset. You see, if it wasn't true, it wouldn't be true. But there's a part of me that wonders maybe it's true. You see, the reason why bullying hurts so badly, especially when we're young Is because when someone is bullied They actually question whether the bully is right. And I'll tell you the truth: a lot of little kids adopt the mentality of the bully. Meaning, if the bully told them you're a nothing. They actually take it in. It's not just traumatic because it was traumatic. It's traumatic because it's changing the way you looked at yourself. All kids, every little kid in the world is exceptionally confident. The little ones—they're so confident. It's amazing. You see a little kid; they're like two years old. They're toddling along. They're happy. Two-year-olds don't have depression. Two-year-olds don't have self-esteem issues. They're nervous. They go to God. Is it safe? Is it not safe? But they basically go. They play. They're not thinking about other people. But then there's a shift.

13:20 As a parent, you see this shift, and the shift is heartbreaking. Here's what it looks like: There's a moment in every kid's life where being who they are becomes less important than being accepted by their peers. Say it again. I want to make sure you have this. There's a moment in every little kid's life. Maybe it's four years old. Maybe it's five years old. Maybe it's six years old. But all of a sudden, who they are. Becomes less important than being accepted by their peers, and here's what they're willing to do: they're willing to abandon themselves. So that other people will like them. Now let's think about that for a second. If you abandon who you are so that other people will like you Will that work? Why not? Why won't it work? Why won't it work? You shook your head. You know it won't work. Why won't it work?

14:12 Because you're just suppressing a part of yourself. So first of all, I'm never going to be able to make it last long term. Good point. What's another reason? I'm never going to get right. There's always going to be somebody in a crowd of a hundred. I'm always going to lose that ten percent, that twenty percent. That's like no, I'm not down. So then you got to adopt multiple personalities, and it's hard to keep track of which personality is true. But not yet there. Right. The craziest thing. Is that we all, even today, every single person in this room, including myself, we wear masks because we want people to like us. What's the paradox? Then they don't like you. Maybe they love. Maybe they're enamored by the person you're pretending to be. But they don't like you. They're not in a relationship with you. That's devastating.

15:04 And so you walk around thinking to yourself, nobody could love me. Nobody could actually accept me for who I am. So what do I have to do? I have to put on a mask. And I have to become somebody that I'm not, so that other people will accept me. But that is the most debilitating thing in the world, because then where are you? And here's the word. Here's the buzzword of the day. This is what we're all searching for today: authenticity. What would it look like if you legitimately didn't care? Wouldn't that be amazing? And I'm not talking about you did inappropriate things. What I mean to say is as follows. The thing you really want to do, but you're afraid of what people will think about you if you did it. How awesome would it be if you just went for it? I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example. I'll give you an example about myself.

15:53 God did not bless me with a good voice. I'm not a singer. I'm not. If I get up to daven for the yomud, I know what people are going to be thinking. About the other guy that gets up to daven for the yomim that doesn't have the self-awareness to know that he's got a terrible voice. Could you imagine? I know I have a bad voice. Can I tell you a secret about myself? I really wish I was musical. It's like a real thing that I wish. My brother First of all, he has a great voice, and he's also a pianist. He plays piano beautifully. I have another brother who plays a ton of instruments. He plays guitar. He sings unbelievably. I wish I could be that guy again. I'll never admit this publicly. You're not public. You're family. I'll never admit this publicly. I wish I could be like that Karlibach guy, who gets up with a guitar by Rosh Chodesh Davening and just starts jumping around and inspires every guy in yeshiva. And everyone's like, "Oh my God, Rosh Chodesh Davening was amazing this morning with Bergland." I was like, "The best challah I've ever had in my entire life." You know who I am? I'm the guy on the side going like this.

17:03 That's so not cool. Is it like I know that I'm And I'll tell you something else. I wish that I was a guy who could dance with reckless abandon. You know those guys? They don't care. You see these guys like when they go dance, they leave it all hanging out. Like Israelis do that. Americans are so guarded. You come to Israel and you see they don't care. They'll yell and scream at each other in public. There's no bosho, whatever. They let it all hang out. It's like an amazing thing. It's who I am. Accept me or hate me, doesn't matter. And it's amazing. I wish I was like that. But see these people, and they're sweating, and they're into it, and they're having a great time. Let's go! And there's all these other people with them. They look like they're having their amazing time. I'm doing like the dead man shoveling. I definitely couldn't do like all the fancy line dances that the girls do. I'd trip over myself. I wish I was that guy.

17:53 And there's a part of me. The truth is That every time these things happen I wish I could just get up and go. Every time it's like Nope, and I hold back. Because I don't want to be judged. I don't want other people to look at me and go like, "There's a Berg making a fool of himself again." Now the truth of the matter is, if I did it Out of the hundred and forty guys in yeshiva I bet you seventy would like it. Seventy's a good number. Half would be awesome. If I was that guy that was like, "Okay, let's go. We're gonna get into. We're gonna make an amazing." Seventy guys would like it. You know what seventy guys would be like? I'm not down for that guy. I'm not interested. So you know what I do? I play it conservative. But afterwards You feel a little bit that self-loathing, right? You feel a little bit of like I wish I did that.

18:42 And then you see those people that do, and you're a little bit jealous. Where'd they get the courage to be so authentic from? Know what I mean? You ever have that feeling? Some of you are looking at me like you've never had that feeling, so I'm feeling super judged right now. But it's okay, I can handle it. This level of vulnerability, I'm comfortable with. The seven-year-old was a seven-year-old. That's true, but you were a seven-year-old too. So here's what happened: you started to believe that you weren't going to be accepted for the person that you were. The person you were is not okay. You are not worthy of love. And that's called being deeply ashamed of who you are. There's a difference between feeling embarrassed and feeling guilty, which could be very healthy, and feeling ashamed. The shame means because of who I am I am not worthy of love and connection.

19:32 Baruch Hashem, I have six kids. They've all They're all going through different stages of life right now. I see it all the way from Mikey, who's only two and a half years old. To my 16-year-old and 15-year-old daughter. And it's two very different things. Mikey, when he's going to gun, it's like In the beginning, is it okay? Is it not okay? I don't think he's sitting like worrying about will the other kids play with me or not. It's just this not my mommy. This not what I feel comfortable with. So don't make me go to gun. Now he's okay. He goes. He loves it. But when kids are teenagers, I've noticed this about you teenagers. I still remember a little bit. I'm not wearing that. I'm like we just bought that for you. I'm not wearing that. I can't. I see. It's like, what? What is it that I'm asking you to do? It's material. Right. It's just like, it's a little bit of cotton. Like, what are we talking about over here? You don't understand. I can't. What? Why?

20:27 I know. I'll tell you how bad it is and I do it on purpose now. I've started to dress like a real Abba. Because I just don't care anymore. So you know those caps that dads wear sometimes. Like not like no, like a cap, like it's like a kangaroo cap, right? It's like if it's raining, I'll put that on. My daughters are mortified. Abba do not go outside. Abba do not go outside. They don't breathe anymore. Abba do not go outside. Abba do not go outside. What are you so embarrassed about? It's me. It's not even you. People know you're my father. So when they were little, I started to do it on purpose because that is awesome fun when you can do that with your kids. I have a daughter. Her name is Chana, and Chana is super talented. From the time she was very little, she makes tissro coat. Tissro coat, and here in Hebrew, in English, it means hairdos, and she's ridiculously talented, and she's built an entire business for herself. It's called Style Me Pretty by Chana. And she has tons of girls that come to her to get their hair styled for bat mitzvahs, for family weddings. She's really super talented.

21:32 And when she first started, how old is she now? Now she's fifteen, but she started when she was maybe ten. She's really super talented. She's always been really good with her hands. My brother, of course, we went ahead. My family was very into it. My brother made business cards, and originally we wanted to name the business Curl Up and Die. That wasn't exactly an appropriate name. So in the end, it was style me pretty. I just got it too. The curl up and dye your hair, but curl up and dye. Dye. Doesn't matter. It's okay. So she was doing it in the beginning because she was little. She was doing it for ten shekels because she's like, Abba, I can't charge any more than ten shekels. I was like, Connor, you're really good; you can charge more than ten shekels. Abba, ten shekel. Now she's I don't think I even know what she's up to now. Maybe thirty shekels. She does dirt cheap.

22:23 I used to roll down the windows. And I'd be like "Tisroko, bichanes, style me pretty, ten shekupap." She's like, "I'm gonna put up the window." I would open up the windows to my house. I would announce it to the entire block. I would go out like, and they're mortified, and I love it. It's like I can make a bracha. It's so gishmak. You're like, it's delicious. We're so embarrassed of being the person that we actually want to be, including myself. Because we don't know that we are going to be accepted. So you followed the pain when a seven-year-old said it. It really hurt because we weren't sure. But when a parent said it Ooh, isn't that nasty? That's the person that's supposed to love me more than anything in the world, and my heart dropped and sank. It's like I'm not even good enough for my parents.

23:14 And then it gets worse Because it's not just your parents, but somebody you chose to love, somebody you actually did make yourself vulnerable with. They pointed to the thing that inner negative belief that you said no way, like I can't be that person, and that's the way they think of you. You ask yourself, is it possible for you to reengage with that person? I'm so deeply hurt. Why? Because you don't see me as I want to be seen. You see me as I actually am. And here's the crazy thing about our masks that we wear. Everybody knows that we're wearing these masks. We think in our convoluted, insane brains. We think nobody knows that this is the way I really feel about myself. I'm doing such a good job of hiding it. But the truth of the matter is that when your best friend is talking to your other best friend about you, you know what they're saying.

24:06 They shouldn't be talking about you, but you know what they're saying. Exactly the mask that you're trying to wear. They've seen past it. Because it's not even possible to truly hide yourself. We spend so much emotional energy trying to be somebody that we're not. We're not faking out anybody. The person that we are connected to doesn't even know who we really are. It doesn't last. You can't satisfy everybody. It doesn't work, and yet we're all doing it. Why? Isn't that sad? Does that make any sense? Let's switch gears for a second. It was bad if it was a bully. If it was a friend, it was bad. It was bad if it was the person that you chose to love. What if it was God? What if God was the bully? What if God was the parent who made you feel terrible about yourself, who made you feel unsafe? What if God was the loved one Who knows who you really are and calls you out on it? How terrible would that be?

25:13 I'd like to share with you the following story. This is a hundred percent a true story. This person Who I know Had a very tough life. Death in their family Illness in their family Mental illness in their family. This person once confided in me. He said, "You should know." I don't mind giving tzedakah. I could help other people. I don't mind learning Torah. I could learn. I could do the intellectual thing. I can't dive. He said, "Why can't you dive?" So I said I can't talk to the monster. I feel like what Chazal are asking me to do is three times a day to go to the person that I'm most angry at in the entire world and say, 'Hi, how are you? How's everything? Let me talk to you as if nothing happened.' You're the one that did this to me. What would you say to such a person?

26:19 You're the Rebbe for a second. You're the Rabbitson. Somebody comes to you and says God did this to me And now I'm supposed to talk to him? I get it. God is real. Judaism is real. I'm on board. But you're asking me to believe. That everything here was good? Everything was not good. When that person in my family died, everything was not good. When that person was born with mental illness, everything was not good. You want me to talk to God? You want me to be like, it's all good now? I love you, no problem. I can't talk to God. I'll be honest with you. I had nothing intelligent to say in that conversation, and sometimes that's the best thing to do. Sometimes the best thing to do is just to look at that person and go, I totally understand. I get it. But I want you to put yourself just for a moment in the generation of the flood.

27:12 You're born post-flood. So what are the stories you grew up with? What are the stories your parents told you? There was a whole world Started with Adam and Chava. They had kids. The world was being populated. They behaved badly, so God killed everyone. We know what it's like being born in the post Holocaust generation. You girls less so. But we still know. Did you ever have Holocaust survivors come and speak at your school? But just go back in time with me for a second. Imagine you were a child born to Holocaust parents in the sixties or seventies. Imagine you were a kid who grew up. With parents who would wake up at three o'clock in the morning screaming from night terror as they relived the concentration camp. Could you imagine the trauma of being that child? Could you imagine what it would feel like having that lack of safety in your home?

28:16 Maybe your parents did talk about it from time to time Or maybe they didn't, and that's even worse. Sometimes. I have those Holocaust parents. This is what it was like for so many kids. I have those Holocaust parents, but they never talk about what happened. In your little fifteen-year-old mind You're thinking to yourself, 'I can't even imagine the atrocities. All I know is that sometimes my dad wakes up in the middle of the night screaming from nightmares, and I've learned to ignore it. Why? Because we don't talk about it in our family. Could you imagine the terror that little fifteen-year-old is growing up with?' Could you imagine how that fifteen-year-old feels about God? Who wiped out his father's entire family? This is what the post-flood generation looked like. They lived with fear of God. They banded together against God. Because they said we're terrified of this person. They didn't want to be spread out everywhere because of their safety in numbers.

29:16 It's like I don't know if you know this. I'm sure none of you did this But did you ever get in trouble with a group of people and think to yourself, 'They can't get us all in trouble.' I'm not saying I'm just saying if you know what I'm saying. If we all do it, what do they do? They're gonna throw us all out of school. But schools are smart because they go, I won't throw you all out. I'll just throw out the three ringleaders. And then it's like, why was I the ringleader? It doesn't really make any sense. But we think there's safety in numbers. That's what they thought too. They banded together in one place, and they said, we just have to stay together. Who was the enemy? The enemy was God. It's much worse than the seven-year-old bully. And it's much worse than the parent, and it's much worse than the one who you chose to love. It's the one who created everything. That's your enemy. That's the one you go to defeat.

30:14 It's a terrible life, no? What's your tool? What's your weapon of choice? If you want to fight God, what do you have? God has everything. It used to be how you built a house before Migdal Bavel. How did you build a house? You know what you did? You took stones and piled one on top of another. You made walls. You made a roof. That was your house. Migdal Bavel, they developed. Technology to defeat God. What was the technology? For the first time in the world Somebody made a brick. It was the first time the Torah tells us what they do. They said, "Let's make bricks." Why were bricks going to defeat God? The answer is bricks were not going to defeat God. But bricks meant we are powerful. See the stone that was made by God, but the brick I made myself. You understand why the brick is so powerful? It wasn't just that they said, "Let's band together against God." They were saying something even more profound. We can band together against God using technology.

31:30 Now you think to yourself, "Hey, that sounds crazy, right?" But now think to yourself, what's going on today? Today I'll tell you something. Maybe I shouldn't tell you this, so I'm going to tell it to you anyway. Y'all know Mrs. Fold. So you know that she's my sister-in-law. Mrs. Fold and I were discussing a number of years ago the Tefila class that she gives here in Benoth Torah Institute. And she commented to me that these days it's harder to teach Tefila than it was. Why? What's the difference? A girl said to her I can understand why back in the day you needed God. I can understand that. Otherwise, how are you going to get anything? But today I've got this piece of plastic This magical piece of plastic that my parents gave me And I can get everything I need. I don't really need God.

32:34 Think to yourself today what it's like with modern technology, and then ask yourself Do you really need God in your life? If you get sick, where do you go? You go to a doctor. And there's medicine, and we've developed incredible technology. Do you know the things we could do? Do you know right now in Israel this is being developed and it's almost done? Has anyone here ever considered getting LASIK surgery? I considered it. Don't do it. You know why? In Israel, what's coming out right now is eye drops that will actually correct your vision. True, one hundred percent. Is that crazy? So instead of going and having lasers put in your eye and refixing your eye, you're just gonna go like this. And you're gonna be fine. That's incredible. I'll give you another one. My best friend in the world lost his leg to cancer as a kid.

33:28 So he's missing his leg. It's amazingly funny. He does amazing things with his missing leg. He goes in public and he goes like this. Do you want to see a cool magic trick? And he starts walking around this leg that stays still the entire time, and then he does a full 360 with the leg. This leg is still. This leg is still, and he just walks around it, full 360. He keeps it still because it's not real. It's a prosthetic leg. When he was literally told his teacher, a substitute teacher, he said, "If I can put one foot on the ceiling and one foot on the floor at the same time, will you give us extra recess?" She said, "If you can put one foot on the ceiling and one foot on the floor at the same time." He said, "No problem." He took off his leg. He put it on the ceiling. Did you get extra?

34:14 I'm sure he did. By my wedding In the family picture. He decided he's in the family picture. So if you look carefully There's me. There's my wife. There's my brothers. There's my mom. There's my dad. There's Yitzi, standing right above my mother. And right above my mother's head, if you look carefully, Yitzi's leg. You just flip it upside down. A couple years ago, he said the most amazing thing happened. His old prosthetic leg By the way, had a tattoo of Winnie the Pooh on it. Just saying, if you ever meet him, his old leg had a mechanism that you would press down on the toes, and that's what would make the leg bend. It would look a little weird because it would be like press bend. Now he has a computer chip in his knee. It was a big shaila if he could wear it on Shabbos or not. The computer chip is doing millions of calculations a second.

35:18 And it's calculating the rate of descent and the rate of ascent, and it's moving his foot accordingly. Amazing technology. People who are missing a limb just walking around as if nothing has changed. That's incredible. My grandmother had an eighty percent blockage in her heart. No problem. She's turning ninety this January. They were able to put a stent in. She fell. We could put a screw in your hip. It's incredible. Just incredible the medical technology that we have. Ask yourself the following question: Aren't we a little bit trying to defeat God? A little bit, don't we feel like maybe God is the enemy but you can't get me because I have technology? See, it sounded strange at first. And it's like they're making bricks. They're going to defeat God. But aren't we fundamentally doing the same thing? We probably have a moon. I hope we do.

36:05 But there's a lot of people out there asking themselves, "Do I really need God?" I have everything I need. Think about what it was like to come to Israel 40 years ago. 40 years ago is not that long. He got to Israel 40 years ago on a boat. Could you imagine coming to seminary for the year on a boat? We are so incredibly spoiled. We complain about L. I complain about L all the time. I hate L. I love Delta. I love United. But I hate L. Now they have the Dreamliners. But if you're flying to JFK and you're on one of the old L planes, you get on there and you're like, the screen is broken. It's that blue thing. There's only eight movies. They only work half the time. You can't get Wi-Fi on a plane now. Can't believe the Wi-Fi doesn't work. You're flying. You're in the air. You're flying at thousands of miles an hour. You should be sitting in your seat the entire time, holding onto the armrest, going, "I'm flying. I'm flying." That's what you're doing.

37:10 And you know what you do? You're waiting on the runway for half an hour. It's crazy. The things that we take for granted 30 years ago were miraculous. Thirty, forty years ago, if you would have told people this is the world we're going to be living in, it's miraculous. But for us, it's like regular. And here's the crazy thing: in thirty, forty years from now, you're going to be thinking about this schmooze. You probably won't be, but you're going to be thinking about this schmooze, and you'd be going, "Oh my God!" Like the things that these kids have today, it's crazy, right? And we don't even know. We can't even conceive of what we're going to come up with.

37:52 Do you know many things that I talk to you girls about, and I'm like after explain to you what it is? Do you know what a payphone is? That's crazy that you still know what a payphone is because you've used a payphone. That's crazy, right? I grew up on payphones. Is what you did? You carried quarters with you, or you fake called for a while. You can call the operator and have them dial the number, call collect, and just say, "Who's calling, Mordechai? Just come pick me up from Yeshiva." Like we stole money. We figured out how to do it today. Everyone has unlimited data. It's unbelievable. We can do all the information that you ever wanted is on Google. It's just there. You just put press And there it comes. It's unbelievable. A little bit. We're trying to beat God. I don't need God. If I get sick, no big deal. It's just a question of time until medical technology solves everything. I can build amazing houses. I can drive. I can fly. I can go on safe ships. I don't have to be worried about like.

38:40 It used to be like a thing, you bench Gomel and you went over the ocean. You know why? Because if you went over the ocean and you made it, it was like that's crazy that you made it. And today it's like a real shaylik. Maybe you shouldn't bench Gomel. Maybe it's like not so pashta because it's not really considered that dangerous. It's safer than driving. Really is. Much less accidents. Except when there's an accident, it's really bad. Thank God for rubber nose cones on the planes, because then we're gonna just land. It's gonna be like downy soft. It's gonna be like amazing. We'll just bump. It'll be like a nice little thing. It's not bumper cars. If it lands, that's what it is. But girls, think about this. They weren't fundamentally different than we are. We're still doing the same thing. We see God, and we're a little afraid, and we're asking ourselves. By the way, if it hasn't happened to you, it's happened to someone that you know.

39:29 Everybody here has either lost someone or knows someone that's lost someone, and tragically. Everybody knows something like that. So a little bit in our heart of hearts, you know what we're like. I gotta band together. And by the way, people even say it. They're like, it's amazing to be part of the Jewish community because if anything goes wrong, we have each other. Because we're really just banding together. That's true and it's beautiful and it's wonderful. But a little bit. Where's God? Or to put it a little differently. Maybe you feel because you're so powerless in this world. If you actually think about it Maybe you feel like you don't even have a name. What does it mean that you don't have a name? A name is the reflection of the essence. That's what a name is. So when you think about a name, it's like this is me.

40:20 But if me is so frail If me is not accepted, if me is not valued, then who am I? That's the fundamental question. And that was the question the people from Migdal Bavel were asking themselves. They were saying, 'God is the person that could bring the flood again. We have to band together. We have to be with each other. We don't want to be spread out all over the world because if we're spread out all over the world, we're vulnerable, and vulnerability is terrifying.' Was that vulnerable means I'm susceptible to attack So if I'm here, if we're together. If we're all together, then no matter what happens, we can rise up. We're strong. We have technology. We're developing bricks because we're afraid that we don't have a name. What do they say? I'm going to make my mark on this world. What's the mark they make?

41:07 This is my technology. This is what I use to become powerful. We're not so different. We're not so different. All of us are trying to be a name out there. I'll bring you a proof for this. A crazy thing happened when Mark Zuckerberg invented Facebook. You know what he did? He redefined the word friend. He redefined the word friend because I even told them what friend meant. That was a person you actually cared about, and that cared about you. And now, what is friend? It's just a person on a list of someone that follows you back. So Twitter, we don't have friends, we have followers. But Facebook was like, that's my friend. That's not your friend. The reason why people felt so good when they were able to say, "this person has a thousand friends on Facebook." I know I'm dating myself because nobody's on Facebook anymore, but I'm just going back to the beginning. Don't worry, we'll get to Instagram in a second.

42:03 You know the reason why we were like People were so happy, "a thousand friends." It's because look at me, I'm a somebody. I'm a somebody. You could go to Broadway and be a somebody, but for them, it was technology. It was Silicon Valley. I made a brick. That's awesome. I'm exceptionally powerful. I have a name. Instagram is not fundamentally different. Instagram, what do they call them? They don't call them friends. What do they call them? It's also followers. But Instagram, it's interesting. You don't have a feed. What do you have? It's stories. Everything is a story. This is the story of me. Come pay attention to the story of me. Look at me. I'm eating a salad. Everyone's got to comment on each other's stories. Because it's all about this insecurity that we have. That if we don't have a lot of people paying attention to us.

42:50 Who am I really? The girls. What would legitimately happen if you didn't have a social media presence at all? Nothing. The same people in your life that actually value you would be the ones to value you. Everyone's got crazy FOMO. Everyone's running around going I don't know what I'm missing out on next because we have the capacity to filter life and make it look better than it actually is. So if you're not having the most amazing time, you feel a little bit like you're missing out. Last year, did you check out any of the Instagram stories from the girls who were here in Sharpman's last year? You checked. Who checked? You checked. Didn't it look amazing? Every second is like every picture. She looks like she's having the most amazing time, right? She wasn't. She's having the same up and down, and sometimes it's hard, and sometimes I'm into it. She's living the same year as you, but if you just get a quick glimpse of somebody's life, you could feel like they were having an awesome time, and me, I'm not having as much. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our presence, we have no name.

43:55 So listen, what Migdal Bavel was, it's an amazing thing. It was their attempt at technology. It was their attempt to band together. We are one. How many languages do they speak? One language. Why? It was all born out of fear. It was born out of the fear that I could be destroyed. Could you imagine living your life that way? You can't imagine it. You know why? Because we all grew up knowing that in Germany they never saw the Holocaust coming. You ever get that speech from your rabbis? Don't think it couldn't happen here. How many times have you heard that? Don't think it couldn't happen here. You know what it's like to grow up with that? Not everyone is growing up with that. Jews are growing up with that. You know why? Because we're growing up with a fear mentality. Maybe it could happen again. Am I really safe? That's when you hear people say, 'But today there's Israel. We could all band together, and we have an Israeli army. But it's really kind of the same thing. We're not relying on God. We're just relying on technology and the power of each other.

44:52 Which is an exceptionally powerful thing. So what does God do? God says, "That's not a life." God wasn't punishing Bubba. Listen, what he was doing. He was spreading them out. Because here's the great secret: until you're you, you can't truly be accepted. Until you're not, everyone's got that. I'm part of that group. That's who I am. Like I don't know if you've ever met people who are into NCSY Who's who here? Because I was a big NCSY guy growing up. Who's into you? A big NCSY? Where are you from? You're regional president, monster, whatever. Miami. So you know my boy Jonathan. He's also president of America. So we really going in for Yarchei Kallah. Super exciting. I can't wait. We're all going to see a mashas together. It's going to be unbelievable. Taking six hundred public school kids to see a mashas. It's going to be incredible. It's my first time ever on Yarchei Kallah. I'm really excited. So you see these people, and it's like I am. Especially again, if you're not from New York, it's like I am NCSY, right? It's like who I am. And when you're there and you're in that group, it's like you could become a little bit different, like you're empowered there, right?

46:08 But a little bit, you're feeding off of that And it's like, who would you be if you didn't have that? Then you could find out a lot about yourself. So God says, "No! What makes you beautiful?" And this is what I need you girls to hear because it's critical in your lives. What makes you beautiful is if you have different languages, living in different places, doing different things, having different cultures. God says, "If you're all the same, then you're nothing. Then you're not truly you." What God was trying to say to them was, "Don't be afraid of me. You already have a name. You're already a somebody. Stop trying to be somebody by connecting to everybody else. Be yourself." Wouldn't that be the greatest gift God could give them? So God says, "I know you're afraid of being spread out over the entire world. You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not going to destroy you. I already made a covenant with humanity."

46:55 What I'm asking you is Can you be you? I'll leave you with the following story. There's a guy I know. He's an amazing person. And he went off the derech for a little bit when he was married with several children. And he wasn't exactly davening or kind of. He was kind of keeping kosher, but not exactly. And when I was talking to him, he was at the stage where he was about to be a person who didn't keep Shabbos anymore. He said to me, 'He goes, I haven't broken Shabbos yet, but I could see myself breaking Shabbos.' I was so in pain for this person. I couldn't imagine what it was like for his wife. I couldn't imagine what it was like for his kids. He wasn't into it anymore. And he said to me something unbelievable. He said, "I can't fake it anymore. It's not what I want. I just don't want to be frum."

48:22 Went to Uman for Rosh Hashanah. Somebody convinced him to come to Uman. He came back from one Rosh Hashanah on fire about bris levrashevas. Super excited about bris levrchasevus. And he started keeping. He was already keeping shabbos. He never really broke it. He started keeping kosher and he cleaned himself up and he started doing mitzvos again. And Baruch Hashem, he changed his life very radically from what he was before. Before he was a guy who was more of a black hat wearing type of guy, and now he was a braslver chassid, not like jumping on cars brasl, but like excited braslver chassid. So I was talking to him about this journey that he's been on. And again, he's an amazing person. I have tremendous respect for him, and he said to me something unbelievable. For so long When I was in the world that I was in.

49:12 I was so deeply afraid to leave. Because I didn't know what would happen if I did. And it was like I'm married with kids, going off the deck. Could you imagine how scary that is? It's like, where will this end up? Will I be divorced? Will my kids talk to me? How will my kids think about me? It's like, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't be that guy anymore. And because he was an authentic person He was leaving. And when he went to Uman He told me what he discovered. Was that if he's him, if he's authentically him, it'll be okay. And that's how he started his journey back. This year It's a critical time in your lives. And probably within the next four or five years of your life Most likely A decent percentage, probably upwards of eighty, ninety percent of the girls in this room are going to be married.

50:03 I say that just to get you to say I'm married. The question is. Right now Seminary is a bubble. You know this is not real. But pretty soon, it's going to be pretty real. Pretty soon, you're going to be coming back and meeting people. And they're going to want to know who you are. You can do one of two things this year. You can be part of the group think and say, "I'm doing this because everybody else is doing this," and that's what you do in your year in Israel. Or, you can say to yourself. Maybe for the first time in your life, I hope not. It doesn't matter what anybody else thinks about me. When I get connected to someone, I want them to connect to me. I want to be authentic. I want to stop being afraid. I want to be unique because I am. I don't need to overcome vulnerability because vulnerability is beautiful. It's what's going to allow people to see me.

51:02 That's the choice you all have this year. You're not here just to learn another uman in chumish. You're not here to hear another inspiring sheir. That's not the reason you came to Israel this year. The reason you came to Israel this year is because somewhere inside of you, you all want to be that person that gets up and dances with reckless abandon, and you don't care what anybody else thinks because that's what you are. It's the greatest gift you can give yourself this year.