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Are we ready? We know the Torah tells us that the purpose of Hakadosh Baruch Hu bringing the Aseret Yemei Kodesh was to teach the world that there is a God. To teach the world. That there's someone in charge, someone who's running everything behind the scenes. Which means that when a person is learning deeply And they're going through the ten makos in the Torah They should not just be saying There was blood, there were frogs, there were lice, there were wild animals. All of these things have an inner meaning, an intrinsic meaning, something that's meant. To teach the world something fundamental about human existence, about what we're supposed to do here in this world. So tonight we're only going to cover Makasdam. We're only going to talk about the inner meaning of the plague of blood. But I think that the lesson that's inherent in Makasdam.
It's really fundamental, something that's really important to all of us. So let's get a little bit of history. Shalom. Okay. So it goes like this. The Ramban explains. Do you not have? Do you not have? Do you not have a seat? No. Come. Good. I just want to make sure you're taking care. The Rebbe explains that Paro was exceptionally clever until Moshe Rabbeinu came to Paro and said to let Klal Yisrael go. Most Jews did not even know. That they were being oppressed in an anti-Semitic way. Everything that Paro did, he did it behind the scenes. He did it very carefully. For example When Paro first enslaved the Jews, we know what Chazal say: he paid us. He paid us money. So we said this is what society needs. We're getting paid. There's nothing wrong with it. So we went to work for the state.
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When Paro told Shifra and Pua. To murder the children upon being born Paro didn't go himself to Shifra and Pua. And say murder these children. It was done through agents. It was done very carefully. It was done with the key word plausible deniability. We don't necessarily know what goes on in the White House. When an accusation comes out, what's the first thing the president says? Didn't happen. Go prove that it happened. It's very difficult to prove that these things happened. When Pharaoh said Kill all the male children The way I grew up thinking about it was that there was a divine edict, so to speak, from the palace, and they posted it on all the local pyramids, and everybody said, If a male Jewish child is born, we're going to throw him into the river. But that's not what happened. It was a secret message.
It was a secret message that was sent out to all the anti-Semites in Egypt. You can kill Jewish male children, and nothing will happen. So what would happen? They would kill the Jewish male babies. And then the Ramban explains that we would come to the court system and we would say they're murdering us, and they would say that's terrible. They're murdering Jewish children. That's terrible. We can't have anti-Semitism in Egypt. That's bad. So they would say we're going to have a proper court case. Bring witnesses that this happened. And of course there would be no witnesses because the Egyptians would not testify against each other. So there was this unbelievable, deep Anti-Semitism that was going on underneath the surface, but Klal Yisrael wasn't even aware of it. And so Chazal say that Makas Dam was the revelation of what had been going on inside of the Nile River.
The Nile River is either the largest or the second to largest, depending on how you measure it, river in the world. And every August, because in the 1970s they built a dam that channels the river to provide energy. But every single August, it's one of the amazing things in creation: the Nile River overflows. And it irrigates 11 countries. It's a massive river, with Egypt being the forefront. And from the Nile River, all the vegetation grows, which is incredible. All the fish would literally come out of the river, which would give fish to the fishermen. All the minerals inside the river that were building up would make the soil so fertile. And so the Egyptians, the way they saw the Nile River Was that the Nile River was a god. The Nile River was something that they worshipped. And now the Egyptians are seeing another side to the Nile River.
All of a sudden, the Nile River has blood coming out of it. It's turned into something fundamentally different. The question is for us tonight: What's the value in us knowing this? What does it have to do with our lives? I printed something. It's a bit long But I would like to read it to you. I'm going to read it pretty fast. It's a couple of pages, but I think it's really important. This was a thread posted on social media by a guy whose name is Andrew Wilkinson. Andrew Wilkinson is the head of a venture capital private equity firm. He's quite successful. And he tells a story. It's a story that is relevant to each of us in our own way. But it's relevant to every single one of us, including me. I am going to read to you the story. On August first, I woke up.
I didn't want to get out of bed. I felt blank, hollowed out. I'd felt this way for months. I couldn't enjoy anything. I didn't care about work. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I wasn't necessarily depressed. Objectively, life was amazing. It felt like an inability to feel pleasure. It didn't add up. Life was good, great, even. I had experienced a lot of amazing personal and work highs over the past year. My kids were happy and healthy through COVID. My marriage was stronger than ever. I was meeting an endless string of interesting people. I bought a company we'd admired for years. But despite all this, I felt like I had zero gas in the tank. It didn't matter what the win was; nothing made me feel good anymore. I jumped from email to email, trying to find the right thing to work on. I jumped from TV show to TV show, trying to find the perfect thing to watch.
I skipped from book to book, trying to find something that would scratch that itch, but nothing worked. None of the usual excitement and motivation. No hit. I thought maybe I was having a midlife crisis. I couldn't figure it out, so I decided to take August off. I didn't know what else to do. For the first time in 15 years, I fully checked out. I put up a vacation auto responder, delegated my email to my assistant, and told her to only call me in case of an emergency. I put my phone in a drawer and took off to our summer cabin. For an extended vacation. This is what's relevant to us. These are the rules I made for myself: no work, no Twitter, no email, no news, no phone calls, no speaking to employees or business partners, no podcasts, no audio books, no music. My only 'quote-unquote' treat was a Kindle full of great fiction and some delicious food.
For the first three days, I was miserable. I was going to clean up some of the language now. I was not a nice person. Insanely irritable, constantly tapping my pocket for my phone, only to realize I didn't have it. I felt physically angry. There was an itch I couldn't scratch, a bug in my brain. But after a few days, something interesting happened. My anxiety started to mellow out. I started feeling calm. I stopped waking up to a flurry of todos swimming around my head. For once, I forgot about the need to move the ball forward. I sat and read for hours on end without distraction. The need to tweet my every insight or idea suddenly seemed silly. I sat and took in the moment instead of trying to photograph it and text it to my friends. I'm gonna pause here for a second. I'll tell you a story.
I went with a couple of Mevasserah guys a couple of years ago to a New York Knicks game. We sat in front of a woman. We sat. I'm sorry, right in back of a woman who sat with her iPad, videoing the game. Now I'm thinking to myself, I wanted to say something, but I'm gonna make chel Hashem. So it's fifty-fifty, but I didn't end up saying anything. I sat and watched her watch the video of the game. If you're not watching it now What's the chance you're going to watch it in the future? Remember that game that I went to and didn't watch? Let's watch it now together. And it's not like she was doing it for two seconds. Just get a for the entire four quarters of the game. She's like, you paid for seats. Do you know that they have television where they broadcast these games, and you can even watch them later? You can find them.
I need to be at the game to record it. Go to a concert. What does it look like? I went to the infamous Mordechai Shapiro concert. Some of you were there. So famous, so infamous, and I was watching people dancing like this And I'm like What are you doing? You like having a compulsive need to watch yourself dance later. As you're scrolling through. That was a great time. You can't. You. The thing is about your brain. You know this. You could remember things. You know this, right? Like, you don't need to go back. And I'm not saying there's not a place for it. I also like to scroll through my Google Photos. I also like to go. Oh my god, that's so cute. There was a time when she was six and she wasn't a teenager. I like to remember those. I like to remember those days. But imagine not being present at the thing. This is what he's talking about.
I felt comfortable sitting on the beach and watching my kids build sandcastles for an hour. I slept like a baby. I realized that this is how I was supposed to feel. It felt like waking up. Best of all, nothing bad happened. The business was fine. Nobody was upset. After a month of this, I came home and had coffee with a friend. I felt like a new man. Whereas beforehand, nothing made me happy. A month of quiet had flipped things on their head. Suddenly, the muzak playing in a cafe sounded like the best song I'd ever heard. A business problem that would have frustrated me felt like a fun challenge. Listening to an audio book like a special treat. Even doing housework was kind of enjoyable. The bar was reset, but I couldn't figure out why. Now he's going to tell us why, and that's why I'm here talking to you tonight.
As I react He writes reacclimatized, but that's not the right word. It's reacclimated. As I reacclimated to the stimulus-filled world, I happened to listen to a Humor Man Lab podcast about addiction treatment with Dr. Anna Lemke, a world-renowned expert on addiction at Stanford. I figured it would be about cutting-edge treatments for severe opioid addiction. Not really relatable to me, just interesting. What I wasn't expecting to learn was that I myself was a textbook addict who had unintentionally put himself into a self-imposed rehab. Dr. Lemke explained that most addictions arise from substances or activities that release dopamine. The obvious ones include things like cocaine, alcohol, and heroin. While she treats drug addiction, much of her work actually focuses on people with more pernicious 21st century addictions to dopamine-inducing activities. Things like, remember Andrew Wilkinson, not a Jew, not coming with a Jewish agenda, not a heavyset rabbi with a beard. This is like a good-looking CEO type of guy.
Don't laugh at this joke. It's not nice. Video games, food. Social networks Pornography, email Exercise, even romance novels—yes, romance novels. People can be addicted to anything that releases dopamine, and we're doing it all constantly in an unnatural way. Our phones are dopamine machines, and like alcohol, our society has normalized constant exposure. In the podcast, she describes dopamine as a neurotransmitter that creates both pleasure and pain. Now here's going to be the key paragraph. So stay with me on this. And for those of you that are on your phone right now, know that we're talking to you. I tried to do that in a general way so that the people wouldn't know that I know, but I know. So I'm letting them know that I know in that way. Imagine eating a piece of chocolate cake. You don't have to sell me. You will obviously experience great pleasure eating it.
But what people don't realize is that in the background there is annoying pain, which makes you want more. A craving for another dopamine hit. So here he's going to introduce us to an idea. It's a well-known idea about the pleasure pain paradox of dopamine. You get a pleasure hit when you have it, but now you have a craving for more, and the craving is pain. You don't realize it because you're not paying attention to it, but the craving is pain. So listen what it sounds like: Just one more bite, one more slice. That's the pain side of dopamine that pushes us to pursue more of the dopamine-inducing substance. When seminary girls eat half a brownie at a time And then you eat that half a brownie, you get that dopamine hit. Delicious, right? And then you sit there staring at that other brownie. That other half of the brownie, which is really the same brownie, just because you cut it in half doesn't mean it's not one piece. And now.
Your pain is the craving for the second half of that piece, right? What do you do as you're experiencing that pain? You start to before you take the other half. What do you do? You play a game with yourself. And you go like this: You're like I shouldn't. I know I shouldn't. You may even say it out loud to the person next to you: I really shouldn't. We shouldn't. We've been so good this whole week, but we've been so good this whole week. By the way, I like that's the difference between girls and guys. You like define yourselves like that. We've been good. I've never heard a boy say, 'I've been good all week. I should have that brownie.' He's like, 'No, I just want it.' It's a totally different experience, right? So you start to play this game with yourself. In that moment, you don't realize you're in pain. Exactly, you're in pain in that moment.
One more bite, one more slice And 30 minutes later There's no more brownies. That's what happens. It's not necessarily easier. Trust me, I've been there. Nine by thirteen is not a serving size. Jokes. That's why I like teaching in Thomas the Vore. We have a good time together. You laugh at my pain. As it does with opioids, cocaine, and alcohol, over time that pleasure-pain balance skews more and more to the side of pain. The addict needs an ever larger dose to experience less and less satisfaction and relief. Eat a piece of chocolate cake once a month, and it will be insanely pleasurable, with only the faintest craving pain. Eat cake once a week, and it'll be pretty tasty, but cravings might start popping into your head every once in a while. Eat cake once a day. And you will start experiencing a daily craving pain, a reminder that your brain expects the cake and that you need to get it.
Eating will be satisfying, but day after day it will become less and less satisfying. Eat cake multiple times a day, and you'll experience extreme cravings. But eating will only reduce the craving or pain, and you'll have to eat more and more each time to feel satisfied. You won't even enjoy the cake, but you'll eat it to reduce the pain. True addiction. And many of us have done things like that. Many of us have sat here and we will just fill ourselves with whatever it is. In the beginning, when you first got a smartphone and you watched YouTube It was awesome. Then you watched it more And you watched it more. It wasn't a once a week thing. It wasn't even a twice a week thing. It became thirty times a day. And now you don't even like watching YouTube anymore. But your brain expects it.
So you need to fill yourself with it because you're addicted. A boy in yeshiva came to me to talk about his phone addiction. So I said, "Let's check your weekly wellness report. Let's see where you're holding." How many hours a week are you on your phone? You want to guess? Twenty-three, forty a week. Over forty hours a week. We did the math. We did the math over the course of the previous years of his life since he got the smartphone. Over a year of his life A year. He was only 18. Over a year of his life had been spent on his phone. And when I asked him "Do you even like it anymore?" He's like, "Not really. I kind of find myself watching the same things over and over again. And like a lot of times, you know how on YouTube it gives you that red.
Even people right now are having trouble locking in. It gives you that red line that says you've already watched it. And how many of us will go? I'll watch it again. For what? What are you watching? Are you enjoying it? Ask yourself: Are you really enjoying it? Is it pleasurable? The answer you may find, and this is very painful, is that you're not enjoying it. It's just satisfying a craving. It's pain. And the more you do it, the less pleasurable it is and the more pain it causes. My jaw dropped as I put it all together. Before my sabbatical, this is what most people's lives are like. I was constantly sending emails and texts, tweeting my thoughts or checking what people thought of them, scrolling the news, making the to-dos and ticking them off, getting the inbox to zero. Every moment of silence was filled. Every routine was completed. Even when I was driving, I was listening to a podcast or an audio book or on a call or using Siri to send texts. If I forgot my phone on the way to the bathroom.
I felt like I was going to have a panic attack. How many people turn around when they're on their way to the bathroom because they realized they forgot their phone? I'm heading somewhere to do an activity that has nothing to do with your phone. But you can't be alone with your thoughts, even for that amount of time. There's a story with one of the great mashkilim of the last generation. Revi Lapian And he said that he was getting on a bus, and there was a bacher on the phone on the bus that saw him And so he saw the mashgiach, and he's like, "I'm going to really impress the mashgiach." So he pulled out a sefer. Ravely saw the entire thing. So as he's going down the aisle, and the boy is sitting there, he really looks like he's focused on learning, and it's clear that he's just trying to impress the mashgiach.
Mashgiach looks at him and he says Close the sefer. It's okay to be alone with your thoughts. It's a big deal. How many of us take the bus? No phone. Just looking out the window. Letting your thoughts wander. We do a thing in Mevaseret; they should do it here in Tomer the Bar. It's amazing. We do a thing in Mevaseret and no phone to you Forty-eight hours. It's incredible. Now I'll tell you how it breaks down. I'll tell you how it breaks down. You ready for it? It's an amazing thing. Every year, let's say seventy percent of the guys, this is going to be awesome. Twenty percent of the guys go like this. It doesn't matter to me one way or another. And ten percent of the guys are furious. Why are you taking away our phones? I just want to listen to music. That's the point.
Just forty eight hours, don't listen to music. Just forty eight hours, don't listen to music. And we make them in order to get on the tule. You have to go to the office, hand in your phone. We put it in the yeshiva safe. They get a ticket. They get on the bus with their ticket. The bus ride is amazing. Because bus rides when I was a kid used to be amazing. You know what you did on the bus? Cheered. We weren't girls. We are on our way to camp. We beat the snot out of each other. It was amazing. We bullied people. We didn't know what we were doing. You got you. You ran to sit next to your friends, and you all sat in a certain section. And if you were taking a Rivlab bus, for those of you who know what Rivlab is, it was like a really crunky, broken down bus that would never make it anywhere. She always wanted to sit in the back because the bus had no shock absorbers because it was made in like the nineteen thirties, like pre World War Two, and it was like when you're driving and you hit like any bump, I'm not talking like a speed bump, I'm talking like any bump, the whole back of the bus goes up and you're flying. And me and Chaim used to be like flying and like smashing our heads on the back of the bus.
And it was amazing. You got on the bus and you're like, "It's amazing." What? I thought you were raising your hand to ask a question. Speak to me afterwards. It's amazing. But now I get on a bus for a tuiul, and it doesn't matter who you're sitting next to because the entire time you're on your noise canceling headphones, and it doesn't matter who you're sitting next to because you're not present. You're just listening to music. You're falling asleep. The buses are dead. But on that tuiul, the buses are awesome. And we always do the no phone deal at the same time. Don't tell the boys this. They did it already this year, but don't spread it around. Just keep it between us and the recording. I know. Hashvah Shalom. It would never happen, but just in case. Just in case. See how you have. We're all related in the grand scheme of things. What do you mean, Avram Avinu? We go back. Tarzadi.
The. That Tuol, the Shana Bet boys They've already been on the Tuol for a day. They're in a lot. These boys are on a negative Tuol. They're marching through the desert. It's dark outside. They have no phones. And we always play the same prank on the Shana Bet guys. The Shana Bet guys don't tell them. It's like a thing. Don't tell anyone. As they're walking through the desert, we tell them. Hopefully the bus got here. If not, it's another five miles until the bus. And guys are like, Oh my God! It better be here! And they're complaining and they're doing what they do. Talking like, man, yeah, we're gonna kill him, or you know, yeah. Who are you gonna kill? Kill that rabbi? He's gonna be dead. What are you gonna do? So of course the bus is not there. Because we planned it out, and then we turn the corner, and the bus isn't there, and the guys like, oh my god, this is terrible. And then all the Shunabat guys, a little bit later, are like in ditches on the side of the road.
And as they get there, all of a sudden we have a van. Some years we've had fireworks. All of a sudden, there's this light show and it's blasting music, and there's a massive barbecue in the middle of the desert, and all the guys are dancing and eating, and it's incredible. It's awesome. And you know what? No one's doing. I gotta post this on Instagram. I gotta put this on my Snapchat story. This is gonna be a great TikTok. Nobody's doing that. What's great about it is you have no choice but to be in it because you have nowhere to escape to. And that's an amazing thing because most of us spend our life pursuing something that's killing us. And that's insane. That's insane. If I didn't follow a strict routine of habits and best practices per day, I felt like my day was ruined. I had been constantly trying to figure out the perfect thing to do in every moment to maximize my output, personal development, and moment-to-moment satisfaction, and it was making me miserable.
It turned out that I had been doing the digital equivalent of eating chocolate cake every minute of every day, constant dopamine hits every waking minute. No wonder it felt like nothing was satisfying anymore. My dopamine switch had switched. My dopamine hits had switched to the pain side, the addiction side. My life was too good. I had overstimulated myself with interesting and exciting things. I'm going to skip a little bit Just because we're running out of time, I want to get to the point. Here's what I've done since Andrew Wilkinson, big CEO Remove all addictive apps from my phone: email, news, social media, stocks, YouTube, podcasts, anything that had an inbox or feed or that I could keep checking. I used screen time to disable all the corresponding websites, removed my ability to install new apps, and had my wife set the passcode. Dr. Lemke calls this self-binding, removing the stimulus and making it difficult or impossible to access. Like removing all the alcohol or junk food from your house, so it's difficult to obtain.
Stopped managing my own inbox. I fully delegated my email to my assistant, and we now just do a weekly call to go through any emails she couldn't figure out what to do with. Shockingly, there are only ten to twenty a week that she can't handle herself. Previously, I was spending three to four hours a day managing my inbox, and it caused me constant anxiety. I stopped reading the news and social media. Sorry, Twitter. As much as I love you all, going forward, I'm going to tweet less, and when I do, I'm using a one-way client, so I can't see what the response is—likes, mentions, followers. So don't at me or DM me. I'm not watching, but thank you for reading. Most importantly, created moments of silence, boredom in my day-to-day life. For example Driving in silence, walking in silence, leaving my phone at home and wearing my Apple Watch with cellular instead. When I felt frustrated with boredom, I try to remind myself that this boredom is buying me future happiness. The boredom is a reset of your baseline and will keep simple things enjoyable.
A friend put it well: "Every up costs you a future down; every down wins you a future up." Avoid stacking too many dopaminergic activities, substances, on top of one another or into my day. He goes on and on But he leaves it with this: "My name is Andrew and I'm a dopamineaholic." Are you? If you have a visceral Michael Scott, no reaction to the idea of implanting any of the rules. You just might be. The reason I found this so meaningful to share is because I believe every one of us, in one way or another Are doing exactly this. We're chasing something that's killing us And here's why: the Nile River is exceptional. Irrigates the entire country Provides for everyone. Now the Nile River could be amazing, or it could become an addiction. Here's the difference: if you recognize the source of the Nile River, Hakadosh Baruch Hu Then the Nile River Beautiful as it is, important as it is Is a tool.
It's not something to worship. Because if you worship it It's going to do amazing things for you. There's no doubt about it. But on the other end Is the diseased murder of Jewish children. And this is the message of the Torah, I believe fundamentally. When you start to worship the thing, instead of the thing behind the thing Then what naturally happens is you're using it for pleasure, but the result is always going to be pain. And we do this in every area of our life. To the extent that we are disconnected from Hashem These activities are pleasure-driven activities. And therefore all pleasure-driven activities at some point fall off the pleasure scale and into the pain scale. And this is what the Egyptians needed to learn as their very first lesson. If you want to recognize God, the beginning is to ask yourself, "What do you worship?"
And here's how you know what you worship. I'll give you an example. I'll do it with boys in yeshiva, just to take it out of your context for a second, so that you could appreciate it. Sometimes it's easier to hear it when it's not you. So here's a good example of it. A guy comes to yeshiva. Baruch Hashem, he's growing. He's doing great. Now he has a choice to make. He's finishing his time in yeshiva. He wants to get married. And he wants to provide a meaningful parnasa for his family. That's a mitzvah. So he decides that he's going to go to college. Nothing wrong with that. But he has a decision to make. Where do I go to college? When do I go to college? If he goes to college, let's say in a college that's only Touro Monday and Wednesday nights from six to ten, he could spend a lot of time learning.
If he goes to a college where the college is not built around the yeshiva schedule Now he has a problem. What happens if I have a class at eleven o'clock in the morning and I can't get out of that class? No chavruta is going to want to learn with me every single day if I'm missing twice a week to go to college. No chav, no shear is going to be real for me if I'm missing the shiur twice a week. So there's a sacrifice that he has to think about, right? And I'm not even saying what the decision is or what the decision should be at this point. Every case is obviously unique But to the degree that he understands not his values but his lifestyle. Because if you ask him what are your values, the guy might say, "Of course, I need to be in yeshiva." He might say, "Of course, my chavrusas are of paramount importance." Of course, but then you look at his lifestyle.
And you'll know exactly what he's worshiping—not by the values that come out of his mouth, which he does sincerely believe But by the lifestyle that he's actually leading. And that gap is huge for all of us in this room. We all have values, including myself, that we think about. That's what we preach. If you ask us what we believe, it's this thing, right? But then there's this other thing And that's our lifestyle. And there's a gap in between those things. What you worship is in your lifestyle. And the thing is, to the degree that your worship is not aligned with your values You're now in the pleasure pain paradox. For example If you're chasing money. Let's say this guy. I'm talking to a guy right now. It happens to be the halacha l'maisa. He's struggling with this right now. His value system is, of course, I need to be in yeshiva.
His college is important to him, and he's really struggling. How do I balance these things? It's a huge decision because it's going to impact a lot of years of his life. If he goes one way, it's going to be one type of life, and if he goes another way, it's going to be another type of life. And so he has this thing, and he doesn't know what it is. It's bothering him. It's an itch in his brain. He's like, yeah, I can't not go to that college. And it's not—he's going to Harvard. We're not talking about like he's not going to Penn. He's not going to Wharton. He's going to like One of these like Queens College, Brooklyn College, Baruch colleges type of situations. He's like, but I just can't—I can't leave it behind. It means something to him. You understand? And the thing is, let's say—and I'm not saying this is true. I think in this case it's not. But let's say it means that he's obsessed with money. I don't think it's true in this case. But let's say. And so to the degree that he's obsessed with money, he's going to be chasing that money.
And then you know what happens when he gets it? He's going to get that dopamine hit. I just made that deal! Awesome. And he's now holding that thirty thousand dollar check, and that's a commission check, right? And that's on top of his base salary, and it's like thirty thousand dollars. That's awesome. That's a down payment on a house. But it's like a sick dopamine hit. It's great. But now what does he have? As soon as he gets that thirty thousand dollars I want more. That's what Chazal say. You get a bit, you want a little more. You get one, you want two. You get two, you want four. So now he's got that craving. He's got that dopamine hit. What's next for me? What's next for me? So he gets it. Now he gets the next check, sixty thousand dollars. Now he needs one hundred and twenty. And so he's chasing something because he's not connected to the real thing behind the thing because it's not connected to Hashem. He's on that pain pleasure paradox. And he's actively destroying his life And we all do that.
So the first thing we need to know, and this we'll finish with this Recognizing God in this world is not academic. It's not something you learn in seminary. It's not something you write notes about. It's not like a value that you talk about. It's lived And if it's not lived, that means that you're chasing that dopamine hit. And to the degree that you're chasing that dopamine hit, just know where it goes, because at the end of the day, the Nile turns to blood. There's a negative impact. That very thing that you worship will turn on you. Because it's always that way. Because you need that next craving, that next dopamine, and it could be destroying your life. And it is And that's crazy, and we all do it. So Makas Dam is meant to teach us: always worship the real thing. To the degree that you're aligned with reality, you're off the pleasure pain paradox. But once you slip Once you're no longer worshiping Hashem, but you're worshiping the vehicle that He uses, which is idolatrous, you're now in the pleasure pain paradox. Girls, we'll stop here for tonight.
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