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Okay. This week's parsha pasuk tells us that Bezalel made the kiyor, the copper washstand. That the Kohanim would wash their hands and feet from And it was made from mirrors. Everyone knows the story, but to repeat, Rashi teaches us. The women of Israel owned mirrors that they would look into to adorn themselves. And Moshe rejected these mirrors because he said these mirrors are made for temptation; they create inappropriate thoughts. And Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Klal Yisrael that he should accept the mirrors of Klal Yisrael, the women of Klal Yisrael. For these mirrors are more precious to me than anything. Because it was through these mirrors that the women of Mitzrayim would ensure that Klal Yisrael continued to give birth in Egypt. What would happen? The women would go to their husbands who were out there having this back-breaking labor, and they'd bring them food and drink, and they would take the mirrors.
And she would say, "Ani naem mimcha" Which means officially, we'll soon see a deeper pshat. I am more beautiful than you. And in this way The husband, seeing that his wife was so beautiful So they would go and have children. And these are the mirrors that the kiyor was made of. So there are several obvious questions that we have to ask over here. It's such an interesting thing that these are things that are so precious to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. Why is this so precious? Why is this so important? I understand. I understand that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says a mitzvah was done with them. I understand they got us through a hard time. But what's the idea that Hakadosh Baruch Hu says nothing is more precious to me than these mirrors? If they're so precious, then why does Moshe Rabbeinu disagree? Zmoyish Abenu says we shouldn't use the mirrors. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says these are the most precious things.
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The second thing is what was the secret of these mirrors? In other words, the women came They brought food. They brought drink. And they said to their husbands, "Ani naem imcha" I am more beautiful than you. What was the secret of these mirrors? When the men and the women would look into the mirrors together and see themselves as a couple. That then and only then would the men say, What was it about these mirrors? There's something about a mirror that changes something. Rashi also says the women had these mirrors in their hands; these were hand mirrors. What's the significance of the fact that these dafka were hand mirrors? And finally, why is it important for the Kohanim before they do their service in the Mishkan to wash their hands and feet specifically in a washstand that's made up of these mirrors? So I want to talk to you tonight about a concept called lasting change.
We have Shav next week. So this is our second to last Shav. Before Pesach. Before Pesach, yes. Is our second to last year. What's the idea here when we speak about coming to Eretz Yisrael and making a lasting change? Something that in six months from now, in a year from now Y'all could be continuing, but more importantly, in thirty years from now, and in forty years from now, and in fifty years from now, the pasuk says, "Gam ki yazkin lo yaster mimeno," that even when you get old That the changes you made at this point in your life will be things that last. How do we do that? The Rebbe says that there's a difference between amira and reiya. There's a difference between that which you say and that which you see. Where do you see this in creation? So we know that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world with speech.
Vayomer lokim. Then the pasuk tells us that God looked at the light and it was good. So what's the childish way of understanding this? That God looked at His handiwork and He went Good job, I did good. It's like you can imagine. Obviously, this is infantile. It's not the right way of understanding it. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu creates the light, then He turns to the malachim and goes I did good. They are looking at the ark. It's good. See, I did good. Obviously, that's a very childish way of understanding. Listen what the Ramban explains. You can create something using Amira. But to make it lasting requires reiya. To create something only requires words. But if you want it to be eternal, if you want it to be everlasting, that requires sight. When you say that something is good, what are you saying about it? We know that God is the ultimate good.
What does it mean? God looked at the light and he saw what? He saw the tov in that light. Not that he saw that it was good; that he did a good job. What did he see? He saw himself. He saw the godliness of it. And any time there's a locus in something, then what is it by its nature? It's eternal. Because God is infinite. That Hakadosh Baruch Hu looks at the light and now He says, now it's eternal. The question is, why is it? We have to explain this Remban in a deep way. Why is it that you can say something and create it, but if you want it to last, it requires Raya. I want you to imagine for a moment a person in your life, a person in your life that says beautiful things to you. They're the person you go to when you're having a hard time.
And they're willing to say the right thing. You know people who say the right thing. You know these people. They don't say the wrong thing. They say the right thing. It's a good feeling, no? To go to somebody that's able to say the right thing. But there's always a part of you that knows that they're saying it. But what do you say to yourself? I know you're saying that, but the question is Do you mean it? The way we say something pales in comparison to the way we see something. Was a boy in yeshiva this week that was struggling with an asiyon. He had an opportunity to do something. Thank you very much. He had an opportunity to do something that was inappropriate. And his rebbe was giving him mussar And his rebbe was telling him, "Don't do it. It's a big nasiun. Don't do it."
And the rebbe kept saying over and over again This is beneath you. This beneath you. And he's giving him heavy mussar. And the boy and the conversation. I was part of the conversation. The conversation lasted. I would say, Sacha called for two hours. Two hours of the rebbe just saying over and over again, 'This is beneath you.' This beneath you. This not you. This beneath you. And when we walked out of that conversation, I asked this boy. I said, "What was it like for you?" So he said, "It was awesome." "I said, 'Why was it awesome?'" He said, "Because I know that's really the way the Rebbe sees me." He wasn't just saying it; he really sees me as someone who's here. And he's saying to me the words not they're not just words to him. He really sees me as being here. And a person who's here doesn't go to this place, doesn't listen to this music, doesn't be with those people.
The Rebbe wasn't saying to him, 'You're a shegitz. You're a guy. You're a bad person. If you go,' the Rebbe was saying to him, 'You're better than this.' Halavai, you should have the eyes to see yourself the way that I see you. And the boy walked away, and he didn't go. It was a tremendous thing. He didn't go. Why didn't he go? Not because the Rebbe gave him a mussar shmuus. The words themselves could only bring it into creation. But to make it last, the Rebbe had to really authentically see him that way. You ever have someone in your life that sees you that way That you know it's not just words, but they look at you in a certain way, and it's almost like I could never do that. I couldn't let them down. You ever borrow somebody's eyesight? To borrow somebody's eyesight means that you finally see them the way that you see or I'm sorry, that you finally see yourself the way that they see you.
To borrow somebody's eyesight, when somebody has a beautiful way of looking at you, you borrow their eyesight, and then you start to see yourself that way. It's the gift of a person who goes to a therapist. And the therapist has what's called unconditional positive regard. That no matter what you say to this therapist, what do they see in you? They see your goodness. They see your godliness. They tell you things like, You made a terrible mistake. We're not gonna shirk away from the mistake that you made. You made a very bad mistake, but you are not your actions. And at first glance, you don't believe them. You say you're saying that But really, you don't mean that. Of course, on my worst moments, but over and over again, slowly over time, like water on the rock, when you're with someone who really truly sees you in a beautiful way, you know what starts to happen?
You borrow their eyesight. The way we make lasting change is by authentically seeing people as their best version. That you're looking at someone, you're looking at your own child. And instead of seeing your child in their worst moments as a teenage girl doing the thing that they shouldn't do You be the mother that has irrational levels of confidence in their child. It's not the pshat that you don't know what the kids are doing. It's not the pshat that you're ignorant. But you don't that child the kafshlus. Not down the child, the childishness, in like this, in the foolish sense of like, they probably weren't really there. Maybe they only drove their friends there. They were there. But you know that's not them. You know why so many marriages fall apart? It's not because of the words that they say to each other. It's because of the way that they see each other.
The number one thing that destroys marriage is contempt. Contempt is when you look at your partner and you're like. You're a despicable person. I don't respect you deeply. You're not a person that I value. It's not necessarily that yet, you said any abusive words, but if your husband comes home and when he comes home, a look of disappointment, a quick look of disappointment, washes over your face. What do you think it's like for him to walk in the door? What would you feel like if you walked in the door and he doesn't greet you b'sefer panim yafus? He doesn't greet you with a smile, excited to be here. The way that we see people makes a huge difference. To light up when somebody walks in the room. You meet tzaddikim like this. You meet people that light up when you walk in the room. They're like, look who's here. A boy comes back to yeshiva.
And there's some rebbeim that go, "Hey, buddy, how you doing? It's so good to see you." And then there are some rebbeim that when they walk back in yeshiva, you see these rebbeim—they have eyes, they have beautiful eyes, they have David and Melach's eyes. They see this boy he comes in, their eyes go large, and they go, "The prodigal son has returned," and they're not joking. The thing about reiya is you can't fake it. Isn't it true that you look at somebody's face and you go I see what you really think. Ever do that? Somebody's like, "No, I never said that." You didn't have to. You didn't have to say it. It was written all over your face. Your face is a rishos harabim. Somebody comes into your orbit. You have the opportunity to smile and to greet them, letting them know that they're important in life.
That gives them kiyum. It makes them eternal. You see their godliness. My rashi shiva zechetadik levrachu passed away only a couple weeks ago. He always used to tell us boys in yeshiva Boys, you should say good morning to every guy in yeshiva. And we would say Rabbi, say good morning to every guy in yeshiva. He would go, "I'll give you a good etzah." Mean it. If you would mean it If you mean it, you see somebody in the morning and you say, 'Good morning! It's so great to see you.' You know what it gives to a person when you see them with beauty. It's an unbelievable thing. Do you know that there's a bird in the Torah called a ra'? There's a bird in the Torah that's called a ra'. It's a treifa bird. The Gemara says about this bird that it could fly over Bavel, it could see all the way to the mountaintops of Eretz Yisrael, and it could see the carcass of a dead body.
So you would think such a bird would be mute. This bird has unbelievable eyesight. But the tzaddikim say. If you have such unbelievable eyesight that you're flying in one country and you could see all the way into a different country, but the only thing you could see is the carcass, the dead body of an animal, that's a treifa bird. A Jew can't have eyesight like that. The eyesight of a Jew, the reiya of a Jew, needs to be vayar lo kimasar kitof. Our responsibility to every single one of each other, to our children, to our husbands, to people in our communities, to our future students. Every single one of us has a responsibility to look out and to see deeply inside of another person. It requires having beautiful eyes. What's an example of this in the Torah? Moshe Rabbeinu was born three months early. Did you know that?
For three months, he was hidden inside his home. The Torah tells us that they looked at him and he was good. They had a shiloh. Amram and Yochaveh had a shiloh. If the Nazis, if the Nazi Egyptians, would walk into our house and they would see that we're hiding a baby What would they do? The rule in Mitzrayim is they would murder the whole family. That's how they prevented anybody from hiding children. You hide a child, we murder everybody. So they had a shaila. Should we give up this kid? Haknasnevashas. Should we give up this kid? But they looked at him and they said We see his goodness. When you see somebody's goodness, you can't give them over to death. You look at somebody's goodness, you say, "I have to draw you in. You're eternal. You're beautiful. You're amazing." When you were born, the house filled with light.
That's the message that we need to share with our children. That's what it means to be a roeh. That's what it means to have eyesight in Klal Yisrael. I have a question. Take a moment right now. My question for you: Take a moment now and ask yourself Are there people in your life that never had to say anything to you? They never had to tell you that you were awesome. But you know that they feel that way about you. You know those people? Take a second right now. This question for you: You have the person in your head. You have a person in your head. They didn't have to say it. You just knew it. You have a person in your head. You have a person in your head. How do you know? How do you know that they know that about you? Listen carefully Because it's in their feet and it's in their hands.
If you want to know somebody's eyesight If you want to know what somebody really thinks It's very simple. Look at the way that they act. We all act out our beliefs. If a guy comes into my office I'm a human being. If a guy comes into my office and he broke curfew And I have a positive view of this Jew. And I look at him and I go, 'Etzim, he's awesome. He's studying in yeshiva. He made a mistake, but he's in process.' I'm getting good reports from his rebbe. He's got it. He has the it that it takes to really become a bentorah. But he made a mistake. What do you think that conversation is going to go like? I'm going to tell him, hey, you can't do that. You broke a yeshiva rule. Do me a favor. Don't put me in a position where I have to get you in trouble. I don't want this to be our relationship.
You can see it in the way I'm dealing with him. You can see it in the way I'm walking and talking. I believe in this kid. But if a guy walks into my office, he's doing nothing in yeshiva, and he got in trouble. And I can do this. I'm like, just don't do it again. You know what I'm really saying to him With my hands and my feet. You know what I'm really, really doing? I gave up on you. I don't really believe amazing things about you, and you could tell that I don't believe amazing things about you because I'm not taking the time to invest in you. Don't do this. You're better than this. The way that we know if the people that we love really love us back, if they really have that unconditional positive regard Look at it in their hands and feet, not in the words that they say.
Look how they act. Look what it looks like in their lives. I give you an example of this. Let's go to marriage. If a wife truly loves her husband If she really sees him in a positive fashion. And the husband asks her for something, and he says, "Would you mind? Something small. Would you mind running to the bank?" "And she goes, 'I don't think I'm going to have any time to run to the bank today.' Is she saying she doesn't have time to run to the bank? The bank is five minutes out of her way. It takes three minutes to go. You're talking about an extra eight minutes of her day. She's going to be in that area anyway. What's she really saying? Saying I'm not stretching for you. I'm not in a place where I would stretch for you. If the relationship is not a relationship of stretching You could see it—not in just the words that she says, but you could see it in her hands. You could see it in her feet.
If a husband has the opportunity to do a nice thing for his wife, it's right there, but he doesn't do it. The problem is that it's not that he didn't do the thing. The problem is there was something that came before the action, something that was missing. What was missing? The re'iya, the way that he looks at her, is what's missing. So imagine they go to therapy, and the husband and the wife says, "I don't know, you never buy me a salad." So the husband says, "I'll be a good husband, I'll buy you a salad." He comes home the next day with a salad. What does the wife say? I want your salad. What does the husband say? Women. Because the woman is not saying, "I want a salad." What's she saying? I don't want to have to tell you to get me a sound.
I want you to look at me And when you look at me, I want you to know what she needs. And then I want you to stretch yourself and be creative. I want you to go out of your way to show me with your hands and feet that I'm an important person in your life. The re'iya is connected to the way that we behave in this world. Imagine you're a husband in Mitzrayim And all day long you're involved in back-breaking labor, and not just back-breaking labor, but back-breaking labor that's designed to destroy your soul. We know that the men did feminine jobs in Mitzrayim. As it was designed to crush them. Girls I'm going to say something now. I need you to lock in to hear this. You're gonna know your husband better than anyone in the world. And you're gonna know when your husband is broken.
You're gonna know when your husband comes home from work and he is just beaten down by his boss. I'm sure not your father's, but you ever see your father come home from work that way? You know I'm talking about where he just walks in the door and he's like He's like protoplasm at best. His soul was left in the office, crushed by his job. But he just walks in. He's exhausted. He's got nothing left in the tank. He doesn't feel like a man. That's what it was like in Mitzrayim. These were broken people. So a woman went out to the fields. And she brought food and she brought drink. And she said to her husband, "Ani naemimcha" Which doesn't simply mean "I am more beautiful than you." It means,"I am beautiful from you." Ani na'e mimcha. I am beautiful from you. My beauty comes from you.
And the husbands are not convinced. The husbands are not attracted. The husbands are not seduced. These are broken people. Until these holy Jewish women pulled out the mirrors that they held in their hands These hand mirrors And they held them up with their husbands and said, "Let's look at it together. Let's look." At what we look like as a couple together And once they took out these mirrors, all of a sudden, the food that they brought, the drink that they brought, the words that they said, all of a sudden, now they became real, because the husbands had to visualize it. They had to see the couple through the lens of the wife. They needed to borrow her eyes. These men needed to borrow their wives' eyes. Girls, that's what Jewish women have been doing for thousands of years. To be a Jewish woman is one of the most incredible things that you can be in your life. It means you have unbelievable eyesight.
It means you have the capacity to see broken people and to see through their brokenness to the tov that lies within, and to look at that and to say, 'Now you're eternal.' Because I'm focusing on your goodness. I'm telling you you're important. That's what it means that these women held mirrors in their hands. Wherever they went, they said to their husbands, "I know you feel dead." I will reenliven you. There was a trias amesim. These women, wherever they went, brought with them trias amesim. That's an unbelievable thing to have. It's a power. Your child comes home from school. Your child is broken. Your child was made fun of on the bus. Your child was excluded from a friend group. You girls know that. I'm sure some of you experienced it. Girls can be very mean. Boys punch each other in the face. I'd rather be punched in the face a million times than have to deal with what some of these girls have to go through.
A ninth grade girl who's going through gehennim mamish because she had friends in eighth grade, but her friend group split up and they went to multiple different high schools, and she went with these six friends, and now these six friends, three of them split off and went to a different group, and these two went and split off in a different group, and she finds herself mamish alone. You know what I'm talking about? You know a little bit what I'm talking about. You betrayed yourself. It's okay. You're allowed to betray yourself. Everybody in this room betrayed themselves, but you're the honest one. It's. You have good eyesight Or at least maybe I have good eyesight. That girl's going through Gehenna. She comes home at the end of the day. She walks in the door. What a tragedy! If the first words that come out of her mother's mouth are, "Do you have homework?" If the first words that come out of a mother's mouth are "How was school today?"
That's a tragedy. Don't ask children about school when they walk in the door. You say "How are you?" You create space, you listen, you pay attention. And when she shares her pain with you, what do you say? Nothing. You don't have to say words. She needs to know that the way you see her is that she's capable of getting through this. And that's not something you can fake, because your daughter, just like you, will know whether you really believe in her or not. If your daughter is coming home and she says, 'I'ma says don't worry, it'll be okay,' but really, you're going upstairs afterwards and you're hiding in your room and you're telling your husband, 'I have crazy anxiety because I don't know if she's going to be okay. I want you to know, your daughter knows it.' She knows that crazy anxiety. She says, "My mother says the right thing, but I can't tell my mother that I'm having a hard time because then she has a hard time, and then I can't deal with the fact that I'm making her have a hard time, and I can't hold her emotions while I can barely hold my own."
But there's such a thing as a mother who holds her own and who says authentically, without saying any words, it's just a reiya And it comes out in the way that the mother acts with her hands and with her feet. But there's a reiya. I believe in you to get through this. I see it. You'll be okay. I don't have to act differently around you. I don't have to coddle you. I don't have to do special things with you. We could just act normally with each other because I authentically believe that you're going to be fine. This is what it means to be a Jewish mother. Moshe Rabbeinu says to Hakadosh Baruch Hu The Kohanim, their job is to bring atonement for Klal Yisrael. All day long, they're running around in the Beis Hamikdash bringing atonement for Klal Yisrael. How could we use mirrors? Mirrors are about vanity. Mirrors are about lust.
That's not a job for a kiyor. That's not what we should be using for the wash basin. Could you imagine a Cohen trying to bring atonement for Klal Yisrael, washing his hands with vanity and arrogance? Girls, you know what I'm talking about? The mirrors that you use before you go out. I one time saw in yeshiva A group of guys standing in front of a mirror. This is remember when it was cool, like six or seven years ago, to just have spiky hair in the front to make it look like you just woke up. I told the boys, I've been working, I've been waking up for forty years. I never woke up like that. I understand what you're doing. They're like, no, Rabbi, it's always like this. I'm like, sure it is. So they would sit in front of the mirrors. I would always see before At night before they go out, they'd be like That's why I'm glad Hashem took away all my hair.
The yarmulke gets bigger. That's Moshe Rabbeinu says a mirror like that is going to bring kapara for Klal Yisrael. A mirror like that is what we use to bring kapara for Klal Yisrael. Kol Heshbaru says, "My Shabenu, you're right." Mirrors like that we would never use. But these mirrors weren't used like that. These mirrors were looked at. They were used to show the men of Klal Yisrael when you're broken. It's not who you really are. When a Jew doesn't avera, and a Kohen needs to come and be machaper for you, the job of the Kohen is to see through the avera that you did, and to just very simply say That's not who you are. I can see the tov inside of you. I can see the godliness inside of you. Just like those halakic Jewish women that carried around their hand mirrors that said to their husbands, "You think you're a slave? You think you're broken?"
You're not broken. I see deeper. Ani naem imcha, my beauty still flows from you. Look at us. We're a couple. Look what we could be together. Look at our essence. See deeper. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says nothing is more precious to me than that. With all of the things that were brought in the Mishkan, nothing is more precious to Hakadosh Baruch Hu than the mirrors that say to broken people "There's something deeper here. There's something essential, something that cannot be destroyed." That's what's precious to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. That's what gives Hakadosh Baruch Hu nachas. Not like so many people have eyes today to say nasty things about Jews. To say nasty things about the community. But for those people that see deeper They see that girl who didn't get into a seminary, and they say, "Are you crazy? You passed over a diamond in the rough."
This girl is unbelievable. That's what it means to have the eyes of a tzaddik to see that boy who didn't get into yeshiva. To say, let's help him find the yeshiva. This kid could be unbelievable. Let's help him find the right system. The rabbis then know how to see the world like that. These people have holy mirrors. They need to reflect that for all of Klal Yisrael to show all of Klal Yisrael their beauty. Because there are low Elena today Jews that are running around saying how decrepit people are. Rabbi, do you know how bad it is out there? You understand what's really going on. I understand just as well as you. Klal Yisrael is beautiful. Every single Jew is beautiful. What you see on the outside is broken; it is only on the outside. You have to have deeper eyesight. These Jews bring atonement for Klal Yisrael, says Hakadosh Baruch Hu.
These are not mirrors of lust; these are mirrors of love. As we wind down nusman And we have to ask ourselves the question Did we make real change? Did we make real change this month? In 30, 40 years from now, will I be a mother who looks beautifully upon my children, my community, and my husband? The only way we can do that is if we borrow other people's eyes and see ourselves that way. Is the task in front of us daunting? Absolutely. Is it going to be challenging? For sure. Can we do it? Absolutely. How do we know? Because there were people in your lives that gave you the gift of sight. Your responsibility is to open your own eyes and to start to see yourself that way. If you see yourself that way You could see others that way. If you don't see the goodness in yourself, you will not see the goodness in others. If your internal voice, if your behavior is behavior of 'I'm not a good person' In Chas v'Shalom you'll see the world that way.
We should be zeicher to have these mirrors. We should be careful to take these very holy selfies to look at ourselves, not in Chas v'Shalom in an arrogant way of a posting, 'Look here is me.' See these? You see people today? They do this the duck face thing. You ever see this? This I'm talking about. It's like a funny thing. I've never in my life made a face like that. There are people when you see them walking down the street. There are certain tzaddikim. This is the way that they speak, the way that they see the world. They have these beautiful eyes. We should be zeicher to see ourselves that way To treat ourselves with kindness and compassion, and to treat the world around us with kindness and compassion.
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