Parshas Vayakhel - Built a Golden Calf? Build a Mishkan!

2:43 So the question is, what was it about the Mishkan? What can we learn from there? What can we glean from there in our own lives about how to respond to the sin of the golden calf? How is that a response? I think that's a little clearer. I think I said it a little better that time. There's an uncomfortable truth that it's impossible to be perfect. When I was growing up There was a word that was used And it was a Psychologically, a very damaging word. I think Baruch Hashem, the world has come around. But there was a mistranslation of a word. It was an important mistranslation. In Yiddishkeit, you see in the Balle Ashkafa that they speak about shleimus. Shleimus. The question is, how do you translate the word shleimus? And the translation was, and this was the translation all over the place Perfection. The shleimus of the world is the perfection of the world But the truth is that that's not an accurate understanding of the word shleimus. The word shleimus doesn't mean perfect. What does it mean?

4:06 Complete. And complete is very different than perfect. Because complete allows for the notion of imperfection. Complete is a healthy word. Imperfection is an impossible word. None of us will achieve perfection. I remember many years ago. I may have told this story, but it bears repeating. Many years ago, I was in yeshiva. A boy asked me to take a walk. I remember exactly where we were. We were taking a walk. A good boy, a boy that I liked in yeshiva. And they were right by the garages of the yeshiva. As they were walking right by that area, he breaks down crying, and Mav is just uncontrollable sobbing. And I said, "What's the matter?" So he said, "I have a secret ambition. Something I've never told anyone. Something I'd like to do with my life." I said, "what do you want to do?" He said, "I want to be a rebbe." I said, "Don't tell that to anybody. That's not an attractive thing. People don't want to hear that."

5:04 He's like, 'No. I really have always known inside of me that I wanted to be a rebbe. It's like a secret ambition that I had.' I said, 'Okay, so why are you crying?' It's not the worst thing in the world. I understand it's not the best thing in the world. So he said, "No, I won't be able to be a rebbe." I said, why not? He said I did some really bad avers in high school. I was like I'm not getting it. I'm not understanding because you did really bad avers in high school, so you can't be a rebbe. So he's like, no, like I did really bad avers in high school. I'm like, okay, but you know, there are big people out there that have done really bad avers, and you could still go into chinuch. It's not like it's a barrier to entry. And I started trying to be mechazikim, and I told him about some of my old friends from high school who were like the craziest people and did the worst things. And look at them today. He said, no, you don't understand.

5:58 My rebbeim, and he happens to have been from a yeshiva where it's true, his rebbeim were awesome. It's like my rebbeim never did the averas that I did. It's like I wanted to be like that. So I said, tell me what are the averas you like? I want to hear this big avera. And he told me he's like, I like I ate at McDonald's. And not certainly not typical. Not kosher. That's not a great thing. You can't be a rebbe. He's like, I wanted that my talmidim should be able to look at me the way I looked at my rebbe. I saw that there was something off in his chinuch. For him, perfection was a must. There was no notion of not being perfect. And because he had already failed, and it's true, he'll never be able to undo that. You could do tshuva, and you could turn it into a schuz for yourself, but in his mind, the way that he's defined was he's defined by the avera because he was taught you have to be perfect.

7:04 And that's never going to happen. You know how you know it's never going to happen Because everybody in this room has already messed up. Everybody in this room, including myself, has already done an aver. Everybody in this room has already probably done an aver that they told themselves they would never do. Remember that time you drew a line in the sand? Maybe you were like in eighth grade and you said, "I'll never cross that line." Like I'll never, like I would go up until this, but I'll never do more. Remember the first time you crossed that line? For those of you that have crossed that line, it's very helpful to look at your eyes and just to see who I'm talking to right now. So it's nice about 40% of you are willing to acknowledge, and the other 60% I want you to know. Very impressed with how well you did that. It was excellent. There's a couple of brave people in the audience that went like this. It's like, thank you for the head nod, but I'm with you. And a couple of you that did this, right? Just also that was a good portrayal, like putting your head down. There were some of you very stoic, very impressed. So we all had that line that we said we weren't going to cross, and then we crossed it.

8:00 We're never going to be perfect. It's never going to happen. That ship has already sailed. There's something very dangerous about the notion of trying to be a perfect Jew. It's interesting when you look at Chazal The Chet HaEgel is Beyond understanding, Klal Yisrael was at the highest possible level. How did we mess up? The Gemara says: They had no choice. Hakadosh Baruch Hu forced them to do it. To show that for all time, tshuva would be a possibility. They had reached such a level that it was impossible for them to do the avera. Hakadosh Baruch Hu literally had to force them into doing the avera. So that to show them that no matter how bad the avera is, because that was a pretty bad avera. It's like cheating on your husband in the middle of shabbat brachos. We had just gotten the Torah. Hakadosh Baruch Hu says not many things to us. He tells us, don't worship other gods. Not that many days later, so we made this amazing god, and we all gave our jewelry for it. Not the women, but the men. Everyone's like ripping everything they could out. That's real.

9:03 So the question is What do you do next after you've messed up? What's next? Was talking to a boy in yeshiva this week And he was—he's in a tough spot, and he's—he's great guy, he's mamish a great guy And he's steiging, and he's burnt out. He's not so into it. He told me that he went back at night. It's the cutest thing. He's like during night seder, I know that I was supposed to go to night seder, but the second hour of night seder, I felt like I couldn't So I went to play chess. It's not the worst. It's not the worst thing in the world, like. There are other, like I could recommend other better ways of cutting Nightsaber if you're interested. Things that are perhaps more fun. He's really beating himself up. So I said to him, why are you beating yourself up so much? He said, no, I know you, Rebbe. You play a dangerous game. You make our averes practically mute.

9:56 So I said, but you do much worse. I said you make your averages much worse than they actually are. The Boshemtov says it's not the bite of the snake that kills you; it's the venom. The avera is the bite of the snake. You want to know what kills you? It's not the bite of the snake. It's what you do afterwards. It's the torture that you put yourself through in the name of frumkeit. I'm so frum, so now I have to do tshuva for this avera. The next day in Shmona Esther, you see these guys. It was like a good Monday Shabbos, if Sunday morning they're like They're like, oh man, that was bad. If you roll around in the mud, that hurts. If you roll around in the mud, don't be upset when you get dirty. It's there. There's very little value. There's value in guilt.

10:50 There's value in saying that behavior was beneath my dignity. But there's no value that I can think of to be ashamed of your averos To say that you made a mistake and now you're no longer worthy of love and connection. I can't possibly understand how that would be what Hashem would want from us. I have not yet found a source in Chazal that says that after you do an avera, you're supposed to feel like you're unworthy of love and connection to Hashem. In fact, I've seen the opposite many times. The Rambam speaks about charata. That's regret. Regret is healthy. Regret means I made a mistake. And it doesn't feel good. Somebody once asked me. When will I change? I want to change so badly. When will I change? I said I don't know when you'll change, but I know this: people only change when they want to.

11:39 He said, "What do you mean? I want to right now." I said, "Do you?" I said, "Well, let's think about the things that you're doing. Are they working for you?" And he said, "Yeah, for the most part, they're working for me." I said, "Exactly." We don't change until things stop working for us. Until you say, 'Yeah, it doesn't. I don't really want to feel that way anymore. I don't really want to be that way anymore,' and then we start to change. That's a very healthy thing. When you look at something and you regret it, you're like, 'This no longer working for me. It's not in line. It's not in harmony with the person that I am. I don't feel like this the life that I meant to be living.' And then change happens. And by the way, when that happens, change usually happens in a hurry. Isn't that true? Change is actually not that difficult. It's all the parts of stuff that get you up to the point of change. That's hard. But the actual change is amazing. You see, with little kids I remember this day.

12:27 I was four. I was four years old. I remember. I was living on Mihen Avenue in an attached house. My parents hadn't bought a house yet; they were still renting an apartment. And I had a friend that came over every single day. His mom had to work late. My mom got off a little earlier, so my mom was paid to babysit this kid. He was my good friend. Today is a very choshev erav. His name was Yitzi. So I remember that. Yitzi got picked up from his mother, and she said, 'Come, Yitzi, we have to go home. We have to take a shower.' I was four. So my mother said, He still takes baths. So I remember I said, because I was a big boy, I remember I said, "Nah, take showers now

13:11 And from then on, it was all showers all the time. Change happens in a hurry. What was the difference? I didn't want to be seen as a pathetic four-year-old. I wanted to be the cool four-year-old that took showers. If somebody would have told me at that time, this is not the greatest measure of coolness, I don't know if I would have believed them. That was the height of being big. And little kids want to do this all the time. They want to be big. Little kids will tell you when they're ready to be toilet trained, just as an example. And why do they want to be toilet trained? Because their friends are toilet trained. It's like he doesn't wear diapers at night anymore. He's big, or the first person to lose a tooth. There's a difference when my son is one of the oldest in his class, so almost nobody's lost a tooth. So for him, it wasn't exciting to lose his first tooth. In fact, he was scared to lose his first tooth.

13:57 But if he would have been younger in his class, and everybody would have been losing their teeth, you know what he would have been walking around doing? Shaking his teeth. Like when will my teeth fall out? Because once you're ready to change, you want it to happen, and it happens in a hurry. But we don't really change until we're ready. And the process of getting up after the fall is not a simple process. And it's an important topic for us to discuss because most of us have some distorted notion of frumkeit where we think, or maybe we were taught, that the best way to stop doing an avera is to treat yourself like a piece of garbage. Here's a here's a friendly tip. I haven't even gotten to the shiur yet, but here's a friendly tip. If the words you're using inside of yourself after you do an avera are not the same as the words you would use to your friend who confided in you that she did an avera, something is wrong.

14:54 I'll say it again. Make sure everybody gets this. It's an important topic. If somebody comes to you and they say I did this avera last night What would you say to them? Would you say to them I can't believe you. Where's your honor? Where's your dignity? Where do you like? Is that really who you are? Would you give that mustard to your friend, or would you probably be something like I really hear that this is not something you are proud of. I think the fact that you're not proud of it is probably half the battle by itself. But the truth is, these are things we learn from, and you'll be right. Isn't that like fundamentally different than some sometimes the way some of us. Have an inner voice that's perhaps a little overly critical. Would we ever speak to another that way? I certainly hope not.

15:51 So there's value in learning how to pick ourselves up after the fall. And there's three things I want to discuss with you tonight. Three lessons from the building of the Mishkan. Three lessons of how we recover from the Chet HaEgel of our lives. After you've done the worst possible aver, after you say to yourself, "I can't believe I did that," after you've crossed that line. Where after you've even not crossed that line. Let's say it was something simple. Let's say you say to yourself, "I told myself I was not going to speak lashon hara," and then that day you spoke a massive amount of lashon hara. I once had one of the girls after teaching Talmud Devora, so she told me she was really inspired and she promised herself that night she wasn't going to do fill in the blank, whatever it was. It doesn't matter, right? And then the next week I came and she asked to walk me to the car and she said, 'Last week I told you I was really inspired, and I said I wasn't going to go to that place.'

16:42 Funnily enough, I ended up in that place that night, and I did the thing that I promised myself I wasn't going to do. Because she said I must be a complete fake. It must be right because an hour ago, I was totally like, 'That's it, I'm done with this. I'm deleting all my numbers. There's no more apps. I have no connection to this world.' An hour later, she's in that place. It must be I'm a complete fraud. And so we always have those things that we do, and the question is, what do we do afterwards? So lesson number one. It's a very powerful lesson. A blueprint is not meaningful enough to recover. If you want to recover, you have to do something. You have to build something. You have to make something real. People do this all the time. They talk about what they're going to do.

17:35 If you've had a Eureka, if you've done something you're not proud of A great line from Alcoholics Anonymous: Rock bottom is a beautiful place to build a foundation. If you've done something that you're deeply not proud of, know that right now in this moment you have an unparalleled opportunity. Because sometimes demolition is what you need to do in order to build something in your life. But if you have all that demolition and then you talk about, for sure, now I'm gonna be macabre on myself. This and I have this plan and I have this structure that I'm gonna build. But you don't do any of it Then you're gonna end up back in the same exact place because you didn't learn anything. For example Let's say you have an alcoholic. And the alcoholic says, "That's it, I'm done." He came home, he was drunk off his mind. He walks into the house. He's screaming. He's yelling. His wife and his kids are terrified. And in a moment of tremendous strength His wife takes the children. She puts them in the car and she says to her husband, "We're gone."

18:44 Either go to rehab. Or we're not coming back. Picture the scene. The husband breaks down crying. I can't believe I did it. I can't believe that I got to this level that my wife literally took the kids, got in the car, and went to her sister. And he's sitting there bawling and crying and he says to himself, 'That's it. I'm going to get myself together. I'm going to make a real change this time.' If you don't go pour out all the alcohol that you have in the house Then what does it mean that you've said all these things? And your wife is not going to believe you when you call her up and you go, "I've made a commitment to really change." What are the actions that you've taken? I went to 30 days worth of meetings. I found a sponsor. I went to rehab. I cleared out all the alcohol in the house.

19:29 I've committed myself to not going to a bar anymore. I know that this chevrut I was hanging out with is involved in drinking. I'm not going to their house anymore on a Friday night because I know what's going on over there. Those are real, actionable changes that a person makes in order to do something meaningful with their life. But nobody's going to trust you if you just talk. Nobody's going to trust you if you just have a blueprint of what you're going to do differently in your life. And most importantly, you shouldn't trust yourself. Because talk is cheap. It's easy to talk a big game, but when it comes down to actually making meaningful implementations of change in your life, those are measurable things that you can do. Somebody told me a maysa. I was heartbroken to hear this, Maysa. Mamish heartbroken. I went to speak. I was a scholar in residence somewhere.

20:20 So they had a Friday night Oenik in their house And at the Friday night Oenik they were serving alcohol. And the host, the person who brought me in to be a scholar in residence, was clearly watching the alcohol that was being given out. Sometimes they just put the alcohol in the middle of the table, so he had all the alcohol by him and was pouring for people. But it was obvious to me that he was watching how much was poured. And there was a guy there that was clearly trying to get too much. And afterwards This host—I didn't ask. The host explained to me. He said, "the reason I kept the alcohol by me is because this guy is a raging alcoholic." He's a raging alcoholic. In fact, the fact that he's alive today is a miracle. He was driving drunk on the highway. His car flipped because he was out of control, and it landed upside down on the divider of the highway.

21:16 If it had gone a little bit more to the left, it would have been into oncoming traffic. He would have died for sure. So he made a sudden hod Baruch Hashem Baruch Hashem. I didn't die. But he kept drinking. So his wife said to him, "I want you to know that by your funeral, this is what she said to him. By your funeral We're not going to eulogize you in glowing terms. We're going to say that you allowed your disease, because it is a disease, but you allowed your disease to destroy the lives of yourself and your family. To try to get him to make a change, and he started crying to her and talking about he was going to change. She said, "I've heard it from you before." If you have a chet ha'egel in your life, you have an opportunity. There was a demolition. That means the ground is flat right now. That means the ground is raised.

22:10 So there's an opportunity to build an amazing structure. So if you'll have Beis R' Hashem, a positive voice inside of you that says this is an opportunity, then there's an opportunity to be mekabel on yourself to make a real change. People always say this, and it's like a cliche, but it's a cliche because it's true. If you hear a great shmuus and then you don't do anything about it If you're not mekabel on yourself, if you don't make it real, if you don't make it actionable, what did you accomplish? Recently, I heard of a boy in a yeshiva. And he was being checked out for a sherek. He's being checked out for a shiduch. You're looking into these boys. You want to hear what they say? What's What's going on? What is this boy about? So you know what they heard about this boy? He's a great learner.

22:59 They're all great learners. Every guy is a great learner. He's a balmidos for sure. He's the nicest guy. Every, they all, it's like, how do you get real information these days? It's impossible, right? But then there were real actionable things. During one of his stars, even though he's considered a top boy He's a boy in the yeshiva that's very weak. He has a big heart, but is very weak in cup. He doesn't have a good head for learning. This boy has an entire seder dedicated to learning with him. Parents hear this. That's impressive. A guy who's literally learning all day, all night, kiheim chayinu varechemenu. And he gives over an entire seder to working with a boy, who's not as strong as he is. That's midos. So the parents started doing a little bit more research. This boy sounds for real. You know what they found?

23:56 In the mashgiach's musar vod. So the mashgiach says, Chazal say this, Chazal say that. A lot of boys sit there like it's halachic entertainment. You know what it's like? It's like the way some of us in the room look right now. It's chill, right? Sit back, listen to Berg for 45 minutes. It's nice. He tells us some jokes, right? Some of us doodle, some of us text, some of us are slipping notes. Whatever, we all have our ways. Some of us are trying not to fall asleep. By the way, those of you trying not to fall asleep, you're my heroes. The head bob people. I just want you to know, you're my people. You're my people. When you see girls going like this It's whiplash. You're endangering your life to be here. I just want you to know, I'm makatova. I appreciate it. This boy, you know what he's doing during mussaf? He's taking notes And every time the mashgiach says Chazal say this, if the mashgiach doesn't quote the source, he makes a note to go find out where it was afterwards. And if the mashgiach does say a source, he writes it down and then afterwards he goes and looks it up himself.

24:58 That's impressive. So I was told this story, and I told the person these are not two separate stories. These are not two separate stories. You think you looked into one bacher and you heard one story that he learns with the shalach bacher and you heard another story that he takes notes in the meshkiach's musr shmos and he goes and he looks up all the sources and if he doesn't know the source he goes and he asks where the source is. Those are not two separate stories. They're the same story. The guy learns with the weaker bacher because when the meshkiach is speaking he's taking the notes and he's actually paying attention. He's actually focused on. What do I do now? I had a conversation with the Rebbe in NCSY Kolol this past summer. I said, "Do you want to hear the difference between teaching public school kids and teaching NCSY Kolol kids?" Because all summer long, at night I teach the NCSY Kolol kids. Mostly those kids are coming from Yeshiva day schools. And on Shabbos, I have the best job in the world.

25:52 Four weeks of the summer, I have the best job in the world. I spend my Shabbos with the public school kids from TJJ. They're thirsting for Torah. You show up, and it's like, 'They gather around and they're like, "Okay, I have this question, I have that question."' I love it. It's amazing. I told the rabbi, I said, "Do you want to hear the difference between teaching a public school kid and teaching an NCSY Kollel kid?" I'll tell you the whole difference. You ready for it? At the end of teaching a she'er in NCSY Kollel Kids come over to me and they go like this. You ready for it? You can even imagine them saying, Great she'er, rabbi. But the public school kids that come over and they say, "Thank you so much." What's the difference between these two answers? The NCSY Kollel kids are evaluating how you did. Because they're so saturated with Torah. It's like, how was that? Was good. I give it a seven.

26:44 They're ranking you. This and there, I'm not so into it. I'm into it. It's pretty good. That was good. He said it. Like the way he said it. Public school kids, because they get no Torah. When you teach them something, they're like, that was awesome. Thank you so much. It's amazing. So I told that to this rebbe. And he told me that he gave a shmuuz in his yeshiva and listened to the shmuuz. He said to them, right now, he told the boys, right now, as I'm talking, what are you doing? You're evaluating me. That's what you're doing. You're sitting there and thinking not about the mussar that I'm giving, but you're thinking about how the rebbe is doing with the mussar that he's giving. You're not opening your hearts and saying to yourself, 'Do I do that?' How do I work on that? And it was good with the mussar that he was giving, and he saw some people as he was saying it. They were going like this: they were evaluating in bishas maysa.

27:41 This boy is sitting there taking notes, his heart is open. He's thinking, how do I work on this? I bet you I can tell you. Again, I never met the boy, but I bet you that there was a shmuz one day that alluded to teiras chesed. And it was that shmuhs that he took seriously. That when the opportunity to learn with D'ish of Hachabacher came up, he said, "I have the opportunity to implement that shmuhs. If you want to change, you have to build something." That's step number one. Step number two Another lesson from the rebuilding of the Mishkan after the Chet Ha'egom Just as important. How many times am I even I'm. They say like I'm not speaking to you, I'm speaking to myself. I just happen to be in front of you. I think that's so strange. Why would anyone get up in front of a room of people and talk to themselves? It's either exceptionally psychotic or narcissistic. It's not like of course I'm talking to you, like I'm here to talk to you. But sometimes when I'm talking to you, I'm like, man, am I talking to myself? I'm speaking from a place of like I know this because I've been there before and I do the same exact thing. How many times did you commit yourself not to doing a certain avera and you went on a street.

28:50 Ever go on a streak? The day that streak ends. You know how you talk about it. It's like I was doing so well, and how come I just can't beat this? How come I keep coming back to the same average over and over again? I thought I had it beat Right? I haven't done it in so long. This happens after you come back after Pesach. We'll get this shmoos a lot. It's like I really thought I worked on my relationship with my mother, and we were doing so well over the phone, and now. There's a lot of truth in that laughter. See, that's laughter. What you just did right now—that was laughter. But the uncomfortable laughter from a moment ago, the ones like this, was so intense. We're all in this together now. It's gonna be okay. It's a safe place. You can let your feelings out.

29:44 It's like I thought. I thought I had it, Rabbi. But then, I came back and I just walked into that old pattern. And before I knew it, my sibling was this, and I was that, and my mother was yelling, and my father was upset that my mother was yelling, and it was like right back in that same cycle. I walk into my parents' house today. I want you to know this is really pathetic. I go to my parents' house. My parents don't live in the same house that I did when I grew up. My parents have made aliyah, so they live in Beit Shemesh. And I do the same thing that I did. Every single day when I was in their house in America, I walk into the house. The first thing I do? I check the pantry. Now I'm not looking to eat. I'm looking to browse. I just want to know what's available.

30:31 Just in case later, in a moment of weakness, I'm craving A sleeve of Oreos. I need to know that sleeve exists. So I'm 41 years old. My parents are elderly people. It's not even the same house. I walk in the door. Hey, mom, how are you doing? I come in. I make a left. I walk into the kitchen. I open up. She goes, "What are you looking for?" I go, "Love." It's the same thing. It's the same patterns. You ever give up on yourself because of it? You ever say I can't break this pattern. It's like I could do it for a month or two, but even a month or two sometimes is generous. You have guys in yeshiva. This happens all the time with guys in yeshiva. Guys are working on themselves, Baruch Hashem, and they come back to their rebbe. It's let's say shana bet or even shana gimel and they come back with an embarrassed look on their face. They go, Rebbe, you know that same issue I was working on shana alef. I'm still working on it and shana gimel and it's shana dalit and it's shana hey or it's shana tezayin.

31:38 At some point, Rebbe, don't I give up? Isn't this just my cross to bear? That I'm just this is going to be my avera for the rest of my life? There's another yusod. The mishkan traveled to many places. It was constantly deconstructed and reconstructed. Sometimes the mishkan traveled to a place they had already been before. You're going to revisit the same averas over and over again. You're going to go to new averas and new places. You know what you do every time you get there? You rebuild the mishkan. It's relapse recovery. If you think, if you came this year and you said, "I'm coming to Tormer Devora. It's going to be amazing. After I leave Tormer Devora, I'm never going to do this again. I'm going to be fundamentally changed. It won't even come into my mind to do that." If you came in with that expectation Then as they say, expectations are premeditated disappointments.

32:36 We're always going to be human. And we may even be revisiting some of those places for many, many years. And that's okay Because that's your particular tikkun in this world. That's what you need to do in order to build this world. So yes, you're going to rebuild the mishkan in the same place over and over again, and you're going to rebuild the mishkan in new places, and you're going to keep doing it over and over again, because life is a long. People say life is short. Life is the longest thing you will ever do. It doesn't make any sense. Life is short. Life is short because it's short relatively, but it's literally the longest thing you'll ever do. And there's something called the Lifetime Achievement Award. You are not going to complete your journey. I hope you're not going to complete your journey by the end of this year. Because if you do, then you're done.

33:24 And we want to be around for a while. So relapse recovery. My Rebbe kainahar is 94 years old. He's bezalel rofuch shleima. And there was a chassan in Eretz Yisrael So the kids all came. Most of them live in America. I think everyone lives in America except for one. They all came to Eretz Yisrael for this chassan, but not the husbands and not the wives, just the siblings. So it was my rebbe, his wife And all of the siblings get on a plane together. Now these were people who were in their 50s and 60s. And they had these tickets on the plane, we all bought this package of tickets. So they got the tickets at the check-out counter. They give you the tickets, and the Rebbetzin told my wife, you know what they did? Where are you sitting? Switch seats with me. They still wanted to sit next to their closer siblings from when they were kids. And the entire time that they're in the airport, they're cheppering each other exactly like when they were kids. And the Rebbetzin, who at the time was in her late 70s, she turned to them and she goes. When do we grow up? When does that actually happen? You know what the answer is?

34:35 Maybe, maybe never Maybe never, because the habits that we build, those neural pathways, are well ingrained. So we may come back to the same thing over and over again. The question is, do we have? And here's the key word: Do we have the fortitude? Do we have the grit? Do we have the resilience to be able to say, it doesn't matter how many times I fall, I'm willing to stay in the fight. That's a huge thing to say. You have these people And you wonder how they get there. You look at somebody and you're like, how did you become the person that you are? I'll tell you what didn't happen. It didn't happen at 18. At 18 they did some. At 19 they did more. At 25 they were still going. At 30 they were still going. At 50 they were still going. And because they stay in the fight, over the course of decades of their life, they make massive changes.

35:26 So I'll tell you a maysa. When I moved to Eretz Yisrael, there were many losses. When you make Aliyah, there are many losses. But for me, this was the greatest loss. My Rebbe was my—my Rebbe is, not was. My Rebbe is. My—my—I don't know what the word. It's much bigger than role model. There's no English word. He's the person I look up to in every sense, with every fiber of my being. So my Rebbe was very serious about she'er. He was super duper serious about she'er. It was all he did. His entire day he prepared for she'er. He gave four she'erim a week for three years. I had the greatest privilege of my life. I learned with my rebbe b'chavrusa every night. We started at eight o'clock. And we finished officially. It was supposed to finish ten thirty. It usually finished closer to eleven thirty. And to prepare for that chavrusa, because my rebbe was such a talmud chacham and I was such an amaretz young kid I had to spend.

36:28 All of my day was just learning to prepare for that chavruta. It was very serious. And at the end of the chavruta, my rabbi would say, "Here are the mar makomos. Here are the things that the boys need to see tomorrow." So I would write it up. I'd put it on a piece of paper. And in the morning, after shacharis, I'd go to the bima. I put the mar makomos down on the bima. The boys would come up, copy the mar makomos, and then go down to their seats where they would sit and learn until my rabbi got there. So one day I'm sitting in beis medrash. And the door to the shirum opens, and a boy walks out and he looks at me and he goes, "You are in trouble." I said, "What I do?" He goes, 'You're in big trouble.' Guys are filtering out of the room into the beis medrash. The room was right off the beis medrash, and each one of them is laughing at me, 'Oh, you're like you are in big trouble.' I'm like, 'What did I do?' So one guy who was like a friend goes, 'You gave us the wrong marmakomos.' Every guy prepared the wrong thing for she'er. So Rebbe showed up to give the she'er, and none of us had prepared the right thing at all. So I was like "Oh I'm I'm gonna die. That's it.

37:31 That's the end of me. Because my Rebbe was not like a He was the most wonderful balmidos, but he was very like if you said something foolish in she'er, he let you know. You know what I mean? Like in the old school sense, we didn't think that it was abuse. We thought it was love. But like he would do like. Like mean things He had an order in shir. He had a desk and he had an order of how good you were is where you sat. So it was like the first row, the second row, and the third row. And if you were closer to the middle, that was like if you were less good, you were on the sides. So one guy, one time a guy raised his hand in shir and he said something, and my rebbe looks at him and he goes "Move back a row," and everyone laughed.

38:18 And then he didn't move. My rebbe said, 'No, really.' I was like, 'Oh my!' But we had demanded excellence and made a mistake and gave the wrong marimakomos. I knew I was going to get killed. That was it. I would die just by the humiliation alone. And my rebbe walked out, and he had a look on his face, and he comes over and says, "Murdachai, what happened?" "I said, 'Rebbe, I don't know. I thought you were doing that sukkah today.' He goes, 'Well, we were clear. I felt terrible.' We daven mincha. Usually, my rebbe schmoozed with me after mincha. We'd speak and learn. He went straight to the car. He was really upset. About five minutes later, he comes back into the beis medrash and he calls me over and he goes, "Mordechai, I have a favor to ask you." One of my tires got a flat. Would you be able to help me change my tire? I said, "Of course" Of course. My chavruta was Moshe Abramson. We were learning afternoon seder. I said to Moshe, "Rabbi needs us to change a tire." So Moshe and I went outside. We jacked up Rabbi's car. We put on a new tire. We told him everywhere he could get a new tire, and he drove off. I didn't keep my phone on during seder.

39:19 So after we fixed Rebbe's tire, I came back. I started learning. And at six o'clock, the afternoon seder was over. So I'm going home. I pulled out my phone and I saw that I had a missed phone call from my Rebbe, and they left a voice message. This was in the days when I used to actually check my voice messages. So I called up Called up my mailbox, my inbox, whatever you called it And I heard the following message from my Rebbe. You know how there used to be a time where you had to save your messages. Every 29 days, there used to be a thing like press star if you want to save this message. I used to press star every single 29 days, and it was a monthly mussar that I got. Listen to the message my rebbe left me. He said to me Mordechai I was thinking, why did Hashem give me a flat tire? Why did Hashem give me a flat tire?

40:07 He said today I was very upset at you. And in Shir I let it be known that I was very upset at you, and then I let you know that I was very upset at you when I left. And Mordechai, you help me prepare the sheir, and you work very hard to prepare the sheir and to look everything up and to make sure that you know all the kashas and terutsim, so that when it comes to giving the sheir, you'll be able to make sure that the sheir is really good. And I realize it's a lack of hakar satov on my part. I never thanked you for all the work that you do in the sheir. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu set me a flat tire that I should realize that I need you And I want to apologize and say thank you. And I would replay that message every 29 days. Not because of the humiliation that I suffered on that day But because I was amazed that my Rebbe, who was in his 70s, was still working on himself. I thought he was a tzaddik. I thought that's it. He's come. He's achieved. That's it. It's finished. And how should you possibly be working on yourself in your 80s and 90s already?

41:01 The man never stopped working on himself. Relapse recovery. Only have five minutes left, so I'll give you the last one quickly. There's one more thing that you need to know about the Mishkan. And this, I think, is the most important thing. The mishkan is something that we build together. The mishkan is not something that any one of us could build alone. The mishkan is, in a word, community. It stands at the center, and all of Klal Yisrael, each with our own different ways, each in our own particular shavet, we all face the mishkan together. There is an idea called our common humanity. What does our common humanity mean? Our common humanity means that the thing you think you suffer from alone Everyone in this room is doing the same exact thing. And the problem is that we are suffering alone. We have this in yeshiva. I have a she'er in yeshiva that I'm a part of. It's a blessing to be a part of.

42:06 And it's twelve guys And it's not a thirteenth. We don't allow a thirteenth in the room. It's twelve guys. The shiur is called "I Want the Truth". And in that shear, we are open with each other about everything And we share everything in our lives. You know what's amazing? The boys They say, "Wow, you're struggling with that too." I never thought in a million years you would be struggling with that. I struggle with that also. And they see all these guys. Maybe sometimes the coolest guys in yeshiva will get up there and say, 'Actually, I'm not as confident as you think, and this brand that I'm the cool guy, I want you to know I wear it like a weight because it's killing me. Because I have this image that I have to keep up, and I'm living with this anxiety of what happens if I don't keep it up.' And then people go, "Really, you suffer from anxiety? I also have anxiety." This guy isn't anywhere near right. That was intense.

42:57 Thank you, by the way, for being the honest section of the room. The rest of you, I invite you to join us on this anxiety journey that we all take together. But this guy and this guy, who are in two different stratas in terms of where they are in yeshiva, in terms of the chevras that they're a part of, all of a sudden they're aligned. Why? Because they have a common humanity. We're suffering alone. And that's the worst part. Because we think to ourselves, "Oh, I'm struggling with this, but nobody else around me is struggling with this" And it's not true. It's not true. If you want to rebuild after the chay, you need to be a part of it. You need to be a part of a community that understands that we're rebuilding a mishkan together. That yes, we've had to deconstruct, but we're going to reconstruct the mishkan, and everyone's going to be in it together.

43:45 And nobody is perfect, and we're all looking for that sense of completion. But you can't possibly do it alone. It's debilitating to do it alone. I'll finish with this story. One of my favorites. There's a certain rebbe in Beit Shemesh. His name is Rav Kluger. Some of you may have heard of Rav Kluger. He's a Sfarim in English. Probably you've seen them around. Class on one of Rav Kluger's Sfarim. Is this the same Rav Kluger? Carbon option? Yeah. So two friends, best friends. They're both Chassidim of Rav Kluger. So one day they're sitting with Rav Kluger together, and Rav Kluger says to them Chaval, that you guys aren't friends with each other. So they're like, Rebbe, what are you talking about? We're best friends. He's like, you guys are best friends. They said, Yeah, what do you mean, Rebbe? We're best friends. We know each other since we're fetuses, like we were basically born at the same time on the same block to the same family. Like, what do you like, Rebbe? We're mamish best friends. He goes, You're mamish best friends.

44:50 And they said, we're best friends. He goes, you guys don't even know each other. They said, what are you talking about? He goes. Each one of you comes into my office privately. Unburden yourself, bear your soul. And I know that you haven't told each other these things. You call yourself best friends. Barely know each other. You're both hiding from each other. Best friends belong to each other. Best friends are capable of being their full and true self with each other. So I don't know one of the best. I only know one of these two best friends. He's the one that told me the story. So they committed themselves to knowing each other. They decided they're going to take a walk in the forest in Beit Shemesh. It's beautiful, or there were beautiful forests in Beit Shemesh until they paved paradise and put up the parking lot. But there were these really amazing forests with these amazing trails, and they decided to take a walk on one of these trails. He told me that they spent seven hours in the forest.

45:42 Telling each other everything they had never told each other before, all the things they had told Riefkohlger. And you know what the amazing thing was? They walked out of the forest and they said, "It's crazy. We've known each other for over thirty years." I feel like I just met you. And now they're so incredibly blessed because when they go through the struggles of their life, they turn to each other. The thing about the insanity of what we do is we are hiding from each other when what we need is support from each other. But we can't get support from each other unless we're willing, and we're not willing because who wants to be vulnerable? Because vulnerability sucks. And I don't want to be vulnerable because I don't want you to know who I am because you might reject me. But the thing is that person is suffering from the same exact thing. And so, if you would be honest, then they could say you're suffering from that. That's so crazy because I'm suffering from that too.

46:33 And then we could be in it together. Even if it's not the same exact thing, you have your thing that you struggle with, and I could be compassionate to you, and you could be compassionate to me, and we could have a common humanity because none of us are perfect. But you can't rebuild. You can't do something meaningful with your life after the fall if you're not willing to do it together. So to sum up, three things. Number one, after the fall. You have to build. You can't just have a blueprint. You have to walk the walk. Number two Relapse recovery. It's okay to make the same mistake over and over again. It's not okay to give up. And number three, don't go at it alone. Have a beautiful Shabbos.