Parshas Vayechi - The Nobility of Submission

2:57 It used to be that the world was externally focused, and then the world became internally focused. I'll explain to you what that means. Let's take art as an example. Before the Romantic era The goal of art, how you measured art Was how well art imitated life. For example, if I was drawing a picture of an apple. Great art would be not about the self-expression of the artist, but how well my piece of art captured that apple. Imagine you were walking by it and you said "It's almost lifelike. It's almost real." That's what would make great art. In the Romantic era, this changed. It was no longer about art imitating life. It became about how art is a vehicle of self-expression. So now, for example, if you go to the Museum of Modern Art, you don't see art imitating life. What do you see? What sometimes could appear to you to be absolute nonsense. You ever have that experience? You ever go to the Museum of Modern Art? Let's say that you got schlepped on a school trip, or by your parents who are cultured people trying to instill some sense of culture in you. They said, "Come to the Museum of Modern Art." I looked at it. I'm like, I don't get it.

4:28 And it's almost something that you could make fun of, right? Today, if a homeless person stabs themselves and smears their blood on a campus and takes the refuse they live in and staples it to the canvas, it could be sold for a million dollars because it's the plight of humanity from the perspective of the streets as man encounters his fundamental self. In relation to the chaos of his environment, right? And lots of people would say that is art, right? And I'm not—I mean, I'm making fun of it, obviously, right? I'm making fun of it more because I don't get it It's like—I mean, I'm not sure that I get the other part either. I'm not sure that I get art if it's just an apple either. My father told me that when he was a teenager. The mona lisa came to new york. And he went to see the Mona Lisa.

5:17 And he told me that he cried. And I said to my father, he told me this when I was a teenager. She's not that ugly. As I said, I was sixteen years old. I said, 'There's no reason to cry over that.' He said, 'Are you kidding me?' He was so embarrassed of his five pound son. That's what you think of. I said, 'What is beautiful about that painting?' I can't imagine for the life of me. He said, 'I can't imagine that you can't imagine.' I happen not to get art. But I can appreciate the shift from a psychological perspective. Because the world changed. We went from being a people—I'm not talking about Jews now. I'm talking about the world—that respected the nobility that I am commanded That I am called upon to act by something higher than myself. That my own self-fulfillment is not at the center of my world.

6:13 And it shifted to being, in a certain sense, and there's some nobility to this too. It's about me. It's about what animates me, what excites me, what inspires me. What do I want to do? There's something amazing about that, because otherwise, a person could be very robotic in life. But on the other hand There is something exceptionally narcissistic Ego-driven About putting yourself at the center of the world. I'll give you a very practical idea that we talk about today. What's a greater threat? I'm not sure that you could split them, but what's a greater threat to Orthodox Judaism today Modernity or materialism? You could certainly make the case that today Our lack of passion for our Judaism is not because we were exposed to high culture. But rather because, for the most part What we're growing up idolizing and worshiping is who has the most.

7:17 And if you look, this is not again. I'm not a person who knocks the Jewish community. I think it's an amazing community. There's amazing amounts of chesed. And not but and if we had to be critical, because we ought to be critical sometimes, if only for the purpose of chesman a nefesh Of a spiritual accounting, to ask ourselves, Ayako, where are we holding? As we turn through the pages of Mishpacha magazine, as we pronounce it here in Eretz Yisrael. As we turn through the pages, and it's around this time of year, how many ads do you suppose we will see for Pesach programs? I would imagine. I would imagine these Pesach programs. I've never been on a Pesach program. I would like to be on a Pesach. I've never been. I would like to be a speaker on a Pesach program. But I'm told I'm a person who values the The gluttony of some of these programs. I am told that the tea room in some of these Pesach programs talk about hasmata.

8:18 The kitchen is putting out food. This is what they tell me. It's Pesach, but they say it with a level of Maybe we shouldn't be so proud to say it this way. They say you can barely tell that it's Pesach. The food, it's like you're eating actual pizza. It's like you're eating chametz. First of all, it's eight days. It's not that big a deal. I crave carbs. I must have. It's not okay for me. And they and I there's a you should know my dad's a very funny person. He's legitimately a very funny person. So there was this guy who was enormous. And he davened in the same shul as we did. The shul that we davened in growing up had a very creaky floor. Had a very creaky floor. It's after the young Israel. And when this guy would come in after Pesach, the floor would creak And it always creaked. This guy was a big guy, so it creaked. My dad would always say to him

9:18 How was the Pesach program? And he always rubs his belly and goes, 'Amazing,' you know. Talking about people that sit and eat brownie after brownie because they don't need to put flour in, right? And how much can I put inside of myself? All of course in the name of Torah, right? Because look at the amazing speakers that we have, and look at the amazing musicians that we have that are coming. So when a person aspires What? Let's be honest. What do we aspire to? Do we aspire to what feels good for me? Or do I aspire to be something that's part of something bigger than myself? I'll tell you what it looks like in relationships, because this is probably the most important way we can frame it. Rav Manis Friedman says this. I love this line. He said, "Before you're married to a person, you have to be married to the concept of marriage."

10:10 Because if you're married to a person People come, people go. Some people are, some people do. They have better times and worse times. People fall into depression. People have anxiety. People lose their jobs. Lots of things happen with a person. Before you start a relationship, you have to ask yourself, 'Do I recognize that there's something that's larger than myself that I'm meant to fit into?' So in today's society, is it possible? I think it certainly is. Is it possible for us to argue that the reason why marriage is on the decline is because I don't feel a sense of personal fulfillment from getting married? Why should I do it? And this is what we're talking about in today's society. People make reasonable arguments. They go, look, it doesn't work. How many couples are getting divorced? So clearly, it doesn't work. Maybe the reason that people are getting divorced so often, and of course this is not always true, and of course it goes without saying, but you have to say the things that go without saying, because otherwise people accuse you that you don't care about the thing that you're not saying, but really you do say it. So you have to say it so that people make sure that you know that the thing is important. Of course, there is a parsha of divorce in the Torah.

11:21 Because there is a time and a place if a marriage has become immoral or abusive, then of course one is obligated, and it's a mitzvah to get divorced. But where's the notion of loyalty in a relationship? Where's the notion of I'm part of something larger than myself, and so I must push through this, not because I want to, but because I'm called upon to be a part of this. You understand the difference? We gain something amazing in the world. We gain something amazing in the Romantic era. Which was the nobility of self. Imagine if you were born in the period before the Romantic era. What were you? You were a slave. You were an indentured servant. You had feudal lords. All the wealth of the world was controlled by a very few people. Most people were poverty stricken. Most people didn't have a voice. So the Romantic era came along and said, "You ought to have a voice." But the result of that was my voice is the main voice.

12:18 Could you imagine what would happen today if Joe Biden got up and he said Ask not what your country can do for you. But what can you do for your country? Can you imagine him saying those words? Of course not, because we don't live in a society where that's What do we talk about on a political level? What's Biden's approval rating? We don't talk about his leadership. We talk about how we feel about him. We don't talk about what's best for the country. We don't talk about what's best for people. We say I don't like him because gas prices are up. I don't, and I'm not saying you should or shouldn't like him. But the point is, we don't talk. We don't think even. On a scope of what's better for something that's larger than myself Even in our community. I remember that I had a moment, a brief moment. Baruch Hashem, only a brief moment. I had a brief moment where I considered becoming a pulpit rabbi.

13:16 To be a rabbi of a shul And I took a course given by the Young Israel in rabbinical training, and you got a certificate degree at the end that said you passed the Young Israel rabbinical certification program. I'll tell you why I decided not to be a part of it. Every night that we had the program, the way it worked is there was a two-hour shiur followed by a break followed by another two-hour shiur. During the break, they served dinner. This is a Jewish program, so you have to eat. And the rabbi who was running the program got up and he said, "Let me tell you about all the shtelers, all the positions that are available right now, and you guys should be applying for this position." So, every week he would say, "There's a rabbi just left in Arkansas, a rabbi just left in Kentucky." These were not like coveted positions that people were running after. But if you could be a pulpit rabbi

14:14 In New York or New Jersey or Philadelphia. Somewhere on the East Coast, where Jews are, that's a coveted position. One night, probably halfway through the program, the rabbi who was running it got up and he said, "The best shul in the world has an open position for their rav. It's a shul. I'm not going to. I don't want to give any details because I don't want anyone to figure it out. It's a shul in the tri-state area." They're finishing building a mikvah. They have a chesed house attached to the shul. The congregants are amazing. You're gonna love working with these people. And as he's describing the shul, I'm sitting next to my closest friend Yitzi Haber. Doesn't this sound like his shul? So Yitzi goes, 'Yeah, sounds like his shul.' So I don't know where I got the guts from, but I said to him Is this your shul?

15:12 And he goes, "Yes, I just got fired." So I was like, "Okay." He's like, "I'll tell you the story. He had just gotten fired from being the rabbi of his shul. The story was that there was a kid in the shul who had severe special needs. And he really was very, very not capable. He called up the mom and he said to the mom, "Your son is 12 years old. What are we doing for his bar mitzvah?" The mother said, "We're not doing anything for his bar mitzvah." He said, "I will be mekabel on myself." Teach this kid the brachos to make on the Torah. And every week the kid came to his house and they worked for an entire year, not on laning, just on making a berachas Torah. Thursday night before the bar mitzvah, he calls up the mother. He goes, "Do you have bags? Did you buy bags and candy to throw at the kid?" The mother said, "No, we didn't." He goes, "I will take care of it." He went out to Wasserman's and Queens and bought out all the candy they had in the store. He bought bags, and he and his kid stayed up all night long making candy bags by hand.

16:18 He said, "Came the morning of the bar mitzvah." He said, "The kid made the brachos, and obviously it was far from perfect." Everyone threw the candy bags, and he said it was beautiful. Afterwards, the father comes over to him at the end of shul. Shakes his hand and whispers in his ear, "I will get you back for this." What? And he said, "What?" And he goes, you embarrassed me in public. You put my kid up. I never wanted this. He had only spoken to the mother. He said, you put my kid up in front of everybody. You highlighted his disabilities. I will get you back for this. The rabbi said, I didn't mean. I thought that was. I will get you back for this. And when it came time for the rabbi to be reelected What happened? He went to everybody and he said, we never wanted this. He pushed it upon us and he lost his job.

17:07 He lost his job. I told this story in Mevasseret years later. I told this story in Mevasseret. That was the day I decided I don't want to be a pulpit rabbi. I said I don't want my job to be determined by the people that I'm trying to inspire. I don't want them to like if I have to say something hard to the crowd. I don't want them to go, thank you for saying it. Now you're fired. I want to be able to have free license to say what I want to say. That was the day I decided not to become a pulpit rabbi. I told it to a group of kids in Mevasseret. In that group, there were three labavachers. Not like deeply Lavavitch, but they were kids who grew up in the Lavavitch community, and they were perplexed. Wait a second, what do you mean fire the rabbi? What does that mean, re-election? So I said, "I'm like What do you mean? What do I mean? What does that mean? You elect or re-elect a rabbi? What does it mean that a rabbi can get fired?

17:57 I said, "Well, when you have a shul, there's like a board." And they have like a group of people that they go out to see who will be their rabbi, and then they hire them and they pay them money, and they have like this four-year election cycle, and then at the end of four years, if they're happy with him So then he stays on, and if not, they get fired. And these guys are laughing hysterically. They're like, 'Are you serious? That's how a shul runs.' They're like, 'What does that mean?' I was like, 'What do you mean? You pay membership dues. You pay to go to shul.' You pay to go to shul, like if you want to give tzedakah, you give tzedakah. And I was like, okay, we are living in two very different worlds. I said, how does it work by you? They said, the rabbi comes one day, says, I'm a chabad house. We have a minion. If you're Jewish, you're welcome.

18:49 And that's it. And in the course of the conversation, it was fascinating watching these guys from these various communities. These labavitch kids again—they're not real labavitchers. They're just kids who daven in a labavitch shul. Their understanding was You're there to serve the shul. Of course you want to give tzedakah because it's your shul that you're a part of, and you want the shul to be great, as opposed to coming home on Shabbos afternoon and grumbling, I didn't like what the rabbi had to say today. I didn't like who's in service of whom. So that changed. We had the nobility of self, which is awesome. But the nobility of self can very quickly slip into hedonism and narcissism. You hear the point? Here's what it sounds like in our Judaism And this is a tough one. I don't want to do this. I don't like this one. I don't understand this one.

19:43 A kid once. I was interviewing a kid from L.A. And we were taking a walk down Pico, if you know the Los Angeles area. We were taking a walk down Pico. And he said to me, "I said, what's your goal for Israel?" He said, "My goal is to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing." So I said, "Explain to me why that's your goal." He said, "I don't do anything unless I understand it." So I said to him, 'That's a lot of eyes for one sentence.' He said, "What do you mean?" I said, "What do you mean? You don't do anything unless you understand it. There's lots of things you don't understand. And even the idea that you could understand everything." Or that I only do what I understand, as opposed to having faith in something that's larger than myself at first—even that's like a convoluted concept. He's like, 'You want me just to do things robotically?' I'm like, 'Whoa, slow down! That's a big jump.'

20:30 But to say, for example, who wants to wake up in the morning? Very few people want to wake up in the morning. As it gets colder here, you'll experience this. You ever have this yet? I'm sure you haven't had it yet. When you wake up in the morning and the floor is cold. And it's the dread. It's not that I don't like davening. It's the dread of putting your feet on the floor that first moment, because of course it's either way too hot or way too cold in your room, depending on what your roommate wants, which is a whole politic in and of itself that you guys can't get together to decide what the temperature should be. I don't like davening. I don't like davening. I don't like saying these words. It seems I am saying the same thing over and over again. How often do people say that? Very often. In boys yeshivas, it sounds like this: I don't like learning Gemara.

21:17 Right? I don't think it's relevant to my life. It's not about relevancy. Relevancy is one of seven problems that people have with Gemara. The first is that they can't translate it, they can't punctuate it, they can't vowelize it. They're missing all the background information. The Gemara was written like a dialectic. They're not trained to analyze a dialectic. The Gemara was written like a medical textbook, which assumes that you have a basic amount of knowledge before that you're learning it. There's six major problems. That's five. There's also a sixth. The Gemara was written like a notebook. Even if you could translate all the words, it doesn't necessarily even make sense. You have to have the larger context to figure it out, which is the role of the Rishonim. So a guy gets to yeshiva and he goes, "I don't like Gemara because it's not relevant to my life." Somehow, if you were good at the first six things, all of a sudden the relevancy issue goes away. Because really, we don't like doing things that we're not good at. Isn't that true?

22:04 We had a girl once in Tomer Devora. This is many, many years ago. We were discussing. It was a mistake. I haven't given that shear since. We decided to discuss the topic of sneis. It wasn't that I was giving a shiur on sneis. I wasn't telling people what to do or what to wear. We were going to have a group conversation about the topic of sneis. It was a disaster. I will never do it again. What a rookie mistake. What a rookie mistake! I thought I was talking about sneers. It turns out I was talking about the core topic that bothers a person to the depths of their being, that they have no choice but to voice in a very opinionated and loud fashion exactly what the truth is. But I learned my lesson and don't do it again. So the girl said After all was said and done, after all the arguments were back and forth, she goes I just don't want to. I just don't want to. I just don't want the dress. It's not more sophisticated than that.

22:55 I get it. I get it. I want to do what I want to do because this is an expression of me. But at the same time, are we called upon to do the things that we don't want to do? You hear the question. When are you actually serving God? Are you serving God when you want to, or are you serving God when you don't want to? What would be more meaningful to you as a wife? Your husband is in the kitchen. You have a massive bag of garbage. You turn to your husband and you say Can you please take out the garbage? Imagine the various responses. One response could be Sure, I love taking out the garbage. I want you to know that when I take out the garbage The feeling of closeness that I have to you—it's so deeply inspiring. I just tear up even thinking about the possibility.

23:52 Imagine he gets down on one knee. And he looks up at you and he lovingly says to you, "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to take out your trash." And you lovingly look back at him and go, 'What's wrong with you?' That's one response. Here's a different response. Hey, can you take out the garbage? What do I get if I do? What's the punishment if I don't? Is that ridiculous? But everyone in this room does that all the time. What's the schar va onesh thing? What's the punishment if I don't do this thing? I've heard this thing about kares. I've heard this thing about Gehennom. Is that not the spiritual equivalent of tell me what I get? Tell me what the punishment is? What do I get? How many castles in the sky? What's my schar? What's my schar situation? I heard this like a really important mitzvah. I want to be. I want me and God. I want to be down on that one. So like, I get the good stuff, right?

24:51 That's also exceptionally odd. I imagine that most husbands, when they take out the garbage, do something like this. She asked me to take out the garbage, so I took out the garbage. I don't get any particular pleasure from taking out the garbage, but if it's what she wants, I'm in. Does that make sense? Is that a? That's probably a more normal and healthy way to be in a relationship. So if my wife asks me to take out the garbage, I turn to my daughter and go, "On your way out, could you take the garbage?" Especially in areas of Israel, sometimes your garbage is a block away from you. It's like a pet peeve I have. When they built my house, they built it on a ramp going down, but trucks can't get down that ramp. They realized after they built it, so they paid off the government to make our place called Shetach Prati, which is private land, so that the government is not obligated to pick up our garbage. So I have to walk a block with my garbage.

25:44 Garbage goes like if you're going out in the car, you load up your car with garbage, like it's hanging off the rearview mirrors It's in the trunk. Kids have their hands out the window. This isn't funny. This life in Ramat Beit Shemesh, because we're a functional society here in Israel. So what does it sound like? This Gemara. Rav Yosef was blind. Gemara in Baba Kama eighty seven a. Rav Yosef was blind and he said I will make a special suddah. I'd be so happy if somebody would tell me that a blind man is putter for mitzvos. And then Rav Chanan came along and said to him, 'Gadol ha mitzvah ve'aisa mi mishe eno mitzvah ve'aisa. It's greater to be commanded than not to be commanded.' Men of Yosef said, "I'll give, I'll make a fleishik suddah if anyone tells me that I am commanded." So we grew up. I'll tell you the pesha we grew up with.

26:46 We're going to say something different tonight. But most of us grew up hearing like this. It's harder once you're commanded. It's like your mother tells you. They say in psychology, if it's not one thing, it's your mother. Let's say your mother tells you to do something, and now all of a sudden, this is the pesha we grew up with. I don't want to do it because you told me to do it. I don't want to do it. Your mother says, 'Button that button before you go out.' No, I gotta take it. I gotta rip off the button. It's just a button. It's just a button. It's the that that's one pshat. I don't like that pshat so much. I don't like that pshat. I'll tell you what I think the pshat is. It's more sophisticated pshat. Rav Yosef was saying I want to be putter because I feel commanded And I want my Judaism to be an expression of self.

27:34 And then Ruchanina came along and said, "There is no greater expression of self than to be part of something larger than yourself" And that's very important because there's two levels as we're going to see in a moment. One level is I can nullify my will before you. Another level is that I can align my will with your will. So let's say for example, when it comes to the garbage, if my wife asks me to take out the garbage, that's nullifying my will before my wife's will. Because I have no great desire to take out the garbage. But there is something that's even greater than that, which is I want what you want And that's what the Mishnah Abos says. Listen to the Mishnah Abos. You should do God's will as if it's your own. And you should negate your will before God as if it's your own. In other words, there's two levels. Level number one is God wants you to do something.

28:42 Negate your will. You don't want to. Sorry, that's the price of admission. We are commanded. The first words Raveyisav. We are commanded to do something that's larger than ourselves. It gives you an endowed, meaningful life. Like this what you say all the time. This what people say all the time. Why do I need God to command me? Why can't I just do what I want to do? I'll make life meaningful. I'll choose what meaning is. You certainly can, but that's very limited. That's only limited to your own self-expression. You're not part of anything larger than yourself. To be part of the Jewish community does not mean that you get to take advantage of Ohel and Yachad or Campask or High Lifeline or Tomchei Shabbos. That's not what it means. That's just taking. That's like I'm a part of the community. I wear a yarmulke so I can get sedaka from this community. That's selfish. That's taking. To be part of the Jewish community means not just that I show up to shul with you because it's good. My brother said this to me. My brother said if you don't get a job in the Jewish community, something is off because you grew up in shuls in camps. In schools, you probably went to a different high school than elementary school, maybe right? You went to seminary here in Israel. You went to college back home. Do you know how many connections you have?

30:06 It's such a small Jewish world. You have tons of connections. If you want to be an accountant in the Jewish world, you can't get a job. I don't know what happened. Where did you come from that you can't be an accountant? Every Jew knows a cardiologist. If you have a heart attack in the Jewish world, I got the best guy. Why do we know so many cardiologists? Because we're all cardiologists. Every one of us knows somebody. When you show up to the Jewish community, you're like, 'This is a great community. I could get what I want.' You're missing the point. You don't show up to shul for the job connections. You show up to shul because Akolish Baruch Hu said, "Show up to shul." It's ridiculous. So early in the morning. It's such an ungodly hour. Who could wake up at seven a.m.? No human being should ever have to wake up at seven a.m.

30:56 I was talking to my nephew, who lives in Eshelayim in Ramat Hashkol, a couple blocks from here. He's 18. He's your age. You know what his yeshiva schedule is? It's wild. 7:00 a.m. is shachris, and shachris is over at 8:00 on a non-laning day. It's an hour. On a laning day,8: 15. On a non-laning day, seder starts at 8: 45. On a laning day, it starts at 9: 00. For three hours, he sits on a base mattress, just him and his chavrusa learning. Till twelve. At twelve o'clock, they have shir. Twelve to one, they have shir. Then they have mincha. That goes till about one twenty, one twenty-five. Then they have lunch and a break till three thirty. I Uncle Mordechai, he's a totally normal kid and he has no ego. He says, Uncle Mordechai, I'm proud to tell you I have not yet taken a break this year. I've never gone back to the dorms and gone to sleep.

31:50 I'm. I want as a goal for myself before I leave yeshiva that I should know all of nashim nezikin bal peh. So I asked him nashim nezikin like mishnayis. He laughed at me. He's like, no, Gemara, Gemara Rashi Tosos. I just made my twelfth siyum on Maseches Sota. Gemara Rashi Tosos. Ask me any Tosos in Sota. If I hear any Tosos in Sota, I know it cold. I want to have that for all of nashim nezikin. Three thirty to seven is bakiyas. Seven to seven thirty is musser. Seven thirty is myrev. You memorize the schedule. It's not hard to memorize. Seven thirty is myrev. That goes till about seven fifty, seven fifty-five. Then he has dinner break. Eight thirty to eleven o'clock at night is chazaras hashir. That's night seder. At eleven o'clock they close the lights because they want the boys to be up for seven a.m. Shachers. That's his five day a week schedule.

32:47 That's awesome. How do they do it? First of all, there's a level of this is what I'm here to do Whether I want to, whether I don't want to. This is what I'm here to do. But when I pressed my nephew because I wanted to know, is it all just nullification? It is all just bittel, or is it the second? Is it the first half of the Mishnah that I actually have to align my will with Hashem's will? I asked him. I said, 'Do you enjoy yeshiva?' He looks at me. He goes, 'I love it. I love it.' So I wanted to know. What do you love? Do you love the feeling of accomplishment? Because that's just pleasure in a different form. He goes, no, it's just great. It's just great. He couldn't even articulate. It's so right. It's so normal. It's so natural. I'm learning Hashem's Torah all day long.

33:34 And he's eighteen. And the thing is, he's only in the beginning of his journey. He's going to do this. Before he even thinks about dating, till he's twenty two, twenty three, and he's telling me, he goes, Uncle Mordechai, I'm looking. You should know. He tells me he's such a sweet kid. He goes, I'm looking for bracha. Don't worry, I'm keeping my eyes out in yeshiva. Would be a good shidduch for your oldest daughter. I said, Thank you, Mechalir. Like thank you. He said to me, you want a nachlas boy. That's what he said. He loves it But I would argue that the reason he loves it is because the first thing he knows is that he's called upon to be a part of something larger than himself. The challenge is this: If I am commanded, that means there's a commander. And a mitzvah is the encounter between the commanded and the commander. This is why we're bothered in our Judaism, and this is right.

34:29 If a mitzvah doesn't make me feel closer to the commander Then something must be off, and it's okay to feel that way. It's normal to feel that way. And we deserve to have a relationship where the mitzvah creates a relationship between the commander and the commander. So most of us, when we say I don't like davening, I feel like I'm just saying the same thing every day over and over again. It's okay to feel that way because if you're actually unpacking what you're saying, it sounds something like this: I would like my davening to be meaningful. Of course, the words come out in a narcissistic sense, but if you really like unpack it at its core, what is it? It's like I want this to be meaningful. I want this to be exciting. Because I want to feel deeply connected. If the only thing my wife ever said to me was 'take out the garbage three times a day' I also would feel uncomfortable with that. I would also feel, 'What are we doing here?'

35:21 We want to know that what we're doing is meaningful. I'll give you an example. This is my favorite example. Imagine who I can pick on? You sure? It's my first time here. That's too dangerous. You don't know what you're signing up for yet. What's your name? Shandy. Where are you from, Shandy? Brooklyn. Brooklyn. Shandy, parents? You have one parent. Who do you have? My dad. Your dad. Let's say your dad asked you to get him a tea. Your dad likes tea. Would you get him a tea? You get him a tea. Let's say your dad is a real brisker. So he's got brisker chumras about his tea. He wants. Is your dad British? No. So let's say your dad's British. Your dad likes milk in his tea. Why British people like milk in their tea is beyond me. You drink milk with your tea. It's perfect. I kadosh baruch hu designed this moment, and your dad drinks milk in his tea.

36:22 Thank you, Hashem, for this wonderful moment. And your dad says, 'I want this amount, a small amount of milk.' It gives you a precise amount of milk that he wants in his tea. And he likes his tea with a little biscotti on the side. He likes to have those nasty crackers. And it's your dad, right? Everyone's got this dad. I'm not yet this dad, but I'm working on it. And your dad says, but it needs to be four o'clock at my door every day. You're a good daughter, Shandy, right? So every day, four o'clock. You three fifty five. You have the cum go off at three fifty five. So three fifty seven, it's heated up. So you pour it in, and you know exactly how many times to put in the fakat the tea bag till it's like just exactly right. You pour in the right amount of milk. You're timing it upstairs. That as it turns four o'clock on the dial. So this is like davening vasi. And I got it exactly right. And you knock on the door three times, but in the precise way that he wants you knock. Like right, like you has his knock. And exactly right. I tell you, it's Merashamayim, right? And you open the door And every day you bring him that tea. And your father looks at you, and he says, "Thank you." Do you have any other siblings?

37:29 Four younger siblings. Is there? What's the next one after you? Seventeen. Seventeen-year-old male, female, boy. So dangerous question, Tesla. So the seventeen-year-old boy. Now let's say you do it. Let's say you do it for fifteen years, and you never miss a day. You never miss a day. You're pretty awesome. One day you realize that your father likes four biscotti crackers and you only put on three. And now it's four o seven And you realize, oh my gosh! You quickly run downstairs. You grab that biscotti cracker. You don't even knock on the door. You throw open the door. You're holding your biscotti cracker. You come in And you see your seventeen-year-old brother, and he's serving your father a coffee. And it occurs to you in that moment. You see, he's got the whole thing. He's also got the brisker knock, and he's also down on one knee, serving.

38:25 Are you where is your family from originally? My dad's from Israel. Israel. And before that Poland. So let's say he's drinking his coffee exactly like an Israeli guy. It's a Turkish coffee, just the Turkish coffee. He's got the whole thing, and he's smoking a cigarette, telling stories about how in nineteen sixty seven he took down the entire army with one burp, exactly like Israel. Is this just my experience? I don't think so. So we have the same thing. Happy birthday today. Happy birthday to your father, 61 years old. Where was he at that time? So there's a man. You see your brother bring in the coffee, and you realize, in the 15 years that you brought him a tea, you never once saw him drink it. And then you realize that at 4:05 every day. Your brother brings him a coffee. How badly would you feel in that moment?

39:20 Fifteen years of that OCD. I've got to do it exactly brisker chumra way. You probably feel upset at your father. Why? I'm throwing the brisket. So you're throwing it. How could you do this to me? Imagine if your father said something to you I just wanted you to have the opportunity to serve me. Would you be okay with that answer? No. Why not? How many people? How we grew up like that. Hashem doesn't need your tefilos. It's for you. It's to give you the opportunity to serve Him. So we get upset when we hear about our mitzvos that way because that's not really an encounter between man and God. I want to know that what I'm doing is meaningful. It's okay to know that. What's not okay is to say it has to be meaningful to me in order to do it. It has to be meaningful. It is not the same thing. It has to be meaningful to me.

40:17 So if Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to do it, I assume that. It's meaningful to him. You could ask why it is meaningful to him? He's perfect. He's infinite. He has everything. What could possibly be meaningful to him? These are good, important hashkafa questions. But they're not the beginning of the conversation. The beginning of the conversation is if somebody says do something meaningful. Then you do it. We're out of time. But I just want to answer our original question. What was the bracha? That Yaakov gave to Yehuda He said "Your brothers will submit to you; they'll bow down before you." Yehuda has the Shem Hashem in his name. What Yehuda does for us as a nation is, it says, "Can you surrender and submit to something larger than yourself?" That is not a commonplace way of speaking today. There's a book called The Surrendered Wife. And it's actually a book about female empowerment.

41:10 But the top, people see the title and they get very upset, which is exactly why she wrote it that way. And it's a book about female empowerment, but the title is the surrendered wife. Because there's actually nobility to surrendering to another. It's not always about what you want. That's the arrogance, the narcissism of today's day and age. And you yourself know that it doesn't work. You know that when they come and they pander to you and they say, let's explain everything to you. There's more. There's a more natural feeling of connection when somebody says, "This is hard, but it's worth it because it's real." Girls, have a good job.