Parshas Vayeitzei - Never Give Up Hope

2:15 But the Arizal says the opposite. The Arizal says that this luz bone is at the top of your spine. It's at the point where the base of your skull meets your spine. Or to put it differently, it's where the kesher of the tefillin go. So if you ever seen a guy wearing tefillin, they put their tefillin. The shell, the kasher has to go at the base, right here. That's where the luz bone is. That's what the Arizal says. The luz bone also has a very interesting shape. The Arizal says that the shape of the luz bone is like a snake. It looks like a snake. If you could actually take it out of your body and look at it, it looks like a snake. We'll see what the chashivas of that is. The Medrash brings down, and so the Zohar brings down. The Medrash brings down that the Emperor Hadrian was grinding bones.

3:05 He was destroying a body and grinding up all of the bones of the body. And Rav yosheva ben chananya was there. And so Hadrian wanted to know. He was studying the body. He said, "Where does tchias hamesim come from?" So, Rav Yosheva Ben Chananya said, 'It comes from the luz bone. This is where tchias hamesim comes from. There's a bone in your body. That could never be destroyed, and because that bone can never be destroyed, everything comes from that bone. That's the triasa mason that comes from that bone.' Hadrian asked him. He said, "How do you know this?" So he said, 'We have a messara that this bone is never destroyed, but I can also demonstrate it to you.' They proceeded to do a science experiment on the Luz bone they found in front of them. The first thing they tried was grinding it in a mill, but it was unbreakable.

3:55 They put it in fire, but the fire wouldn't consume it. They put it in water, but it wouldn't soften. Finally, they put it on anvil. The medrash says they put it on anvil and they tried to smash it with a hammer. No matter how many times they smashed it, the luz bone wouldn't break. So it was unbreakable bone. The zayat says this bone lasts longer than all the other bones because it's a deceiver. This bone is a liar. What does it mean that this bone is a liar? All of the bones of our body are sustained through the food that we eat. You eat food, which becomes nutrients. The nutrients then support the body. Except for the luz bone. The luz bone looks like every other bone in the body, but it's not like any other bone in the body. It refuses to be sustained from regular food. We'll see where it gets sustained from in a moment.

4:49 Because of this, because of its deceptive nature, because it doesn't sustain itself from food, it never breaks. The reason why the rest of our bones break is because they come from the food that ultimately is not sustained. Rishim Bar Yochai in the Zohar says, "It's a fraud. This bone is the lashon. It's a fraud." It was always a fraud. And it's a neighbor of the fraudulently Yitzharah. We're going to see later what that means. How is this connected to Tchiasa Mesim? So the gematria of the word Etsam Haluz is two hundred and forty-eight. Girls, how many bones do you have in your body? You have Ramach Evaram. You have two hundred and forty-eight bones in your body. So Etsam Haluz, the Luz bone, Etsam means bone. The Etsam Haluz regenerates all other two hundred and forty-eight bones of the body.

5:41 Not only that, but the Rabeinu Bachaya says something unbelievable. Remember, there's a parallel. Luzbon, Luz, the city, just like Tchias Amesim comes from the Luzbone, so also the entire world is going to be destroyed and regenerated. This is what's foretold, Lasterlavo. That in the times of Mashiach, the entire world is going to have to go through a regeneration process, and that process is going to start in the city of Luz, just like the entire body breaks down and is regenerated from this from the Luzbone. The entire world is going to break down and it's going to be regenerated from the city of Luz. So where does the loose bone get sustained from? So we mentioned that it doesn't get sustained from regular food. Based on the Gemara in Shabbos, a person should always set the table on Matzah Shabbos, even if it's for a very small amount of food. Even if you're only having a tiny amount of food, you should always set your table. The Beis Yosef quotes the Shibolet HaLeket, and the Beis Yosef says that the Neska'i is a word Neska'i. We'll see what it means in a second. The neska'i only derives its sustenance from malava malka.

6:49 So the food you eat malava malka it feeds this bone called the neska'i Says the matemosha. What is this neska'i? This neska'i is the luz bone. Now this is very important. So far we have two names for it. One is called the neska'i. The other is called the luz bone. So the luz bone, where does it get its sustenance from? It gets its sustenance from the fact that we eat malava malka. Which means girls That we all have a chiyuv. To eat malavamalka tonight. If you don't eat malavamalka, you're missing out on a tremendous opportunity because this bone, which is the unbreakable bone inside of your body, gets its sustenance from malavamalka. Medrashen Eliyahu Rabbah explains why this bone is not destroyed. This is a phenomenal one. Girls. If this neskaif, this luz bone Only. Sustains itself from food that's eaten on Motzei Shabbos. Let's go back to the source of all death.

7:48 Where does death come from? Death comes from Adam Harishon. Adam and Chava ate from the Eitz Hadas. So what happens when Adam Harishon ate from the Eitz Hadas? All of the bones of the body received their sustenance from where? From that original piece of fruit that Adam Harishon ate Except for one bone did not participate. In the eating of the Eitz Hadas, what bone was that? That was the Lulz bone, because remember the Lulz bone will only get its sustenance from food that's eaten on Motzei Shabbos, Malav Malka. So the reason why this bone doesn't die, the reason why this bone is the source of all Tchias Amesim, is because this bone was never subject to the original Misa that was passed down for all of humanity because it never participated in the sin of Adam Arishon. One last name of this bone. We're learning a lot about it.

8:39 One last name of this bone The Grah brings down that the name of this bone is also Besuah Also Besuah Which is interesting, because after it was called Luz, what did Yaakov Avinu call the city? Beit El Or Besuah? It's also called Besuah. In fact, the Grah says we know what age Yitzchak was when he married Rivka; he was forty years old. So the Grah brings down when Tchias Amesim takes place. Forty years after Mashiach comes, that's when Tchias Amesim is going to take place. Forty years. Because Yitzchak married Rivka, who's the daughter of Besuel. So Besuel is another name. So what are the three names we have for this los bone? Luz, Neskae is going to be important. Luz, Neskae, and Besuel. And interestingly, remember we said that the los bone was also a deceiver. It looks like it's eating from the rest of the body, but it's really not. What do we call him in the Torah? Bessuel Haarami.

9:41 What does Haarami mean? It doesn't just mean Aramean. It also comes from a lashon of Ramai, which means to be a deceiver. And the Zayiracha, the Zayir, the Tikkun Zayir actually calls the Nachash Haramai, the trickster Nachash. And remember, what did the Zayir say about the Luzbon? It was a neighbor of the Ramai of the fraudulent Yitzhar. We'll tie it all back in the end. Besuwl is the gematria of four thirty nine And Mase is the gematria of four forty. Why? Because what's the only thing that doesn't die is that one luzbone. So Besuwl is four thirty nine, Mase is four forty, because one thing is still missing. The luzbone never dies. Last piece of information they need to know about the luzbone. It's an amazing gemara and brachos. Gemara and brachos twenty eight a. Says that there's eighteen. There's really not eighteen vertebrae in the spine. We really know that there's more than that. The gemara says there's eighteen vertebrae in the spine. It doesn't really mean eighteen vertebrae, but don't worry about that. There's eighteen vertebrae in the spine. The gemara says it's kineged the eighteen brachos of shmona esrei. What's the problem, girls?

10:47 You all know there's nineteen brachos. The gemara already asked the kasha. The gemara says there's nineteen brachos. So the gemara says no. There's a small bone that's connected to the nineteenth bracha. What's the nineteenth bracha? The nineteenth bracha is v'la'malshinim. This is the bracha for the heretics, right? That we daven that Hakadosh Baruch Hu v'la'malshinim alti tikva. They shouldn't have any hope. So it's a very strange parallel. On the one hand, we have v'la'malshinim alti tikva. This is talking about wiping out all of the heretics, and yet what's this? What's this one connected? It's connected to the loose bone. It's connected to the nineteenth bone, which is the liz bone, which is the bone that you would think would be exactly the opposite, because this is the bone that's never destroyed. So why is there a connection between v'lamalshinim and the liz bone? If we go through, I think I have here one, two, three, four, five, six, seven questions, very quick questions. But if you go through all these things, we're going to try to tie together all of these things.

11:48 The first question is why the Torah has to tell us that the original name of the city is Luz. Just tell us Yaakov named it Beis El. The second question: What's the significance of the fact that this city cannot be destroyed, that it can't be conquered, and that it has no entrance? Number three: What's the significance of the small size, that it's just a piece of barley? What do we care about the size of it? Number four: What does it mean? To say that tchias amesim comes from the luzbon, if we're calling the luzbon a ramai, if we're calling the luzbon a deceiver, why is that the place where tchias amesim comes from? What does it mean? We asked before. What does it mean that it's a ramai and it's the neighbor of a ramai? That it's the neighbor of the yitzhahara? What does that mean? Why does the luzbon only eat from alav amalca? Why doesn't the luzbon eat from shabbos? When I'm on a diet, some people always say to me, 'But you can eat on Shabbos. You don't gain weight on Shabbos.' I'm living proof that you gain weight on Shabbos.

12:45 It's a hella good thing to eat on Shabbos. So the luzbon, which is so choshev, doesn't get any of its sustenance from Shabbos. Strange thing. And last of all, what's the connection between the luzbon and v'la'mashin? It's an amazing. It's an amazing idea. Which we really need to focus on in our lives. Unfortunately, so many of us are not focusing on this. In the world of psychology today, they gave it language, but they didn't go all the way. An abundance mentality versus an impoverished mentality. A guy called me up about two weeks ago. And he's in the middle of a business deal that could make his company two hundred million dollars. Two hundred million dollars is a lot of money. He's a young guy in his twenties. And he says, "Rebbe" I'm feeling exceptionally overwhelmed. Two hundred million dollars. What if I mess this up? It's a terrible thing.

13:54 But more than that, he said Why is it like this fell in my lap? So I was thinking about my own self. As an exceptionally growth oriented young man, I was thinking about myself. How come I don't go after those types of deals? There are people that like they think so big, and I don't think that big. I think very small. In Israel we call that rosh katan. Rosh katan, rosh gadol. There are people that think very big. There are people that think very small. What's the pshat? So in the world of psychology, we gave it language. We call it an abundance mentality versus an impoverished mentality. There are some people. And this is the key word. They have enough. They're enough. It doesn't matter what comes their way. They feel like they're enough. And there are other people that no matter how much they have They mamish never have enough.

14:48 And you see this in many ways. Let's say when it comes to business. This guy has an impoverished mentality. He thinks to himself, maybe he could pull off a fifty thousand dollar deal. Maybe he should look for a hundred thousand dollar deal, a two hundred million dollar deal. He doesn't think on those terms. He doesn't think grandly. He doesn't think big. Because it comes from an impoverished mentality. Some people have an abundance mentality. Yesh li kol. They feel like they have everything they need. Mele wherever they go, they're fine. They have enough. They're confident, not arrogant. The truth of the matter is that arrogance comes from an impoverished mentality. Because it's the overcompensation of like. I feel like I don't have enough, so I have to be arrogant. You see this a lot when it comes to dating. There are girls that have an abundance mentality.

15:38 Dating can be exceptionally frustrating. You go out and get yourself all excited. You have to work so hard. A guy just shows up. Maybe he shaves And I promise you, he hasn't thought about it. Somebody has to remind him to shave. It's not like he spent time thinking about what he's gonna do. I remember my wife. She told me when we were dating. She's like, "You should know." I'm macabed to take a nap every time before we go out on a date so that I can be prepared for the date. She's like, "What do you do?" I'm like I come to the date. What are you doing? And you see the mamish. Dating is the great equalizer, because you're putting yourself out there, and the vulnerability is tremendous. How many times can I keep putting myself out there? It's so hard. Until I get a date, and even if I get a date, and then it says no, and it didn't work out, it could be a drain.

16:26 There are some girls that the marriages seem okay. They're just okay. They go into it and like, okay, I'm gonna stay there. It didn't work out. Sometimes for years at a time, it didn't work out. But they just seem like they're okay, and it's true they really are. And then there are some girls that it's a shrek every single time. It's like, it's just never gonna happen. I don't know if it's gonna happen. What is it? It's an impoverished mentality. It's gonna happen. The Rebbeinu Shlomo already said it's gonna happen. Before you were born, the Rebbeinu Shlomo was already mezavig your zivug. The baskol already came out. There are some people that are mamish tapped into that, and there are some people that are so removed from it. It's not just in business, it's in our relationships, it's in our marriages. Everything that we do in our life comes down to what's the mentality that we have. But where did the world of psychology fall short? They never told us how to actually get an abundance mentality.

17:14 That's where they fell short. They never told us how to get an abundance mentality. Sounds like an awesome thing. I should have an abundance mentality everywhere I go. I'm going to be okay. In Chassidus, in Tanya specifically It speaks about nefesh lekis versus nefesh abahamis. Nefesh abahamis is the soul that animates the body. The thing about the nefesh abahamis is that it's going to die. Imagine living, knowing that you are going to die. So what would be the feeling that you would have? The feeling would be I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. I have to. I have to be careful. I'm gonna die. And the truth of the matter is that most people live with this level of consciousness. This is the impoverished mentality of the nefesh abrahamis. I know there's a clock on this. I know one day I'm going to die. And so what the nefesh abrahamis needs more than anything in the world is that it needs to feel alive.

18:15 So the nefesh Abahamis does some very strange things. I'll give you a couple examples. One of the strange things that the nefesh Abahamis does is that it goes skydiving. Why does it go skydiving? Have you ever spoken to someone who went? Anyone here ever gone skydiving? It's okay. You don't have to be embarrassed to admit it. Good for you. You went skydiving. You should know. Many years ago, I heard a shiur from Rav Benavicky. Rav Benavicky is a big paiser and muntsi. We asked him, 'Is it mutter to go skydiving?' So Rav Benavicky looked us and he goes I hope it's mutter to go skydiving. Me and Revilsen went skydiving. Could be it's much to go skydiving. A person even not so extreme. A person goes on a roller coaster. What do you say afterwards? I hate roller coasters. I never hopped. All my friends liked it was amazing. What was amazing about that? At the end, you're like, oh my god, I'm gonna throw up. That was amazing. The reason why it feels so amazing is because the nefesh of Bahamis loves nothing more than to feel alive.

19:12 And sometimes, when you come so close to death, the nefesh abahamis feels like, whoa, that was almost it, and it didn't happen. So it makes us feel tremendously alive. The truth of the matter is that all addiction comes from the nefesh abahamis. Because every time a person feels like they're in that place where they're going to die, they have to do something to numb that pain. So whether it's food or other substances that a person could use or other ways of thinking. All of addiction comes from this impoverished mentality of the nefesh of Ahamas that there's a clock on this. That's one way of seeing the world. There's another way of seeing the world. Another way of seeing the world is called the nefesh lekis. The nefesh lekis is a chilek elokat mimal. It is literally a piece of God. When we say literally, we mean literally. We don't mean literally as in an object. We mean this is its relationship to Hakadosh Baruch Hu. It's a piece of God, like a ray is to the sun. That's the nefesh le-kisda, kadosh baruch hu. You can't separate the ray from the sun.

20:15 The nefesh le-kis knows that it's never going to die So the nefesh le-kis is not interested in things that make it feel alive because it is life itself. That's the difference between the body and the soul. The nefesh abahamis the body, so the nefesh abahamis knows I'm going to die. But the nefesh le-kis is what are you talking about death? Don't hack me a chaynik about death. The nefesh lekiss wasn't interested in life. It wasn't interested in being alive. It's life. Alive is okay if that's what the Rebbeinu Shol wants from me. I'll do that. But the nefesh lekiss per se is not nervous about death. So if it's not nervous about death, that means it has everything it needs. It's immortal. So the truth of the matter is that psychology could tell us that you can have an abundance mentality or you can have an impoverished mentality, but they don't tell us how to do it.

21:03 Comes along Chassidus and teaches us. This is how you do it. If you see the world through the lens of your nefesh of a hamas, you're never going to feel like you have enough, because your body ultimately withers. And if you see the world through what's called a body consciousness, you look around, all you see is pain and suffering, and you have no idea how to see through that. It's true everywhere we look. There's sickness, there's death, there's addiction, people losing their jobs, people losing their homes. It's a crazy world. How much a crazy world. And you don't know when it's gonna come, so from the perspective of the nefesh of Bahamut, we're all walking zombies. And the nefesh of Kisse looks at and says, 'What are you worried about that for? It's not about being alive. It's having a life. It's what are you doing with yourself?'

21:50 So there's an abundance mentality because it's never gonna run out. A person calls me up and says, 'Rabbi, I don't know why am I shooting for fifty thousand dollar deals when I could be shooting for two hundred million dollar deals.' It's because he's so afraid to live life. He's so afraid to put himself out there. That's a nefesh Abba Hamis mentality, a nefesh Eliezer mentality, assuming that this was the thing the nefesh Eliezer would want. Nefesh Eliezer would say, 'Why not go for it?' Nefesh Abba Hamis shows up on a date. The only thing it could think is maybe I'm going to be rejected. It's the only thing it could think. So what happens? It becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because who would want to be in a relationship with somebody that thinks the entire time that they're going to be rejected? The nefesh Eliezer shows up on a date. Nefesh Eliyahu's vulnerability is the birthplace of connection. It's going to be the hardest thing to put myself out there to say, 'Look, this is who I really am' And maybe I'm going to be rejected, and maybe it's going to be painful. But here's the key words: I'll be okay.

22:45 I'll be okay because I'm not worried about death. Nefesh Eliyahu shows up to a relationship, not just dating, shows up to a relationship. Nefesh Eliyahu shows up to a relationship with your children, and your children are driving you crazy. I was somewhere for Shabbos this week. Beautiful family. Just talking to them. And the kids are come move on. They have all boys. I have mostly girls, so it's like baruch Hashem, nice normal home. I see boys are like mamish trapeze artists, beating each other up and running from place to place. So the mother looked at one of the kids and she said, "You have to stop." So I said, "It's funny because I also say that to my kids. I'm like, you have to stop." And my wife has a good line. She goes, "Why?" I think about him because that child is in danger. And who's the danger? I'm the danger.

23:31 You have to stop. The child doesn't need to stop. How would we parent if we were parenting from a mentality of abundance? We wouldn't see the kid just in that fragmented moment. We would see it as part of a process, and we wouldn't be afraid. If Chassidishal, the kid goes off the derech, parents go crazy when a kid goes off the derech. It's very sad because we're doing our best to raise our children to follow in our ways, which is the right thing to do. And if a kid goes off the derech But how's it going to look, and what's going to be with shaduchim, and how's it going to impact the other kids? Do you see all the fear that's embedded in that? As opposed to coming from an abundance mentality? Yeh beseder, my kids are going to see that I love my children regardless of their level of observance. The younger kids will see that, and we'll be mashkia on them, and we'll refocus, and we'll figure out what these kids need. It's a totally different mentality. Everything you do, you could see through one of these two lenses.

24:23 I'll tell you an amazing thing that I heard many years ago from Rav Manus Friedman. Let's say a person starts living with a body consciousness, nefesh abahamis. So what happens is The entire time that the person is putting themselves into that body consciousness, they start to become addicted to it. It's like taking food for example. At some point in everyone's life, I think everyone, but probably just me. I think at some point in everyone's life, is people start to supplant food for love. It's like that tastes good. That's like it doesn't just taste good. That's good, right? Everyone has a little bit of that. You see people today, they eat food. They don't eat. They eat food, even myself. It's delicious. You know what I'm saying? It's not just delicious. It's delicious. You know what I'm saying? Everybody has a little bit of that. You do it for a long enough time, what starts to happen?

25:16 Become an addict. When does a person stop being an addict? When does that finish? So it's an unbelievable thing if you speak to addicts. So they'll tell you, "I only stop being an addict once I hit rock bottom." What does rock bottom look like? Most people think rock bottom is where my soul finally gets to control my body. It's not true. The soul, the entire time that this person was an addict, was saying, "What are you doing? Why are you involved in these things?" When a person finally decides to go to recovery. When their body says I'm sick of this When their body says I can no longer take this You see, you speak to people who are significantly overweight. And like you're talking to them and what made you decide to go on a diet? I just couldn't take it anymore. I felt so sick.

26:11 It's not the soul. The soul was saying, What are you doing? But there's a dimension to the body that people don't speak about. And that's that. The body itself, when you get to the very end of that impoverished mentality. You find something unbelievable. The body itself, the entire time, is saying, "I'm not interested in this. This is not what I want my life to look like." Not the soul. The soul, the entire time, didn't want your life to look like that. But addiction recovery only begins when the body consciousness is like, "I'm done with this. I don't want this anymore." And you speak to people, and it's mamish true. Their whole lives, they were fighting. Their soul was fighting, and they couldn't make a dent. When do they actually make a dent? When the body comes along and says, "I'm sick of this." This is an unbelievable thing.

27:00 The word M S. The gematria of the word M S. Is four hundred and forty-one. First dimension of M S. Is the body has an impoverished mentality But there's a second dimension of M S. The second dimension of M S is we multiply four forty one times two, it's eight hundred and eighty two, which is the same gematria as lus shel shidra, which is the lus bone of the spine. The deeper M S, the double M S, not the M S, the surface M S, which is true, but the deeper M S of the human body is that at the core of the human body, at the epicenter of the human body, is this lus bone. And when the entire body has decomposed, when everything else is falling apart, when everything in your life is falling apart, and your entire body is screaming, "I can't do this anymore," the only thing that's left, that piece of recovery Is called the lutz shel shidra. That's the deeper emes.

28:00 With this in mind, we can start to answer a lot of the questions that we asked before. Hi, how are you? Thank you so much for sharing your home with us. It's a big schuz to be here. Only because we don't have exit signs. Enjoy. Thanks for holding the dog. Vegishmak. Namely, we can understand. What's the small size? What's the small size of the lizman? Why is it so significant that it's no bigger than the size of a piece of barley? We all want to believe that we're indestructible. But there's only a tiny part of us that's indestructible. I want to tell you a story. Some of you may have heard it because the story went viral last week. I was in. Last week I flew in on Motzei Shabbos. I flew into Los Angeles. I drove to San Diego. I drove back to Los Angeles on Monday. Monday and Tuesday I was in Los Angeles. Wednesday morning I had to get up at four thirty in the morning to make a flight.

29:15 My flight was at seven thirty. Seven thirty means you can't daven with a minion. Because Vasikin is at seven o'clock. So you're not even allowed to put on tefillin before three thirty in the morning. There's nothing you could do. I hate davening in airports. I hate davening in airports. You know what it's like. See, if you're a girl. So you cover your face with the sitter and you. I don't know why you do it. You hold your elbow. I used to when I was dating, I could tell how from a girl was by how much mascara was on their sitter. Like But a guy, we put on talis and tefillin. We look. We again imagine what we look like to the goyim. Like we're walking through the airport, and I'm sitting there in talis and tefillin. A woman came over to me while I was in talis and tefillin. She said, "It's like a certain type of tape. Apparently, it's like a healing tape that people wear." She asked, "Is that type of tape?" I said, "No, it's cowhide."

30:08 So I'm davening. I try to daven with whatever little kavanah I can have. And you know, it used to be we davened in phone booths. There's not even phone booths anymore, and talisman tefillin doesn't help. So I just have no very little kavanah. Especially, I don't. Why do I want to shackle? Because people are gonna come over, say I'm having a seizure, and ask me if I'm okay. So I'm about to take off my Tallis and Tefillin. A sixteen year old kid, Ethan, comes over to me. I didn't know his name was Ethan. Not wearing a yarmulke. He says, "Will you put those on me?" My Chabad rabbi told me if I ever see a Jew wearing Tefillin, I should ask them to put it on me. He said, 'Ethan, of course.' It's like the biggest mitzvah in the world. I'm so happy to put Tefillin on you. The flight's leaving in twenty minutes, but I'm sitting and putting tefillin on it, wrapping the tefillin, making the bracha with him, putting on the talis and the whole thing, and then we said Shma. He doesn't know the words of Shma. Some of the Shma, Shma Yisrael. I'm saying the whole thing.

31:05 Like a real abba vacher, like I get an honorary badge now, like I got something in tzeva sasham. So thinking so much about that. Here's a sixteen year old kid who has no back and doesn't know any Hebrew. He doesn't know how to say Shema. But he saw a Jew in an airport putting on Talls and Tefillin, and he said, "I want that." From where? First of all, the genius of this Chabad shliach to connect him to every other member of Chalaisol. If you ever see a Jew wearing Tefillin, just go over and they'll help you. That's a genius move. But more than that, I was so inspired. Here's a kid who's so deeply connected, even though he's so far removed. Think about how much courage it takes to come over to a perfect stranger. And say, "Will you put that on me?" And then this woman came over And she's like, "His teacher was on the flight with us."

32:00 She's like, 'Could you explain what that is?' So I said, 'Well, tzvillin is all about keshar. It's all about connection. Every morning, the first thing we do is connect our minds, our power, and our hearts to God. We wear tzvillin, and God wears tzvillin. And now we're tzvillin.' We talk about God, and His tzvillin. He talks about us. It's the consciousness that we start today. She says because she's not Jewish. That's so beautiful. You talk to kids today, especially the ones that were raised in Orthodox homes. You tell them about Tefillah, and they're like, "I want to wrap cowhide and say words I don't understand." I hear it. But this kid Ethan, he's so far removed and he's so deeply connected. I took a picture of it. I took a picture of us. I posted it on social media. By the time the plane took off, it's already viral. I can't tell you how many people were coming toward me. I saw that post. It touched people in a very deep way.

32:52 What's the pshat? The pshat is because there's something called a pentaliyd, a small piece of you that could never be destroyed. And you think it's your soul And it's not just in your soul. It's even in your body. There's a part of you that no matter how far gone you are You're never fully gone. The Rebbe in Mevaseret, his name is R. Steinert, he has an amazing line. His line is. Don't tell me what you'll never do. There's what you've done and what you haven't done yet. You know how many people I speak to, and they're like I crossed that line I would never cross, and now that I've crossed that line, I feel like I have no shayches to come back. No shayches to come back. Girls all the time, you get this. So I wasn't the best person in high school, and now I went to Israel and I did great in seminary, and now I'm coming back and I'm dating. But I crossed that line, I can't.

33:40 You come back. Everything. Everything has tshuva. Because there's a part of us that can't be destroyed. I've told the story many times, but it's kedai to tell it again because it's a particularly meaningful story for me. My grandmother is turning ninety this January. Very exciting for my family. I have a ninety-year-old grandmother. My grandmother is my hero. She is my hero. Why? Both of my parents are balei tshuva. My mother did not grow up in a home that was receptive to her becoming an observant Jew. We'll say it like that. My grandfather loved Shalom. He would put money on the table on Friday night, and he would tell my mother, Paula, "If you touch it, you can keep it." My grandmother wasn't an observant lady. They went bowling on Friday nights. They were deeply Jewish and traditional on some level, but they weren't into it.

34:37 My mother became from her sister became from. At seventy years old, my grandmother became a balas shuva. At my grandfather had already been passed away for a number of years, at seventy years old, my grandmother dresses like a basterol. She keeps Shabbos. She keeps kosher. She's exceptionally judgmental of all of my cousins that don't keep Shabbos or kosher. All my cousins get bar mitzvah in Crown Heights because we have Chabad cousins. They all get bar mitzvah in Crown Heights. When I was growing up, whenever we'd go to Crown Heights for Shabbos, my father would dress like he wasn't from there to see how many people would come over to try to be mikhairah. One of my cousins' fathers isn't Jewish. The gabbai in this Chabad shul where the bar mitzvah was and he came over to He came over to my cousin, and he said, "Bob, I want to call you up and give you an aleiha for the half Torah." Now Bob doesn't know what any of those words mean, so he just looks at my father.

35:30 It's not his minuch. My grandmother at those bar mitzvahs So my cousin would come to shul with an umbrella, and she's. It's terrible. Doesn't he know he's not allowed to have an umbrella on Shabbos? I'm like, Grandma, he drove here. But she's an amazing person. Ad ke dekach The last couple of years she hasn't been so well physically. But she's like, no, I'm not eating on Yom Kippur. I'm like, Grandma, you have to eat on Yom Kippur. You have to eat at least once a year. She's like, I eat on Yom Kippur. She's so deeply connected. And it doesn't matter that she spent seventy years of her life. One way She could figure it out. She could change. Now it's her ninetieth birthday. She knows it's her ninetieth birthday. She doesn't know this next part. So my mother and my sister are putting together a matzeket, a video.

36:26 The whole family is wishing her a happy birthday. My grandmother has her best friend in the world. It's her ninety-six year old sister. Ninety six years old. Ruthie is ninety six years old. And Ruthie left a video message for my grandmother, and I saw it because my sister's putting together the matzahet. Ninety-six years old. She's saying, Sarah. You did it right. You became Orthodox. I'm so proud that my little sister became Orthodox twenty years ago and really did it. And you did it right. And she's ninety-six years old. And Ruthie was never Orthodox. But she knows so deeply that it's so true. And it doesn't matter how far ninety-six years old. And what is she saying? You did the right thing. What's the shot? A person lives ninety-six years all one way, and what is she saying? It's because that pentalia, that body, that loose bone in your body can never really be destroyed.

37:14 That's the ramai. That's the nature of the deception of the loose bone. Because it looks like it's the body. You look at it and it looks like a regular bone in the body, but it's so not. It's the holdout. That's what it means. It's a neighbor of the yitzhar. The yitzhar wants more than anything in the world to be defeated. That's why the yetsahar is such a deceiver. Because the yetsahar, you think the yetsahar is looking at you and saying, 'Do this usher thing.' It's not true. Really, what the yetsahar is saying is, 'Don't do this usher thing.' It's such a deceiver that way. The lusbon, you think it's part of the body, and the whole body is going in one direction. It's not true. It's not true. It's a part of our humanity which can't be destroyed. Like the city of lus Which had no opening. Nobody could get into it. And the malachamavas, you see that lash in the malachamavas. The Malchamavus has no shleita over it.

38:04 Because even though the body mentality, even though the body consciousness of the nefesh of Ahavas is all about fear of death, there is the part of your body that is not afraid of death because it knows that death cannot be shleita there. And that's why Tchiyas Amesim comes from this place. Why does the Ari Zal say that it's in the top of your spine, where the Kesher of the Tefillin is? Because what do we say? The Kesher of the Tefillin is from Loshon of Kasher. The Luzbon is connected, even when the rest of the body has done the most terrible and horrific avarice. The Luzbon never participated. This is why Yaakov Avinu never dies Because Yaakov Avinu who went to Luz and he saw that Sulam, he saw that ladder, he had that vision in Luz. He was mevatel himself completely to that Luzbon. So just like that, Luzbon can never be destroyed, so too Yaakov Avinu can never be destroyed.

38:57 That's why Rav Ramesh brings down an unbelievable word. He says Sulam is Rashi Tevis of Sudas Leviyas Hamalka, which means Malav Hamalka. That Sulam that Yaakov Venu saw there in Luz. It's the Sudas Leviyas Hamalka. Because that's where the Luz bone gets its sustenance from. Why Dafgan Matzei Shabbos? Because Shabbos is not for the Luz bone. Shabbos is for the Nefesh LeKiss, but the week is for the Nefesh Abahamis. How does a person start their week in Yiddishkeit? The consciousness has to be when we start our week. I'm starting from a place of tremendous hope. That there's a part of me that's going out into the world, and I know that this can never be destroyed. See, that's the whole avoyde. The avoyde is You're there, and you're going out into the week, and you're looking at all of the things, and it's not Shabbos the Gar week And we're out in the world with people, and it's not always the best environment.

39:53 So many girls come back from seminary and they're like. In seminary, I was one thing, but now that I came back from seminary, I'm something else. That makes sense. If you're in Eretz Yisrael and you have nothing else to do, your entire week is Shabbatik. Everything about what you're doing is Shabbatik. But when it comes to the week, it's okay, B'sader. It's very difficult. But the consciousness must be that no matter how far I've fallen, no matter how many things I've done that I'm not proud of, the luzbone. That's the way I start off my mentality. So I'm not going to fall apart. I have tremendous hope. Even if I've done things I'm not proud of, even if I'm so far removed, I'm getting these questions all the time from girls. When I was seven, I was sitting and learning. I was in bands and saying there. Now I'm in college, working and doing all these things. I don't have time to do these things anymore, but say there. But you have to know that there's a part of you that's not broken on any level Not just in your soul, but also in your body, not just in your Shabbatik mentality, but also in your avodah of the week. There's a part of you that's mamish, not broken, and it never will be broken.

40:53 And if you don't know that, there's no reason for hope. That's what hope is about. Hope is knowing It's going to work out. Again, I heard many years ago from Rav Manis Friedman a beautiful word. He said, "Nothing bad can ever happen." The Rebbeinu Sholom has a plan. You're not in charge of that plan. If you knew the plan, you wouldn't look at it and say it was bad. You would say it's painful, but you wouldn't say it's bad. Exceptionally painful, but if you knew everything that was supposed to happen is happening, you would have tremendous hope. If you imagine that you knew, in six months to the day, you were going to meet the person you were going to marry, would you have any daigas about dating anymore? You wouldn't be worried about it at all. Imagine if you knew that you're going to get the perfect job, exactly what you want, right as you leave college. Would you be nervous about college? You wouldn't be nervous about college, because you already knew it was set in motion. So the only thing we're missing is the date.

41:49 We don't know when it's going to be, but we know it's going to be. Tchias amesim is a vaday. It's not a suffix. That's why tchias amesim was one of the yugim likra. It's not a question. It's going to happen. Now that you know it's going to happen The only avoda is to hang in there and have the hope. As a therapist, who I work with is an amazing person. He has a great line. When his clients leave the office, he always says he always tries to test them at the end. Where's our level of hope? So sometimes a client is leaving the office and they say, "I push it, have no hope." So this is his line. It said he called it a gift that he can give the clients when they're leaving. He says "You know what? I'm actually very hopeful. I'm gonna hold on to that hope for both of us.

42:36 Such a beautiful line. Imagine walking away from something and feeling like There's something out there that's hopeful for me. That's what the Luzbone is. There's so much hope. Now it makes sense why we understand why the Bracha v'la'malshinim is connected. V'la'malshinim alti tikvah. We don't want any hope for those people that are heretics. Except that there's still hope for them. That's why the Maral and Beragola says that v'la'malshinim doesn't mean that we want to wipe out the actual people. It means we want to wipe out their heresy. But the person themselves is never too far gone. Imagine if we treated our children like that. That we looked at them and we said the things you're doing are mamish not okay, but there's tremendous hope for you. You know how painful it is for children to know that their parents are looking at them and saying like I don't know what's going to be with this one. I mean you don't know what's going to be with this one. This one is going to be great.

43:26 It may not be the greatness you were expecting. It may not be the greatness you were looking for. But this one is going to be great. It's already assured. I but the kid's not from. I but the kid's not keeping Shabbos Pesah there. Pesah there. But what's the gift you can give your kid? The gift you can give your kid is I love you. There's so much hope for you. You will never be too far gone, and it's true. I have a very, very dear chaver who I love very, very much. Unfortunately, many years ago he made a decision that he no longer wanted to be an observant Jew. This guy was my chavrusa. He used to wake up at five thirty in the morning to learn together. A tremendous genius, and he was a real masmud. But he went off the darch. Today he lives in the Czech Republic. He doesn't keep kosher. He doesn't keep Shabbos. Nothing. His father died. It was the first time. Years and years we've been hacking about hashkafa. It was the first time when his father died. He said to me "You know, if I came back I don't really think that I would have so much tshuva to do Because I don't think I've hurt anybody. I've done averos, but I don't think I've hurt anybody.

44:29 I didn't say anything. You have to be very careful when somebody says something like that. I've been waiting for that line. I've been waiting for that line for 16 years. It was the first chink in the armor. He wouldn't sit shiva. I went to pay a shivah call. We went out to burgers. That was a shivah call. But he's like, "I wouldn't be too far for me to come back." Lo ba Shamayim, wouldn't be too far. Gikar of elecha hadavrim oud. It wouldn't be too far. An alumni came back to yeshiva to visit. Again, a kid who's totally off the derech. He was on the verge of marrying a guy. And he couldn't pull it. He couldn't go through with it. I said, "Why didn't you go through with it?" Seen how these conversations evolve? You ever have these conversations with people? It starts off one way and it ends somewhere else. I said, "Why didn't you go through it?" He goes, "I couldn't do it to my mother."

45:16 I said, "You just gave up the girl of your dreams" For your mother. I know you have a good relationship with your mother, but you're a sugar now. What are you doing? Spend the next seventy years of your life with this girl. Pushes a little bit further. He goes, "Well, maybe there is a part of me" That you know, that I also didn't want to marry a guy. So just a small part, right? Those days, just small. By the end of the conversation, he said, "He said, Rabbi, how do I come back?" In the conversation, an hour conversation, not a big deal. You could do that with anybody because people are so starving to come back. Because there's so much hope. Because there's a part of them that Pesach can't be destroyed. That's why the Arizal says that just like there's a city The Luz city, and just like there's a bone, there's also a day.

46:04 What's the day connected to the loose bone? The day is Yom Kippur. What's mechaper on Yom Kippur, girls? The itsumo shel yom. The essence of the day is mechaper. It's machlokas whether or not you need to do tshuva on Yom Kippur for the essence of the day to be mechaper. We poskim that you do need to do tshuva. But even if you do tshuva, what brings the kapara? It's not the tshuva that brings the kapara. It's the itsumo shel yom. It's the essence of the day, like the etzem shelus. It's the bone of the laws that brings us to our tshuva, knowing that a person can never be destroyed, knowing that a person can never be too far gone. That's why we're able to return. What does the Cohen Gadol wear on Yom Kippur? He wears big day lavan. What is lavan Rashi Tevus for? The Ben Ish Chai says lavan is luz, besuol neskay.

46:50 It's those three things that the Cohen Gadol, when he wears that white begadol and the big day lavan, is expressing. He's expressing no Jew is ever too far gone. That's why it's all white. Because it's beautiful. This is why we don't eat or drink on Yom Kippur. Because on Yom Kippur we know that the only thing that sustains the loose bone is molave milk. I feel sometimes when I come to America we're messian with this. I feel sometimes when I come to America, it's like a different universe from Eretz Yisrael. I was in Los Angeles, which is like. Like New York is America, but Los Angeles is like America. For those of you that know Los Angeles is like This great gosh meets of Los Angeles. This is managed like unbelievable. So I was talking to a rebbe in Los Angeles. And he used to be an eretz. I was trying to hire this rebbe for years. He's a superstar.

47:48 He's such a superstar. They brought him back to America. He's running around. He's managed to do unbelievable things in Los Angeles now. I said, How's it going out here? So he said, "I'm very stuck." I said, "Why?" He said Baruch Hashem, I'm doing good things, and I don't feel like the Eibaster will let me leave. I feel like I'm managing to do good things here. So I have a real problem. In Eretz Yisrael My kids were rock stars. Because in Yerushalayim, where he was living, the coolest thing was to be poor. The coolest thing was to not have things. What does your father do? He's a rebbe. What does your father do? He's sitting and learning. Your father's in business, or you're a little bit of a nebuchadnezzar. You have a nice house, chaval. He comes to Los Angeles. And his kids are looking around and they're saying Dad, everybody in the world has these amazing things, and why don't we have them?

48:42 And he says, I'm so stuck now because I feel like I can't leave. The rebbe doesn't want me to leave. He says I feel like I'm destroying my family. It's a different universe. And I feel it. I feel it, and again, it's so unbelievable here. There's so many beautiful things going on. I davened this morning in Yeshiva Gedola Five Towns. Building is stunning, but Hashem. But there's something about that, like rundown, beis medrash in Mea Shearim Like only has those flickering lights, and you just see those people that have never left Mea Shearim. A thousand years. Their family's been there. Pre Medina, their family was there, and they were learning in that same beis medrash. There's no cars that could fit there because when they built it, it was like big enough for a horse. And it's so not beautiful. It's so not beautiful, and yet there's something about sitting down in that beis medrash with that worn Gemara that's not bound, that's been rebound like fifty times, and it's just like you see people have momish fallen asleep on that Gemara for a thousand years.

49:42 And there's something so warm about it, and it's Mamish not beautiful And so you come here like you're a little bit like I feel like I come and this place is amazing, this Mamish amazing. Looked on Central Avenue Amazing, so much here And yet I also feel sometimes when I come, I'm like, how did I stay? This place is amazing. You know, how do you not get caught up in it? You should know I didn't want to move to Arizona. My wife did. I told my wife when we were dating that I want to tell you the truth, I really said I'll move to Israel but it's more important to me to teach than to move to Israel. I really don't think anyone in Israel is going to give me a job because the Rebbeim are real tummy theychachamim. I had an impoverished mentality. I had a master's degree in special ed because I thought nobody would hire me for regular education.

50:34 I always thought that So I told my wife we'll move to Israel but teaching to me is more important. And my wife, she's like, whatever I had a thing, it fell apart here in America. She's like, that's it, we're going. She managed to pull this out. I don't know how she did it. I remember. I had a thing like an hour before Shabbos. I would run to Gourmet Gla because I would run to Super Soul. And I would get the sushi that they were selling at discounted prices because it was an hour before Shabbos and I knew it was going bad. That was my yeshiva should move. How to get sushi for Shabbos? You get so caught up because it's amazing. And sometimes you come and you just see people, and they're like Rebbe, where do I find the oxygen? How do I find that oxygen? I'm going to the Rebbe's Isle in Queens with a bunch of Mavaser guys to find a little bit of oxygen here.

51:21 But it's so wrong to feel that way. It's so wrong to feel that way Because other Rebbe, if you're here, that means the Rebbe Nishma wants you to be here. Every moment that you're here is exactly where you're supposed to be. You have to know that there's a part of you that is never going to be broken. And knowing that is what gives us the confidence to go out and do what we're supposed to do. And that's the suet of Malavamalka. Every single week we sit down and we eat, and we get involved in the gashmius of the world And the neskae, the luz, the besuul. That's where it's eating from. That's the mentality. That's the consciousness we need to see the world. So I ask all of you today to take a kabbalah upon yourself. Just make a mezinous. Just make a hadama. Something small. Especially now, early Shabbos, it's harder to have shalosh than it is to have malav amalke. Bless me, makabu on ourselves to eat a little bit A little bit to have tchias amesim in our lives, a little bit to hold on tight. So many storms whirling around us. B'ezar Hashem, we should be zeicher and mamish continue. We should grow. We should have the confidence that comes from the lizbam. Good tovach girls.