Parshas Vayeitzei - Though I Am Sleeping I Am Wide Awake

2:01 Gemara in Chulin says that Hakadosh Baruch Hu said that tzaddik has come to my lodging place, tzaddik has come to my house, the future side of the Beit Hamikdash And he's going to leave without sleeping. He's going to leave without resting for the night. Hakadosh Baruch Hu made a miracle and the sun set early. So that Yaakov Minu should specifically be able to sleep. It's like a. It's like Hakadosh Baruch Hu was the first Jewish mother. You're going to leave. You have nothing to eat. You're going to leave without sleeping over. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu made the sun set. So obviously Yaakov Avinu went to sleep. Can imagine it's two o'clock in the afternoon, and all of a sudden the sun sets. Yaakov Avinu must have understood that it was important for him to go to sleep. So not only did Yaakov Avinu make a conscious decision that he has to go to sleep, it seems that Hakadosh Baruch Hu is encouraging him to make that decision.

2:54 So now we're further perplexed. Why does Hakadosh Baruch Hu want Yaakov Avinu to go to sleep, and why are the Malachim so upset? There's another Medrash. Beautiful Medrash. We know that Yaakov Avinu wakes up from his sleep. The word for waking up from his sleep in Hebrew is Meishinaso. He is waking up from his sleep. The Medrash says that he's waking up from his learning. Shinuso can also be that he woke up from his learning. So usually, sleep and learning are exactly the opposites of each other. I remember when I was in high school. My father never went to yeshiva. My father was a baltzuba, so he never had the opportunity to go to yeshiva except midyishiva. My father was astounded that boys in yeshiva would go to sleep in the middle of shiur. Boys do this sometimes. All the time. You're familiar with this?

3:47 A boy will fall asleep in his Gemara, and the Gemaras have wrinkles. You also know this. You know the Gemaras have wrinkles from boys falling asleep on the pages. In some ways, it's a very beautiful thing. It's their pillow. They love it so much. But usually, sleep and learning go together in some sense, but they don't go together in another sense. If you're sleeping, you're not learning. So what does it mean that Yaakov Lino awoke from his slumber? That he awoke from his learning. He was learning. He was sleeping. What does the Medrash mean? We know that Yaakov Avinu was the first person to call the Beit Hamikdash Shabbaius. Right up until then Yitzchak Avinu called it a field. He was lasuach basada. He was on a field. The first person to ever describe the Beit Hamikdash as a home, as a place of a relationship, was Yaakov Avinu.

4:44 What's the significance of this? There's a medrash in Parshas Naso. The medrash in Parshas Naso. There are different reasons given in Chazal why Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world. I'm sure you've heard from the Rambam that Hakadosh Baruch Hu created the world because He wanted to bestow goodness upon another. You've heard the Rambam before. He wanted to share Himself. He was the ultimate Balchase. It's not what the medrash says. The Medrash says nesave Hakadosh Baruch Hu lios lois Baruch diro b'tachton. That's why did Hashem create the world? Because He wanted to have a dwelling place in the world down below. A diro. What's a diro? A diro is a bias. A diro is a home. Hakadosh Baruch Hu wanted to build a home with us. That's what He wants. How do we know when a person has built a home? I remember when I was first married.

5:43 You move into this apartment, and my wife and I were learning in Kol And we had no money. And nobody was giving us any money. So we lived in a basement apartment in Farakway And every time we showered, the apartment flooded. The entire apartment flooded. It was a real Kol apartment. And the ceiling was very low. And I was like, I'm not very tall, but I could stick my hand up and like palm the ceiling. But when you look back on your first apartment. You'll see That's like a special place. That's where you began your relationship. But at the same time, when you first start a relationship with someone, you're not very comfortable. It's like in the very beginning when you're married to somebody, you're testing the waters. How does it work? Can I be myself yet? Am I comfortable? My daughter just got engaged on Matzah Shabbos.

6:40 And I left America Sunday night. They dated for a very short amount of time. They dated for three weeks. Very short amount of time. There in Israel, that's considered pretty regular in that community. It's cute. But you wonder How's she going to marry this guy? She knows him for three weeks. They went out on all, depending on how you count it, seven maybe eight dates. But my wife told me tonight. That Ben Yamin Lechassan he came over And I was you know I was feeling pretty. I'm honest, I was feeling a little sad. I love being here, but I wanna see that. I wanted him to come over for dinner, and my wife ordered pizza, and he was hanging out with me. I have a five and a half year old son, and my wife is messaging me saying he's really good with our son Mikey. He's really good, and I'll be like a good older brother. I'm missing it.

7:37 But my wife said. She's astounded by how comfortable my daughter and Benyamin are. And I'm frankly astounded by it also. They had very long dates. They had one date that was eight and a half hours, one date that was ten hours. I think they like each other. I'm hopeful. But they're very comfortable with each other And it's unusual because that's not really the way a couple is. You're testing the waters, feeling each other out, so to speak. You're saying how does this What's it like to be with this person? A kolos shabbos also wants to be comfortable in our world But a kolos shabbos can't be comfortable in our world because our world is not a place that invites Hashem in. The physical world speaks in a certain sense And when we look at the physical world, it does not demand a God. We look at a chair, and we look at a table.

8:35 Your home certainly proclaims that there's a God. Very Sephardic home. You walk into this home, it's like already telling you there's a God and He's watching and you're going to get punished. It's a very beautiful home. But most things in the physical world. Where are you from originally? I was born in Israel, but my parents are from Morocco. Morocco. Those are tough moms, Morocco. I've met some. But the physical world, when you look at it, a chair doesn't tell you that there's a God. A chair tells you I'm a chair. It doesn't tell you anything more than that. So Hakadosh Baruch Hu doesn't feel comfortable in our world because it's not a world that says we come from God. It's a world that says we're independent from God. It's a world that says you can have free will. You can make your own choices. You can do whatever you want. That's what our world says.

9:30 So Hakadosh Baruch Hu is not comfortable in our world. When will Hakadosh Baruch Hu be comfortable in our world? When we invite Him in. And what does it look like to invite Hakadosh Baruch Hu? A young woman called me to talk to me about something that's going on in her dating life. It's a fascinating conversation. She said, "I'm very uncomfortable with this guy because he is unbelievable at honesty and vulnerability." So I'm thinking to myself that that's a good thing. He's not lying to you; he's honest and he's vulnerable. And she's like, 'No, it's terrifying.' Because he is exactly who he says he is, and he's totally comfortable putting himself out there. And he's like, 'Look, if we're going to get married, I just want you to know this is what I struggle with.' And she's feeling so overwhelmed because I'm not telling him what I struggle with; I'm not being in that space with him because vulnerability can be terrifying.

10:33 Because what if you get rejected? Hakadosh Baruch Hu will only feel comfortable with us when we invite Him in, not into the higher aspects of our life, but into the lower aspects of our life. That's why the Ramchal says—it's really from the Talmidei Ramchal—but the Ramchal says that when will Mashiach come? When we invite Hashem into our mitzvos, into our aviros, and even into our suffering—mitzvos, tshuva, and yisurin. Tami the Ramchal says that spells out the word matay The first letters of mitzvah, tshuva, and yisurin spell out the word when. When will Mashiach come? When we invite Hashem into our mitzvos, meaning when we stop doing mitzvos by rote. When we start doing mitzvos because it's what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants from us Which is no small thing. Because we get used to doing things for the people that we love. My wife asks me to take out the garbage. I don't make a hinnomi mukhal mazuman l'kayim mitzvah satnei. Shmia saisha, I know.

11:33 But in a certain sense, there's a love. If your wife asks you to do something, you do it. But it's also easy to just do it because it's become a habit. So one level of bringing Hashem into your world is bringing Him into the higher elements. I'm doing what Hashem wants, but I'm not just doing it. I'm doing it with my heart. And there's another level A much harder level. When you do the wrong thing, can you invite Hashem? Can you be honest in those conversations? Can you say to Hashem? I messed up. I'm human. I have tayvas. I'm not always perfect. I know you know that I'm not perfect because you created me this way. But can you be honest and say I'm struggling with this? Can you have a conversation with God where you're real? That's no small feat. And that's really what tshuva is. Tshuva has become this thing in today's generation of like, now how hard you can clap Hashem to anyom kippur. But that's not really what tshuva is. Tshuva is not limited to Aseret simet tshuva, rachashani yom kippur. It's every day in our life engaging our own frailties.

12:37 We're not supposed to be perfect. So when we invite Hashem in and we say, 'Look, these are the issues we're struggling with,' that's tshuva. And of course, the hardest one is to invite Hashem into your suffering. I remember many years ago, somebody in my family was diagnosed with a terrible illness. One of the illnesses that you hope you never hear those words. I wasn't processing the pain. I was younger. And I didn't know Especially because I'm male, I didn't know about processing my feelings. I didn't know that was allowed or encouraged. Or what feelings were. I was not raised in 2022 where there's that environment of leaning into the discomfort of the work. These are things I learned much later. And I remember I had a dream. I don't remember what the dream was, but I woke myself up from the dream. And I felt that there were tears on my face And I must have been crying during the dream. The feelings are going to come up, and because I wasn't paying attention to them, they were coming up while I was sleeping.

13:49 And I remember that I called my rebbe, and it was three o'clock in the morning. I called my rebbe in America, and I was talking to him. I said I'm so angry at Hashem right now. I'm just so angry. Like, how could this happen? And my Rebbe didn't say anything. He just listened. It wasn't the time to say to me, hashkafically, this is you know. He was just listening to me. My Rebbe asked me, what do you need? What are you looking for? What do you need? So I remember I said I want to know that Hashem is with me, suffering with me. That He's not just somewhere in Shamayim. Flicking his finger and making things happen, I want to know that he's suffering as much as I. And my Rebbe told me that he is And that's the nature of what Hakadosh Baruch Hu does. When He sends us down to Mitzrayim, He comes with us into Mitzrayim, and He's with us in our pain.

14:41 And it was a tremendous source of comfort to me to know that I could bring godliness into my suffering because Hashem was also suffering with me. There was a major shift in my life after that conversation. That suffering, which is the most human thing that we have. To do a mitzvah is not very human. To do a mitzvah is godly. To do an avera is human, but to suffer is the most human thing that we have. To know that my suffering—not just like everyone always talks about—your suffering is not in vain. Something will come of it. B'saidin, that's very true. But I'm not worried about that. Can you engage the suffering? Can you find that spark of godliness within the suffering? The people always have a need to say something like, "I grew from it." " Why do we have a need to say that? It's almost like What if we didn't and it would be a waste.

15:35 It's okay to say I'm in terrible pain and I'm not growing from it at all. Imagine if somebody came to someone who has Hashem had cancer and said, "You'll grow from this." It's a terrible thing to say. It sounds even awful as I'm saying it to you right now. What human being would say that to another? But people have the need to say that for themselves. It made me a better person. It's okay if it didn't make you a better person. That's a lifetime achievement award. To become a better person because of your suffering is It's a major. People say it like I'm 21 years old, but I became a better person. You didn't relive the trauma through your marriage, through your children. Give yourself time. Talk to me when you're in your 60s, and we can see whether or not you've become a better person. But until that point you've become a better person There's value in knowing that there's godliness in suffering.

16:27 That you're not alone in your suffering. That you can introduce Hashem even into your suffering. That's what it means to build a bias with somebody. What does it mean to build a relationship? To build a relationship exists on three levels. Of course, it means to do something for the people that we love. That's the obvious part. But frankly, that's the easiest part. If your husband asks you to do something and you do it, okay, good for you. That's what's supposed to be. That's the easy part. The harder part is coming to say I'm sorry. I really did something I shouldn't have done. I didn't act in a way that's befitting of this relationship. Can you come to the people that you love and say, 'It's not the person that I want to be. It doesn't represent my best self.' You should know that the love I had for you was much larger than this action would indicate.

17:20 That's a really very vulnerable. That's a very hard thing to do. But if you want to give the gift of love to somebody that you really care about, it's having the courage to lean into the discomfort and say, "I messed up and I'm sorry." The hardest thing to do is when we're in pain to find each other in our pain. That's like when couples fight. And sometimes couples fight for days. Sometimes couples fight for weeks. Some fight for months. And even for years. Sometimes even for decades. And there are couples not from a place of weakness. There are couples from a place of love that can't possibly be captured in words. Somehow they stay with each other. It's not logical that they stay with each other. They'd probably be happier if they didn't. But there's something that's binding them that's transcendent And that they can continue to find each other in that place.

18:24 And they're loyal to each other even while they really don't like each other. And they continue to play that game of hide and go seek. And there are these moments that these couples have, moments not long, but moments where they're like it's good again. It's like I remember when we were younger and it was good, and it's good again. Maybe it's for a day or two or a week or two, and then it fades, and they're right back to that struggle. But can they find each other in their suffering? That's what it means to build a home with people. And not just the suffering that we have with each other But the suffering that inevitably comes with life. The couple that they're in their 80s and they're sitting on that front porch, that screened-in front porch And their rocking chairs. You know that couple And they're just sitting next to each other, not saying anything.

19:15 And they're perfectly content And they're not on their phones. Just like sitting there, enjoying being with each other, and there's no words that they could possibly say. It's just two people who have spent a lifetime staying with each other through all the natural trials and tribulations that life brings. I remember I was in my rabbi's kitchen once in Borough Park. And very small kitchen And it was a small table, and I was sitting on one side, and my rebbe was sitting next to me, and the rabbitsim was sitting right across And they were in their eighties at the time. Now my rebbe Kalinahar is ninety four years old. She was zaychera before Shalome, he's not feeling so well. But I was looking at the refrigerator And there was a picture on the refrigerator of my rebbe's family. Now my rebbe had eight children. Most of those eight children had eight children, and most of those eight children had eight children. When it comes to making a wedding, you can only invite a certain amount of cousins.

20:19 Just because at some point it'll be eight, nine hundred people naturally. So this particular wedding, there was a picture on the fridge of this wedding. I guess it had everybody there, and the photographer was clearly fifty feet back with a wide lens. There was a massive amount of people sitting around my rebbe and the rebbe's son. So I commented to my rebbe. I said, 'Rebbe, it looks more like a clan, a family. It's massive.' So my rebbe said something to him, "Baruch Hashem." But the Rebbitzin also should be zecher. She's I think 90, 91. The Rebbitzin was a very, very famous marriage therapist in Brooklyn. And my rebbe was like a real brisker. So he had very little emotion. He was like a real Lamb and a real man. The Rebbitzin was a marriage therapist. Like a deeply emotional person, they had a very A very fascinating marriage.

21:12 I remember once in my rabbi's house There was a picture of a very dark forest. Like a portrait, like a very beautiful painting, and then right next to it was a portrait of a very beautiful meadow. And I was sitting with my rabbi, and he looks at me and he goes "That's my wife, and that's me. It's like, rabbi, how does the meadow and the forest live together? He goes, 'That's a different story.' And we're like. So the Rebbitzin, my Rebbe said, Baruch Hashem. The Rebbitzin looked at him and she said an offer from a couple of kids that had no idea what they were doing. They got married when they were in their early 20s, and they built a life together for 60 plus years. They had no idea what they were doing when they were 20, 21, or 22 years old. But they lived life together and they suffered. There's sickness, there's death.

22:00 There's tragedy. It's not easy to raise children, but a couple that stays with each other, that suffers, but holds on to each other in the storm. That's a real relationship. That's why we celebrate couples that are married for 50 years. If you go to one of those things, like somebody's been married for 50 years, and everyone there is like How they do it. It's like the celebration, but all the married couples there are I don't get it. It's the It's a beautiful thing. That's what it means to build a bias. This is what Yaakov Avinu said: Our relationship with Hashem has to be like. It can't be. It can't be worship. Not in the classic sense. We don't go to church in Judaism. We come home. And not that it's a good thing, but that's why Jews talk in shul. And we shouldn't talk in shul. But isn't it true that for us, shul is like a home?

22:57 It's where you it's where you grew up, like. When you get older, you'll realize this more. You'll start talking about the shul that you grew up in. You won't talk about it as a place of worship. It's not where you went to sing hymns. It's where you went. It's not where you went to turn pages of a siddur. It's where you go. It's where all the families that you know go. It's the people that are with you throughout your entire life. My brother told me. He said, "If you can't get a job coming out of the Jewish community, something has gone very wrong. Because you know people, right? You went to camp with people, you went to shul with people, you went to school with people, you went to sem with people. If you're an accountant in the Jewish world and you can't get a job, it means you have real social dysfunction."

23:45 Because everybody you know is an accountant. That Kanye West said it out loud, so we're not allowed to say it out loud anymore. We do kind of control a lot of things. We're good at this. It's not that many Jews in the NBA, so we have our things that we're good at. Judaism is meant to be a home. This is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu says to Yaakov: If you're going to build a home with me It needs to be a place where you sleep. What does that mean? Sleep, the Gemara says, is the sixtieth of death. Adam Rishon brought death into the world. Adam Rishon said up until that point There was never supposed to be any death. Death is a cosmic accident. And Adam Rishon, not eaten from the Eitz Hadass, he would have eaten from the Eitz Achaim on Shabbos. He would have lived forever.

24:41 There was no notion of death. He was in limbo. It wasn't clear what Adam Rishon was going to be—a person that dies or a person that lives forever. Eating from the Eitz Hadass. Other marishim brought death into the world. There are various times in our lives. There's called seminary time And then there's post seminary time. Seminary life is like Yaakov Avinu when he was in yeshiva shen ve'iver. No sleep. Not just because girls in seminary don't sleep, because they're having very important, sophisticated conversations at three o'clock in the morning, life changing conversations that really shape the way they see the world. You remember those? You look back on them now, a little funny, right? We're not making fun of it. We're just enjoying the people that we once were. There's a time for that. There's a time to live in a pristine state. There's a time to be in sanity. And there's a time to not have any worries about anything in the world. There's a time to just live your best life and be on a high all the time.

25:43 That's life without death. That's pristine yeshiva shem eved. And then there's real life. There's life when you leave sin. There's life when you come out into the world. And then there's a little bit of death. There's the ups and downs, the vicissitudes of life. All of a sudden, life is not so simple. All of a sudden, it's confronting reality, confronting the challenges, the imperfections. All of a sudden, they are surfacing. It's easy to be like if you're a boxer before you go into the ring against your opponent. It's easy to be perfect when you're sparring. But when you get into the ring and you're now with somebody, now all of a sudden the inadequacies show up. A couple months ago, a girl from a long time ago from Tomerovo reached out to me and she said, "I just don't know what happened to that person in seminary. Where did she go?"

26:34 She was living in a bubble for a minute. Of course she was this amazing person when she was in seminary, but she wasn't very real. She hadn't put on any real muscle. She hadn't done anything in life. Now you're in a real position. There's a state of sleep. There's a state of. If we're being honest with each other, there's a lack of inspiration, right? It's easy to be inspired when you're surrounded by inspiration all the time. But when you leave And not that Los Angeles doesn't have a tremendous amount of kedusha, I'm sure it does But it's not Eretz Yisrael. I know you're shaking your head. We're finding the kedusha in Los Angeles. We're doing it right now. But it's not Eretz Yisrael. My nephew who made aliyah, he's little, he's 13 years old. So the Shabbos before my daughter got engaged, that morning I said, Nachal, I want to tell you a secret.

27:29 Bracha is getting engaged tonight. He goes, Uncle Mordechai, I want to tell you a secret. Everybody knows. So he said, How do you get engaged? So I thought he was asking me how they do it here in Eretz Yisrael. I thought he understood what the word engagement meant. So I said, "You go to the kota." So he goes, "Well, how do they do it in America?" And I realized he didn't know what it meant. If you go to the kota together, then you're engaged. It's like a natural thing. It's a whole thing. You have to ask her if she wants to marry you. That makes sense. You can do that anyway? But it's true in Argentina, you can go to the kota. That's a beautiful thing. My daughters before they go to sem. They go to the kotel to daven. There's a more obvious kedusha.

28:17 The inspiration is much more in the streets. It's much more natural. You come back to Los Angeles, but you're confronting galus. You're confronting exile. You're confronting that sense of sleepiness in your life. The fact that we are not always in the mood to daven, or even when we're davening Sometimes we should be making a tefillah zadirech because we're so far away from the place that we're standing. The Rov of Meishul likes to say that the first time you have kavana in davening is by the shir shel yom because you have to think about what day it is. It's there's a sense of sleepiness But that's why Avodah Shmuel tells Yaakov Avinu to go to sleep. To go to sleep doesn't mean to die. It means. To be able to find the kedusha within that sense of sleepiness in our life When we feel distant from Hashem, can we still feel close to Hashem in our state of distance?

29:20 And what I need to say is, sometimes the distance brings about feelings of closeness. That when you feel so far from something, you're like I feel so very far from this, and I wish I didn't. So the fact that you wish you didn't is in and of itself the feeling of closeness. It's like when a couple says to each other, I miss you. The distance is what creates the closeness. So the malachim are going up and down the ladder. And they see other marishon's faces on the kisei ha'kavod. And we know that chazal tell us that Yaakov Vinu looked exactly the same as other marishon And Yosef looked the same as Yaakov, but that's a different story. So the malachim are going up and down. They're looking at Yaakov Vinu, and he's sleeping. And they're saying, 'You did the same exact thing as other marishon. Other marishon brought death to the world. And now, in this place, in this holy, holy place, you're going to sleep.'

30:13 I want to kill you. If you're gonna act in a way of death, I'm gonna treat you in a way of death. So then, Allahu said, if you're gonna live like that, we're gonna kill you. But Hakadosh Baruch Hu said to Allahu, this is exactly what I want. I want in Yeshiva Shemva Eber Yaakovina was perfect But now he's not perfect anymore. But the gadlus of Yaakov Vino is that he can reveal the beauty of imperfection That he can go to sleep in the Makom HaMikdash, that he can be in two places at once—in the holiest place in the world—and he can also be so very distant from the holiest place in the world. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. It's the distance that comes from closeness, and the closeness that comes from distance. Hakadosh Baruch Hu protegge Yaakov vino. He says, "This is exactly what I wanted."

31:01 This is the secret of the stones. We all know how Yaakov Vina went to sleep. He took twelve stones and put them around his head. And why did he put them around his head? What do Chazal say? To protect him from wild animals. So obviously this can't be the simple explanation because that's not the way protection works. If you're afraid of wild animals and you only put twelve stones around your head, you're not very protected. I'm sure you're familiar with how animals work. They don't go Oh well, he's got stones around his head. That's not like I've never seen a bear look at a person lying down sleeping and going It's too much. There's like 12 pebbles around. So obviously it doesn't mean that. There was a reason the Akavina was protecting his head specifically, as we'll speak about in a moment. And we all know what happened. The stones got together.

31:53 And the stones became one stone, and that was his pillow. And we know that stone became the foundation stone for the Beit Hamikdash. What's the deeper meaning here? Our world is a fractured world. Twelve stones, not one. It's a place where there's a level of dichotomy where a person can have cognitive dissonance because we don't see the truth of the world. As we said before, when you look at the chair, it doesn't proclaim Hashem's existence. The chair tells you, "I'm a chair." So there's something fractured about our world. If the world was truly united, if the world was truly unified, then when you look at a chair, you would see Hashem. You would be able to see the inner godliness that exists within everything, and that's what it will be like in Olam Habah. In Olam Habah, when you look at the world, you'll see the reality that's driving reality.

32:47 Or to put it in relationship terms You'll stop seeing each other for the physical self that you are, and you'll see who the real person is. We get distracted by each other's physical selves. We're all looking at each other and we're seeing each other, but it's not the physical me that's talking to the physical you. That's why modesty is so important because modesty tells us you can ignore what's being presented physically to see what's beyond the physical. That's what modesty really means. Modesty is not about inches. Modesty is about a way of seeing you, so that the real you can be seen. It's what allows for real relationships to occur. What we want more than anything is to be seen. That's when we feel safe in a relationship. When someone sees us for who we really are. This is what Yaakovina was saying. I'm going to sleep in this place.

33:54 I'm going to surround my head by the fractured nature of the world. I'm going to engage the fractured nature of the world. That's his. That's the way Yaakovinu saw everything. He saw the fractured nature of the world. And he said, "I want to engage that. I want to reveal the inner godliness. I want to unite it all." That's why the twelve stones represent the twelve shvatim. And the twelve shvatim when they come together to be one stone, that's the cornerstone for the Beis Hamikdash. It's the foundation stone for the Beis Hamikdash. Of course, when we have sinas chinam, what do we do? We're breaking up that foundation stone back into the twelve stones. Which is why the Beit Hamikdash can't last as long as Klal Yisrael is fighting with each other. Your Sfaradi, your Ashkenaz, your Hasidish, your Misnagdish, your Litvish, your Modern Orthodox, your Open Orthodox, your Conservative, your Reformed Your Charedi are all labels for communities.

34:46 Hakadosh Barukh Hu doesn't have these labels. I can't imagine that Hashem gets any nachas. In Shamayim, sitting and saying That Jew is conservative and that Jew is Orthodox, so they shouldn't talk to each other. I can't believe Hakadosh Baruch Hu gets any naches from that. Hakadosh Baruch Hu only knows Jews. That's what he wants from us more than anything. If we're united inside our family, then naturally we're uniting the entire world. So Yaakov Binu says, I'm going to confront the wild animals of the world. What are the wild animals? He wasn't talking about bears. He wasn't talking about tigers or lions. He was talking about the nefesh of Ahamas. He was talking about the animal soul that all of us have. The animal soul is what tells us we exist independently from Hashem. So he says, "I need to protect myself as I'm going out to love and as I'm going out into the world. I need to protect myself from chas v'shalom falling into the trap that I'm separate and removed from Hashem, which is why."

35:49 Always in Chassidus, we say that the Chabad is what leads to the Chagat. The Chochma Bina Das leads to the Chesed Gvura Tefnis. That is the way that a person sees the world, the emotions that come up. Yaakov Venu protects his head. He says, I need to see the world correctly. I need to be able to unite the entire world. That's the purpose of all of existence: to bring Hakadosh Baruch Hu down into this world. If you look at the words that Yaakov Yenu says, he says "Ein zekiim beis elokim va'anochi loyadati." This is the house of God, and I didn't even know. But if you look carefully at the words, I mistranslated it just now. It says, "Va'anochi loyadati" " And I I did not know. It says I twice. So the Chassidic masters explain, 'Va'anochi loyadati' means. That in order for me to be connected to Hashem, I need to not know my eye. I need to not know my own ego.

36:56 Ego is where relationships go to die. There's a friend of mine. I think some of you might know him. His name is Wangland. Some of you girls know Wangland. Wangland has this line. He says your ego is trying to kill you. You heard this from him before. I like that line. Relationships are about making space for each other. How could there be space for each other if we fill up that space with our own ego? That's why sometimes when you meet a guy At first glance, you might think he's good looking, but then he opens his mouth. You know that guy? Looking around just to see which of you know that guy. Seems that about 75% of you know that guy, and the other 25% are either really good at playing poker or also know that guy. Or maybe you're maybe you're innocent, but more likely we all know that guy. You know I'm talking about And all of a sudden it's like No It's not a thing. It's not a move. It's not a vibe.

37:56 It's not hype. I'm hanging out with 18-year-old boys way too much. I'm learning all these words. I learned this one this year. Bet. Which the appropriate response is word. It's a very high-level, sophisticated dialogue that these boys have. When that guy opens up his mouth and he says whatever he says about himself It's like there's no space for you. You know he's just self-obsessed. It's uncomfortable. I wouldn't want to share with you because if you share with somebody and they go, yeah, I had the same thing, and then they tell you their own story, it's like. Could you just allow my story to be the story for a second? You don't need to respond by telling your own story. Va'Anochi lo Yadati means if we're going to build a bias with Hashem, then we need to remove our ego. That's what Yaakov Vino did And that's why Yaakov Vino didn't die. The Gemara in Tanya says Yaakov Vino lo meis.

39:07 Yaakov Vino has nothing to do with death. Because Yaakov Vino was the tikkun for the chet of Adam Harishon. Adam Harishon was all about ego. Hashem says, "Don't eat from the Eitz Hadas." His ego says, "Yes, eat from the Eitz Hadas." That's why he brings death into the world. But Yaakov Vino knows how to reveal the godliness within death. That's the sleeping. He knows how to reveal the godliness within the lack, within the absence. So Yaakov Vino doesn't die. We only die because our parts don't work together. At some point, the heart is too frail to send blood to the rest of the body. But what would it be if somebody lived totally honest, totally truthfully, totally connected to Hashem, no ego whatsoever? Maybe their parts wouldn't diminish. Maybe there would be no such thing as fragility. So Yaakov Avinu, in a certain sense, is the ultimate expression of the tikkun of Adomarishon because he doesn't die.

40:03 And I think that's what we're trying to do. At this stage in your lives For those that are a little bit younger And perhaps even for those that are a little bit older At this stage, what we're trying to do is confront reality. If you're not inspired, I just want you to know that's okay. That's what it's supposed to be. If you make mistakes and you're feeling like you've taken three steps backwards, I just want you to know that's what it's supposed to be. Now the question is. Can you reveal the godliness from this new place From the challenges that come up? Can you, in a certain sense, be awake even when you're sleeping? As the pasuk says, "Ani yishena v'levi er." I'm sleeping, but my heart is awake. On the outside, some of us are sleeping. We are not as passionate as we once were.

41:01 But on the other hand Our hearts are so awake. Because we long for that connection. We yearn. Those are not words that are used enough. Longing and yearning are very powerful words. It's yes, I'm distant, but I'm so deeply connected. And my bracha for you Because Chazal say, 'Alte kalbeinach bebrachas hediyet.' Don't take lightly the bracha of a simple person. So we should all bless each other. That even in our state of sleepiness, you should know that you're sleeping at the makom Hamikdash. You're sleeping at the very foundation stone of all of creation. The pasuk says, "Evan maasu abonim ha'isal rosh pina." That foundation stone. It's mios. It's disgusting. It's not a beautiful stone. It's broken in so many different ways. But it's from the brokenness that comes the wholeness And that's ultimately ha'isal rosh pina. It's the foundation stone of our lives. So rather than running away from the challenges, the trials, the tribulations, the suffering, the pain, the imperfection. Let's lean into all of that. Let's find Hashem within, and because Hashem will build a beautiful Beit Hashem in Beit Yisrael for Hakadosh Baruch Hu for ourselves and another day.